Chapter XXII
The Daedalus sails for Nootka A temporary church founded Criminal court The colonial vessel launched A scheme to take a longboat Two soldiers desert Counterfeit dollars in circulation A soldier punished The Boddingtons arrives from Cork General Court Martial held The Britannia hired and chartered for Bengal The new church opened Accident Provisions in store Corn purchased from settlers The Britannia sails for Bengal, and the Francis Schooner for New Zealand Irish convicts steal a boat The Sugar Cane arrives Intended mutiny on board prevented Excursion to the westward Public works
July.] On the first of this month the Daedalus sailed to convey to Captain Vancouver the provisions and stores which had been required by that officer. Lieutenant Hanson, the naval agent on board, received the most pointed orders for the ship to return to this port immediately after having executed the service on which she was then going. The Daedalus was considered as a colonial ship; and nothing but Captain Vancouver's express requisition to have the stores and provisions which were on board her (the stores being chiefly articles of traffic) sent back to him, to enable him to fulfil the instructions he had received, would have induced the lieutenant-governor, in the present state of the colony, to have parted with her, when it was not improbable that her services might be wanting to procure supplies, and at no very distant period, if ships did not arrive.
The Daedalus being, like other ships which had preceded her, short of hands, the master was permitted to recruit his numbers here, and took with him six convicts, who had served their several terms of transportation, and were of good character; and two seamen, who had been left behind from other ships. The extensive population of the islands at some of which the Daedalus might have occasion to touch rendered it absolutely necessary that she should be completely manned; as we well knew the readiness with which, at all times, their inhabitants availed themselves of any inferiority or weakness which they might discover among us.
On board of the Daedalus also was embarked a native of this country, who was sent by the lieutenant-governor for the purpose of acquiring our language. Lieutenant Hanson was directed by no means to leave him at Nootka, but, if he survived the voyage, to bring him back safe to his friends and countrymen. His native names were Gnung-a gnung-a, Mur-re-mur-gan; but he had for a long time entirely lost them, even among his own people, who called him 'Collins,' after the judge-advocate, whose name he had adopted on the first day of his coming among us. He was a man of a more gentle disposition than most of his associates; and, from the confidence he placed in us, very readily undertook the voyage, although he left behind him a young wife (a sister of Bennillong who accompanied Governor Phillip) of whom he always appeared extremely fond.
On Saturday the 6th the intended change took place in the ration; and it being a week on which pork was to be issued, three pounds of that article were served instead of four. The other articles remained the same.
The clergyman, who suffered as much inconvenience as other people from the want of a proper place for the performance of divine service, himself undertook to remove the evil, on finding that, from the pressure of other works it was not easy to foresee when a church would be erected. He accordingly began one under his own inspection, and chose the situation for it at the back of the huts on the east side of the cove. The front was seventy-three feet by fifteen; and at right angles with the centre projected another building forty feet by fifteen. The edifice was constructed of strong posts, wattles, and plaster, and was to be thatched.* Much credit was due to the Rev. Mr. Johnson for his personal exertions on this occasion.
[* The expense of building it was computed to be about forty pounds]
Representation having been made to the lieutenant-governor, that several of the soldiers had been so thoughtless as to dispose of the sugar and tobacco which had been served out to them by their officers since the arrival of the Britannia, almost as soon as they had received those articles, and that some artful people had availed themselves of their indiscretion, in many instances bartering a bottle of spirits (Cape brandy) for six times its value, he judged it necessary to give notice, that any convict detected in exchanging liquor with the soldiers for any article served out to them by their officers, would immediately be punished, and the articles purchased taken away: and further (now become a most necessary restriction), that any persons attempting to sell liquor without a licence might rely on its being seized, and the houses of the offending parties pulled down.
About the middle of the month all the wheat which was to be sown on the public account was got in at and near Toongabbie; the quantity of ground was about three hundred and eighty acres. The wheat of last season being now nearly thrashed out, some judgment was formed of its produce, and it was found to have averaged between seventeen and eighteen bushels an acre. A large quantity of wheat was also sown this season by individuals, amounting to about one thousand three hundred and eighty-one bushels, every encouragement having been given to them to sow their grounds with that grain.
Several houses having been lately broken open, the criminal court of judicature was assembled on the 15th, when Samuel Wright, a convict who arrived in 1791, was tried for breaking into a hut in the day-time, and stealing several articles of wearing apparel; of which offence being found guilty, he received sentence of death, and was to have been executed on the Monday following; but the court having recommended him to mercy on account of his youth, being only sixteen years of age, the lieutenant-governor as readily forgave as the court had recommended him; but, that the prisoner might have all the benefit of so awful a situation, the change in his fate was not imparted to him until the very moment when he was about to ascend the ladder from which he was to be plunged into eternity. He had appeared since his conviction as if devoid of feeling; but on receiving this information, he fell on his knees in an agony of joy and gratitude. The solemn scene appeared likewise to make a forcible impression on all his fellow prisoners, who were present.
The weather of this winter having been colder than any that we had before experienced, great exertions were made to clothe all the labouring convicts; and for that purpose the work of the tailors had for some time been confined to them. Every male convict received one cloth jacket, two canvas frocks, one pair of shoes, and one leathern cap. The females also had been clothed.
The vessel which had been received in frame by the Pitt was now completed, and, to avoid the labour which would have attended her being launched in the usual manner, Mr. Raven, the master of the Britannia, offered his own services and the assistance of his ship to lay her down upon her bilge, and put her into the water on rollers. This mode having been adopted, in the forenoon of Wednesday the 24th of this month she was safely let down upon the rollers, and by dusk, with the assistance of the Britannia, was hove down to low-water mark, whence, at a quarter before eight o'clock, she floated with the tide, and was hauled safely alongside the Britannia. The ceremony of christening her was performed at sunrise the next morning, when she was named The Francis, in compliment to the lieutenant-governor's son, whose birthday this was; and, Mr. Raven coinciding with the general opinion that she would be much safer if rigged as a schooner than as a sloop, for which she had been originally intended, the carpenters were directed to fit her accordingly; and that gentleman very obligingly supplied a spar, which he had procured for the Britannia at Dusky Bay, to make her a foremast.
The command of this little vessel, of whose utility great expectations were formed, was given by the lieutenant-governor to Mr. William House, late boatswain of the Discovery, who arrived here in the Daedalus for the purpose of proceeding to England as an invalid; but being strongly recommended by Captain Vancouver as an excellent seaman, with whom he was very unwilling to part, and signifying a wish to be employed in this country, the command of this vessel was given to him, with the same allowance that is made to a superintendant; on which list he was placed. The two boys who were left behind from the Kitty were also entered for her, and she was ordered to be fitted forthwith for sea. As it was well known that many people had their eyes upon this vessel as the means of their escaping from the colony, it was intended, in addition to other precautions, that none but the most trusty people should ever be employed in her.
On the last day of the month a plan to take off one of the longboats was revealed to the lieutenant-governor. The principal parties in it were soldiers; and their scheme was, to proceed to Java, with a chart of which they had by some means been furnished. If their plan had been put into execution, the evil would have carried with it its own punishment; for, had they survived the voyage, they would never have been countenanced by the Dutch, who were always very jealous of strangers coming among them, and had, no doubt, heard of the desertion of Bryant and his associates from this settlement. Two of the soldiers were immediately put into confinement; and in the night two others, one a corporal, went off into the woods, taking with them their arms, about one hundred rounds of powder and ball, which they collected from the different pouches in the barrack, their provisions and necessaries.
The principal works in hand by the people at Sydney were, erecting kitchens and storerooms for the officers' new barracks, bringing in timber for rollers for the sloop, and constructing huts at Petersham for convicts. At Toongabbie the Indian corn was not all gathered, and housing of that, and preparing the ground for the reception of the next season's crop, occupied the labouring convicts at that settlement.
Some counterfeit dollars were at this time in circulation; but the manufacturers of them were not discovered.
August.] The two soldiers who were put into confinement on suspicion of being parties in a plan to seize one of the long-boats, were tried by a regimental court-martial on the first day of this month, and one was acquitted; but Roberts, a drummer, who was proved to have attempted to persuade another drummer to be of the party, was sentenced to receive three hundred lashes, and in the evening did receive two hundred and twenty-five of them. While smarting under the severity with which his punishment was inflicted, he gave up the names of six or eight of his brother soldiers as concerned with him, among whom were the two who had absented themselves the preceding evening. These people, the day following their desertion, were met in the path to Parramatta, and told an absurd story of their being sent to the Blue Mountains. They were next heard of at a settler's (John Nicholls) at Prospect Hill, whose house they entered forcibly, and, making him and a convict hutkeeper prisoners, passed the night there. At another settler's they took sixteen pounds of flour, which they sent by his wife to a woman well known to one of them, and had them baked into small loaves. They signified a determination not to be taken alive, and threatened to lie in wait for the game-killers, of whose ammunition they meant to make themselves masters. These declarations manifested the badness of their hearts, and the weakness of their cause; and the lieutenant-governor, on being made acquainted with them, sent out a small armed party to secure and bring them in, rightly judging that people who were so ready at expressing every where a resolution to part with their lives rather than be taken, would not give much trouble in securing them.
This desertion, and the disaffection of those who meant to take off a long-boat, was the more unaccountable, as the commanding officer had uniformly treated them with every indulgence, putting it entirely out of their power to complain on that head. Spirits and other comforts had been procured for them; he had distinguished them from the convicts in the ration of provisions; he had allowed them to build themselves comfortable huts, permitting them while so employed the use of the public boats; he had indulged them with women; and, in a word, have never refused any of them a request which did not militate against the rules of the service, or of the discipline which he had laid down for the New South Wales corps; at the same time, however, to prevent these indulgencies from falling into contempt, they were counterbalanced by a certainty of their being withdrawn when abused, and flagrant offenders were sure of meeting with punishment: yet there were many among them who were so ungrateful for the benefits which they received, and so unmindful of their own interest and accommodation, that they behaved ill whenever they had an opportunity.
The parties who had been sent after the runaways, by dividing themselves, fell in with them near Toongabbie on the 6th. and secured them without any opposition.
There were at this time in the New South Wales corps, distributed among the different companies, thirty recruits who had been selected from among the convicts as people of good characters, and, having formerly been in the army, were permitted to enlist. These people had conducted themselves with remarkable propriety, one man only excepted, who had some time since been punished by the sentence of a court-martial, and who afterwards misbehaving was discharged from the corps. They were in general enlisted for life, a condition to which they subscribed on being attested; and such as had a long time to serve under their sentence, were emancipated on the above condition.
On the 7th the Boddingtons transport anchored in the cove from Ireland, having sailed from Cork on the 15th of February last, with one hundred and twenty-four male, and twenty female convicts of that kingdom on board, provisions calculated to serve them nine months* after their arrival, and a proportion of clothing for twelve months. As a guard, there was embarked a subaltern's party of the New South Wales corps; and this precaution was found to have been very necessary, the ignorance of the Irish convicts having displayed itself in an absurd scheme to take the ship; but which was happily frustrated by the vigilance and activity of the master** and the officers.
[* Two hundred and twenty-eight barrels of flour; one hundred and eight tierces of pork, and fifty-four tierces of beef, twenty-eight bales and thirteen cases of stores.]
[* Captain Robert Chalmers, on the captain's half pay of the marines.]
Mr. Richards jun, who had the contract for supplying the ships which sailed for this country in 1788 and the Lady Juliana transport, was employed again by government; a circumstance of general congratulation among the colonists on its being made known. On the present occasion he had contracted to furnish two ships to bring out three hundred male and female convicts from Ireland, with stores and provisions. The Boddingtons, being the first ready, sailed alone; the Sugar Cane (the second ship) was at Deptford ready to drop down to Gravesend when her intended companion was about leaving Ireland. Government were to pay four pounds four shillings per ton for such stores as should be put on board, and for the convicts at the rate of twenty-two pounds per head. This mode of payment was complained of in the contract made formerly with Messrs. Calvert and Co.; but in the present instance the evil attending that contract was avoided, by a part of the above sum (five pounds) being left to be paid by certificate for every convict which should be landed. No ship, however, could have brought out their convicts in higher order, nor could have given stronger proofs of attention to their health and accommodation, than did this vessel. Each had a bed to himself, and a new suit of clothes to land in. On the part of the crown also, to see justice done to the convicts, there was a surgeon of the navy on board, Mr. Kent, as a superintendant; and on the part of the contractor, a gentleman who had visited us before with Mr. Marshall, in the second voyage of the Scarborough to this country, Mr. A. Jac. Bier, a surgeon also. They had not any sick list, and had lost only one man on the passage.
Captain Chalmers informed us, that on his arrival at Rio de Janeiro, in which port he anchored on the 10th of last April, he heard that the Atlantic transport had sailed thence about three weeks, and had made her passage from this country round Cape Horn to Rio de Janeiro in fifty-eight days. He learned from the gentlemen about the palace, that his excellency Governor Phillip when he touched there appeared to be in perfect health. He had there too heard of the agitated state of Europe; and understanding that in all probability the Channel would be infested with French privateers, he purchased some guns, to strengthen the force which he had already on board the Atlantic.
Advices were received by this ship, that administration intended to make arrangements for our being supplied from Bengal with live cattle: and this became a favourite idea with every person in the colony; for the sheep, though small, were found to be very productive, breeding twice in the year, and generally bringing two lambs at a birth. The climate was also found to agree well with the cattle of the buffalo species which had been received.
The convicts received by the Boddingtons were disembarked a day or two after her arrival, and sent up to Toongabbie. On quitting the ship they with one voice bore testimony to the humane treatment they had received from Captain Chalmers, declaring that they had not any complaints to prefer, and cheering him when the boats which carried them put off from her side.
It being necessary to mark with some degree of severity the offence which had been committed by the two soldiers, a general court-martial was assembled for their trial on the 12th. The lieutenant-governor, with much humanity, forebore to charge them with a capital offence; bringing them to trial for absenting themselves from head-quarters without leave, instead of the more serious crime of desertion.
By the mutiny act, a general court-martial may, in Africa, consist of less than thirteen commissioned officers, but not less than five; the like provision was also extended to New South Wales; and nine officers formed the court now assembled for the first time in this colony. Captain Collins officiated as deputy judge-advocate. The prisoners did not deny the crime they were charged with; and the court, after reducing the corporal to the ranks, sentenced him to receive five hundred lashes, and the private soldier eight hundred. The sentence, being approved by the lieutenant-governor, was in part carried into execution on Saturday the 17th, the corporal receiving two hundred and seventy-five, and the soldier three hundred lashes.
The Britannia being now nearly ready for sea, having had some very necessary articles of repair done to her, and which the master declared had been as well executed by the artificers of the colony as if the ship had been in England, she was tendered to be employed for the service of the settlement wherever the lieutenant-governor might think it necessary to send her. In the charter-party of the Boddingtons, a clause was inserted, empowering the governor to send her to Norfolk Island, or elsewhere, should he have occasion, the crown paying the same hire as was paid for the Atlantic transport (fifteen shillings and sixpence per ton per month) during the time she should be so employed. The Britannia was tendered at one shilling per ton less, and had moreover the advantage of being a coppered ship.
It has been seen that the supply brought by the Boddingtons was very inconsiderable. No greater quantity was expected with any degree of certainty by the Sugar Cane. The salt provisions remaining in store (by a calculation made up to the 28th) were sufficient for only fourteen weeks at the full ration, including what had been received by the Boddingtons, and some surplus provisions which had been purchased of the agent to the contractor, and one hundred casks of pork, which had been omitted by an oversight in the last account taken in May a few days before the Kitty sailed. When it was considered that our supplies would always be affected by commotions at home, and that if a war should take place between England and any other nation, which at the departure of the Boddingtons was hourly expected, they might be retarded, or taken by the enemy, the lieutenant-governor determined, while he had in his own hands the means of supplying himself, to employ them; and on the 26th chartered the Britannia for India. Our principal want was salt provisions; of flour we well remembered that Bengal produced none, and a coming crop was before us on our own grounds. The Britannia was therefore to proceed to Bengal, to be freighted by the government of that presidency with salt provisions, Irish beef or pork; and in the event of its not being possible to procure them, the ship was to return loaded with sugar, rice, and dholl, these being the articles which, next to salt provisions, were the most wanted in the colony.
Mr. Raven, the master of the Britannia, having, as was before observed, left a mate and some of his people at Dusky Bay in New Zealand, the lieutenant-governor directed the Francis to be got ready with all expedition, purposing that she should accompany the Britannia as far on her way as that harbour, where she had permission to touch; and Mr. Raven was directed to transmit by the master all such information respecting that extensive bay, and the seal-fishery in its vicinity, as he should be of opinion might in anywise tend to the present or future benefit of his Majesty's service as connected with these settlements.
The clergyman having completed the building which he began in July last, divine service was performed in it for the first time on Sunday the 25th of this month; and for a temporary accommodation it appeared likely to answer very well. Mr. Johnson in his discourse, which was intended to impress the minds of his audience with the necessity of holiness in every place, lamented that the urgency of public works had prevented any undertaking of the kind before, and had thus thrown it upon him; he declared that he had no other motive for standing forward in the business, than that of establishing a place sheltered from bad weather, and from the summer heats, where public worship might be performed. He said, that the uncertainty of a place where they might attend had prevented many from coming; but he now hoped the attendance would be full whenever he preached there. The place was constructed to hold five hundred people.
It appeared by an estimate which Mr. Johnson afterwards gave in, for the purpose of being reimbursed what it had cost him, that the expense of this building considerably exceeded his first calculation, the whole amount of it being £67 12s 11½d; of which Mr. Johnson paid to the different artificers he had employed £59 18s in dollars; twenty gallons and a half of spirits; one hundred and sixteen pounds of flour; fifty-two pounds of salt provisions; three pounds of tobacco; and five ounces of tea. Spirits were at this time sold in the colony at ten shillings per gallon; but Mr. Johnson observed in his estimate that he only charged that and other articles at the prices which they had actually cost him. This account Mr. Johnson requested might be transmitted to the secretary of state, and he accompanied it with a letter stating his reasons for having undertaken the building?
