Ration
A Criminal and a Civil Court held
Circumstances of the death of Francis T. Daveney
Salt made
Wilson, Knight, and the natives
The new mill
_Providence_ arrives from England
Four convicts brought from Port Stephens
Public labour
Storm
The _Fancy_ arrives from Norfolk Island
The _Supply_ and _Reliance_ arrive
Governor Hunter's commission read
Transactions
The India ships sail
Another arrival from England
Military promotions
Colonial regulations
The _Providence_, _Supply_, and _Young William_ sail
The _Sovereign_ storeship arrives from England
Criminal court held
Convict executed
Printing-press employed
Ration
Information from Norfolk Island
The Cattle lost in 1788 discovered
Transactions
Bennillong's Conduct after his return from England
Civil Court held
Harvest
Regulations
Natives
Meteorological phenomenon at the Hawkesbury
Mr. Barrow's death
Deaths in 1795
July.] The salted provisions being all expended, except a few casks which
were reserved for the non-commissioned officers and private soldiers of
the corps, on Saturday the 11th of the month the convicts received the
following ration:
Indian corn 12 pounds (unground);
Rice 5 ditto;
Dholl 3 pints;
Sugar 1½ pound;
being the first time, since the establishment of the colony, that they
had gone from the store without receiving either salted or fresh
provisions. On the Monday following the military received,
Salt pork 2 pounds;
Indian corn 12 ditto (unground);
Peas 3 pints;
Rice 3 ditto;
Sugar 6 ounces.
This being the state of the stores, supplies were ardently to be desired.
It was truly unfortunate, that Mr. Bampton had not been able to procure
any salted provisions at Bombay, but in lieu thereof had brought us a
quantity of rice. We now began to grow grain sufficient for our
consumption from crop to crop, and grain that was at all times preferred
to the imports from India. Dholl and rice were never well received by the
prisoners as an equivalent for flour, particularly when peas formed a
part of the ration; and it was to be lamented that a necessity ever
existed, of forcing upon them such trash as they had from time to time
been obliged to digest.
The effects of this ration soon appeared; several attacks were made on
individuals; the house occupied by Mr. Muir was broken into, and all or
nearly all that gentleman's property stolen; some of his wearing apparel
was laid in his way the next day; but he still remained a considerable
sufferer by the visit. Some private stock yards were attacked; but
finding them too vigilantly watched, a fellow played off a trick that he
thought would go down with the hungry; he stole a very fine greyhound,
and instead of secretly employing him in procuring occasionally a fresh
meal, he actually killed the dog, and sold it to different people in the
town for kangaroo at nine-pence per pound. Being detected in this
villainous traffic, he was severely punished.
A criminal court was assembled on the 20th for the trial of Mary Pawson,
a settler's wife at the river, for the crime of arson. On the trial there
was strong evidence of malice in the prisoner against the wife of the
owner of the house; but not any that led directly to convict her of
having set the house on fire. She was therefore acquitted; but the
adjoining settlers disliking such a character in their neighbourhood, the
husband, who had nothing against him but this wife, sold a very good farm
which he possessed on a creek of the river, and withdrew to another
situation, remote and less advantageous. At the same time a notorious
offender, James Barry, was tried for attempting to break into a settler's
house at the Ponds with an intent to steal, the proof of which was too
clear to admit of his escape. He was sentenced to suffer one thousand
lashes, and on the Saturday following received two hundred and seventy
of them.
On the same day a civil court was held for the purpose of granting
probate of the will of Thomas Daveney, late a superintendant of convicts,
who died on the 3rd of the month. The cause of his death was
extraordinary. He had been appointed a superintendant of the convicts
employed in agriculture at Toongabbie by the late Governor Phillip, who,
considering him trust-worthy, placed great confidence in him. Some time
after Governor Phillip's departure, his conduct was represented to the
lieutenant-governor in such a light, that he dismissed him from his
situation, and he retired to a farm which he had at Toongabbie. He had
been always addicted to the use of spirituous liquors; but he now applied
himself more closely to them, to drown the recollection of his disgrace.
In this vice he continued until the 3rd of May last, on which day he came
to Sydney in a state of insanity. He went to the house of a friend in the
town, determined, as it seemed, to destroy himself, for he there drank,
unknown to the people of the house, as fast as he could swallow, nearly
half a gallon of Cape brandy. He fell directly upon the floor of the room
he was in (which happened to be of brick); where the people, thinking
nothing worse than intoxication ailed him, suffered him to lie for ten or
twelve hours; in consequence he was seized with a violent inflammation
which broke out on the arm, and that part of the body which lay next the
ground; to this, after suppuration had taken place, and several
operations had been performed to extract the pus, a mortification
succeeded, and at last carried him off on the 3rd of July. A few hours
before his death he requested to see the ludge-advocate, to whom he
declared, that it had been told him that he had been suspected of having
improperly and tyrannically abused the confidence which he had enjoyed
under Governor Phillip; but that he could safely declare as he was
shortly to appear before the last tribunal, that nothing lay on his
conscience which could make his last moments in this life painful. At his
own request he was interred in the burying ground at Parramatta. He had
been advancing his means pretty rapidly; for, after his decease, his
stock of goats, consisting of eighty-six males and females, sold by
public auction for three hundred and fifty-seven pounds fifteen
shillings. He left a widow (formerly Catharine Hounson) who had for
several years been deranged in her intellects.
