In one of the convict transports that returned to England after helping to found the settlement at Port Jackson was some fine quality clay from Sydney Cove. It was given to Josiah Wedgwood, the potter. He had modelled from it a medallion representing Hope, encouraging Art and Labour under the influence of Peace, presiding over the infant colony. Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin’s grandfather, wrote some prophetic lines about it, which were published in The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay, London, 1789. They were also printed on a broadsheet and were much quoted in later years. In one of Charles Darwin’s letters written during the voyage of the Beagle he remarked: ‘This is really a wonderful Colony; ancient Rome, in her Imperial grandeur, would not have been ashamed of such an offspring. When my Grandfather wrote the lines of "Hope’s visit to Sydney Cove" on Mr. Wedgwood’s medallion he prophecyed most truly.’ (N. Barlow, ed., Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle, London, 1945, p. 132). The poem read:

VISIT OF HOPE

TO SYDNEY-COVE

NEAR BOTANY-BAY

WHERE Sydney Cover her lucid bosom swells,

Courts her young navies, and the storm repels;

High on a rock amid the trouble air

HOPE stood sublime, and wav’d her golden hair;

Calm’d with her rosy smile the tossing deep,

And with sweet accents charm’d the winds to sleep;

To each wild plain she stretch’d her snowy hand,

High-waving wood, and sea-encircled strand.

"Hear me," she cried, "ye rising Realms! record

"Time’s opening scenes, and Truth’s unerring word.-

"There shall broad streets their stately walls extend,

"The circus widen, and the crescent bend;

"There, ray’d from cities o’er the cultur’d land,

"Shall bright canals, and solid roads expand.-

"There the proud arch, Colossus-like, bestride

"Yon glittering streams, and bound the chasing tide;

"Embellish’d villas crown the landscape-scene,

"Farms wave with gold, and orchards blush between.-

"There shall tall spires, and dome-capt towers ascend,

"And piers and quays their massy structures blend;

"While with each breeze approaching vessels glide,

"And northern treasures dance on every tide!"-

Then ceas’d the nymph - tumultuous echoes roar,

And JOY’s loud voice was heard from the shore to shore -

Her graceful steps descending press’d the plain,

And PEACE, and ART, and LABOUR, join’d her train.

- The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay; with an Account of the Establishment of the Colonies of Port Jackson & Norfolk Island, London, 1789, frontispiece