The Boddingtons were cleared of her cargo, and discharged from Government employ on the 26th. The cargo, when landed, was found in most excellent condition, not a single article being damaged; far different from that received by the Bellona, where the ship was overloaded. Had the Boddingtons been coppered, no ship could have been better calculated for the transport of provisions to this country from any part of the world.
A remarkable instance of fecundity in a female goat occurred at the house of one of the superintendants at Sydney. She produced five kids, three females and two males, all of which died (a blow which the animal received bringing them before their time) excepting the first which was kidded, a female. The same goat in March last brought four kids, three males and one female, all of which lived. She was a remarkably fine creature.
Much apprehension was now entertained for the wheat, which began to look yellow and parched for want of rain. Toward the latter end of the month, however, some rain fell during three days and nights, which considerably refreshed it. But there being no fixed period at which wet weather was to be expected in this country, it might certainly be pronounced too dry for wheat.
An unpleasant accident occurred at the lieutenant-governor's farm. A convict of good character, who had the care of the sheep, was found dead in the woods. He had declined coming in to his breakfast, and was left eating some bread made of Indian corn and coarse-ground wheat. His body was opened, but no cause for his sudden dissolution could be assigned from its appearance.
At the Ponds, a district of settlers in the neighbourhood of Parramatta, John Richards, in possession of a grant of thirty acres of land, died of intoxication. This was the first death which had occurred among any of the people of that description.
By an account taken of the provisions remaining in store on the 28th of the month, it appeared that we had, calculating each article at the established ration for two thousand eight hundred and forty-five persons, the numbers victualled at Sydney and Parramatta,
Flour, to last 4 weeks, -- or 91,040 lbs Beef, to last 3 weeks, -- or 59,745 lbs Pork, to last 11 weeks, -- or 125,180 lbs Wheat, to last 1 week, -- or 22,760 lbs Gram and Peas, to last 8 weeks, -- or 68,280 lbs Sugar, to last 3 weeks, -- or 3,200 lbs Paddy, 43,000 lbs
September.] Unproductive as the Indian corn proved which was sown last year on the public grounds, the settlers must have had a better crop; for, after reserving a sufficiency for seed for the ensuing season, and for their domestic purposes, a few had raised enough to enable them to sell twelve hundred bushels to Government, who, on receiving it into the public stores, paid five shillings per bushel to the bringer. Government, however, was not resorted to in the first instance by the settler, who preferred disposing of his corn where he could receive spirits in payment (which he retailed for labour) to bringing it to the commissary for five shillings a bushel; but at this price, from whose hands soever it might come, it was received into the public stores.
The Britannia and Francis schooner sailed on Sunday. the 8th for Dusky Bay. The Francis was manned with seamen and boys who had been left here from ships, and the master had for his assistant as mate Robert Watson, who formerly belonged to his Majesty's ship Sirius, and was afterwards a settler at Norfolk Island; but his allotment having been erroneously surveyed, he, being obliged to resign a part of it, gave up the whole, and gladly returned to his former way of life. One of the three seamen who had been taken out of the Kitty, and punished, was permitted to enter on board the schooner; another of them was taken by the captain of the Boddingtons; Williams, the principal, remained in the colony, not bearing that sort of character which would recommend him to any master of a ship.
Captain Nicholas Nepean, the senior captain in the New South Wales corps, having been for some time past in an ill state of health, obtained the lieutenant-governor's leave to return to England by the way of Bengal, and quitted the colony in the Britannia. Three men and one woman also received permission to leave the settlement.
It might have been supposed, that the fatal consequences of endeavouring to seek a place in the woods of this country where they might live without labour had been sufficiently felt by the convicts who arrived here in the Queen transport from Ireland, to deter others from rushing into the same error, as they would, doubtless, acquaint the new comers with the ill success which attended their schemes of that nature. Several of those, however, who came out in the Boddingtons went off into the woods soon after their landing; and a small party, composed of some desperate characters, about the same time stole a boat from Mr. Schaffer, the settler, with which, as they were not heard of for some days after, it was supposed they had either got out of the harbour, or were lying concealed until, being joined by those who had taken to the woods, they could procure a larger and a safer conveyance from the country.
A slight change took place in the ration this month; the sugar being expended, molasses was ordered to be served in lieu of that article, in the proportion of a pint of molasses to a pound of sugar.
On Sunday the 15th died James Nation, a soldier in the New South Wales corps, into which he had entered from the marine detachment. He sunk under an inflammatory complaint brought on by hard drinking. With this person Martha Todd cohabited at the time of her decease, which, as before related, was occasioned by the same circumstance, and which, together with her death, Nation had been frequently heard to say was the cause of much unhappiness to him.
On Tuesday the 17th the signal was made at the South Head, and about six o'clock in the evening the Sugar Cane transport anchored in the cove from Cork, whence she sailed the 13th of last April, having on board one hundred and ten male and fifty female convicts, with a sergeant's party of the New South Wales corps as a guard. Nothing had happened on board her until the 25th of May, when information was given to Mr. David Wake Bell, the agent on the part of Government, that a mutiny was intended by the convicts, and that they had proceeded so far as to saw off some of their irons. Insinuations were at the same time thrown out, of the probability of their being joined by certain of the sailors and of the guard. The agent, after making the necessary inquiry, thought it indispensable to the safety of the ship to cause an instant example to be made, and ordered one of the convicts who was found out of irons to be executed that night. Others he punished the next morning; and by these measures, as might well be expected, threw such a damp on the spirits of the rest, that he heard no more during the voyage of attempts or intentions to take the ship.
Since the arrival of the Boddingtons many circumstances respecting the intended mutiny in that ship had been disclosed by the convicts themselves which were not before known. They did not hesitate to say, that all the officers were to have been murdered, the first* mate and the agent excepted, who were to be preserved alive for the purpose of conducting the ship to a port, when they likewise were to be put to death.
[* Mr. Duncan McEver. He belonged to the Atlantic, which ship he quitted at Bengal.]
As intentions of this kind had been talked of in several ships, the military guard should never have been less than an officer's command, and that guard (especially when embarked for the security of a ship full of wild lawless Irish) ought never to have been composed either of young soldiers, or of deserters from other corps.
This ship had a quick passage from Rio de Janeiro, arriving here in sixty-five days from that port. She brought the following quantity of provisions and stores for the colony:
Beef 46 tierces 15,496 ) 31,496 pounds; Shipped at Cork 80 barrels 16,000 ) Pork 92 tierces 29,440 ] 45,440 pounds; Shipped at Cork 80 barrels 16,000 ] Flour 192 barrels, 64,512 pounds; Lime-stone, shipped at Cork 44 tons; Clothing and necessaries 17 bales and 5 cases
The convicts arrived in a very healthy state, nor was any one lost by sickness during the voyage.
Captain Paterson, of the New South Wales corps, an account of whose journeys in Africa appeared in print some years ago, conceiving that he might be able to penetrate as far as, or even beyond, the western mountains (commonly known in the colony by the name of the Blue Mountains, from the appearance which land so high and distant generally wears), set off from the settlement with a small party of gentlemen (Captain Johnston, Mr. Palmer, and Mr. Laing the assistant-surgeon) well provided with arms, and having provisions and necessaries sufficient for a journey of six weeks, to make the attempt. Boats were sent round to Broken Bay, whence they got into the Hawkesbury, and the fourth day reached as far as Richmond Hill. At this place, in the year 1789, the governor's progress up the river was obstructed by a fall of water, which his boats were too heavy to drag over. This difficulty Captain Paterson overcame by quitting his large boats, and proceeding from Richmond Hill with two that were smaller and lighter. He found that this part of the river carried him to the westward, and into the chasm that divided the high land seen from Richmond Hill. Hither, however, he got with great difficulty and some danger, meeting in the space of about ten miles with not less than five waterfalls, one of which was rather steep, and was running at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour. Above this part the water was about fifteen yards from side to side, and came down with some rapidity, a fall of rain having swollen the stream. Their navigation was here so intricate, lying between large pieces of rock that had been borne down by torrents, and some stumps of trees which they could not always see, that (after having loosened a plank in one boat, and driven the other upon a stump which forced its way through her bottom) they gave up any further progress, leaving the western mountains to be the object of discovery at some future day. It was supposed that they had proceeded ten miles farther up the river than had ever before been done, and named that part of it which until then had been unseen, 'the Grose;' and a high peak of land, which they had in view in the chasm, they called 'Harrington Peak.'
Captain Paterson, as a botanist, was amply rewarded for his labour and disappointment by discovering several new plants. Of the soil in which they grew, he did not, however, speak very favourably.
He saw but few natives, and those who did visit them were almost unintelligible to the natives of this place who accompanied him. He entertained a notion that their legs and arms were longer than those of the inhabitants of the coast. As they live by climbing trees, if there really was any such difference, it might perhaps have been occasioned by the custom of hanging by their arms and resting on their feet at the utmost stretch of the body, which they practise from their infancy. The party returned on the 22nd, having been absent about ten days.
In their walk to Pitt Water, they met with the boat which had been stolen by some of the Irish convicts; and a few days after their return some of those who had run into the woods came into Parramatta, with an account of two of their party having been speared and killed by the natives. The men who were killed were of very bad character, and had been the principals in the intended mutiny on board the Boddingtons. Their destruction was confirmed by some of the natives who lived in the town.
The foundation of another barrack for officers was begun in this month. For the privates one only was yet erected; but this was not attended with any inconvenience, as all those who were not in quarters had built themselves comfortable huts between the town of Sydney and the brick-kilns. This indulgence might be attended with some convenience to the soldiers; but it had ever been considered, that soldiers could no where be so well regulated as when living in quarters, where, by frequent inspections and visitings, their characters would be known, and their conduct attended to. In a multiplicity of scattered huts the eye of vigilance would with difficulty find its object, and the soldier in possession of a habitation of his own might, in a course of time, think of himself more as an independent citizen, than as a subordinate soldier.
On the 23rd the first part of the cargo of the Sugar Cane was delivered, and in a very few days all that she had on board on account of government was received into the store, together with some surplus provisions of the contractor's. The convicts which she brought out were, very soon after her arrival, sent to the settlements up the harbour. At these places the labouring people were employed, some in getting the Indian corn for the ensuing season into such ground as was ready, and others in preparing the remainder. At the close of the month, through the favourable rains which had fallen, the wheat in general wore the most flattering appearance, giving every promise of a plenteous harvest. At Toongabbie the wheat appeared to bid defiance to any accident but fire, against which some precautions had however been judiciously and timely taken. From this place, and from the settlers, a quantity of corn sufficient to supply all our numbers for a twelvemonth was expected to be received into the public granaries, if those who looked so far forward, and took into their calculation much corn not yet in ear, were not too sanguine in their expectations.
Chapter XXIII
The Boddingtons and Sugar Cane sail A mill erected Thefts committed Convicts emancipated Two persons killed by lightning The Fairy arrives Farms sold Public works The Francis returns from New Zealand The Fairy sails Ration altered Transactions Harvest begun Criminal Court held A convict executed Provisions Mill at Parramatta Christmas Day Natives Convicts Boats Grants of land Settlers Public works Expenses how to be calculated Deaths in 1793 Prices of grain, stock, and labour
October.] The Boddingtons and Sugar Cane being both bound for the same port in India (Bengal) the masters agreed to proceed together; and on the 13th, the Sugar Cane having set up her rigging, and hurried through such refitting as was indispensably necessary, both ships left the harbour with a fair wind, purposing to follow in the Atlantic's track. The master of the Boddingtons was furnished by us with a copy of a chart made on board the Pitt Indiaman, and brought hither by the Britannia, of a passage or channel found by that ship in the land named by Lieutenant Shortland New Georgia; which channel was placed in the latitude of 8 degrees 30 minutes S and in the longitude of 158 degrees 30 minutes E and named 'Manning's Straits,' from the commander of the Pitt.
The master of the Sugar Cane, had he been left to sail alone, determined to have tried the passage to India by the way of the South Cape of this country, instead of proceeding to the northward, and seemed not to have any doubt of meeting with favourable winds after rounding the cape. By their proceeding together, however, it remained yet to be determined, whether a passage to India round the South Cape of this country was practicable, and whether it would be a safer and a shorter route than one through Endeavour or Torres Strait, the practicability of which was likewise undetermined as to any knowledge which was had of it in this colony.
Seven persons whose terms of transportation had expired, were permitted to quit the colony in these ships, and the master of the Sugar Cane had shipped Benjamin Williams, the last of the Kitty's people who remained undisposed of. One free woman, the wife of a convict, took her passage in the Sugar Cane.
Notwithstanding the facility with which passages from this place were procured (very little more being required by the masters than permission to receive them, and that the parties should find their own provisions) it was found after the departure of these ships that some convicts had, by being secreted on board, made their escape from the colony; and two men, whose terms as convicts had expired, were brought up from the Sugar Cane the day she sailed, having got on board without permission; for which the lieutenant-governor directed them to be punished with fifty lashes each, and sent up to Toongabbie.
Early in the month an alteration took place in the weekly ration, the four pounds of wheat served to the convicts were discontinued, and a substitution of one pint of rice, and two pints of gram (an East India grain resembling dholl) took place. The serving of wheat was discontinued for the purpose of issuing it as flour; to accomplish which a mill had been constructed by a convict of the name of James Wilkinson, who came to this country in the Neptune. His abilities as a millwright had hitherto lain dormant, and perhaps would longer have continued so, had they not been called forth by a desire of placing himself in competition with Thorpe the millwright sent out by government.
His machine was a walking mill, the principal wheel of which was fifteen feet in diameter, and was worked by two men; while this wheel was performing one revolution, the mill-stones performed twenty. As it was in opposition to the public millwright that he undertook to construct this mill, he of course derived no assistance whatever from Thorpe's knowledge of the business, and had to contend not only with his opinion, but the opinion of such as he could prejudice against him. The heavy part of the work, cutting and bringing in the timber, and afterwards preparing it, was performed by his fellow-prisoners, who gave him their labour voluntarily. He was three months and five days from taking it in hand to his offering it for the first trial. On this trial it was found defective in some of the machinery, which was all constructed of the timber of the country, and not properly seasoned. Its effects in grinding were various; at first it would grind no more than two bushels an hour; with some alteration, it ground more, and did for some time complete four bushels; it afterwards ground less, and at the end of the month produced not more than one bushel. Had the whole of the machinery been upon a larger scale, there was reason to suppose it would have answered every expectation of the most interested. The constructor, however, had a great deal of merit, and perceiving himself what the defects were in this, he undertook to make another upon a larger scale at Sydney, and on an improved plan. For this purpose, all the artificers and a gang of convicts were brought down from Parramatta, and were first employed in forming a timber-yard at Petersham, two hundred feet square.
At that place, a small district in the neighbourhood of Sydney so named by the lieutenant-governor, nine huts for labouring convicts were built, and sixty acres of government ground cleared of timber, twenty of which were sown with Indian corn. This was the only addition made to the public ground this season; and the sole difference that was observable in the progress of our cultivation consisted in sowing this year with wheat a large portion of that ground which last year grew Indian corn. The weather throughout the month continued extremely favourable for wheat.
The number of convicts which it was intended to receive for the present into the New South Wales corps being determined, a warrant of emancipation passed the seal of the territory, giving conditional freedom to twenty three persons of that description, seven of whom were transported for life, and three had between six and nine years to serve, having been sent out for fourteen. The condition of the pardon was, their continuing to serve in the corps into which they had enlisted until they should be regularly discharged therefrom.
Several instances of irregularity and villainy among the convicts occurred during this month. From Parramatta, information was received, that in the night of the 15th four people broke into the house of John Randall, a settler, where with large bludgeons they had beaten and nearly murdered two men who lived with him. The hands and faces of these miscreants were blackened; and it was observed, that they did not speak during the time they were in the hut. It was supposed, that they were some of the new-comers, and meant to rob the house; and this they would have effected, but for the activity of the two men whom they attacked, and for the resistance which they met with from them. At this time seven of the male convicts lately arrived from Ireland, with one woman, had absconded into the woods. Some of these people were afterwards brought in to Parramatta, where they confessed that they had planned the robbing of the millhouse, the governor's, and other houses; and that they were to be visited from time to time in their places of concealment by others of their associates who were to reside in the town, and to supply them with provisions, and such occasional information as might appear to be necessary to their safety. They also acknowledged that the assault at Randall's hut was committed by them and their companions.
About the same time the house of Mr. Atkins at Parramatta was broken into, and a large quantity of provisions, and a cask of wine, removed from his store-room to the garden fence, where they left them on being discovered and pursued. They, however, got clear off, though without their booty.
At Sydney, in the night of the 26th, a box belonging to John Sparrow (a convict) was broke open, and three watches stolen out, one of which with the seals had cost thirty-two guineas, and belonged to an officer. This theft was committed at the hospital, where Sparrow was at the time a patient, although able to work occasionally at his business; and being a young man of abilities as a watchmaker, and of good character, was employed by most of the gentlemen of the settlement. Suspicion fell upon a notorious thief who was in the same ward, and who had some time before proposed to another man to take the box. On his examination he accused two others of the theft, but with such equivocation in his tale as clearly proved the falsehood of it. As there was no evidence against him, except the proposal just mentioned, he was discharged, and during the month nothing was heard of the watches. An old man belonging to the hospital was robbed at the same time of eight guineas and some dollars, which he had got together for the purpose of paying for his passage and provisions in any ship that would take him home.
During a storm of rain and thunder which happened in the afternoon of Saturday the 26th, two convict lads Dennis Reardon and William Meredith, who were employed in cutting wood just by the town when the rain commenced, ran to a tree for shelter, where they were found the next morning lying dead, together with a dog which followed them. There was no doubt that the shelter which they sought had proved their destruction, having been struck dead by lightning, one or two flashes of which had been observed to be very vivid and near. One of them, when he received the stroke, had his hands in his bosom; the hands of the other were across his breast, and he seemed to have had something in them. The pupils of their eyes were considerably dilated, and the tongue of each, as well as that of the dog, was forced out between the teeth. Their faces were livid, and the same appearance was visible on several parts of their bodies. The tree at the foot of which they were found was barked at the top, and some of its branches torn off. In the evening they were decently buried in one grave, to which they were attended by many of their fellow-prisoners. Mr. Johnson, to a discourse which he afterwards preached on the subject, prefixed as a text these words from the first book of Samuel, chap xx verse 3. 'There is but a step between me and death.'