In addition to the superintendant, there died in this month a woman, Jane
Forbes, the wife of Butler, a settler at Prospect Hill, who fell into the
fire while preparing their breakfast, and received such injury that she
shortly after expired.
August.] From the scantiness of salted provisions, the article salt was
become as scarce. There came out in the _Surprise_, as a settler, a
person of the name of Boston. Among other useful knowledge* which we were
given to understand he possessed, he at this time offered his skill in
making salt from sea-water. As it was much wanted, his offers were
accepted, and, an eligible spot at Bennillong's Point (as the east point
of the cove had long been named) being chosen, he began his operations,
for which he had seven men allowed him, whose labour, however, only
produced three or four bushels of salt in more than as many weeks.
[* Having been sent out by government to supply us with salted fish, he
had some time before offered to procure and salt fish for the settlement;
but he required boats and men, and more assistance than it was possible
to supply. He proposed to try Broken Bay.]
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales's birthday was duly noticed. At
one o'clock the _Endeavour_ fired twenty-one guns.
Wilson (Bun-bo-e), immediately after his return from Port Stephens with
the deputy-surveyor, went off to the natives at the river. Another
vagabond, who like himself had been a convict, one Knight, thinking there
must be some sweets in the life which Wilson led, determined to share
them with him, and went off to the woods. About the middle of this month
they both came into the town, accompanied by some of their companions. On
the day following it appeared that their visit was for the purpose of
forcing a wife from among the women of this district; for in the midst of
a considerable uproar, which was heard near the bridge, Wilson and Knight
were discovered, each dragging a girl by the arm (whose age could not
have been beyond nine or ten years) assisted by their new associates. The
two white men being soon secured, and the children taken care of, the mob
dispersed. Wilson and Knight were taken to the cells and punished, and it
was intended to employ them both in hard labour; but they found means to
escape, and soon mixed again with companions whom they preferred to our
overseers.
About this time the natives were, during two days, engaged in very severe
contests. Much blood was shed, and many wounds inflicted; but no one was
killed. It appeared to afford much diversion; for they were constantly
well attended by all descriptions of people, notwithstanding the risk
they ran of being wounded by a random spear.
On the 26th that settlement was gratified by the arrival of his Majesty's
ship _Providence_, of twenty-eight guns, commanded by Captain Broughton,
from England. She sailed thence on the 25th of February last, in company
with his Majesty's ships _Reliance_ and _Supply_, which ships she left at
Rio de Janeiro some time in May last. We had the satisfaction of learning
that Governor Hunter was on board the _Reliance_, and might be daily
expected.
The _Providence_ met with very bad weather on her passage from the Brazil
coast, and was driven past this harbour as far to the northward as Port
Stephens, in which she anchored. There, to the great surprise of Captain
Broughton, he found and received on board four white people, (if four
miserable, naked, dirty, and smoke-dried men could be called white,)
runaways from this settlement. By referring to the transactions of the
month of September 1790, it will be found that five convicts, John
Tarwood, George Lee, George Connoway, John Watson, and Joseph Sutton,
escaped from the settlement at Parramatta, and, providing themselves with
a wretched weak boat, which they stole from the people at the South Head,
disappeared, and were supposed to have met a death which, one might have
imagined, they went without the Heads to seek. Four of these people
(Joseph Sutton having died) were now met with in this harbour by the
officers of the _Providence_, and brought back to the colony. They told a
melancholy tale of their sufferings in the boat; and for many days after
their arrival passed their time in detailing to the crowds both of black
and white people which attended them their adventures in Port Stephens,
the first harbour they made. Having lived like the savages among whom
they dwelt, their change of food soon disagreed with them, and they were
all taken ill, appearing to be principally affected with abdominal
swellings. They spoke in high terms of the pacific disposition and gentle
manners of the natives. They were at some distance inland when Mr. Grimes
was in Port Stephens; but heard soon after of the schooner's visit, and
well knew, and often afterwards saw, the man who had been fired at, but
not killed at that time as was supposed, by Wilson. Each of them had had
names given him, and given with several ceremonies. Wives also were
allotted them, and one or two had children. They were never required to
go out on any occasion of hostility, and were in general supplied by the
natives with fish or other food, being considered by them (for so their
situation only could be construed) as unfortunate strangers thrown upon
their shore from the mouth of the yawning deep, and entitled to their
protection. They told us a ridiculous story, that the natives appeared to
worship them, often assuring them, when they began to understand each
other, that they were undoubtedly the ancestors of some of them who had
fallen in battle, and had returned from the sea to visit them again; and
one native appeared firmly to believe that his father was come back in
the person of either Lee or Connoway, and took him to the spot where his
body had been burnt. On being told that immense numbers of people existed
far beyond their little knowledge, they instantly pronounced them to be
the spirits of their countrymen, which, after death, had migrated into
other regions.
It appeared from these four men, that the language to the northward
differed wholly from any that we knew. Among the natives who lived with
us, there were none who understood all that they said, and of those who
occasionally came in, one only could converse with them. He was a very
fine lad, of the name of Wur-gan. His mother had been born and bred
beyond the mountains, but one luckless day, paying a visit with some of
her tribe to the banks of the Dee-rab-bun (for so the Hawkesbury was
named) she was forcibly prevented returning, and, being obliged to submit
to the embraces of an amorous and powerful Be-dia-gal, the fruit of her
visit was this boy. Speaking herself more dialects than one, she taught
her son all she knew, and he, being of quick parts, and a roving
disposition, caught all the different dialects from Botany Bay to Port
Stephens.
