An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 1: With Remarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc. of The: Native Inhabitants of That Country. to Which Are Added, Some: Particulars of New Zealand; Compiled, by Permission, From: The Mss. of Lieutenant-Governor King.

Published in 1798, this is among the earliest first-hand accounts of the British penal colony at Sydney, written by the colony's judge advocate who arrived with the First Fleet in 1788. David Collins documents the extraordinary logistics of transporting over a thousand convicts across eight thousand miles of ocean, the brutal early years of settlement at Sydney Cove, and the complex, often tragic encounters between settlers and the Eora people of the Sydney basin. The book also incorporates early observations of New Zealand, making it one of the earliest English accounts of that country. Written with an administrator's precision but occasionally sharp observational flair, Collins paints a picture of a fragile, often chaotic enterprise where starvation loomed, governance was improvised, and the Indigenous inhabitants watched this strange intrusion with a mixture of curiosity, hostility, and bewildering resilience. This is not celebration: Collins plainly records failures, conflicts, and the devastating imbalances of power that would define the colonial relationship for generations. Essential reading for anyone seeking the raw, unvarnished voice of the first decade of European Australia.