This was the first accident of the kind that, to our knowledge, had occurred in the colony, though lightning more vivid and alarming had often been seen in storms of longer duration.
While every one was expecting our colonial vessel, the Francis, from New Zealand. the signal for a sail was made on the 29th; and shortly after the Fairy, an American snow, anchored in the cove from Boston in New England, and last from the island of St. Paul, whence she had a passage of only four weeks. The master, Mr. Rogers, touched at False Bay; but from there not having been any recent arrivals from Europe, he procured no other intelligence at that port, than what we had already received. At the island of St. Paul he found five seamen who had been left there from a ship two years before, and who had procured several thousand seal-skins. They informed him, that Lord Macartney in his Majesty's ship the Lion, and the Hindostan East-Indiaman, had touched there in their way to China, and Mr. Rogers expected to have heard that his lordship had visited this settlement.
The Fairy was to proceed from this place to the north-west coast of America, where the master hoped to arrive the first for the fur market. Thence he was to go to China with his skins, and from China back to St. Paul, where he had left a mate and two sailors. Their success was to regulate his future voyages.
Mr. Rogers expressed a surprise that we had not any small craft on the coast, as he had observed a plentiful harvest of seals as he came along. He came in here merely to refresh, not having any thing on board for sale, his cargo consisting wholly of articles of traffic for the north-west coast of America.
Charles Williams, the settler so often mentioned in this narrative, wearied of being in a state of independence, sold his farm with the house, crop, and stock, for something less than one hundred pounds, to an officer of the New South Wales corps, Lieutenant Cummings, to whose allotment of twenty-five acres Williams's ground was contiguous. James Ruse also, the owner of Experiment farm, anxious to return to England, and disappointed in his present crop, which he had sown too late, sold his estate with the house and some stock (four goats and three sheep) for forty pounds. Both these people had to seek employment until they could get away; and Williams was condemned to work as a hireling upon the ground of which he had been the master. But he was a stranger to the feelings which would have rendered this circumstance disagreeable to him.
The allotment of thirty acres, late in the possession of James Richards, a settler at the Ponds, deceased, was put into the occupation of a private soldier of the New South Wales corps; and a grant of thirty acres at the Eastern Farms was purchased for as many pounds by another soldier.
The greatest inconvenience attending this transfer of landed property was the return of such a miscreant as Williams, and others of his description, to England, to be let loose again upon the public. The land itself came into the possession of people who were interested in making the most of it, and who would be more studious to raise plentiful crops for market.
Building and covering the new barrack, and bringing in timber for the new mill-house, which was not to be built of brick, formed the principal labour of this month at Sydney. The shipwrights were employed in putting up the frame of a long-boat purchased of the master of the Britannia, and repairing the hoy, which had been lying for some months useless for want of repairs, having been much injured by the destructive worm that was found in the waters of this cove.
At the other settlements the convicts were employed in planting the Indian corn. About four hundred and twenty acres were planted with that article for this season's crop.
November.] In the night of Thursday the 7th of November, the Francis schooner anchored in the cove from Dusky Bay in New Zealand; her long absence from this place (nearly nine weeks) having been occasioned by meeting with contrary and heavy gales of wind. The alteration which had been made in this vessel by rigging her as a schooner instead of a sloop, for which she was built, was found to have materially affected her sailing; for a schooner she was too short, and, for want of proper sail, she did not work well. Four times she was blown off the coast of New Zealand, the Britannia having anchored in Dusky Bay sixteen days before the Francis.
Mr. Raven found in health and safety all the people whom he had left there. They had procured him only four thousand five hundred seal-skins, having been principally occupied in constructing a vessel to serve them in the event of any accident happening to the Britannia. This they had nearly completed when Mr. Raven arrived. She was calculated to measure about sixty-five tons, and was chiefly built of the spruce fir, which Mr. Raven stated to be the fittest wood he had observed there for ship-building, and which might be procured in any quantity or of any size. The carpenter of the Britannia, an ingenious man, and master of his profession, compared it to English oak for durability and strength.
The natives had never molested the Britannia's people: indeed they seemed rather to abhor them; for if, by chance, in their excursions, which were but very few, they visited and left any thing in a hut, they were sure, on their next visit, to find the hut pulled down, and their present remaining where it had been left. Some few articles which Mr. Raven had himself placed in a hut, when he touched there to establish his little fishery, were found three months after by his people in the same spot.
Their weather had been very bad; severe gales of wind from the north-west and heavy rains often impeding their fishery and other labour. A shock of an earthquake too had been felt. They had an abundance of fresh provisions, ducks, wood-hens, and several other fowl; and they caught large quantities of fish. The soil, to a great depth, appeared to be composed of decayed vegetable substances.
From Mr. Raven, who had waited some days for the appearance of the Francis, the master received such assistance as he stood in need of; and on the 20th of October she sailed from Dusky Bay, in company with the Britannia, with whom she parted immediately, leaving her to pursue her voyage to Bengal.
Nothing appeared by this information from Dusky Bay, that held out encouragement to us to make any use of that part of New Zealand. So little was said of the soil, or face of the country, that no judgment could be formed of any advantages which might be expected from attempting to cultivate it; a seal fishery there was not an object with us at present, and, beside, it did not seem to promise much. The time, however, that the schooner was absent was not wholly misapplied; as we had the satisfaction of learning the event of a rather uncommon speculation, that of leaving twelve people for ten months on so populous an island, the inhabitants whereof were known to be savages, fierce and warlike. We certainly may suppose that these people were unacquainted with the circumstance of there being any strangers near them; and that consequently they had not had any communication with the few miserable beings who were occasionally seen in the coves of Dusky Bay.
A few days after the arrival of the Francis, Mr. Rogers sailed for China, taking with him two women and three men who had received permission to quit the colony. On board of the Fairy was found a convict, John Crow, who for some offence had been confined in the military guardhouse at Parramatta, whence he found means to make his escape, and reached Sydney in time to swim on board the American. On being brought on shore he received a slight punishment, and was confined in the black hole at the guardhouse at Sydney, out of which he escaped a night or two after, by untiling a part of the roof. After this he was not heard of, till the watch apprehended him at Parramatta, where he had broken into two houses, which he had plundered, and was caught with the property upon him.
The frequency of enormous offences had rendered it necessary to inflict a punishment that should be more likely to check the commission of crimes than mere flagellation at the back of the guardhouse, or being sent to Toongabbie. Crow, therefore, was lodged in the custody of the civil power, and ordered for trial by the court of criminal judicature.
During the time the Fairy lay at anchor in this cove, a sergeant and three privates of the New South Wales corps were sent and remained on board, for the purpose of preventing all improper visitations from the shore, and inspecting whatever might be either received into or sent from the ship in a suspicious manner: a regulation from which the master professed to have found essential service, as he thereby kept his decks free from idle or bad people, and his seamen went on unmolested with the duty of the vessel.
On Saturday the 23rd, the flour and rice in store being nearly expended, the ration was altered to the following proportions of those articles, viz:
To the officers, civil and military, soldiers, overseers, and the settlers from free people, were served, of biscuit or flour 2 pounds; wheat 2 pounds; Indian corn 5 pounds; peas 3 pints.
To the male convicts were served, women and children receiving in the proportions always observed, (of biscuit or flour, none, and for the first time since the establishment of the colony) wheat 3 pounds; Indian corn 5 pounds; paddy 2 pints; gram 2 pints.
This was universally felt as the worst ration that had ever been served from his Majesty's stores; and by the labouring convict particularly so, as no one article of grain was so prepared for him as to be immediately made use of. The quantity that was now to be ground, and the numbers who brought grain to the mill, kept it employed all the night as well as the day; and as, from the scarcity of mills, every man was compelled to wait for his turn, the day had broke, and the drum beat for labour, before many who went into the mill house at night had been able to get their corn ground. The consequence was, that many, not being able to wait, consumed their allowance unprepared. By the next Saturday, a quantity of wheat sufficient for one serving having been passed through the large mill at Parramatta, the convicts received their ration of that article ground coarse.
The lumber yard near Sydney being completed, the convict millwright Wilkinson was preparing his new mill with as much expedition as he could use; and John Baughan, an ingenious man, formerly a convict, had undertaken to build another mill upon a construction somewhat different from that of Wilkinson's, in which he was assisted by some artificers of the regiment. Both these mills were to be erected on the open spot of ground formerly used as a parade by the marine battalion.
Short as was the quantity of flour in store, we did not, however, despair of being able to issue some meal of this season's growth before it could be entirely expended. About the middle of the month, the wheat that was sown in April last, about ninety acres, being perfectly ripe, the harvest commenced, and from that quantity of ground it was calculated that upwards of twenty-two bushels an acre would be received. Most of the settlers had also begun to reap; and they, as well as others who had grown that grain, were informed, that 'Wheat properly dried and cleaned would be received at Sydney by the commissary at ten shillings the bushel; but that none could be purchased from any other persons than those who had grown it on their own farms; neither could any be taken into the stores at Parramatta.'
The precaution of receiving wheat only from those persons who had raised it on their own farms was intended to prevent the petty and rascally traffic which would otherwise have been carried on between free people off the stores and persons who might employ them to sell the fruits of their depredations on the public and other grounds.
December.] Early in this month a criminal court was assembled, at which Charles Williams, a boy of fourteen years of age, and John Bevan, a notorious offender, though also very young, were tried for breaking into a house at Toongabbie; but, for want of evidence, were acquitted. John Crow was also tried for the burglary in the hut at Parramatta, out of which he had stolen a quantity of wearing apparel and provisions; and, being clearly convicted, he received sentence of death.
An idea very generally prevailed among the ignorant part of the convicts, that the lieutenant-governor was not authorised to cause a sentence of death to be carried into execution, a notion that was in their minds confirmed by the mercy which he had extended to Samuel Wright, who was pardoned by him in July. It became, therefore, absolutely necessary, for their own sakes, to let them see that he was not only possessed of the power, but that he would also exercise it. On this account the prisoner, after petitioning more than once for a respite, which he received, was executed on Tuesday the 10th, eight days after his trial. There did not exist in the colony at this time a fitter object for example than John Crow. Unfortunately, the poor wretch to his last moment cherished the idea that he should not suffer; and consequently could have been but ill prepared for the change he was about to experience. He had endeavoured to effect his escape by jumping down a privy a few hours before his execution; and it was afterwards found, that he had with much ingenuity removed some bricks in the wall of the hole in which he was confined, whence, had he obtained the respite of another day, he would easily have escaped.
Independent of the consideration that this man had long been a proper object of severe punishment, to have pardoned him (even on any condition) would only have tended to strengthen the supposition that the lieutenant-governor had not the power of life and death; and many daring burglaries and other enormities would have followed. Crow pretended that he was in the secret respecting the watches which were stolen from the hospital in October last; but all that he knew amounted to nothing that could lead to a discovery either of them or of the thief. He did not appear to be at all commiserated or regretted by any of his fellow prisoners; a certain proof of the absence of every good quality in his character.
In the night of the 6th, during a violent storm of rain and thunder, a long-boat, which had arrived in the evening from Parramatta with grain for the next day's serving, and was then lying at the wharf on the west side under the care of a sentinel, filled with the quantity of water which ran from the wharf, and sunk. By this accident two hundred and eighty bushels of Indian corn in cob, and a few bushels of wheaten meal, were totally lost. The natives who could dive availed themselves of the circumstance, and recovered a great quantity of the corn, of which they were very fond. The boats were not injured.
Sudden storms of this kind were frequent; and gusts of wind have been so sudden and violent, that ships, loosely moored, have driven at their anchors in the cove.
On Saturday the 7th a change took place in the ration; this was, the discontinuing of the three pints of peas which were served to the civil and military, and the three pints of gram which were served to the convicts, and giving them instead an equal quantity of wheat.
Notwithstanding every supply of flour which had been purchased, or received into the store from England, it was at length entirely exhausted; the civil and military receiving the last on Monday the 9th. This total deprivation of so valuable, so essential an article in the food of man happened, fortunately, at a season when its place could in some measure be supplied immediately, the harvest having been all safely got in at Toongabbie by the beginning of this month. About the middle of it, eight hundred bushels were threshed out, and on Monday the 16th the civil and military received each seven pounds of wheat coarsely ground at the mill at Parramatta. This mill, from the brittleness of the timber with which it was constructed, was found to be unequal to the consumption of the settlements. The cogs frequently broke, and hence it was not of any very great utility. To remedy this inconvenience, a convict blacksmith undertook to produce one iron hand-mill each week, for which he was to be paid at the rate of two guineas; and by his means several mills were distributed in the settlements.
The salt meat being the next article which threatened a speedy expenditure, on Saturday the 28th one pound was taken from the weekly allowance of beef; and but a small quantity of Indian corn remaining in store, the male convicts received eight pounds of new wheat, whole; and only three pounds of Indian corn, or paddy, were served.
On Christmas day, the Reverend Mr. Johnson preached to between thirty and forty persons only, though on a provision day some four or five hundred heads were seen waiting round the storehouse doors. The evening produced a watchhouse full of prisoners; several were afterwards punished, among whom were some servants for stealing liquor from an officer.
The passion for liquor was so predominant among the people, that it operated like a mania, there being nothing which they would not risk to obtain it: and while spirits were to be had, those who did any extra labour refused to be paid in money, or any other article than spirits, which were now, from their scarcity, sold at six shillings per bottle. Webb, the settler near Parramatta, having procured a small still from England, found it more advantageous to draw an ardent diabolical spirit from his wheat, than to send it to the store and receive ten shillings per bushel from the commissary. From one bushel of wheat he obtained nearly five quarts of spirit, which he sold or paid in exchange for labour at five and six shillings per quart.
McDonald, a settler at the Field of Mars, made a different and a better use of the produce of his farm. Having a mill, he ground and dressed his wheat, and sold it to a baker at Sydney at fourpence per pound, procuring forty-four pounds of good flour from a bushel of wheat, which was taken at fifty-nine pounds. This person also killed a wether sheep (the produce of what had been given to him by Governor Phillip) at Christmas, and sold it at two shillings per pound, each quarter weighing about fifteen pounds.
The town of Sydney had this year increased considerably; not fewer than one hundred and sixty huts, beside five barracks, having been added since the departure of Governor Phillip. Some of these huts were large, and to each of them upwards of fourteen hundred bricks were allowed for a chimney and floor. These huts extended nearly to the brickfields, whence others were building to meet them, and thus to unite that district with the town.
About the latter end of the month a large party of the natives attacked some settlers who were returning from Parramatta to Toongabbie, and took from them all the provisions which they had just received from the store. By flying immediately into the woods, they eluded all pursuit and search. They were of the Hunter's or Woodman's tribe, people who seldom came among us, and who consequently were little known.
The natives who lived about Sydney appeared to place the utmost confidence in us, choosing a clear spot between the town and the brickfield for the performance of any of their rites and ceremonies; and for three evenings the town had been amused with one of their spectacles, which might properly have been denominated a tragedy, for it was attended with a great effusion of blood. It appeared from the best account we could procure, that one or more murders having been committed in the night, the assassins, who were immediately known, were compelled, according to the custom of the country, to meet the relations of the deceased, who were to avenge their deaths by throwing spears, and drawing blood for blood. One native of the tribe of Cammerray, a very fine fellow named Carradah*, who had stabbed another in the night, but not mortally, was obliged to stand for two evenings exposed to the spears not only of the man whom he had wounded, but of several other natives. He was suffered indeed to cover himself with a bark shield, and behaved with the greatest courage and resolution. Whether his principal adversary (the wounded man) found that he possessed too much defensive skill to admit of his wounding him, or whether it was a necessary part of his punishment, was not known with any certainty; but on the second day that Carradah had been opposed to him and his party, after having received several of their spears on his shield, without sustaining any injury, he suffered the other to pin his left arm (below the elbow) to his side, without making any resistance; prevented, perhaps, by the uplifted spears of the other natives, who could easily have destroyed him, by throwing at him in different directions. Carradah stood, for some time after this, defending himself, although wounded in the arm which held the shield, until his adversaries had not a whole spear left, and had retired to collect the fragments and piece them together. On his sitting down his left hand appeared to be very much convulsed, and Mr. White was of opinion that the spear had pierced one of the nerves. The business was resumed when they had repaired their weapons, and the fray appeared to be general, men, women, and children mingling in it, giving and receiving many severe wounds, before night put an end to their warfare.
[* So he was called among his own people before he knew us; but having exchanged names with Mr. Ball (who commanded the Supply,) he went afterwards by that name, which they had corrupted into Midjer Bool.]
What rendered this sort of contest as unaccountable as it was extraordinary was, that friendship and alliance were known to subsist between several that were opposed to each other, who fought with all the ardour of the bitterest enemies, and who, though wounded, pronounced the party by whom they had been hurt to be good and brave, and their friends.
Possessing by nature a good habit of body, the combatants very soon recovered of their wounds; and it was understood, that Carradah, or rather Midjer Bool, had not entirely expiated his offence, having yet another trial to undergo from some natives who had been prevented by absence from joining in the ceremonies of that evening.
About this time several houses were attempted to be broken into; many thefts were committed; and the general behaviour of the convicts was far from that propriety which ought to have marked them. The offences were various, and several punishments were of necessity inflicted. The Irish who came out in the last ships were, however, beginning to show symptoms of better dispositions than they landed with, and appeared only to dislike hard labour.
Among the conveniencies that were now enjoyed in the colony must be mentioned the introduction of passage-boats, which, for the benefit of settlers and others, were allowed to go between Sydney and Parramatta. They were the property of persons who had served their respective terms of transportation; and from each passenger one shilling was required for his passage; luggage was paid for at the rate of one shilling per cwt; and the entire boat could be hired by one person for six shillings. This was a great accommodation to the description of people whom it was calculated to serve, and the proprietors of the boats found it very profitable to themselves.