We understood that Lieutenant-governor Grose in the _Daedalus_ had
reached Rio de Janeiro in eleven weeks from his sailing hence, and that
all on board were in health.
Public labour was scarcely anywhere performed in this month, owing to the
extreme badness of the weather which prevailed. The rain and wind were so
violent for some days after the arrival of the _Providence_, that neither
that ship nor the _Endeavour_ had much communication with the shore.
Accounts were received from the Hawkesbury, that several farms on the
creeks were under water; and the person who brought the account was
nearly drowned in his way over a plain named the Race-Ground. Paling
could no where stand the force of the storm. Several chimnies and much
plaster fell, and every house was wet. At Parramatta much damage was
done; and at Toongabbie (a circumstance most acutely felt) a very large
barn and threshing-floor were destroyed. The schooner had been loading
with corn at the river, and, though she left the store on the 11th, did
not reach Sydney until the 20th, having met with much bad weather. During
the storm, the column at the South Head fell in. This, however, could be
more readily repaired than the barn and the threshing-floor at Toongabbie,
which were serious losses, and had cost government a much larger sum than
the beacon.
Several of the cattle lately arrived perished in this bad weather.
To eke out the salt meat that was reserved for the military, two Cape
cows, which would not breed, were killed and served out to them during
this month.
September.] After an absence of eleven weeks, the _Fancy_ arrived on the
3rd from Norfolk Island. Her passage thither was made in six days; but on
her return she ran within one hundred and thirty miles of this port in
three or four days; yet afterwards met with contrary and heavy gales of
wind which kept her out a month. On the 28th of last month she was off
the south head of Broken Bay in a heavy gale of wind, and was, by being
close in with the land in thick weather, in extreme danger. Of a large
quantity of stock (the property of Mr. Balmain, who left Norfolk Island
to take upon him the charge of the general hospital here), but a very
small quantity remained alive after the gale.
The most favourable accounts were received from that settlement. Plenty
reigned throughout. Every barn was full. Four thousand pounds of fresh
pork having been cured, the lieutenant-governor had forty tons of salt
provisions to spare, which he offered to this colony. The wharf and crane
at Cascade were rather improved than simply repaired, and an overshot
water-mill had been erected at the trifling expence of three ewe sheep to
the constructor, which ground and dressed eighteen bushels of flour in a
day.
William Hogg, a prisoner well known and approved at this place for his
abilities as a silversmith, and an actor in the walk of low comedy, put
an end to his existence in a very deliberate manner a few days before the
_Fancy_ sailed. Spirits being in circulation after her arrival, he went
to the 'Grog-shop' as long as he had money; but, finding that he had no
credit, he could no longer endure the loss of character which he thought
attached to it; and though he did not 'make his quietus with a bare
bodkin,' yet he found a convenient rope that put him out of the world.
The 7th of September was marked by the arrival of the governor in chief
of these settlements. The signal was made for two sail between eight and
nine o'clock in the morning. The wind being from the northward, they did
not reach the anchorage until late; his Majesty's ship the _Supply_,
commanded by Lieutenant William Kent, getting in about sun-set; and the
_Reliance_, with the governor on board, about eight at night. Their
passage from Rio de Janeiro was long (fourteen weeks) and very rough,
until the ships came off Van Dieman's Land. Of our late bad weather they
had felt nothing.
Situated as the colony was in point of provisions, we learned with
infinite concern, that a storeship which had once been under Governor
Hunter's orders, had, from being overloaded, been unavoidably left
behind, and had yet to run the chance of being taken by the enemies'
cruizers; and that by the two ships now arrived we had only gained a few
barrels of provisions salted at Rio de Janeiro; a town clock; the
principal parts of a large wind-mill; two officers of the New South Wales
corps; Mr. S. Leeds an assistant-surgeon, and Mr. D. Payne a master
boat-builder.
His excellency did not take upon him the exercise of his authority until
the 11th, on which day his Majesty's commission was publicly read by the
judge-advocate, all descriptions of persons being present, His
excellency, in a very pertinent speech, declared the expectations he had
from every one's conduct, touching with much delicacy on that of the
persons lately sent here for a certain offence, (some of whom were
present, but who unfortunately kept at too great a distance to bear him,)
and strongly urging the necessity of a general unanimity in support of
his Majesty's government. He was afterwards sworn in by the
judge-advocate at his office.* An address, signed by the civil and
military officers on occasion of his return among them as governor, was
presented to his excellency a few days after his public appearance in
that important capacity.
[* Before Captain Paterson gave up his command, all the prisoners in
confinement were pardoned and liberated. Rayner, under sentence of death,
was pardoned by the governor some time after. In consequence of this act
of grace, several runaways gave themselves up.]
That he might as speedily as possible be acquainted with the state of the
colony, he ordered a general muster to be taken by the commissary,
appointing different days at Sydney, Parramatta, and the Hawkesbury, in
order that correct accounts might be obtained of the number and
distribution of every person (the military excepted) in those districts;
and he purposed in person to inspect the state of the different farms. He
recommended it to all persons who had lands in cultivation to plant with
Indian corn as much of them as might not at that time be under any other
grain; urging them, as it was the proper season, not to let it pass by,
it being an essential article in the nourishment of live stock, the
increase of which was of such importance to the settlement, that he could
not but advise the utmost care and economy in the use of what might then
and in future be in the possession of settlers and other persons.
