But as these habitations were intended by Governor Phillip to answer
only the exigency of the moment, the plan of the town was drawn, and the
ground on which it is hereafter to stand surveyed, and marked out.
To proceed on a narrow, confined scale, in a country of the extensive
limits we possess, would be unpardonable: extent of empire demands
grandeur of design. That this has been our view will be readily
believed, when I tell the reader, that the principal street in our
projected city will be, when completed, agreeable to the plan laid
down, two hundred feet in breadth, and all the rest of a corresponding
proportion. How far this will be accompanied with adequate dispatch, is
another question, as the incredulous among us are sometimes hardy enough
to declare, that ten times our strength would not be able to finish it
in as many years.
Invariably intent on exploring a country, from which curiosity promises
so many gratifications, his Excellency about this time undertook an
expedition into the interior parts of the continent. His party consisted
of eleven persons, who, after being conveyed by water to the head of
the harbour, proceeded in a westerly direction, to reach a chain of
mountains, which in clear weather are discernible, though at an immense
distance, from some heights near our encampment.
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