The boat-builders and shipwrights found occupation enough for their leisure hours, in building boats for those who could afford to pay them for their labour. Five and six gallons of spirits was the price, and five or six days would complete a boat fit to go up the harbour; but many of them were very badly put together, and threatened destruction to whoever might unfortunately be caught in them with a sail up in blowing weather.
On the 24th ten grants of land passed the seal of the territory, and received the lieutenant-governor's signature. Five allotments of twenty-five acres each, and one of thirty, were given to six non-commissioned officers of the New South Wales corps, who had chosen an eligible situation nearly midway between Sydney and Parramatta; and who, in conjunction with four other settlers, occupied a district to be distinguished in future by the name of Concord. These allotments extended inland from the water's side, within two miles of the district named Liberty Plains.
The settlers at this latter place appeared to have very unproductive crops, having sown their wheat late. They were, indeed, of opinion, that they had made a hasty and bad choice of situation; but this was nothing more than the language of disappointment, as little judgment could be formed of what any soil in this country would produce until it had been properly worked, dressed, cleansed, and purged of that sour quality that was naturally inherent in it, which it derived from the droppings of wet from the leaves of gum and other trees, and which were known to be of an acrid destructive nature.
Another barrack for officers was got up this month at Sydney; but, for want of tiles, was only partly covered in. The millwrights Wilkinson and Baughan had got up the frames and roofs of their respective mill-houses, and, while waiting for their being tiled, were proceeding with preparing the wood-work of their mills.
The great want of tiles that was occasionally felt, proceeded from there being only one person in the place who was capable of moulding tiles, and he could never burn more than thirty thousand tiles in six weeks, being obliged to burn a large quantity of bricks in the same kilns. It required near sixty-nine thousand bricks to complete the building of one barrack, and twenty-one thousand tiles to cover it in. The number of tiles rendered useless by carriage, and destroyed in the kilns, was estimated at about three thousand in each kiln, and fifteen thousand were generally burnt off at a time.
To furnish bricks for these barracks, and other buildings, three gangs were constantly at work, finding employment for three overseers and about eighty convicts.
To convey these materials from the brickfield to the barrack-ground, a distance of about three-quarters of a mile, three brick-carts were employed, each drawn by twelve men, under the direction of one overseer. Seven hundred tiles, or three hundred and fifty bricks, were brought by each cart, and every cart in the day brought either five loads of bricks, or four of tiles. To bring in the timber necessary for these and other buildings, four timber-carriages were employed, each being drawn by twenty-four men. In addition to these, to each carriage were annexed two fallers, and one overseer, making a total of two hundred and twenty-eight men, who must be employed in any such heavy labour as the building of a barrack or a storehouse, exclusive of the sawyers, carpenters, smiths, painters, glaziers, and stonemasons, without whose labour they could not be completed.
The expense of victualling and clothing these people (both their provisions and the materials for making their clothes being augmented above their prime cost, by freight and by the cost of what might be damaged and useless) must be supposed to be considerable; and must be taken into account, together with the cost of tools and of such materials as were not to be procured in the country, when calculating the expenses of the public works erected in this colony.
There died between the 1st of January and 31st of December, both inclusive, two settlers, seven soldiers, seventy-eight male convicts, twenty-six female convicts, and twenty-nine children. One male convict was executed; six male convicts were lost in the woods; one male convict was found dead in the woods; one male convict was killed by the fall of a tree, and two male convicts were killed by lightning; making a decrease by death and accidents of one hundred and fifty-three persons. To this decrease may be added, four male convicts, who found means to escape from the colony on board of some of the ships which had been here.
The following were the prices of grain, live and dead stock, grocery, spirits, etc. as they were sold or valued at Sydney and Parramatta at the close of the year 1793:
AT SYDNEY
GRAIN Wheat per bushel, for cash, 10s Ditto, in payment for labour, 14s Maize per bushel, for cash, 7s Ditto, in payment for labour, 12s 6d Caffre corn 5s English flour per lb 6d Flour of this country, for cash, 3d Ditto, for labour, 4d
VEGETABLES Potatoes per cwt 10s Ditto per lb 1½d
LIVE AND DEAD STOCK Ewes (Cape) from £6 to £8 8s Wethers (Cape) from £4 to £5 10s She goats, full grown, £8 8s Ditto, half grown, £4 4s Male goat, full grown, £2 Breeding sows from £3 to £6 Sucking pigs 6s A full grown hog from £3 to £3 10s Turkeys per couple, nearly full grown, £2 ss Ducks per couple, nearly ditto, 10s Laying hens, each 5s A full grown cock 4s Half grown fowls 2s Chickens, six weeks old, per couple 2s Fresh pork per lb 9d Mutton per lb from 2s to 2s 6d Kangaroo per lb 4d Salt pork per lb 9d Salt beef per lb 6d
GROCERIES Tea (green) from 12s to 16s Tea (black) from 10s to 12s Loaf sugar per lb 2s 6d Fine moist sugar per lb 2s Coarse moist sugar per lb 1s 6d Butter from 2s per lb to 2s 6d Cheese from 2s per lb to 2s 6d Soap per lb from 2s to 3s Tobacco per lb from 1s to 1s 6d Lamp oil, made from shark's liver, per gall 4s
WINE--SPIRITS--PORTER Jamaica rum per gallon from £1 to £1 8s Rum (American) from 16s per gall to £1 Coniac brandy per gallon from £1 to £1 4s Cape brandy per gallon from 16s to £1 Cherry brandy per dozen £3 12s Wine (Cape Madeira) per gallon 12s Porter per gallon from 4s to 6s
AT PARRAMATTA
GRAIN Wheat per bushel, for cash, 10s Ditto, in payment for labour, 14s Maize per bushel, for cash, 7s 6d Ditto, in payment for labour, l0s Caffre corn, none English flour per lb 6d Flour of this country, for cash, 4d Ditto, for labour, 6d
VEGETABLES Potatoes per lb 3d Greens per hundred 6s
LIVE AND DEAD STOCK Ewes from £4 to £10 Wethers from £2 10s to £4 She goats from £4 to £10 10s A young male goat £3 Breeding sows from £3 to £7 Sucking pigs from 4s to 7s 6d Turkeys per couple, nearly full grown, £2 2s Ducks per couple, full grown, £1 1s Laying Hens, each from 4s to 7s 6d A full grown cock 5s Half grown fowls 3s Chickens, six weeks old, per couple 2s Fresh pork per lb 9d Mutton per lb from 2s to 2s 6d Kangaroo per lb 4d Salt pork per lb 9d Salt beef per lb 5d
GROCERIES Tea (green) from 16s to £1 1s Black tea from 10s to 16s Moist sugar (coarse) 2s Butter per lb 2s 6d Cheese per lb 2s 6d Soap per lb 3s Tobacco per lb 2s Lamp oil, made from shark's liver, per gall 4s
WINE--SPIRITS--PORTER Neat spirits per gallon from £1 10s to £2 Wine of the most inferior quality per gall 16s
The high prices of wine, spirits, and porter, proceeded not only from their scarcity, but from the great avidity with which they were procured by the generality of the people in these settlements, with whom money was of so little value, that the purchaser had been often known (instead of asking) to name himself a price for the article he wanted, fixing it at as high again would otherwise have been required of him.
The live stock in the country belonging to individuals was confined to three or four persons, who kept up the price in order to create an interest in the preservation of it. An English cow, in calf by the bull which was brought here in the Gorgon, was sold by one officer to another for eighty pounds; and the calf, which proved a male, was sold for fifteen pounds. A mare, brought in the Britannia from the Cape, was valued at forty pounds, and, although aged and defective, was sold twice in the course of a few days for that sum. It must however be remarked, that in these sales stock itself was generally the currency of the country, one kind of animals being commonly exchanged for another.
Labour was also proportionably high. For sawing one hundred feet of timber, in their own time, for individuals, a pair of sawyers demanded seven shillings; a carpenter for his day's work charged three shillings; and for splitting paling for fences, and bringing it in from the woods, they charged from one shilling and six-pence to two shillings and six-pence per hundred. An officer who had an allotment of one hundred acres of land near the town of Sydney having occasion for a hundred thousand bricks to build a dwelling-house, contracted with a brickmaker and his gang, and for that number of bricks paid him the sum of forty-two pounds ten shillings. In the fields, for cutting down the timber of an acre of ground, burning it off, and afterwards hoeing it for corn, the price was four pounds. Five-and-twenty shillings were demanded and paid for hoeing an acre of ground already cleared.
For all this labour, where money was paid, it was taken at its reputed value; but where articles were given in lieu of labour, they were charged according to the prices stated.
The masters of merchantmen, who generally made it their business immediately on their arrival to learn the prices of commodities in the colony, finding them so extravagantly high as before related, thought it not their concern to reduce them to anything like a fair equitable value; but, by asking themselves what must be considered a high price, after every proper allowance for risk, insurance, and loss, kept up the extravagant nominal value which every thing bore in the colony.
Chapter XXIV
A murder committed near Parramatta The Francis sails for Norfolk Island Provisions Storm of wind at Parramatta Crops A Settlement fixed at the Hawkesbury Natives A burglary committed Samuel Burt emancipated Death of William Crozier Cook The watches recovered The Francis returns from Norfolk Island Information The New Zealand natives sent to their own country Disturbance at Norfolk Island Court of inquiry at Sydney The Francis returns to Norfolk Island Natives troublesome State of provisions
1794.]
January.] The report that was spread in April last, of a murder having been committed on a watchman belonging to the township of Parramatta, never having been confirmed, either by finding the body among the stalks of Indian corn as was expected, or by any one subsequent circumstance, it was hoped that the story had been fabricated, and that murder was a crime which for many years to come would not stain the annals of the colony. In proportion, indeed, as our numbers increased, and the inhabitants began to possess those comforts or necessaries which might prove temptations to the idle and the vicious, that high and horrid offence might, in common with others of the same tendency, be expected to exist; but at this moment all thought their persons secure, though their property was frequently invaded. On the 5th of this month, however, John Lewis, an elderly convict, employed to go out with the cattle at Parramatta, was most barbarously murdered. The cattle, having lost their conductor, remained that night in the woods; and when they were found, the absence of Lewis excited an apprehension that some accident had happened to him. His body was not discovered however until the Wednesday following, when, by the snorting and great uneasiness of the cattle which had been driven out for the purpose, it was perceived lying in a hollow or ravine, into which it had been thrown by those who had butchered him, covered with logs, boughs, and grass. Some native dogs, led by the scent of human blood, had found it, and by gnawing off both the hands, and the entire flesh from one arm, had added considerably to the horrid spectacle which the body exhibited on being freed from the load of rubbish which had been heaped upon it.
This unfortunate man had imprudently boasted of being worth much money, and that he always carried it with him sewed up in some part of his clothes, to guard against losing it while absent from his hut. If this was true, what he carried with him certainly proved his destruction; if not, the catastrophe must be attributed to his indiscreet declarations. By the various wounds which he had received, it appeared that he must have well defended himself, and could not have parted with his life until overpowered by numbers; for, though advanced in years, he was a stout, muscular man; and it was from this circumstance concluded, that more than one person was concerned in the murder of him. To discover, if possible, the perpetrators of this atrocious offence, one or two men of bad characters were taken up and examined, as well as all the people employed about the stockyard: but nothing came out that tended to fix it upon any one of them; and, desirable as it was that they should be brought to that punishment which sooner or later awaited them, it was feared that until some riot or disagreement among themselves should occur, no clue would be furnished that would lead to their detection. The body was therefore brought in from the spot where it had been concealed, about four miles from Parramatta, and buried at that place, after having been very carefully examined by the assistant-surgeon Mr. Arndell.
In tracing the motives that could lead to this murder, the pernicious vice of gaming presented itself as the first and grand cause. To such excess was this pursuit carried among the convicts, that some had been known, after losing provisions, money, and all their spare clothing, to have staked and lost the very clothes on their wretched backs, standing in the midst of their associates as naked, and as indifferent about it, as the unconscious natives of the country. Money was, however, the principal object with these people; for with money they could purchase spirits, or whatever else their passions made them covet, and the colony could furnish. They have been seen playing at their favourite games cribbage and all-fours, for six, eight, and ten dollars each game; and those who were not expert at these, instead of pence, tossed up for dollars. Their meetings were scenes of quarrelling, swearing, and every profaneness that might be expected from the dissolute manners of the people who composed them; and to this improper practice must undoubtedly be attributed most of the vices that existed in the colony, pilferings, garden-robberies, burglaries, profanation of the Sabbath, and murder.
On the 5th the Francis sailed for Norfolk Island. The last accounts from thence were dated in March 1793; and as we were uncertain that the supplies which had been sent in the April following by Mr. Bampton had been safely landed, we became extremely anxious to learn the exact state of the settlement there. This information was all the advantage that was expected to be derived from the voyage; for, whatever Mr. King's wants might be, the stores at Sydney were incapable of alleviating them. Little apprehension was however entertained of his being in any need of supplies, as, at the date of his last letter, he reckoned that his crops of wheat and maize would produce more grain than would be sufficient for twelve months consumption.
At this time, an account of the salt provisions remaining in store at Sydney and Parramatta being taken, it appeared, that there were sufficient for only ten weeks at the ration then issued, viz three pounds per man per week. In this situation, every addition that could be made to the ration was eagerly sought after. Wheat was paid to the industrious in exchange for labour; and those who were allowed to subsist independent of the public stores availed themselves of that indulgence to its fullest extent. It might therefore have been expected, that every advantage was taken of such a situation, and that no opportunity would be lost from which any profit could be derived. As an instance of this, one Lane, a person who had been a convict, and who was allowed to support himself how he could, was detected in buying a kangaroo of a man employed by an officer to shoot for him. The game-killer, with the assistance of six or seven greyhounds, had killed three kangaroos, two of which he brought in; the third he sold or lent to Lane, but said he had cut it up for his dogs.
As most of the officers in the colony were allowed people to shoot for them, it became necessary to make some example of the man who bought, rather than of him who sold; for it was a maxim pretty generally adopted, that the receiver was more culpable than the thief. The lieutenant-governor, therefore, ordered Lane to be punished with one hundred lashes, placed upon the commissary's books for provisions, and sent up to labour at Toongabbie.
About the middle of the month one small cow and a Bengal steer, both private property, were killed, and issued to the non-commissioned officers and privates of two companies of the New South Wales corps. This was but the third time that fresh beef had been tasted by the colonists of this country; once, it may be remembered, in the year 1788, and a second time when the lieutenant-governor and the officers of the settlement were entertained by the Spanish captains. At that time however, had we not been informed that we were eating beef, we should never have discovered it by the flavour; and it certainly happened to more than one Englishman that day, to eat his favourite viand without recognising the taste.*
[* We understood that the Spanish mode of roasting beef, or mutton, was, first to boil and then to brown the joint before the fire.]
The beef that was killed at this time was deemed worth eighteen-pence per pound, and at that price was sold to the soldiers. The two animals together weighed three hundred and seventy-two pounds.
About this time accounts were received from Parramatta of an uncommon storm of wind, accompanied with rain, having occurred there. In its violence it bordered on a hurricane, running in a vein, and in a direction from east to west. The west end of the governor's hut was injured, the paling round some farms which lay in its passage were levelled, and a great deal of Indian corn was much damaged. It was not however felt at Sydney, nor, fortunately, at Toongabbie; and was but of short duration; but the rain was represented as having been very heavy. The climate was well known to be subject to sudden gusts of wind and changes of weather; but nothing of this violence had been before experienced within our knowledge.
It was found that the settlers, notwithstanding the plentiful crops which in general they might be said to have gathered, gave no assistance to government by sending any into store. Some small quantity (about one hundred and sixty bushels) indeed had been received; but nothing equal either to the wants or expectations of government. They appeared to be most sedulously endeavouring to get rid of their grain in any way they could; some by brewing and distilling it; some by baking it into bread, and indulging their own propensities in eating; others by paying debts contracted by gaming. Even the farms themselves were pledged and lost in this way; those very farms which undoubtedly were capable of furnishing them with an honest comfortable maintenance for life.
No regular account had been obtained of what these farms had produced; but it was pretty well ascertained, that their crops had yielded at the least nearly seven thousand bushels of wheat. Of the different districts, that of Prospect Hill proved to be the most productive; some grounds there returned thirty bushels of wheat for one. Next to the district of Prospect Hill, the Northern Boundary farms were the best; but many of the settlers at the other districts ascribed their miscarriage more to the late periods at which their grounds were sown, than to any poverty in the soil; and seemed to have no doubt, if they could procure seed-wheat in proper time (that is, to be in the ground in April) and the season were favourable, of being repaid the expenses which they had been at, and of being enabled to supply themselves and families with grain sufficient for their sustenance without any aid from the public stores.
The ground in cultivation on account of government, which had been sown with wheat (three hundred and sixty acres) was found to have produced about the same quantity as that raised by the settlers. Through the want of flour, the consumption of this article was however very great; and toward the latter end of the month half of the whole produce of the last season (reserving twelve hundred bushels for feed) had been issued. This afforded but a gloomy prospect; for it was much feared, that unless supplies arrived in time, the Indian corn would not be ripe soon enough to save the seed-wheat.
On the 25th, the grain from Bengal being expended, and no more Indian corn of last year's growth remaining that could be served, the public were informed, that from that time no other grain than wheat could be issued; and accordingly on that day the male convicts received for their week's subsistence three pounds of pork and eight pounds of wheat. One pound of wheat more than was issued to the convicts was received on the Monday following by the civil and military.
In this unprovided state of the settlement, the return of Mr. Bampton with his promised cargo of cattle, salt provisions, rice, and dholl, began to be daily and anxiously expected. The completion of the Britannia's voyage was also looked forward to as a desirable event, though to be expected at a somewhat later period; and every shower of rain, as it tended to the benefit of the Indian corn then growing, was received as a sort of presage that at least the seed wheat, the hopes of next season, would be safe. Some very welcome rain had fallen during this month, which considerably revived the Indian corn that was first sown, and improved the appearance of that which had been sown later.