Mr. Bampton having given his ship such repairs as he was able in this
port, the _Endeavour_ and _Fancy_ sailed for India on the 18th. He
purposed touching at New Zealand and at Norfolk Island. We found after
their departure, that, notwithstanding so many as fifty persons whose
transportation had expired had been permitted to leave the colony in the
_Endeavour_, nearly as many more had found means to secrete themselves on
board her. As she was to touch at Norfolk Island, hopes were entertained
of getting the runaways back again, as the loss even of one man's labour
was at this time an object of consequence.
As many labouring people as could be got together were employed during
the month in receiving such articles as had been brought in the king's
ships for the colony.
The weather during the month was very variable; and three women and two
men died. Of these one was much regretted, as his loss would be severely
felt; this was Mr. J. Irving, who, dying before the governor arrived,
knew not that he had been appointed an assistant to the surgeons with a
salary of fifty pounds per annum.
October.] The police and civil duties of the town and district of Sydney
were now regulated by civil magistrates. At Parramatta, Lieutenant
McArthur continued to carry on the duties to which he had been appointed
by Lieutenant-Governor Grose, the public service at that place requiring
the inspection and superintendance of an officer.
On Sunday the 4th of this month the _Young William_, the storeship whose
unavoidable delay in her sailing we had regretted on the arrival of the
governor without her, anchored safe in the cove from England, after a
short passage of four months and nine days, with a cargo of provisions
only. She sailed from Spithead in company with the _Sovereign_, another
storeship, on the 25th of May, taking her route by the way of Rio de
Janeiro, where she anchored on the 12th of July, leaving it on the 21st
of the same month; and meeting with very bad weather nearly the whole of
the voyage, she shipped great quantities of water; and, being very deeply
laden, the vessel was considerably strained.
By letters received from this ship we learned, that some promotions had
taken place in the New South Wales corps. Captain Nicholas Nepean had
obtained the commission of second major; Lieutenant John McArthur had
succeeded to his company; Lieutenant John Townson had got the company
late belonging to Captain Hill; and Ensigns Clephan and Piper were made
lieutenants, all without purchase. Messrs. Kent and Bell, the naval
agents, who left this country in the _Britannia_ in September 1794,
arrived safely in England in March last.
In consequence of this arrival the governor had it in his power to issue
a better, though not so ample a ration of provisions as he could have
desired. The supply had not been sufficient to allow him to order more
than four pounds ten ounces and two thirds of an ounce of pork, and four
pounds of flour, to the convicts. The same quantity of salt meat was
ordered for the military; but they received two pounds of flour more than
the prisoners. The other parts of the weekly ration remained nearly the
same as before, except the article of sugar, the convicts receiving six
ounces instead of one pound and a half of that article.
The report of the general muster which was ordered in the last month
having been laid before the governor, he thought proper to make some
regulations in the assistance afforded by government to settlers and
others holding grants of land. To the officers who occupied grounds was
continued the number of men allowed them by lieutenant-governor Grose; viz
ten for agriculture, and three for domestic purposes. Notwithstanding
this far exceeded the number which had at home been thought necessary,
the governor did not conceive this to be the moment for reducing it, much
as he wanted men. A wheat harvest was approaching; ground was planting
with Indian corn; not a man was unemployed; but he saw and explained that
a reduction must take place; that government could not be supposed much
longer to feed, maintain, and clothe the hands that wrought the ground,
and at the same time pay for the produce of their labour, particularly
when every public work was likely to stand still for want of labourers.
He was sensible that the assistance which had been given had not been
thrown away, and that the small number allowed by government could never
have produced such rapid approaches toward that independence which he
thought, from what he had already seen of the cultivation of the country,
was now much nearer than at his leaving it in 1791 he could have
conceived to be possible. To the settlers* who arrived in the _Surprise_
he allowed five male convicts; to the superintendants, constables, and
store-keepers, four; to settlers from free people**, two; to settlers
from prisoners, one; and to sergeants of the New South Wales corps, one.
[* Messrs. Boston, Pearce, and Ellis.]
[** Such as the marine settlers, those at Liberty Plains, and others who
never had been prisoners.]
As much inconvenience also was felt, and the end for which government
gave up the services of these convicts to individuals liable to be
defeated by their not residing at their respective farms, the settlers
were directed as much as possible to prevent their servants from having
any intercourse, particularly during the night, with the towns in their
neighbourhood; as most of the robberies which were committed were not
unjustly laid to their account.
It appeared likewise by this muster, that one hundred and seventy-nine
people subsisted themselves independent of the public stores, and resided
in this town. To many of these, as well as to the servants of settlers,
were to be attributed the offences that were daily heard of, they were
the greatest nuisances we had to complain of; and there was not a doubt
that they were concerned about this time in rolling two casks of meat
from a pile at the store in a very hard storm of wind and rain. Enough to
fill a cask was found concealed in different holes the following morning.
