1798.


TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THOMAS LORD VISCOUNT SYDNEY

One of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council,
Chief Justice in Eyre South of Trent,
A Governor of the Charter-house,
and a Vice-President of the Asylum

MY LORD,

The honour that your Lordship has done me, in permitting this volume to
go forth into the world under the sanction of your name, demands my
warmest acknowledgments. I can only wish that the Work had been more
worthy of its patron.

The originator of the plan of colonization for New South Wales was too
conspicuous a character to be overlooked by the narrator of its rise and
progress. The benevolent mind of your Lordship led you to conceive this
method of redeeming many lives that might be forfeit to the offended
laws; but which, being preserved, under salutary regulations, might
afterward become useful to society: and to your patriotism the plan
presented a prospect of commercial and political advantage. The following
pages will, it is hoped, serve to evince, with how much wisdom the
measure was suggested and conducted; with what beneficial effects its
progress has been attended; and what future benefits the parent country
may with confidence anticipate.

That your Lordship may long live to enjoy those grateful reflections