Another division of settlers was this month added to the list of those already established. Williams and Ruse, having got rid of the money which they had respectively received for their farms, were permitted, with some others, to open ground on the banks of the Hawkesbury, at the distance of about twenty-four miles from Parramatta. They chose for themselves allotments of ground conveniently situated for fresh water, and not much burdened with timber, beginning with much spirit, and forming to themselves very sanguine hopes of success. At the end of the month they had been so active as to have cleared several acres, and were in some forwardness with a few huts. The natives had not given them any interruption.
These people, however, though they had not been heard of where it might have been expected they would have proved troublesome, had not been so quiet in the neighbourhood of Parramatta. Between that settlement and Prospect Hill some settlers had been attacked by a party of armed natives and stripped of all their provisions. Reports of this nature had been frequently brought in, and many, perhaps, might have been fabricated to answer a purpose; but there was not a doubt that these people were very desirous of possessing our clothing and provisions; and it was noticed, that as the corn ripened, they constantly drew together round the settlers farms and round the public grounds, for the purpose of committing depredations.
Several gardens were robbed and some houses broken into during this month, the certain effect of a reduced ration. One burglary which was committed was of some magnitude, and deserving of mention. A sergeant of the New South Wales corps having been on guard, on his return to his hut in the morning, had the mortification of finding he had been robbed during his absence of a large quantity of wearing apparel, and twenty-seven pounds in guineas and dollars; in fact the thief had stripped him of all his moveable property, except only a spare suit of regimentals. The hut stood the first of a new row just without the town, and ought not to have been left without some person to take care of it. The spoil, no doubt, soon passed from one hand to another in the practice of that vice which, as already mentioned, too generally prevailed among the lower class of the people in the colony.
At Parramatta some people were taken up and punished, on being detected in issuing to themselves from the stores, where they were employed, a greater proportion of provisions than the ration. This offence had often been committed; and though it was always punished with severity, yet while convicts were employed, it was likely, notwithstanding the utmost vigilance, to continue. Vigilance seemed only to incite to deeper contrivances; and perhaps, though discoveries of this practice had often occurred, yet too many had been guilty of it with impunity, and, being alarmed, had withdrawn in time from the danger.
But very few appeared deserving of confidence; for, sooner or later, wherever it had been placed, either temptation was too strong, or opportunity proved too favourable; and many who had been deemed honest enough to be trusted ended their services by being detected in a breach of that duty which they owed to the public as a return for the faith which had been reposed in them.
This perhaps was owing to the uncertainty of reward for any services that they might render while in the class of convicts. As an exception to this rule, however, must be mentioned those people to whom unconditional emancipation had been held out at the expiration of a certain period, if then considered as deserving of his Majesty's mercy as at the time of making the promise. In the hope of this reward they continued to conduct themselves without incurring the slightest censure; and one of them, Samuel Burt, was deemed, through a conscientious and rigid discharge of his duty, to have merited the pardon he looked up to. Accordingly, on the last day of the month he was declared absolutely free. In the instrument of his emancipation it was stated, 'that the remainder of his term of transportation was remitted in consideration of his good conduct in discovering and thereby preventing the intended mutiny on board the Scarborough in her voyage to this country in the year 1790, and his faithful services in the public stores under the commissary since his arrival.' Independent of his integrity as a storekeeper, he was certainly deserving of some distinguishing mark of favour for having been the means of saving the transport in which he came out at the risk of his own life.
At the end of this month nearly four hundred acres were got ready for wheat at Sydney, and every exertion was making to increase that quantity.
A large number of slops having been prepared, a frock, shirt, and trousers, were served out to each male convict at Sydney and the interior settlements. Shoes were become an article of exceeding scarcity; and the country had hitherto afforded nothing that could be substituted for them. A convict who understood the business of a tanner had shown that the skin of the kangaroo might be tanned; but the animal was not found in sufficient abundance to answer this purpose for any number of people; and the skin itself was not of a substance to be applied to the soling of shoes.
Among the number of deaths this month was that of William Crozier Cook, who expired in consequence of eating two pounds of unground wheat, which was forced, by his immediately drinking a quantity of water, into the intestines, whence it could not pass; and though the most active medicines were administered a mortification took place in the lower part of his intestines, which put an end to his life. Cook had, for a length of time after his arrival in this country, been a worthless vagabond; but had latterly appeared sensible how much more to his advantage a different character would prove, and had gained the good word and opinion of the overseers and superintendants under whom he laboured.
February.] On the 4th of this month the watches which had remained so long undiscovered were brought down from Parramatta by Lieutenant Macarthur. By a chain of circumstances it appeared that they had been stolen by John Bevan, who at the time had broken out of the prison hut at Toongabbie, and coming immediately down to Sydney, in conjunction with Sutton (the man who was tried for stealing Mr. Raven's watch in October 1792) committed the theft, returning with the spoil to his hut at Toongabbie before he had been missed from it by any of the watchmen. He afterwards played at cards with another convict, and exchanged the watches for a nankeen waistcoat and trousers. From this man they got into the possession of two or three other people, and were at last, by great accident, found to be in the possession of one Batty, an overseer, in the thatch of whose hut they, together with ten dollars, were found safe and uninjured. The dollars were supposed to be part of the money stolen at the same time from Walsh at the hospital*, with whom Bevan, some time before, had made acquaintance, winning from him not only a hundred weight of flour, which he had almost starved himself to lay by, but deluding him also out of the secret of his money, with every particular that was necessary to his design of stealing it.
[* This wretched old man did not long survive the loss of his money.]
This was the information given against Bevan by the people through whose hands the watches had passed; but as it was entirely unsupported by any corroborating circumstance, he was discharged without punishment; but Batty and another man, Luke Normington, of whose guilt there was not a doubt, received each a severe corporal punishment by order of the lieutenant-governor. In all the examinations which took place, nothing appeared that affected Sutton, farther than the unsupported assertions of one or two other convicts; but if Bevan was assisted by any one, Sutton, from his general character, having already dealt in the article of watches, was very probably his friend on the occasion
The constancy of this wretched young man (Bevan) was astonishing. He most steadily denied knowing any thing of the transaction, treating with equal indifference both promises of rewards and threats of punishment. Crow, who was executed in December last, declared a short time before he suffered, that he had been shown the watches by Bevan in the corn ground between Parramatta and Toongabbie; but as they had never been found in his possession, he resolved on obstinately persisting in the declaration that, however guilty of others, he was at least innocent of this offence; and he thus escaped this time from justice, to be led, perhaps at no very distant period, if not sufficiently warned, with surer step to the gallows that he had so often merited, and in the high road to which he seemed daily to be walking.
On the 12th the Francis returned from Norfolk Island, having been absent five weeks and three days.
The information received from that settlement was, that the Shah Hormuzear and Chesterfield arrived there from this place, on the 2nd day of May last, when, every article of stores and provisions which had been put on board of them being safely landed, both ships sailed for India on the 27th day of the same month; Captain Bampton purposing to attempt making the passage between New Holland and New Guinea, that was expected to be found to the northward of Endeavor Straits.
While these ships were off Lord Howe Island, they experienced a heavy gale of wind, in which the Shah Hormuzear lost her topmasts, and the Chesterfield was in much danger from a leak which she sprung. Captain Bampton having, in some bad weather off Norfolk Island, lost his long-boat, he, with the assistance given him by Lieutenant-governor King, built, in ten days, a very fine one of thirty-two feet keel, with which he sailed, and without which it would not have been quite safe for him to have proceeded on a voyage where much of the navigation lay among islands and shoals, and where part of it had certainly been unexplored.
Mr. King had the satisfaction of stating, that his crops had been abundant, plenty reigning among all descriptions of people in the island. His wheat was cut, the first of it on the 25th of November last, and the harvest was well got in by Christmas Day. About two thousand bushels were the calculated produce of this crop, which would have been greater had it not, during its growth, been hurt by the want of rain. Of the maize, the first crop (having always two) was gathering while the schooner was there, and, notwithstanding the drought turned out well; from one acre and a quarter of ground, one hundred and six bushels had been gathered; but it was pretty generally established on the island, that thirty-six bushels of maize might be taken as the average produce of an acre of ground.
The superior fertility of the soil at Norfolk Island to that of New South Wales had never been doubted. The following account of last year's crop was transmitted to Lieutenant-governor King:
From November 1792 to November 1793 the crop of maize amounted to 3247 bushels; wheat 1302 bushels; calavances 50 bushels.
Purchased in the above time from settlers and others, at five shillings per bushel 3600 bushels. Reserved by them for seed 3000 bushels of maize; 300 bushels of wheat; 300 bushels of calavances; and 50 tons of potatoes. Which, together with 305 bushels of maize brought from thence with the detachment of the New South Wales corps at the relief in March 1793, made a total of 10,152 bushels of maize, 1602 bushels of wheat, 350 bushels of calavances, 50 tons of potatoes, raised on Norfolk Island in one twelvemonth, on about two hundred and fifty-six acres of ground.
Of this crop, and of what had been purchased, there remained in the public stores, when the schooner left the island, forty-three weeks maize and wheat; in addition to which Lieutenant-governor King supposed he should have of this season's growth, after reserving five hundred bushels of wheat for seed, sufficient of that article for the consumption of six hundred and ninety-nine persons*, the whole number of people victualled there from the stores for fourteen weeks and a half, at the rate of ten pounds per man per week; and fifty-eight weeks maize at twelve pounds per man per week. He had besides, at the established ration, twelve weeks beef, twenty-nine weeks pork, five weeks molasses, and thirty weeks oi1 and sugar. The whole forming an abundance that seemed to place the evil hour of want and distress at too great a distance to excite much alarm or apprehension of its occurring there.
[* The whole number in the settlement amounted to one thousand and eight persons.]
The settlement had been so healthy, that no loss by death had happened since we last heard from them; and when the schooner sailed very few people were sick. There had died, between the 20th of November 1791 (the date of Lieutenant-governor King's return to the command at Norfolk Island) and the 27th of January 1794, only one soldier, forty male convicts, three female convicts, and nineteen children, making a total of sixty-three persons, in two years and sixty-eight days; and ninety-five* children had been born. Every description of stock, except some Cape sheep which did not breed, was equally healthy as the inhabitants, and were increasing fast.
[* By the commissary's books there were, on the 20th of February 1794, two hundred and fifty-four children in the three settlements here. On the 30th of January, by Lieutenant-governor King's return, there were one hundred and forty-eight children at Norfolk; making a total of four hundred and two children here and at Norfolk Island.]
On the 22nd of October the Boddingtons and Sugar Cane touched at that island, for the purpose of landing John Cole, a convict who had secreted himself on board the former of these ships. Many articles of comfort were sold among the settlers and others from the Sugar Cane.
On the 2nd of the succeeding month Mr. Raven called there in the Britannia, in his way to Bengal, to procure a supply of fresh provisions and vegetables for his people.
The two natives of New Zealand, who had been sent to Mr. King in April last by the Shah Hormuzear, having completed the purpose for which they had been sent thither, by giving such instruction in the process of preparing the flax plant, that even with very bad materials a few hands could manufacture thirty yards of good canvas in a week; and having manifested much anxiety, on the appearance of any ship, to return to their friends and native country, though treated with every attention and kindness that could dispel their fears and conciliate their good opinion; Mr. King thought this a favourable opportunity of gratifying their wishes; and that he might himself be a witness of their not experiencing on the voyage any interruption to the good treatment they had met with from every one while under his care, he determined to accompany them himself. He accordingly giving Mr. Raven the necessary order, embarked on board of the Britannia, with a guard from the New South Wales corps, and sailed for New Zealand on the 9th. Their passage thither was short; for on the fourth day, having rounded the North Cape, the two natives were landed among some of their friends and acquaintance, though not exactly at the district whereat their families and kindred resided (the Bay of islands); and Mr. King returned to Norfolk Island on the 18th, having been ten days on board the Britannia. Captain Nepean, who was proceeding in that ship to Europe by the way of India, remained on shore in the government of Norfolk Island during Mr. King's absence; but, on his return, reimbarked in the Britannia; and on the 20th of the same month she sailed on the further prosecution of her voyage.
It was not imagined that this delay in the Britannia's voyage would be of any consequence, as Mr. Raven purposed making what is called the Eastern Passage; that is, between the south end of Mindanao and Borneo; and it was known that the eastern monsoon did not set well in, nor was attended with good weather in those seas before December or January.
Mr. King found himself compelled to send by the Francis ten soldiers of the detachment of the New South Wales corps on duty there, under a charge of mutinous behaviour. A jealousy which had grown up between the soldiers and the free men, settlers and others, occasioned by some acts of violence and improper behaviour on either side, broke out in the evening of the 18th of last month, at a place in which the lieutenant-governor had permitted plays to be represented by the convicts, as an innocent recreation after labour. Mr. King, who was present, having thought it necessary to order one of the soldiers into confinement when the play was ended, the detachment repaired to their own commanding-officer, and demanded the release of their comrade. On his declaring his inability to comply with such request, they signified a resolution to release him themselves; upon which the officer remonstrated with them, and they dispersed. It did not appear that they made any attempts to release the prisoner; but on the following morning, when the lieutenant-governor was made acquainted with the above circumstances, he convened all the officers in the settlement, and laid before them what he had heard, together with an account of a determination among the soldiers, to release from the halberts any of their comrades who should be ordered punishment for any offence or injury done to a settler; all of which he had caused to be authenticated upon oath. The result of this meeting was, that the detachment should be disarmed, and that the settlers late of the marines, and Sirius's ship's company, should be embodied and armed as a militia. This resolution was accordingly put in execution on the 21st, by sending the detachment from their quarters unarmed, upon different duties; while the new-raised militia took possession of their arms. On their return, twenty were selected as mutineers to be sent to this place, the remainder returning to their duty immediately, but of that number ten were, after a few days confinement, pardoned and liberated; and two days after Mr. King had restored good order in the settlement the Francis appeared. By her he sent the ten prisoners under a guard of an officer and as many soldiers as the vessel could conveniently receive.
A court of inquiry, composed of the officers of the regiment present at Sydney, was assembled immediately after the arrival of the Francis, to inquire into the complaint which had accompanied the soldiers from Norfolk Island; when, after five days deliberation, and examination of papers, witnesses, etc. they reported, that the conduct of the soldiers, in disobeying the orders of their officers, was reprehensible; but, on considering the provocations which had given birth to that disobedience. they recommended them to their commanding officer's clemency.
On the 27th the schooner sailed a second time for Norfolk Island, for the purpose of conveying two officers of the New South Wales corps, and some non-commissioned officers and privates, in lieu of those who had been sent hither, and without whom the detachment on duty there would have been too much weakened.
The natives were again troublesome this month. Two several accounts were sent down from Parramatta, of their having attacked, robbed, and beaten some of the settlers' wives who were repassing between their farms and Parramatta; and great quantities of corn continued to be stolen by them. One of these women (married to Trace, a settler at the foot of Prospect Hill) was so severely wounded by a party who robbed and stripped her of some of her wearing apparel, that she lay for a long time dangerously ill at the hospital. It was said, that the people who committed this and other acts of violence and cruelty were occasional visitors with others at Sydney. Could their persons have been properly identified, the lieutenant-governor would have taken serious notice of the offenders.
Notwithstanding the woods were infested by these people, numbers of the male convicts, idle, and dreading labour as a greater evil than the risk of being murdered, absented from the new settlements, and, after wandering about for a few days, got at length to Sydney almost naked, and so nearly starved, that in most cases humanity interfered between them and the punishment which they merited. They in general pleaded the insufficiency of the present ration to support a labouring man; but it was well known that the labour required was infinitely short of what might have been justly exacted from them, even had the ration been much less. They mostly wrought by tasks, which were so proportioned to their situation, that after the hour of ten in the forenoon their time was left at their own disposal; and many found employment from settlers and other individuals who had the means of paying them for their labour. At this period, it was true, the labouring convict was menaced with the probability of suffering greater want than had ever been before experienced in the settlement. On Saturday the 22nd (the last provision-day in this month) there remained in store a quantity of salt meat only sufficient for the inhabitants until the middle of the second week in the next month, at which time there would not be an ounce of provisions left, if some supplies did not arrive before that period. But even this situation, bad as it certainly was, was still alleviated by the assistance that the officers, settlers, and others were able to afford to those whom they either retained in their service or occasionally hired for labour as they wanted them. Some who were off the store, and who well remembered their own distresses in the years 1789 and 1791, declared, that with a little industry, and being allowed the indulgence of going out in a boat, they could, even at this time, earn a better subsistence than if they were employed by Government, and fed from a full store. Nothing was lost; even the shark was found to be a certain supply; the oil which was procured from the liver was sold at one shilling the quart, and but very few houses in the colony were fortunate enough to enjoy the pleasant light of a candle.
The seed-wheat as yet escaped, and might remain untouched for another fortnight. The Indian corn was ripening; and it was hoped, that by making some little deduction from the wheat, it would be ready in time to save all the seed that had been reserved for the next season. To lose the seed-wheat would be to repel every advance which had been made toward supporting ourselves, and to crush every hope of independence. All that had been done in cultivation, every acre which was preparing for the ensuing crop, would long have remained a memorial of our distress; and where existed the mind that could have returned to the labour of the field with that cheerful spirit or energy that would have been necessary to ensure future success?
The watch at Parramatta, under the direction of Barrington the constable, ever on the look-out for the murderers of Lewis, detected a man of bad character in offering a dollar in payment for some article that he had purchased, and which dollar appeared to have been buried in the ground. He had been taken up before, and on searching him at that time was not in possession of any money. As nothing more, however, than this circumstance was adduced against him, he was discharged, it being admitted that he might have earned something since that time by his labour.
The foundation of a second barrack for soldiers at Sydney was begun in the latter part of this month; and Baughan's mill-house was covered in with tiles.