An indulgence had been allowed to some of the military and others, which
was now found to have produced an evil. Having been permitted to build
themselves huts on each side of and near the stream of water which
supplied the town of Sydney, they had, for the convenience of procuring
water, opened the paling, and made paths from each hut; by which, in
rainy weather, a great quantity of filth ran into the stream, polluting
the water of which every one drank. It therefore became an object of
police; and the governor prohibited removing the paling, or keeping hogs
in the neighbourhood of the stream, under penalty to the offender that
his house should be pulled down.
On the 13th, the _Providence_ sailed for Nootka Sound. She was followed
by the _Supply_, which sailed on the 16th for Norfolk Island, having on
board three officers of the New South Wales corps, and a detachment of
the regiment to relieve those now on duty there. On the 29th the _Young
William_, having been expeditiously cleared of her cargo, sailed for
Canton.
Clearing the store-ship, which was completed on the 19th, and stowing in
the public store the provisions she brought out, was the principal labour
of the month. Every effort was made to collect together a sufficient
number of working people to get in the ensuing harvest; and the muster
and regulation respecting the servants fortunately produced some. The
bricklayer and his gang were employed in repairing the column at the
South Head; to do which, for want of bricks at the kiln, the little hut
built formerly for Bennillong, being altogether forsaken by the natives,
and tumbling down, the bricks of it were removed to the South Head. A
person having undertaken to collect shells and burn them into lime, a
quantity of that article was sent down; and the column, being finished
with a thick coat of plaster, and whitened, was not only better guarded
against the weather, but became a more conspicuous object at sea than it
ever had been before.
November.] On the 5th of November, the _Sovereign_ store-ship arrived
from England; her cargo a welcome one, being provisions. Like the _Young
William_, she touched at Rio de Janeiro, and like her also had met with
very bad weather after she had left that port until her arrival; from
making the south cape of this country to her anchoring she had a passage
of three weeks. In this ship arrived Mr. Thomas Hibbins, the deputy
judge-advocate for Norfolk Island; but unfortunately without the patent
under the great seal for holding the court. One settler also arrived, a
Mr. Kennedy and his family (a sister and three nieces); and Mr. Joseph
Gerald, a prisoner, whose present situation afforded another melancholy
proof of how little profit and honor were the endowments of nature and
education to him who perverted them. In this gentleman we saw, that not
even elegant manners (evidently caught from good company), great
abilities, and a happy mode of placing them in the best point of view,
the gifts of nature matured by education, could (because he misapplied
them) save him from landing an exile, to call him by no worse a name, on
a barbarous shore, where the few who were civilized must pity, while they
admired him. He arrived in a very weak and impaired state of health. We
learned that two other ships with convicts, the _Marquis Cornwallis_ and
the _Maria_, might be expected to arrive in the course of this summer.
On the 7th, a criminal court was assembled, when the following persons
were tried; viz. Samuel Chinnery (a black) servant to Mr. Arndell*, the
assistant surgeon, for robbing that gentleman; but he was acquitted.
---- Smith and Abraham Whitehouse, for breaking into the dwelling-house
of William Potter, a settler at Prospect Hill, and after cruelly
treating the only person in the house, William Thorn, a servant)
stripping it of all the moveables they could find, and killing and taking
away some valuable stock; these were found guilty, and condemned to die:
and two settlers, and six convicts, for an assault on one Marianne
Wilkinson (attended with like circumstances of infamy as that on Mary
Hartley in April last) of which three were found guilty, and sentenced,
---- Merchant, alias Jones, the principal, to receive one thousand
lashes; the others, Ladley and Everitt, eight hundred each.
[* This gentleman had, on the arrival of Mr. Leeds, been permitted to
retire from the civil duties of the colony with a salary of fifty pounds
per annum.]
These unmanly attacks of several men on a single woman had frequently
happened, and had happened to some females who, through shame concealed
the circumstance. To such a height indeed was this dissolute and
abandoned practice carried, that it had obtained a cant name; and the
poor unfortunate objects of this brutality were distinguished by a title
expressive of the insults they had received.
On the 16th the two prisoners Smith and Whitehouse were led out to
execution. Smith suffered, after warning the crowd which attended him to
guard against breaking the Sabbath. Whitehouse, being evidently the tool
of Smith, and a much younger man, was pardoned by the governor. His
excellency, after the execution, expressed in public orders, his
hope that neither the example he had that day found himself compelled to
make of one offender, nor the lenity which he had shown to another, would
be without their effect: it would always be more grateful to him to spare
than to punish; but he felt it necessary on that occasion to declare,
that if neither the justice which had been done, nor the mercy which had
been shown, tended to decrease the perpetration of offences, it was his
determination in future to put in execution whatever sentence should be
pronounced on offenders by the court of criminal judicature.
A small printing-press, which had been brought into the settlement by
Mr. Phillip, and had remained from that time unemployed, was now found very
useful; a very decent young man, one George Hughes, of some abilities in
the printing line, having been found equal to conducting the whole
business of the press. All orders were now printed, and a number thrown
off sufficient to ensure a more general publication of them than had
hitherto been accomplished.
Some time after the arrival of the _Sovereign_ the full allowance of salt
meat was issued, and the hours of public labour regulated, more to the
advantage of government than had for a considerable time, owing to the
shortness of the ration, been the case. Instead of completing in a few
hours the whole labour which was required of a man for the day, the
convicts were now to work the whole day, with the intermission of two
hours and a half of rest. Many advantages were gained by this regulation;
among which not the least was, the diminution of idle time which the
prisoners before had, and which, emphatically terming _their own time_,
they applied as they chose, some industriously, but by far the greater
part in improper pursuits, as gaming, drinking, and stealing.
