An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales Volume I Part 37

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 quant.i.ty 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p a letter was received addressed to him, admonis.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+p from Rhode Island, anch.o.r.ed in the cove, having on board a cargo of salted provisions and spirits on speculation. This s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+llings and sixpence per gallon; but his salted provisions no one would purchase.

The _Hope_ was seven days in her pa.s.sage 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+p; 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 sh.o.r.e, it appeared that the c.o.xswain of the lieutenant-governor's boat had a.s.sisted 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 s.h.i.+ps, the _Fancy_ snow arrived from Bombay, having on board a small quant.i.ty 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 pa.s.sage 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+ps _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 lat.i.tude 19 degrees 28 minutes S and longitude 158 degrees 32 minutes 15 seconds East. On the 1st of July, being then in lat.i.tude 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 circ.u.mstances 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 sh.o.r.e the weather changed, coming on to blow hard; the s.h.i.+p 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 b.u.t.tons 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-c.o.c.k, with a pole driven through the middle, formed of long gra.s.s 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 circ.u.mference; a coral reef seemed to guard it from all approach, except on the north-west part which formed a bay, where the s.h.i.+p anch.o.r.ed 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 pa.s.sage he had an opportunity of discovering that the straits which were named after Torres, and supposed to have been pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sage 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.

CHAPTER XXVII

The _Speedy_ sails and returns Excursion to the western mountains The _Francis_ returns from Norfolk Island Corn bills not paid The _Britannia_ sails for the Cape, and the _Speedy_ on her fis.h.i.+ng voyage Notification respecting the corn bills The _Resolution_ and _Salamander_ arrive from England Irish prisoners troublesome Gales of wind Natives _Daedalus_ sails for Norfolk Island Emanc.i.p.ations _The Fancy_ sails A death Bevan executed A settler murdered at Parramatta The _Mercury_ arrives Spanish s.h.i.+ps Emanc.i.p.ation Settlers and natives Civil Court The _Surprize_ arrives Deaths _Resolution_ and _Salamander_ sail Transactions The _Daedalus_ returns from Norfolk Island The _Mercury_ sails for America The Lieutenant-Governor leaves the Settlement The _Daedalus_ sails for England, and the _Surprize_ for Bengal The Experiment arrives Captain Paterson a.s.sumes the government _pro tempore_ Ration Deaths in 1794

August.] Mr. Melville sailed on his intended fis.h.i.+ng voyage on the second of this month. He talked of returning in about fourteen days, during which time he meant to visit Jervis and Bateman Bays to the southward, as well as to try once more what fortune might attend him as a whaler upon the coast. He returned, however, on the 8th, without having seen a fish, or visited either of the bays, having experienced a constant and heavy gale of wind at ESE since he left the port, which forced him to sail under a reefed foresail during the whole of its continuance.

In the evening of the day on which he sailed hence, the people at the South Head made the signal for a sail; but it was imagined, that as they had lost sight of the _Speedy_ in the morning, they had perhaps seen her again in the evening on another tack, as the wind had s.h.i.+fted. But when this was mentioned to Mr. Melville at his return, he said that it was not possible for the _Speedy_ to have been seen in the evening of the day she sailed, as she stood right off the land; and he added, that he himself, in the close of the evening, imagined he saw a sail off Botany Bay. No s.h.i.+p, however, making her appearance during the month, it was generally supposed that the people at the Look-out must have been mistaken.

A pa.s.sage over the inland mountains which form the western boundary of the county of c.u.mberland being deemed practicable, Henry Hacking, a seaman (formerly quarter-master in the _Sirius_, but left here from the _Royal Admiral_), set off on the 20th of the month, with a companion or two, determined to try it. On the 27th they returned with an account of their having penetrated twenty miles further inland than any other European. Hacking reported, that on reaching the mountains, his further route lay over eighteen or nineteen ridges of high rocks; and that when he halted, determined to return, he still had in view before him the same wild and inaccessible kind of country. The summits of these rocks were of iron stone, large fragments of which had covered the intermediate valleys, in which water of a reddish tinge was observed to stagnate in many spots. The soil midway up the ascent appeared good, and afforded shelter and food for several red kangaroos. The ground every where bore signs of being frequently visited by high winds; for on the sides exposed to the south and south-east it was strewed with the trunks of large trees. They saw but one native in this desolate region, and he fled from their approach, preferring the enjoyments of his rocks and woods, with liberty, to any intercourse with them. These hills appearing to extend very far to the northward an impa.s.sable barrier seemed fixed to the westward; and southward, and little hope was left of our extending cultivation beyond the limits of the county of c.u.mberland.

On the following day the _Francis_ schooner returned from Norfolk Island, having been absent about eight weeks and three days. Her pa.s.sage thither was made in ten days, and her return in thirty-eight days, having met with very bad weather.