Mutton was this month sold for one shilling and nine-pence per pound. The Bengal sheep, by crossing the breed with the Cape ram, were found to improve considerably in appearance and size.
Chapter XXV
Alarming State of the provisions The William arrives with supplies from England, and the Arthur from Bengal The amor patriae natural to man in all parts of the earth Information Mr. Bampton Captain Bligh Admiral Barrington transport lost Full ration issued Ingratitude and just punishment of the settlers Buffin's corn-mill set to work Gaming Honesty of a native The Daedalus arrives from America Information Female inconstancy, and its consequences The Arthur sails The Francis returns from Norfolk Island A boat stolen Natives killed A new mill Disorder in the eyes prevalent
March.] To save as much of the seed-wheat as possible, a deduction of two pounds was made in the allowance of that article which was served to the convicts on Saturday the first of the month. The provision-store was never in so reduced a state as at this time; one serving of salt-meat alone remained, and that was to be the food of only half a week. After that period, the prospect, unless we were speedily relieved, was miserable; mere bread and water appeared to be the portion of by far the greater part of the inhabitants of these settlements, of that part too whose bodily labour must be called forth to restore plenty, and attain such a state of independence on the parent country as would render delay or accident in the transport of supplies a matter of much less moment to the colony than it had ever hitherto been considered.
As at this time the stock of swine in the possession of individuals was rather considerable, some saving of the salt provisions, it was thought, might be made, by purchasing a quantity sufficient to issue to the military at the rate of four pounds and a half to each man for the week, in lieu of the three pounds of salt meat. A quantity was therefore purchased by the commissary and issued in the above proportion, the soldiers receiving the fresh instead of the salt provisions (to which latter they must have given the preference, being able to make them go the farthest) with that cheerfulness which at all times marked their conduct when compliance with any wish of their commanding-officer was the question.
Both public and private stock appeared to be threatened with destruction. The sheep and goats in the colony were not numbered far within one thousand. The cows had increased that species of stock by thirteen calves, which were produced in the last year. The exact number of hogs was not, nor could it well be ascertained; it must, however, have been considerable, as every industrious convict had been able to keep one or more breeding sows. All this wore, indeed, the appearance of a resource; yet what would it all have been (admitting that an equal partition had been made) when distributed among upwards of three thousand people? But an equal partition of private stock, as most of this was such, could not have been expected. The officers holding this stock in their own hands would certainly take care to keep it there, and from it would naturally supply their own people. How far, in an hour of such distress, the convicts would have sat quietly down on their return from labouring in the field to their scanty portion of bread and water, and looked patiently on while others were keeping want and hunger at a distance by the daily enjoyment of a comfortable meal of fresh viands? was a question with many who thought of their situation.
Happily, however, for all descriptions of people, they were not this time to be put to the trial.
On Saturday the 8th, at the critical moment when the doors of the provision-store had closed, and the convicts had received their last allowance of the salt provisions which remained, the signal for a sail was made at the South Head. We expected a ship from India in pursuance of the contract entered into with Mr. Bampton, who had been absent from us nearly eleven months. We also looked daily for the return of the Daedalus. We hoped for a ship from England. But whence the ship came for which the signal had been made was to remain for some time unknown. One boat alone, with an officer, went down; (in compliance with an order which had some days before been given to that purpose;) and on its return at night we were told that a ship with English colours flying had stood into the harbour as far as Middle-head; but meeting with a heavy squall of wind at south, in which she split her fore-top-sail, was compelled again to put to sea. It was conjectured that she was a stranger; for if any person on board her had had any knowledge of the harbour, she might have been run with much ease from the Middle-head into safety in Spring-cove. The officer who went down (Captain Johnston) unfortunately could not board her, such a sea ran within the Heads; and the wind blew with so much violence as to render any attempt to get near her extremely dangerous.
At night the wind increased with much rain, and morning was anxiously looked for, to tell us where and who the stranger was. Nothing more however was known of her during that day (Sunday), the same causes as those of the preceding day operating against our receiving any other information, than that she was to be seen from the flagstaff, whence in the evening word was brought up over land, that another vessel, a brig, was in sight.
Anxiety and curiosity, now strained to the utmost, were obliged to wait the passing of another night; but about three o'clock on Monday the 10th, the wind and weather having both changed, to our great satisfaction we saw the ship William, Mr. William Folger of London master, anchor safely in the cove. With her also came up the Arthur, a small brig of about ninety-five tons, from Bengal.
The William, we found, had sailed from the river Thames on the first of July last, whence she proceeded to Cork, where she took on board a cargo of beef and pork for this colony*; but had not an ounce of flour. She left Ireland on the 20th of September, having waited some weeks for a convoy, (the war with France in which England was engaged having rendered the protection of some of his Majesty's ships necessary,) and made her passage to this country by the route of Rio de Janeiro. She arrived at that port on the 22nd day of November; left it the third of the following month; and made Van Dieman's Land on the second of this month. Mr. Folger reported, that his weather from the American coast to this port had been in general good.
[* She had likewise on board a machine for dressing flour; a small quantity of iron; two pairs of millstones and some tools for the smiths; all which were received in the river.]
We learned that Governor Phillip reached England in the Atlantic on the 21st of May last. That ship (which it may be remembered sailed from this place on the 11th of December 1792) passed Cape Horn on the 17th of the following January; anchored at Rio de Janeiro on the 7th of February; and sailed thence on the 4th of March; arriving in the channel without any interruption, save what was given by a French privateer which chased her when within forty-eight hours sail of the land. The natives Bennillong and Yem-mer-ra-wan-nie were well, but not sufficiently divested of the genuine, natural love for liberty and their native country, to prefer London with its pleasures and its abundance to the woods of New South Wales. They requested that their wives might be taught to expect their return in the course of this year. Had it been possible to eradicate in any breast that love for the place of our birth, or where we have lived and grown from infancy to manhood, which is implanted in us by the kind hand of Nature, it surely would have been effected on two natives of New Holland, whose country did not possess a single charm in the eye even of a savage inhabitant of New Zealand.* But we now found that in every breast that sentiment is the same; and that a love for our native country is not the result of her being the seat of arts and arms; the residence of worth, beauty, truth, justice; of all the virtues that adorn and dignify human nature; and of all the pleasures and enjoyments that render life valuable; but that it can be excited even in a land where wretchedness, want, and ignorance have laid their iron hands on the inhabitants, and marked with misery all their days and nights.
[* The New Zealanders who were brought hither in the Daedalus in April last expressed both here and at Norfolk Island the utmost abhorrence of this country and its inhabitants.]
In the William arrived an assistant-chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Marsden, to divide the religious duties of the colony with Mr. Johnson.
Had it been known on the evening of the 8th, when the report was received that the ship had been blown out to sea, that she contained so valuable a cargo as four months beef and pork (eleven hundred and seventy-three barrels of the former, and nine hundred and seven of the latter) at the full ration, how would our anxiety have been increased upon her account, particularly as it still lived in our remembrance, that the Justinian with a similar cargo, after making the North of this harbour, was blown off to the Northward, was three weeks before she regained the port, and was once within that time nearly lost in a heavy gale of wind! Had the William been blown off the coast for three weeks, how deeply would distress have been felt in these settlements!
The brig from Bengal had on board a small quantity of beef and pork; some sugar, Bengal rum, and coarse callicoes.
To the great surprise and regret of every one, it was heard from Mr. Barber the master, that at the time of his departure from Calcutta, no accounts had been received of the arrival of Mr. Bampton in any port in India.
As well at his departure from Norfolk Island, as when he quitted this place, he had expressed his resolution of attempting a passage between this country and New Guinea, in the hope of being, if successful, the first to establish a fact that would be attended with singular advantages to his Majesty's settlements in this part of the world.
Captain Bligh, of the happy conclusion of whose second voyage for the bread fruit we now heard by the William, was particularly instructed to survey the straits which separate New Holland from New Guinea. By the accounts of this voyage which reached us, we found that the two ships Providence and Assistance were twenty days from their entrance into the strait to their finding themselves again in an open sea. The navigation through this passage was described as the most dangerous ever performed by any navigator, abounding in every direction with islands, breakers, and shoals, through which they pursued their course with the utmost difficulty. In one day, on anchoring to avoid danger, the Providence broke two of her anchors; and as the eastern monsoon was blowing, (the month of September 1792,) and the passage which they were exploring was extremely narrow, it became impossible to beat back. From some of the islands, eight canoes formed the daring attempt of attacking the armed tender, and with their arrows killed one and wounded two of the seamen. Some of these canoes were sixty or seventy feet long, and in one of them twenty-two persons were counted.
This account excited many apprehensions for Mr. Bampton's safety. On taking his leave of Lieutenant-governor King, he assured him that he hoped to see Norfolk Island again in November, expecting to be here early in the month of October. It was known that he had on board some articles of merchandise which he meant to dispose of at Batavia; but by accounts received at Calcutta from that place a very short time before the Arthur sailed, he had not touched at that port. It was therefore more than probable, that both the Shah Hormuzear and Chesterfield had been wrecked on some of the shoals with which the strait abounded, and that their officers and people, taking to their long-boats, had fallen sacrifices to the natives who had attacked the Assistance, by whose guns many had been wounded in their attempt to carry that vessel.
To the disappointment which the colony sustained from the failure of the contract already mentioned for cattle and provisions which were to have been brought hither by Mr. Bampton, was added the regret which every thinking being among us felt on contemplating the calamitous moments that had, in all probability, brought destruction on so many of our fellow-creatures.
Mr. Barber also informed us, that Captain Patrickson, who was here in the Philadelphia brig in October 1792, had purchased or hired a large ship, on board of which he had actually put a quantity of provisions and other articles, with which he designed to return to this country; but under some apprehension that his cargo might possibly not be purchased, he gave up the intention, and when the Arthur sailed was left proceeding to Europe under Imperial colours.
The Government of Bengal too had advertised for terms to freight a vessel for this country with cattle and provisions; but were diverted from the design by the equipment of the armaments which it was necessary to enter into at that time.
Thus had the infant colony of New South Wales still been doomed to be the sport of contingency, the jarring interests of men co-operating with the dangers of the sea to throw obstacles in the way of that long-desired independence which would free the mother country from a heavy expense, and would deliver the colonists from the constant apprehension under which they laboured, of being one day left to seek their subsistence among the woods of the country, or along the shores of its coast*.
[* It had been proposed, on the account reaching Bengal of the loss of his Majesty's ship Guardian, to raise by subscription a sum sufficient to purchase and freight a ship with provisions to this country; but, from some accident or other, this benevolent purpose was never put in execution.]
The report of the probable loss of the Admiral Barrington transport which was received here in February 1793, was now confirmed. It appeared, that after sailing from Batavia she reached so near her port as to be in sight of the shipping at Bombay, but was driven off the coast by a gale of wind, in which she was forced on shore on one of the Malouine Islands, where she was wrecked, and her crew (the master, chief mate, and surgeon excepted) were murdered by the natives. These people saved themselves by swimming to an East-India country ship which was riding at anchor near the island.
The sight of two vessels at anchor in the cove laden with provisions gave at this time greater satisfaction than had been known on any other arrival; for never before had the colony verged so near to the point of being without a pound of salt provisions. On Monday the 10th (the issuing-day to the civil and military), when all were served their provisions, there remained only eighteen hundred and three pounds of salt meat in store; and even this quantity had been saved by issuing fresh pork to the non-commissioned officers and men of the regiment on the two last serving-days*.
[* Saved on the 3rd and 10th of March by issuing fresh pork to the non-commissioned officers and privates of the New South Wales corps, their wives and children, 1803 lbs
There were issued to the above people, fresh pork, 5099 lbs
The hogs that were purchased on this occasion from individuals cost government the sum of £254 19s 6d]
In consequence of these fortunate arrivals, the full ration of salt meat was ordered to be issued; and as soon as part of the cargo was got on shore from the storeship, the deficiency on the last serving days was completed to the full allowance. The last of the wheat was served on the 17th (a proper quantity being reserved for seed) and on the next provision-day ten pounds of Indian corn were substituted instead of the allowance of wheat. Nothing but dire necessity could have induced the gathering and issuing this article in its present unripened state, the whole of it being soft, full of juice, and wholly unfit to grind. Had the settlers, with only a common share of honesty, returned the wheat which they had received from Government to sow their grounds the last season, the reproach which they drew upon themselves, by not stepping forward at this moment to assist Government, would not have been incurred; but though, to an individual, they all knew the anxiety which every one felt for the preservation of the seed-wheat, yet when applied to, and told (in addition to the sum of ten shillings per bushel) that any quantity which they might choose to put into the store should be brought from their farms without any expence of carriage to them, they all, or nearly all, pleaded an insufficiency to crop their ground for the ensuing season; a plea that was well known to be made without a shadow of truth. In consequence of this refusal, for their excuses amounted to as much, the lieutenant-governor directed all those settlers*, whose limited time** for being victualled from the public stores had expired, to be struck off the provision list, and left to provide for themselves, a very just punishment for their ingratitude; for some had been fed and supplied from the colonial stores for more than twelve months beyond the time prescribed for them when they were settled. This indulgence had been continued to them from quarter to quarter on account of bad crops, unfavourable seasons, and the reduced ration, with which all of them, more or less, had had to struggle; and every accommodation had constantly been afforded them which was consistent with the situation of the colony. It was, however, now seen, that they were not the description of settlers from whom, whatever indulgences they might receive, Government had any assistance to expect; their principal object was their own immediate interest; and to serve that, they would forget every claim which the public had upon them.
[* Sixty-three in number]
[** Eighteen months]
The small cargo of salt provisions brought by the brig from Bengal was purchased on account of Government for £307 16s; the beef at five-pence and the pork at eight-pence per pound; the remainder of her cargo was purchased by the officers of the civil and military departments. The cargo of the William, which arrived in very good order, was all landed, and the ship cleared and discharged from Government employ on the 28th.
The Rev. Mr. Marsden entered on the duties of his function the first Sunday after his arrival, preaching to the military in a barrack prepared for the occasion in the forenoon, and to the convicts at the church erected by Mr. Johnson in the afternoon.
On the day when the William anchored in the cove Buffin's new mill was completed and set to work; and Wilkinson' s was in some forwardness. At first it went rather heavily; but in a few days, with nine men's labour, it ground sixty-three pounds of wheat in seventeen minutes. It must be observed, that not any mill was yet erected in the colony whereat corn was ground for the public, the military as well as the convicts grinding their own grain themselves. Whenever wind or water-mills should be erected, this labour would be saved, and the allowance of wheat or Indian corn be issued ground and dressed.
The late distress of the colony was not found to have made any amendment in the morals of the convicts. Gaming still prevailed among them in its fullest extent; and a theft which was committed at one of these meetings showed how far it was carried. Among those who made a daily practice of gaming was one who, in his situation as an overseer, had given such offence to some of his fellow-prisoners, that a plan was formed to plunder him the first time that he should have a sum worthy of their attention. He was accordingly surrounded when engaged at play, by a party who, watching their opportunity, rushed upon him when he had won a stake of five-and-twenty dollars, and, in the confusion that ensued, secured the whole. He was, however, fortunate enough to seize one of them, with ten of the dollars in his hand, but was not able to recover any more. The man whom he secured proved to be Samuel Wright, who in the month of July last had been reprieved at the foot of the gallows; so soon had he forgotten the terror of that moment. On this circumstance being reported to the lieutenant-governor, Wright received an immediate corporal punishment.
McKoy, the overseer, confessed that gaming had been for many years his profession and subsistence, though born of honest and reputable parents; and he acknowledged, that but for his pursuit of that vice he should never have visited this country in the situation of a convict.
A better principle showed itself shortly after in Ca-ru-ey, a native youth, who, from long residence among us, had contracted some of our distinctions between good and ill. Being fishing one morning in his canoe near the lieutenant-governor's farm, he perceived some convicts gathering and secreting the Indian corn which grew there; and, knowing that acts of that nature were always punished, he instantly came to the settlement, and gave an account of what he had seen, in time to secure the offenders on the spot, with the corn in their possession.
As he made no secret of what he had done, it was apprehended that some revenge might, if they were punished, be levelled at him on a future opportunity, they were therefore pardoned; but Ca-ru-ey was nevertheless applauded and recompensed for his attention and honesty.
Among other articles of information received by the William, we were assured, that it had been industriously circulated in England, that there was not in this country either grass for graminivorous animals, or vegetables for the use of man. This report was, however, rather forcibly contradicted by the abundant increase of all descriptions of live stock at this time in the colony, and by the plenty which was to be found in every garden, whether cultivated by the officer or by the convict. A striking instance of this plenty occurred at Parramatta a few days before the arrival of the storeship, when six tons and two hundred weight of potatoes were gathered as the produce of only three quarters of an acre of ground. From the then reduced state of the stores, they were sold for fifty pounds.
Mutton was sold in this month for one shilling and nine-pence per pound.
April.] in the forenoon of Thursday the 3rd of April, the signal was made at the South Head for a sail, and about four o'clock the Daedalus storeship anchored in the cove from the north-west coast of America; but last from Owhyhee, one of the Sandwich Islands, from which place she sailed on the 8th day of February last.
Lieutenant Hanson, on his arrival at Nootka Sound the 8th of last October, found only a letter from Captain Vancouver, directing him to follow the Discovery to another port; between which and Nootka he fortunately met with her and the Chatham, and was afterwards obliged to proceed with them to the Sandwich Islands, before Captain Vancouver could take out of the Daedalus the stores which were consigned to his charge. The harbour of Nootka was still in the hands of the Spaniards, and some jealousy on their part prevented the delivery of the stores from the vessel in any of the Spanish ports on the coast.
Mr. Hanson was informed, that three natives of Whahoo (the island whereat his predecessor in the Daedalus, Lieutenant Hergest, with the astronomer, Mr. Gootch, and the seaman were killed) had been delivered up by the chief of the island to Captain Vancouver, for the purpose of being offered as an expiatory sacrifice for those murders; and that they were accordingly, after remaining some short time on board the Discovery, taken one by one into a canoe, and put to death alongside that ship by one of their chiefs. A pistol was the instrument made use of on this occasion, which certainly was as extraordinary as unexpected.