The full ration of flour was issued to the Military, on account of the
'hard duty which had lately fallen upon the regiment;' but they were
informed, that the quantity of flour in the public store would not admit
of their receiving such allowance for any length of time. Four pounds
were issued to the prisoners, and some other grain given to them to make
up the difference.
On the 20th his Majesty's ship _Supply_ returned from Norfolk Island,
having been absent four weeks and four days. She had a long passage back
of seventeen days. When Mr. Kent left the island, the lieutenant-governor
was dangerously ill with the gout in his stomach. We understood that
cultivation was nearly at a stand there. The grounds were so over-run
with two great enemies to agriculture, rats, and a pernicious weed called
cow-itch*, that the settlers despaired of ever being able to get rid of
either.
[* The Pruriens, a species of the Dolichos.]
A circumstance happened this month not less extraordinary and unexpected
than the discovery of the four convicts at Port Stephens.
The contests which had lately taken place very frequently in this town,
and the neighbourhood of it, among the natives, had been attended by many
of those people who inhabited the woods, and came from a great distance
inland. Some of the prisoners gathering from time to time rumours and
imperfect accounts of the existence of the cattle lost in 1788, two of
them, who were employed by some officers in shooting, resolved on
ascertaining the truth of these reports, and trying by different
excursions to discover the place of their retreat. On their return from
the first outset they made, which was subsequent to the governor's
arrival, they reported, that they had seen them. Being, however, at that
moment too much engaged in perfecting the civil regulations he had in
view for the settlement, the governor could not himself go to that part
of the country where they were said to have been found; but he detached
Henry Hacking, a man on whom he could depend. His report was so
satisfactory, that on the 18th the governor set off from Parramatta,
attended by a small party, when after travelling two days, in a direction
SSW from the settlement at Prospect Hill, he crossed the river named by
Mr. Phillip the Nepean; and, to his great surprise and satisfaction, fell
in with a very fine herd of cattle, upwards of forty in number, grazing
in a pleasant and apparently fertile pasturage. The day being far
advanced when he saw them, he rested for the night in their
neighbourhood, hoping in the morning to be gratified with a sight of the
whole herd. A doubt had been started of their being cattle produced from
what we had brought into the country from the Cape; and it was suggested
that they might be of longer standing. The governor thought this a
circumstance worth determining, and directed the attendants who were with
him (Hacking and the two men who had first found them) to endeavour in
the morning to get near enough to kill a calf. This they were not able to
effect; for, while lying in wait for the whole herd to pass (which now
consisted of upwards of sixty young and old) they were furiously set upon
by a bull, which brought up the rear, and which in their own defence they
were compelled to kill. This however answered the purpose better perhaps
than a calf might have done; for he had all the marks of the Cape cattle
when full grown, such as wide-spreading horns, a moderate rising or hump
between his shoulders, and a short thin tail. Being at this time seven or
eight and thirty miles from Parramatta, a very small quantity of the meat
only could be sent in; the remainder was left to the crows and dogs of
the woods, much to the regret of the governor and his party*, who
considered that the prisoners, particularly the sick at the hospital, had
not lately received any meat either salt or fresh.
[* Captain Waterhouse and Mr. Bass (surgeon) of the _Reliance_, and the
writer of this Narrative.]
The country where they were found grazing was remarkably pleasant to the
eye; every where the foot trod on thick and luxuriant grass; the trees
were thinly scattered, and free from underwood, except in particular
spots; several beautiful flats presented large ponds, covered with ducks
and the black swan, the margins of which were fringed with shrubs of the
most delightful tints, and the ground rose from these levels into hills
of easy ascent.
The question how these cattle came hither appeared easy of solution. The
few that were lost in 1788, two bulls and five cows, travelled without
interruption in a western direction until they came to the banks of the
Nepean. Arrived there, and finding the crossing as easy as when the
governor forded it, they came at once into a well-watered country, and
amply stored with grass. From this place why should they move? They found
themselves in possession of a country equal to their support, and in
which they remained undisturbed. We had not yet travelled quite so far
westward; and but few natives were to be found thereabouts; they were
likely therefore to remain for years unmolested, and securely to
propagate their species.
It was a pleasing circumstance to have in the woods of New Holland a
thriving herd of wild cattle. Many proposals were made to bring them into
the settlement; but in the day of want, if these should be sacrificed, in
what better condition would the colony be for having possessed _a herd of
cattle in the woods_?--a herd which, if suffered to remain undisturbed
for some years, would, like the cattle of South America, always prove a
market sufficient for the inhabitants of the country; and, perhaps, not
only for their own consumption, but for exportation. The governor saw it
in this light, and determined to guard, as much as was in his power,
against any attempts to destroy them.
On his return he found some very fine ground at the back of Prospect
Hill. The weather during this excursion was so intensely hot, that one
day as the party passed through a part of the country which was on fire,
a terrier dog died by the way.
Discharging the store-ship, some part of the cargo of which appeared to
be injured by the weather she had met with, formed the principal labour
of the month. On account of the small number of working men which could
be got together, the governor required two able men to be sent in for
this purpose from each farm having ten, to be returned as soon as the
provisions were stowed in the public store.