From Mr. King we learned that his harvest had been prodigiously productive. He had purchased from the first crops which the settlers brought to market upwards of eleven thousand bushels of maize; and bills for the amount were drawn by him in favour of the respective settlers; but, requiring the sanction of the lieutenant-governor, they were now sent to Port Jackson. Mr. King had been partly induced to make this provisional kind of purchase, under an idea that the corn would be acceptable at Port Jackson, and also in compliance with the conditions on which the settlers had received their respective allotments under the regulations of Governor Phillip; that is to say, that their overplus grain and stock should be purchased from them at a fair market price.

Being, however, well stocked with that article already, the lieutenant-governor did not think himself justifiable in putting the crown to so great an expense (nearly three thousand pounds sterling) and declined accepting the bills.

Had we been in want of maize, Mr. King could have supplied us with twenty thousand bushels of it, much of which must now inevitably perish, unless the settlers would, agreeably to a notification which the governor intended to send them by the first opportunity, receive their corn again from the public stores.

Mr. King had the satisfaction to write that every thing went on well in his little island, excepting that some discontent appeared among the marine settlers, and some others, on account of his not purchasing their second crops of corn. As some proof of the existence of this dissatisfaction, one marine settler and three others arrived in the schooner, who had given up their farms and entered into the New South Wales corps; and it was reported that most of the marine settlers intended to follow their example.

This circ.u.mstance naturally gave rise to an inquiry, what would be the consequence if ever Government should, from farming on their own account, raise a quant.i.ty of wheat and maize sufficient for the consumption of those in the different settlements who were victualled by the crown. If such a system should be adopted, the settler would be deprived of a market for his overplus grain, would find himself cut off from the means of purchasing any of those comforts which his family must inevitably require, and would certainly quit a country that merely held out to him a daily subsistence; as he would look, if he was ordinarily wise, for something beyond that. It might be said, that the settler would raise stock for the public; but government would do the same, and so prevent him from every chance of providing for a family beyond the present day.

As it was desirable that those settlers who had become such from convicts should remain in this country, the only inducement they could have would be that of raising to themselves a comfortable independence for the winter of their own lives and the summer of their progeny. Government must therefore, to encourage the settler, let him be the farmer, and be itself the purchaser. The Government can always fix its own price; and the settler will be satisfied if he can procure himself the comforts he finds requisite, and lay by a portion of his emoluments for that day when he can no longer till the field with the labour of his own hands. With this encouragement and prospect, New South Wales would hold out a most promising field for the industrious; and might even do more: it might prove a valuable resource and acceptable asylum for many broken and reduced families, who, for want of it, become through misfortunes chargeable to their respective parishes.

Notwithstanding the weather was unfavourable during the whole of this month, the wheat every where looked well, particularly at the settlement near the Hawkesbury; the distance to which place had lately been ascertained by an officer who walked thither from Sydney in two minutes less than eight hours. He computed the distance to be thirty-two miles.

The weather during the whole of this month was very unpleasant and turbulent. Much rain, and the wind strong at south, marked by far the greatest part of it. On the 25th, the hot land-wind visited us for the first time this season, blowing until evening with much violence, when it was succeeded (as usually happened after so hot a day) by the wind at south.

September.] On the 1st of September the _Britannia_ sailed for the Cape of Good Hope, on a second voyage of speculation for some of the civil and military officers of the settlement. In her went, with dispatches, Mr.

David Wake Bell, and Mr. Richard Kent (gentlemen who arrived here in the _Boddingtons_ and _Sugar Cane_ transports, charged with the superintendance and medical care of the convicts from Ireland). The _Speedy_ also sailed on her fis.h.i.+ng voyage, the master intending not to consume any longer time in an unsuccessful trial of this coast. Several persons were permitted to take their pa.s.sage in these s.h.i.+ps; among others, Richard Blount, for whom a free pardon had some time since been received from the secretary of state's office.

Soon after the departure of these s.h.i.+ps, the lieutenant-governor, having previously transmitted with his other dispatches an account of the transaction to the secretary of state, thought it necessary to issue a public order, calculated to impress on the minds of those settlers and others at Norfolk Island who might think themselves aggrieved by his late determination of not ordering payment to be made for the corn purchased of them by Lieutenant-governor King, a conviction that although he should on all occasions be ready to adopt any plan which the lieutenant-governor might devise for the accommodation or advantage of the inhabitants at Norfolk Island, yet in this business he made objections, because he did not consider himself authorised to ratify the agreement.

He proposed to those who held the bills to take back their corn; or, if they preferred leaving it in the public stores until such time as an answer could be received from the secretary of state, he a.s.sured them that they might depend on the earliest communication of whatever might be his decision; and that if such decision should be to refuse the payment of the bills, he promised that grain should be returned equal in quant.i.ty and quality to what had been received from them.*

[* Governor Hunter on his arrival ordered the bills to be paid, which was afterwards confirmed by the secretary of state.]