The great accommodation which those islands proved to ships trading on the north-west coast of America rendered it absolutely necessary, that the inhabitants should be made to understand that we never would nor could pass unnoticed an act of such atrocity. With this view Captain Vancouver had demanded of the chief of Whahoo the murderers of Mr. Hergest and his unfortunate companions. It was not supposed that the people sacrificed were the actual perpetrators of these murders; but that an equal number of the natives had been given up as an atonement for the Europeans we had lost.
The native of this country who accompanied Lieutenant Hanson we had the satisfaction of seeing return safe in the Daedalus. He had conducted himself with the greatest propriety during the voyage, readily complying with whatever was required of him, and not incurring, in any one instance, the dislike or ill-will of any person on board the ship. Wherever he went he readily adopted the manners of those about him; and when at Owhyhee, having discovered that favours from the females were to be procured at the easy exchange of a looking-glass, a nail, or a knife, he was not backward in presenting his little offering, and was as well received as any of the white people in the ship. It was noticed too that he always displayed some taste in selecting the object of his attentions. The king of Owhyhee earnestly wished to detain him on the island, making splendid offers to Mr. Hanson, of canoes, warlike instruments, and other curiosities, to purchase him; but if Mr. Hanson had been willing to have left him, Collins would not have consented, being very anxious to return to New South Wales.
He did not appear to have acquired much of our language during his excursion; but seemed to comprehend a great deal more than he could find words to express.
On his arrival at Sydney he found his wife, whom he had left in a state of pregnancy, in the possession of another native, a very fine young fellow, who since his coming among us had gone by the name of Wyatt. The circumstance of his return, and the novelty of his appearance, being habited like one of us, and very clean, drew many of his countrymen about him; and among others his rival, and his wife. Wyatt and Collins eyed each other with indignant sullenness, while the poor wife (who had recently been delivered of a female child, which shortly after died) appeared terrified, and as if not knowing which to cling to as her protector, but expecting that she should be the sufferer, whether ascertained to belong to her former or her present husband. A few days, however, determined the point: her travelled husband shivered a spear with Wyatt, who was wounded in the contest, and the wife became the prize of the victor, who, after thus ascertaining his right by arms, seemed indifferent about the reward, and was soon after seen traversing the country in search of another wife.
Three young gentlemen of the Discovery and Chatham's quarterdecks arrived here in the Daedalus, to procure passages from hence to England. Among them was the Honourable Thomas Pitt, who on his arrival here first learnt the death of his father, the late Lord Camelford.
Captain Vancouver not having room for all the provisions which were sent him from the public stores of this settlement, the greatest part of them were returned.
While the Daedalus was in the morning standing in for the harbour, the Arthur went out, bound to that part of the world from which she was just arrived, the north-west coast of America. Four convicts whose terms of transportation had expired were permitted to quit the colony in her. She also took away the carpenter of the Fairy, American brig, who had been left on shore dangerously ill when Mr. Rogers sailed, but who had perfectly recovered through the great attention and medical assistance which he received at the hospital.
The day following the arrival of the Daedalus, the Francis schooner returned from Norfolk Island, having been absent five weeks and one day. In her arrived the Rev. Mr. Bayne, the chaplain of the New South Wales corps, and Mr. Grimes, the deputy-surveyor of lands, with some few other passengers.
Lieutenant-governor King's second crop of Indian corn had been so productive, that he was enabled to make an offer of sending five thousand bushels of that article to this colony, if required.
The peace and good order which universally prevailed at Norfolk Island having rendered unnecessary the keeping together the settlers as a militia, they had some time before the arrival of the Francis returned to their several avocations on their respective farms.
Notwithstanding the ill success which had hitherto attended the endeavours of the Irish convicts stationed at Toongabbie and Parramatta to find a way from this country to China, a few of them were again hardy enough to attempt effecting their escape, and getting thither in a small boat, which they took from a settler, and with which they got out of the harbour in the night of the 12th of this month. They had furnished themselves with some provisions; but the wretchedness of their boat must have ensured to them the same end which certainly befel Tarwood and his companions, particularly as it blew a gale of wind the day succeeding their departure. It was at first imagined that they would be heard of at the Hawkesbury; but there could be little doubt of their having perished.
From the settlement on the banks of that river the best reports continued to be received from time to time: every where the settlers found a rich black mould of several feet depth, and one man had in three months planted and dug a crop of potatoes. The natives, however, had given them such interruption, as induced a necessity for firing upon them, by which, it was said, one man was killed.
At Toongabbie, where the Indian corn was growing, their visits and their depredations were so frequent and extensive, that the watchmen stationed for the protection of the corn-grounds were obliged to fire on them, and one party, considerable in number, after having been driven off, returning directly to the plunder, was pursued by the watchmen for several miles, when a contest ensued, in which the natives were worsted, and three were left dead on the spot. The watchmen had so often come in with accounts of this nature, that, apprehensive lest the present transaction should not be credited, they brought in with them, as a testimonial not to be doubted, the head of one of those whom they had slain. With this witness to support them, they told many wonderful circumstances of the pursuit and subsequent fight, which they stated to have taken place at least fourteen miles from the settlement, and to have been very desperately and obstinately sustained on the part of the natives. It was remarked, however, that not one of the watchmen had received the slightest injury, a circumstance that threw a shade over their story, which, but for the production of the head, would have been altogether disbelieved.
Whatever might have been the truth, it is certain that a party of natives appeared the following day about the corn grounds, but conducted themselves with a great deal of caution, stationing one of their party upon the stump of a tree which commanded an extensive view of the cultivated grounds, and retreating the instant they perceived themselves to be observed.
From the quantities of husks and leaves of corn which were found scattered about the dwelling places of these people, their depredations this season must have been very extensive.
At Sydney a large party of natives assembled for the purpose of burning the body of Carradah, the native mentioned in the transactions of the month of December last, by the name of Midjer Bool. He had been put to death while asleep in the night by some people who were inimical to his tribe; and the natives who witnessed the performance of the last rite assured us, that when the murderers should be discovered several severe contests would ensue. It was at this time that the rencounter between Collins and Wyatt took place; and some other points of honour which remained unsettled were then determined, not without much violence and bloodshed, though no one was killed.
Cropping the ground with wheat formed the general and most material labour of this month. On the public account nearly four hundred acres were so sown with that essential grain. At this time wheat bore the price of twenty shillings a bushel.
The crops of Indian corn in general turned out very productive. An officer who held an allotment of an hundred acres near Parramatta, from each acre of nineteen, on a light sandy soil, gathered fifty bushels of shelled corn; and a patch of Caffre corn, growing in the like soil, produced the same quantity per acre. This grain had been introduced into our settlement from the Cape of Good Hope by Captain Paterson, and was found to answer well for fattening of stock. No one having attempted to separate the farinaceous part of the grain from the husk, which was of an astringent quality, no judgment had been formed of its utility as a flour; but some who had ground it and mixed the whole together into a paste pronounced it to be equal to any preparation of oatmeal
Wilkinson's grinding machine was set in motion this month. It was a walking mill, upon a larger construction than that at Parramatta. The diameter of the wheel in which the men walked was twenty-two feet, and it required six people to work it. Those who had been in both mills (this and Buffin's, which was worked by capstan-bars and nine men) gave the preference to the latter; and in a few days it was found to merit it; for, from the variety and number of the wheels in Wilkinson's machinery, something was constantly wrong about it. Finding, after a fair trial, that it was imperfect, it was taken to pieces; and Buffin was employed to replace it by another mill upon the same principle as that which he had himself constructed; and Wilkinson returned to Parramatta.
An inflammation of the eyes appeared to be a disorder generally prevalent among all descriptions of people at this time. It raged at first among children; but when got into a house, hardly any person in it escaped the complaint. It was accounted for by the variable and unsettled weather which we had during this month.
Chapter XXVI
The William sails Cultivation Excursion in search of a river A storeship arrives Captain Bampton Full ration The Britannia, Speedy, and Halcyon arrive The Indispensable and Halcyon sail The Fanny arrives from Bombay Information Two convicts executed The Hope sails
May.] Early in this month the William sailed on her fishing voyage to the coast of Peru. Mr. Folger, her master, purposed trying what success might be met with on this coast for a few weeks, it being the wish of his owners in consequence of the reports brought home by some of the whaling ships which were here in 1792. If he should be at all fortunate, he intended to return to this port with the account; it being the anxious wish of every officer in the colony to hear of any thing that was likely to make a return to the mother country for the immense sums which must annually have been expended on this settlement.
Some dispatches and returns being sent by this ship, it appeared, that here and at Norfolk Island were existing, at the latter end of last month, four thousand four hundred and fourteen persons of all descriptions, men, women, and children. Estimating the daily expense of these at two shillings a head, (a fair calculation, when every article of provisions, clothing, stores, freight of ships, allowance for civil and military establishments, damaged cargoes, etc., etc. was considered,) it will be found to amount annually to the sum of one hundred and sixty-one thousand one hundred and eleven pounds; an expense that called loudly for every exertion toward easing the mother country of such a burden, by doing away our dependence on her for many of the above articles, or by affording a return that would be equal to some part of this expence.
Separated as we were from Europe, constantly liable to accidents interrupting our supplies, which it might not always be possible to guard against or foresee, how cheering, how grateful was it to every thinking mind among us, to observe the rapid strides we were making toward that desirable independence! The progress made in the cultivation of the country insured the consequent increase of live stock; and it must be remembered, that the colony had been supplied with no other grain than that raised within itself since the 16th day of last December.
The permission given to officers to hold lands had operated powerfully in favour of the colony. They were liberal in their employment of people to cultivate those lands; and such had been their exertions, that it appeared by a survey taken in the last month by Mr. Alt, that nine hundred and eighty-two acres had been cleared by them since that permission had been received. Mr. Alt reported, that there had been cleared, since Governor Phillip's departure in December 1792, two thousand nine hundred and sixty-two acres and one quarter; which, added to seventeen hundred and three acres and a half that were cleared at that time, made a total of four thousand six hundred and sixty-five acres and three quarters of cleared ground in this territory. It must be farther remarked in favour of the gentlemen holding ground, that in the short period of fifteen months*, the officers, civil and military, had cleared more than half the whole quantity of ground that had been cleared by government and the settlers, from the establishment of the colony to the date of the governor's departure. The works of government, however vigilantly attended to, always proceeded slowly, and never with that spirit and energy that are created by interest.
[* The officers did not begin to open ground until February 1793.]
The people who were to labour for the public had in general been but scantily fed, and this operated against any great exertions. The settlers were not fed any better; and though they had an interest in working with spirit, yet they always looked to be supplied from the public stores beyond the time allowed them; and were consequently careless, indolent, and poor: while the officer, from the hour he received his grant, applied himself with activity to derive a benefit from it; and it was not too much to say, that the independence of the colony was more likely to be attained through their exertions, than by any other means. To encourage them, therefore, was absolutely necessary to accelerate and promote the prosperity of the colony.
One woman and six men, whose terms of transportation had expired, were permitted to quit the colony in the William.
Some natives, who had observed the increasing number of the settlers on the banks of the Hawkesbury, and had learned that we were solicitous to discover other fresh-water rivers, for the purpose of forming settlements, assured us, that at no very great distance from Botany Bay, there was a river of fresh water which ran into the sea. As very little of the coast to the southward was known, it was determined to send a small party in that direction, with provisions for a few days, it not being improbable that, in exploring the country, a river might be found which had hitherto escaped the observation of ships running along the coast.
Two people of sufficient judgment and discretion for the purpose being found among the military, they set off from the south shore of Botany Bay on the 14th, well armed, and furnished with provisions for a week. They were accompanied by a young man, a native, as a guide, who professed a knowledge of the country, and named the place where the fresh water would be found to run. Great expectations were formed of this excursion, from the confidence with which the native repeatedly asserted the existence of a freshwater river; on the 20th, however, the party returned, with an account, that the native had soon walked beyond his own knowledge of the country, and trusted to them to bring him safe back; that having penetrated about twenty miles to the southward of Botany Bay, they came to a large inlet of the sea, which formed a small harbour; the head of this they rounded, without discovering any river of fresh water near it. The country they described as high and rocky in the neighbourhood of the harbour, which, on afterwards looking into the chart, was supposed to be somewhere about Red Point. The native returned with the soldiers as cheerfully and as well pleased as if he had led them to the banks of the first river in the world.
An excursion of another nature was at this time framing among some discontented Irish convicts, and was on the point of being carried into execution when discovered. Among those who came out in the last ships from Ireland was a convict who had been an attorney in that kingdom, and who was weak enough to form the hazardous scheme with several others of seizing a long-boat, in which they were to endeavour to reach Batavia. A quantity of provisions, water-casks, sails, and other necessary articles, were provided, and were found, at the time of making the discovery, in the house of the principal. These people had much greater reason to rejoice at, than to regret, the discovery of their plot; for the wind, on the day succeeding the night in which they were to have gone off, blew a heavy gale; and, as there were no professed seamen in the party, it was more than probable that the boat would have been lost. The greatest evil that attended these desertions was the loss of the boats which were taken off, for the colony could not sustain much injury by the absence of a few wretches who were too idle to labour, and who must be constantly whispering their own discontents among the other convicts.
On the 24th of this month we had the satisfaction of seeing the Indispensable, a storeship, anchor in the cove from England, with a cargo consisting principally of provisions for the colony. We understood that she was the first of six or seven ships which were all to bring out stores and provisions, and which, if no accident happened in the passage, might be expected to arrive in the course of two months. The supply of clothing and provisions intended to be conveyed by them, together with what had been received by the William, was calculated for the consumption of a twelvemonth. The quantity which now arrived in the Indispensable formed a supply of flour for twelve weeks, beef for four ditto, pork for four ditto, and of peas for fourteen ditto. She sailed from Spithead the 26th of last December, touched at Teneriffe and at the Cape of Good Hope, from which place she sailed on the 30th of March last, and made the South Cape of this country the 17th of this month. Between the Cape of Good Hope and this port, the master stated that he found the weather in general very rough, and the prevailing winds to have blown from WNW to SW.
At the Cape of Good Hope Mr. Wilkinson met with the Chesterfield, which sailed hence in April 1793 with the Shah Hormuzear; and one of her people, who had been formerly a convict in this country, wishing to return to it, we now collected from him some information respecting Mr. Bampton's voyage. He told us, that the two ships were six months in their passage hence to Timor, owing to the difficulty which they met with in the navigation of the straits between New Holland and New Guinea. On one of the islands in these straits they lost a boat, which had been sent on shore to trade with the natives. In this boat went, never to return (according to this person's account), Captain Hill; Mr. Carter, a friend of Mr. Bampton's;--Shaw, the first mate of the Chesterfield;--Ascott, who had been a convict here, and who had distinguished himself at the time the Sirius was lost; and two or three black people belonging to the Shah Hormuzear. It was conjectured that they were, immediately after landing, murdered by the natives, as the people of a boat that was sent some hours after to look for them found only the clothes which they had on when they left the ship, and a lantern and tinder-box which they had taken with them; the clothes were torn into rags. At a fire they found three hands; but they were so black and disfigured by being burnt, that the people could not ascertain whether they had belonged to black or white men. If the account of this man might be credited, the end of these unfortunate gentlemen and their companions must have been truly horrid and deplorable; it was however certain that the ships sailed from the island without them, and their fate was left in uncertainty, though every possible effort to discover them was made by Mr. Bampton.
At Timor Mr. Bampton took in a very valuable freight of sandal wood, with which he proceeded to Batavia; and when the Chesterfield parted company, he hoped soon to return to this country.
In consequence of the supplies received by the Indispensable, the full ration of flour was directed to be issued, and the commissary was ordered not to receive for the present any more Indian corn that might be brought to the public stores for sale. The following weekly ration was established until further orders, and commenced on the 27th:
Flour eight pounds; beef seven pounds or pork four pounds; Indian corn three pints, in lieu of peas.
The whole quantity of Indian corn purchased by the commissary on account of Government from settlers and others amounted to six thousand one hundred and sixty-three bushels and a quarter, which, taken at five shillings per bushel, came to the sum of £1540 16s 3d.
Toward the latter end of this month, Wilkinson, the millwright, was drowned in a pond in the neighbourhood of the Hawkesbury River. He had been there on a Sunday with some of the settlers to shoot ducks, and getting entangled with the weeds in the pond was drowned, though a good swimmer; thus untimely perishing before he could reap any reward from his industry and abilities.
Several people still continued to complain of sore eyes, but the disorder was disappearing fast.
June.] The signal for a sail was made in the morning of the first of June, and was conjectured to be for one of the ships expected to arrive from England; but in a few hours word was brought that the Britannia was safe within the harbour. This arrival gave general satisfaction, as many doubts about her return had been created by some accounts which the master of the Indispensable had heard at the Cape of Good Hope, of the Bay of Bengal being full of French privateers.
On Mr. Raven's arrival at the settlement, we learned that he had been forced to go to Batavia instead of Bengal, having been attacked in the Straits of Malacca by a fleet of piratical Proas, which engaged him for six hours, and from whom he might have found some difficulty to escape, had he not fortunately killed the captain of the one which was nearest to the Britannia when in the act of making preparations for boarding him. At Batavia he was informed that his passage to Bengal was very precarious, from the number of French privateers which infested the bay, as well as the west coast of Sumatra, several vessels having arrived at Batavia which had been chased by them. Mr. Raven, therefore, determined to load the Britannia at Batavia, and, after some necessary arrangements with the governor-general and council, purchased the following cargo at the annexed prices for the settlements in New South Wales, viz
Rix dollars Stivers
250 Casks of beef--111,264¼ lbs. at 9 stivers* 20,862 2 250 Casks of pork--83,865½ lbs. at ditto 15,724 37 500 Pecols** of sugar, at 7 rix dollars 27 stivers per Pecol 3,781 12 35 Coyangs*** of rice, at 55 rix dollars per Coyang 1,925 0
[* Forty-eight stivers the rix dollar.]