It having been the practice for some time past to shoot such hogs
(pursuant to an order which their destructive qualities had rendered
necessary in the lieutenant-governor's time) as were found trespassing in
gardens or cultivated grounds, and the loss of the animals being greatly
felt by the owners, as well as detrimental to the increase of that kind
of stock, the governor directed, that instead of firing at them when
found trespassing, they should be taken to the provost-marshal, by whom
(if the damage done, which was to be ascertained before a magistrate, was
not paid for within twenty-four hours) they were to be delivered to the
commissary as public property, and the damages paid as far as the value
of the animal would admit.
A combination appearing among the labouring people to raise the price of
reaping for a day, the governor, being as desirous to encourage industry
as to check every attempt at imposition, thought it necessary, on
comparing our's with the price usually paid in England, to direct that
ten shillings, and no more, should be demanded of, or given by any
settler, under pain of losing the assistance of government, for reaping
an acre of wheat. It was much feared that this order would be but little
attended to; and that some means would be devised on both sides to evade
the letter of it.
We heard nothing of the natives at the river; all was quiet there. About
this settlement their attention had been for some time engrossed by
Bennillong, who arrived with the governor. On his first appearance, he
conducted himself with a polished familiarity toward his sisters and
other relations; but to his acquaintance he was distant, and quite the
man of consequence. He declared, in a tone and with an air that seemed to
expect compliance, that he should no longer suffer them to fight and cut
each other's throats, as they had done; that he should introduce peace
among them, and make them love each other. He expressed his wish that
when they visited him at Government-house they would contrive to be
somewhat more cleanly in their persons, and less coarse in their manners;
and he seemed absolutely offended at some little indelicacies which he
observed in his sister Car-rang-ar-ang, who came in such haste from
Botany Bay, with a little nephew on her back, to visit him, that she left
all her habiliments behind her.
Bennillong had certainly not been an inattentive observer of the manners
of the people among whom he had lived; he conducted himself with the
greatest propriety at table, particularly in the observance of those
attentions which are chiefly requisite in the presence of women. His
dress appeared to be an object of no small concern with him; and every
one who knew him before he left the country, and who saw him now,
pronounced without hesitation that Bennillong had not any desire to
renounce the habits and comforts of the civilized life which he appeared
so readily and so successfully to adopt.
His inquiries were directed, immediately on his arrival, after his wife
Go-roo-bar-roo-bool-lo; and her he found with Caruey. On producing a very
fashionable rose-coloured petticoat and jacket made of a coarse stuff,
accompanied with a gypsy bonnet of the same colour, she deserted her
lover, and followed her former husband. In a few days however, to the
surprise of every one, we saw the lady walking unencumbered with clothing
of any kind, and Bennillong was missing. Caruey was sought for, and we
heard that he had been severely beaten by Bennillong at Rose Bay, who
retained so much of our customs, that he made use of his fists instead of
the weapons of his country, to the great annoyance of Caruey, who would
have preferred meeting his rival fairly in the field armed with the spear
and the club. Caruey being much the younger man, the lady, every inch a
woman, followed her inclination, and Bennillong was compelled to yield
her without any further opposition. He seemed to have been satisfied with
the beating he had given Caruey, and hinted, that resting for the present
without a wife, he should look about him, and at some future period make
a better choice.
His absences from the governor's house now became frequent, and little
attended to. When he went out he usually left his clothes behind, resuming
them carefully on his return before he made his visit to the governor.
During this month one man and a woman, attempting to cross one of the
creeks at the Hawkesbury by a tree which had been thrown over, fell in,
and were drowned; and one man had died there of the bite of a snake.
Three male convicts* died at Sydney.
[* One of them, William Locker, from the extraordinary deformity of his
left leg, had been offered £100 for it in England.]
December.] The court of civil judicature had hitherto been but rarely
assembled. The few debts which had been contracted were not of sufficient
moment, and had seldom remained long enough in doubt, to require an
action to recover them. But now the possibility having been discovered of
acquiring in this country a property worth preserving, it was probable,
when the talents and disposition of the men of landed property (the
settlers) in New South Wales were considered, that many disputes would
occur among them which the civil court alone could decide.
A court of civil judicature was assembled this month. Some debts were
sworn to, and writs granted. An action for an assault was also tried.
About the latter end of the month of October, a large sow, the property
of Mr. J. Boston, having trespassed with two or three other hogs on a
close belonging to an officer of the New South Wales corps, was shot by a
soldier of the regiment (the officer's servant). The owner, Mr. Boston,
repairing immediately to the spot, on seeing the sow, then near
farrowing, lying dead on the ground, made use of some intemperate
expressions; which being uttered in the hearing of two of the officers
and some other soldiers of the corps, the officers were said by Mr. Boston
to have encouraged and urged the soldiers to beat him. Mr. Boston
had been struck, and, as it appeared on the trial, with a musket, which
at the time was loaded. Mr. Boston laid his damage at five hundred
pounds. The court however, after several days very attentive examination
of the business, gave him a verdict against two of the defendants, with
twenty shillings damages from each. One of these defendants, a soldier,
was advised to appeal from the decision of the court to the governor,
who, after hearing the appeal, confirmed the verdict of the civil court.