[** Pecol, one hundred and thirty-three pounds English.]
[*** Coyang, three thousand three hundred and seventy-five pounds Dutch.]
To these must be added for extra boat hire. Hire of twenty black people for twenty days, and commission on the purchase at 2½ per cent. 1493 0 ---------- Rix dollars 42,786 3
The bills drawn on the treasury for this cargo bearing a premium of 16 per cent, there was deducted from the whole 6,040 0 Which reduced the total amount to rix dollars 37,746 3
£ s d Or in sterling money of Great Britain 7,549 4 3 To which the hire* of the ship being added, 2,210 7 7 ------------ The whole of the expense amounted to £9,759 11 10
[* She was chartered at fourteen shillings and sixpence per ton per month, and to be paid for two hundred and ninety-six tons, her registered measurement.]
Captain Nepean, who left this place as a passenger in the Britannia, and took with him some dispatches for government, and the private letters of the officers, left Batavia on the 17th of February last in the Prince William Henry, a fast sailing schooner, bound direct for England.
The Britannia arrived at Batavia on the 11th of February, and sailed for this country on the 10th of April following. While she lay at Batavia, the season was extremely unhealthy, and some of her people fell victims to the well-known insalubrity of the climate.
At Batavia Mr. Raven learned that the Shah Hormuzear sailed from thence for Bombay three months before he arrived there; and the report we had heard of the disaster which befel the boat and people from that ship, in the passage through the Straits between this country and New Guinea, was confirmed at Batavia. As, however, Mr. Bampton had not since been heard of, it was more than probable he had fallen a prize to some of the privateers which were to be met with in those seas.
His Majesty's birthday did not pass without that distinction which we all, as Englishmen devoted to our sovereign, had infinite pleasure in showing it.
On the 8th the Speedy, a storeship commanded by Mr. Melville, who was here in 1791 in the Britannia whaler, anchored in the cove from England, with a cargo of stores and provisions for the colony, and clothing for the New South Wales corps. Mr. Melville sailed a few hours before the Indispensable, and touched at Rio de Janeiro, whence he had a long passage of several weeks. He made the south cape of this country the 2nd instant; and arrived here in a leaky and weak condition.
Good fortune befriended us in the passage of this ship; for she ran safely through every part where there could be danger, without a gun on board to defend her from an enemy if she should have met with any.
On the 14th, a few hours after the signal was made at the South Head, arrived in the harbour the Halcyon, a ship from Rhode Island, commanded by Mr. Benjamin Page, who was here in the ship Hope at the close of the year 1792, and who had ventured here again with a cargo of provisions and spirits* on speculation.
[* Eight hundred barrels of beef and pork, American cured. About five thousand gallons of spirits; a small quantity of tobacco, tea, nankeens, etc.]
Mr. Page made his passage from Rhode Island in one hundred and fifteen days, and without touching at any port. His run from the south cape of New Holland was only five days. The ship he built himself at Providence, after his return from China in the Hope. That ship was only two months in her voyage from hence to Canton, and Mr. Page did not see any land until he made the Island of Tinian. This place he now represented as well calculated to furnish a freight of cattle for this colony.
Of the convicts that Mr. Page was permitted to ship at this port in his last voyage, William Murphy behaved so extremely ill, having more than once endeavoured to excite the crew to mutiny, that at St Helena he delivered him to the captain of his Majesty's ship Powerful, whom he found there. This proved in the event a circumstance of great good fortune to Murphy, for, being directly rated on that ship's books (his abilities as a sail-maker entitling him to that situation), and a French East Indiamen being captured by the Powerful a very few hours after, he became entitled to a seaman's share of the produce of her cargo, which was a very valuable one.
Bateman he carried on with him to Rhode Island, where he married, but had more than once exhibited symptoms of returning to habits which he had not forgotten, and which would soon bring him to disgrace in his new situation. Shepherd he had put on board a ship bound to Ostend, and spoke well of his conduct.
Captain Page at first thought he had come to a bad market with his provisions; for the day was arrived when we found ourselves enabled to say that we were not in want of any casual supplies; but by the end of the month he declared he had not made a bad voyage; his spirits and provisions were nearly all purchased by individuals; and what he at first thought an unprofitable circumstance to him (the sight of four ships at anchor in the cove) proved favourable, for the most of his provisions were disposed of among the shipping. The whole of the spirits were purchased by the officers of the settlement and of the garrison at the rate of six shillings per gallon; and afforded, together with what had been received from Batavia by the Britannia, a large and comfortable supply of that article for a considerable time.
It might be safely pronounced, that the colony never wore so favourable an appearance as at this period: our public stores filled with wholesome provisions; five ships on the seas with additional supplies; and wheat enough in the ground to promise the realizing of many a golden dream; a rapidly increasing stock; a country gradually opening, and improving every where upon us as it opened; with a spirit universally prevalent of cultivating it.
The ships which had lately arrived from England were fraught with the dismal and ill-founded accounts, which through some evil design continued to be insidiously propagated, of the wretched unprofitable soil of New South Wales. It was hoped, however, that when the present appearance and state of the colony should reach England, every attempt to mislead the public would cease; and such encouragement be held out as would induce individuals to settle in the country.
In the Halcyon arrived an American gentleman (Mr. W. Megee) in the character of supercargo. This person, on seeing the Toongabbie hills covered with a most promising crop of wheat, declared that be had never seen better in America, even at Rhode island, the garden of America; and on being shown some Indian corn of last year's growth, gave it as his opinion, that we wanted nothing but large herds of grazing cattle, to be a thriving, prosperous, and great colony, possessing within itself all the essential articles of life.
We ourselves had long been impressed with an idea of the advantage that grazing cattle would give to the country; every possible care was taken of the little that was in it, and all means used to promote its increase. One step toward this was the keeping up the price; an article by which the proprietor was always certain of making a great profit, was as certain to be taken the greatest care of, every individual possessing stock found it his interest to preserve it in the highest order, that it might be deemed equal to the general high value which stock bore.
By an account which was taken at the end of this month of the live stock in the colony, the following numbers appeared to be in the possession of government and of individuals, viz.
HORSES Mares Stallions Government stock 6 6 Private stock 5 3 Total 11 9
ASSES Male Female Government stock - - Private stock 2 1 Total 2 1
OXEN Bulls Cows Government stock 14 18 Private stock 1 7 Total 15 25
SHEEP Ewes Rams and Wethers Government stock 59 49 Private stock 257 161 Total 316 210
GOATS Male Female Government stock 3 10 Private stock 167 342 Total 170 352
TOTAL Government stock 165 Private stock 946 Total 1111
In this account the hogs (from their being so disposed as not easily to be ascertained) were not included; but they were supposed to amount to several hundreds.
As a reserve in time of great distress, when alone it could be made use of, this stock was, when compared with our numbers, no very great dependance; but it was every thing as a stock to breed from, and well deserving of attention to cherish it and promote its increase.
On the last day of the month the Francis schooner sailed for Norfolk Island, whither she was sent merely to apprise Mr. King that the Daedalus would be dispatched to him immediately after the return of the schooner, with such stores and provisions as he should require.
During this month the house of the Rev. Mr. Johnson was broken into at night, and robbed of sugar, coffee, arrack, Russia sheeting, and other articles to a large amount. There was little doubt but that some of his own people had either committed the burglary, or had given information to others how and when it might be committed, as the part of the house broken into was that which Mr. Johnson had applied to a store-room. Several people were taken up, and some of the articles found concealed in the woods; but those who stole them had address enough to avoid discovery.
Very shortly after this a most daring burglary was committed in a house in the old marine quarters occupied by Mr. Kent, who arrived here in the Boddingtons from Ireland in August last, as agent of convicts on the part of Government. He had secured the door with a padlock, and after sun-set had gone up to one of the officers' barracks, where he was spending the evening, when, before nine o'clock, word was brought him that his house had been broken into. On going down, he found that the staple, which was a very strong one, had been forced out, and a large chest that would require four men to convey it out of the door had been taken off. It contained a great quantity of wearing apparel, money, bills, and letters; but, though the theft could not have been long committed, all the search that twenty or thirty people made for some hours that night was ineffectual, no trace being seen of it, and nothing found but a large caulking-iron, with which it was supposed the staple was wrenched off. The chest was found the next morning behind a barrack (which had lately been fitted up as a place of divine worship for the accommodation of the chaplain of the New South Wales corps), and some of the wearing apparel was brought in from the woods; but Mr. Kent's loss was very little diminished by this recovery.
In addition to these burglaries a highway robbery was committed on the supercargo of the American, who was attacked in the dusk of the evening, close by one of the barracks, by two men, who, in the moment of striking him, seized hold of his watch, and with a violent jerk wrenched off the seals, the watch falling on the ground. The place was, however, too public to risk staying to look for it; and the owner was fortunate enough to find it himself, but the seals, which were of gold, were carried off.
All these offences against peace and good order were to be attributed to the horrid vice of gaming, which was still pursued in this place, and which, from the management and address of those who practised it, could not be prevented. The persons of the peace-officers were well known to them; and, that they might never be detected in the fact, one of the party, commonly the greatest loser, was always stationed on the look-out to alarm in time.
During this month the millwright Buffin completed the mill which he was constructing in the room of Wilkinson's; and, on its being worked, it was found to answer still better than the first which he made. The body of Wilkinson, after being dragged for several days in vain, was found at last floating on the surface of the pond where he lost his life, and being brought into Parramatta was there decently interred.
Of the few who died in this month was one, a male convict, of the name of Peter Gillies, who came out to this country in the Neptune transport in the year 1791. His death took place on the morning of the arrival of the Speedy from England, by which ship a letter was received addressed to him, admonishing him of the uncertainty of life, recommending him early to begin to think of the end of it, and acquainting him of the death of his wife, a child, and two other near relations. He had ceased to breathe before this unwelcome intelligence reached the hospital.
July.] The signal for a sail was made at the South Head between seven and eight o'clock in the morning of the 5th of July; and soon after the Hope, an American ship from Rhode Island, anchored in the cove, having on board a cargo of salted provisions and spirits on speculation. This ship was here before with Captain Page, the commander of the Halcyon, and now came in the same employ, the house of Brown and Francis at Providence. Brown was the uncle of Page, between whom there being some misunderstanding, Page built and freighted the Halcyon after the departure of the Hope, whose master being ordered to touch at the Falkland's Islands, Page determined to precede him, in his arrival at this country, and have the first of the market, in which he succeeded.
This proved a great disappointment to the master of the Hope, who indeed sold his spirits at three shillings and sixpence per gallon; but his salted provisions no one would purchase.
The Hope was seven days in her passage from the South Cape to this port; and the master said, that off Cape St. George he met with a current which carried him during the space of three days a degree to the southward each day.
On the 8th the Indispensable and Halcyon sailed on their respective voyages, the former for Bengal, and the latter for Canton. The Indispensable was a large stout ship, provided with a letter of marque, well manned and armed; and had been captured from the French at the beginning of the present war. The master was permitted to receive on board several persons from the colony, on his representing that he was short of hands to navigate his ship; and two convicts found means to make their escape from the settlement. A third was discovered concealed on board for the same purpose, and being brought on shore, it appeared that the coxswain of the lieutenant-governor's boat had assisted him in his attempt; for which he was punished and turned out of the boat, such a breach of trust deserving and requiring to be particularly noticed.
By the Halcyon were sent some dispatches to be forwarded by the way of China to his Majesty's secretary of state for the home department. The day following the departure of these two ships, the Fancy snow arrived from Bombay, having on board a small quantity of rice and dholl*, intended as part of the contract entered into by Captain Bampton, who, we now learned, had arrived safe at Bombay, after a long passage from this place of between six and seven months. This vessel was commanded by Mr. Thomas Edgar Dell, formerly chief mate of Mr. Bampton's ship the Shah Hormuzear, from whom the following information was received.
[* Thirty-eight tons of rice, and thirty-eight tons of dholl. Captain Bampton also sent twenty-four bags of seed-wheat.]
The ships Shah Hormuzear and Chesterfield sailed, as before related, from Norfolk Island on the 27th of May 1793. On the 2nd of the following month a reef was seen in latitude 19 degrees 28 minutes S and longitude 158 degrees 32 minutes 15 seconds East. On the 1st of July, being then in latitude 9 degrees 39 minutes 30 seconds S and longitude 142 degrees 59 minutes 15 seconds East of Greenwich, they fell in with an island which obtained the name of Tate's Island, and at which they had the misfortune to stave a boat as before mentioned. The circumstances of the murder of Captain Hill, Mr. Carter, Shaw the first mate of the Chesterfield, and the boat's crew, were related by Mr. Dell. It appeared from his account, that they had landed to search for fresh water, and purposed remaining one night on the island to barter with the natives, and procure emu feathers from them. The day after they were put on shore the weather changed, coming on to blow hard; the ship was driven to leeward of the bay in which they landed; and it was not until the third day that it was possible to send a boat after them. Mr. Dell himself was employed on this occasion, and returned with the melancholy account of his being unable to discover their lost companions. An armed force was then sent on shore, but succeeded only in burning the huts and inclosures of the natives. At a fire they found some incontestable proofs that their friends could not be living; of three human hands which they took up, one, by some particular marks, was positively thought by Mr. Dell to have belonged to Mr. Carter; their great coats were also found with the buttons cut off, a tinderbox, a lantern, a tomahawk, and other articles from the boat, were also found; but though they rowed entirely round the island, looking into every cove or creek, the boat could not be seen. Mr. Dell was, if possible, to procure two prisoners; but he could not succeed. In the intercourse, however, which he had with them, they gave him to understand by signs, that they had killed all who were in the boat, except two: at least, so Mr. Dell thought; but if it was so, nothing could be hoped from the exception, nor could any other conclusion be formed, than that they were reserved perhaps for more deliberate torture and a more horrid end.
This island was described as abounding with the red sweet potato, sugar cane, plantains, bamboo, cocoa trees, and mangroves. The natives appeared stout, and were in height from five feet eight to six feet two inches; their colour dark, and their language harsh and disagreeable. The weapons which were seen were spears, lances made of a hard black wood, and clubs about four feet in length. They lived in huts resembling a hay-cock, with a pole driven through the middle, formed of long grass and the leaves of the cocoa tree. These huts might contain six or eight persons each, and were inclosed with a fence of bamboo. In a corner of some of the huts which they entered, they perceived a wooden image, intended to resemble a man; in others the figure of a bird, very rudely carved, daubed with red, and curiously decorated with the feathers of the emu. Over these images were suspended from the roof several strings of human hands, each string having five or six hands on it. In some they found small piles of human skulls; and in one, in which there was a much larger pile of skulls than in any other that they had visited, they observed some gum burning before a wooden image.
This island was supposed to be about eight miles in length, five in breadth, and fifteen in circumference; a coral reef seemed to guard it from all approach, except on the north-west part which formed a bay, where the ship anchored in thirteen fathoms water. Fresh water was seen only in one place.
Mr. Bampton did not arrive at Timor until the 11th of September, having been detained in the straits by a most difficult and dangerous navigation. By this passage he had an opportunity of discovering that the straits which were named after Torres, and supposed to have been passed first by him in the year 1606, and afterwards by Green in 1722, could never have existed; for Mr. Bampton now observed, that New Guinea extended ninety miles to the southward of this supposed track.
Of the two convicts taken from hence by the Shah Hormuzear, John Ascot was killed by the natives with Captain Hill, and Catharine Pryor, Ascot's wife, died two days before the ship got to Batavia, of a spotted fever, the effect of frequent inebriety while at Timor. Ascot was the young man whose activity prevented the Sirius, with the stores and provisions on board, from being burnt the night after she was wrecked off Norfolk Island, and thereby saved that settlement from feeling absolute want at that time.
Captain Dell was full three months in his passage from Bombay; during the latter part of which time the people on board suffered great distress from a shortness of water and fuel. Out of seventy-five persons, mostly Lascars, with whom he sailed, nine died, and a fever existed among those who remained on his arrival.
The people who had broken into Mr. Kent's house were so daring as to send to that gentleman a letter in miserable verse, containing some invectives against one Bevan, a prisoner in confinement for a burglary, and a woman who they supposed had given information of the people that broke into the clergyman's storeroom, which affair they took upon themselves. The letter was accompanied by a pocket-book belonging to Mr. Kent, and some of his papers; but none of the bills which were in it when it was stolen were returned.
The insolence of this proceeding, and the frequency of those nocturnal visits, surprised and put all persons on their guard; but that the enemy was within our own doors there was no doubt. An honest servant was in this country an invaluable treasure; we were compelled to take them as chance should direct from among the common herd; and if any one was found who had some remains of principle in him, he was sure to be soon corrupted by the vice which every where surrounded him.
It became necessary at length for the criminal justice of the settlement to interfere, and three convicts were tried for burglaries. John Bevan, though tried on two charges, was acquitted from a want of evidence, and others, John Flemming and Archibald McDonald, were convicted. The latter of these two had broken into a soldier's hut the night before the court sat, and at a time when it was publicly known in the settlement that it was to sit for the trial of such offenders as might be brought before it. The state of the colony called loudly for their punishment, and they were both executed the third day after their conviction. It was afterwards said, that McDonald was one of the party who broke into the clergyman's house.
Soon after these executions, Caesar*, still incorrigible, took up again his former practice of subsisting in the woods by plundering the farms and huts at the outskirts of the towns. He was soon taken; but on his being punished, and that with some severity, he declared with exultation and contempt, that 'all that would not make him better.'
[* See Chapter VII, from "Toward the end of the month, some convicts having reported . . ." et seq.]
The Hope sailed this month for Canton, the master being suffered to take with him one man, John Pardo Watts, who had served his time of transportation.
The Britannia was also hired in this month by some of the officers of the civil and military departments, to procure them cattle and other articles at the Cape of Good Hope.
During this month a building, consisting of four cells for prisoners, was added to the guard-house on the east side of the cove. This had long been greatly wanted; and, the whole being now inclosed with a strong high paling, some advantage was expected to be derived from confinement adopted only as a punishment.