On the 6th the _Francis_ schooner sailed for Norfolk Island. The
governor, being anxious to learn the situation of the lieutenant-governor,
sent her merely with a letter, that if unhappily any accident should have
happened to him, a proper person might be sent in the _Reliance_ to
command the settlement, until a successor could arrive from England.
Having nothing to deliver or receive that could detain him, the master
determined to try in what time his vessel could run thither and back again.
The harvest was begun in this month. The Cape wheat (a bearded grain
differing much from the English) was found universally to have failed. An
officer who had sown seven acres with this seed at a farm in the district
of Petersham Hill, on cutting it down, found it was not worth the
reaping. This was owing to a blight; but every where the Cape wheat was
pronounced not worth the labour of sowing.
A quantity of useful timber having been for some time past indiscriminately
cut down upon the banks of the River Hawkesbury, and the creeks
running from it, which had been wasted or applied to purposes for
which timber of less value might have answered, the governor, among other
colonial regulations, thought it necessary to direct, that no timber
whatever should be cut down on any ground which was not marked out on
either the banks or creeks of that river: and, in order to preserve as
much as possible such timber as might be of use either for building or
for naval purposes, he ordered the king's mark to be immediately put on
all such timber, after which any persons offending against the order were
to be prosecuted. This order extended only to _grounds not granted to
individuals_, there being a clause in all grants from the crown,
expressly reserving, under pain of forfeiture, for the use thereof, 'such
timber as might be growing or to grow hereafter upon the land so granted,
which should be deemed fit for naval purposes.'
It was feared, that the certainty of the existence of our cattle to the
southward being incontrovertibly established, some of our vagabonds might
be tempted to find them out, and satisfy their hunger on them from time
to time, as they might find opportunity. We were therefore not surprised
to hear that two of them had been killed. A very strict inquiry into the
report, however, convinced us that it had been raised only for the
purpose of trying how such a circumstance would be regarded. The governor
thought it necessary therefore to state in public orders, that,
Having heard it reported, that some person or persons, who had been
permitted to carry arms for the protection of themselves and property,
had lately employed that indulgence in an attempt to destroy the cattle
belonging to government, which were at large in the woods; and as the
preservation of that stock was of the utmost importance to the colony at
large, he declared, that if it should be discovered that any person
whatever should use any measure to destroy or otherwise annoy them, they
would be prosecuted with the utmost severity of the law.
A reward was also held out to any person giving information, and the
order was made as public as possible that no one might plead ignorance
of it.
The harvest having commenced, the governor on the 22nd signified to the
settlers, that
although it had hitherto been the intention and the practice of
government to give them every possible encouragement, as well as others
who had employed themselves in growing corn, by taking off their hands
all their surplus grain at such prices as had from time to time been
thought fair and reasonable, it was not, however, to be expected, as the
colony advanced in the means of supplying itself with bread, that such
heavy expences could be continued. He therefore recommended to them to
consider what reduction in the price of wheat and Indian corn they could
at present submit to, as their offers in that respect would determine him
how far it might be necessary in future to cultivate on the part of
government, instead of taking or purchasing a quantity from individuals
at so great a price.
This proposal, he thought, could not be considered otherwise than as fair
and reasonable, when they recollected that the means by which individuals
had so far improved their farms had arisen from the very liberal manner
in which government had given up the labour of so great a number of its
own servants, to assist the industry of others. If this representation
should not have the effect which he hoped and expected, by a reduction of
the present high price of grain, he thought it his duty to propose, that
those who were assisted with servants from government, should at least
undertake to furnish those servants with bread.
To those who had farms on the banks of the Hawkesbury he thought it
necessary to observe, that, there not being any granaries in that
district belonging to government, the expense of conveying their grain
from thence to this part of the settlement rendered it absolutely
necessary that they should lower their prices; otherwise they must be at
that expence themselves, and bring their surplus corn to market either at
Sydney or Parramatta, where government had stores where in to deposit it,
and where only the commissary could be permitted to receive it.
A report from the river was current about this time, that the natives had
assembled in a large body, and attacked a few settlers who had chosen
farms low down the river, and without the reach of protection from the
other settlers, stripping them of every article they could find in their
huts. An armed party was directly sent out, who, coming up with them,
killed four men and one woman, badly wounded a child, and took four men
prisoners. It might have been supposed that these punishments, following
the enormities so immediately, would have taught the natives to keep at a
greater distance; but nothing seemed to deter them from prosecuting the
revenge they had vowed against the settlers for the injuries they had
received at their hands.
A savage of a darker hue, and full as far removed from civilisation,
black Caesar, once more fled from honest labour to the woods, there to
subsist by robbing the settlers. It was however reported, that he had
done one meritorious action, killing Pe-mul-wy, who had just before
wounded Collins (the native) so dangerously, that his recovery was a
matter of very great doubt with the surgeons at our hospital, whose
assistance Collins had requested as soon as he was brought into town by
his friends. A barbed spear had been driven into his loins close by the
vertebrae of the back, and was so completely fixed, that all the efforts
of the surgeons to remove it with their instruments were ineffectual.
Finding, after a day or two, that it could not be displaced by art,
Collins left the hospital determined to trust to nature.* He was much
esteemed by every white man who knew him, as well on account of his
personal bravery, of which we had witnessed many distinguishing proofs,
as on account of a gentleness of manners which strongly marked his
disposition, and shaded off the harsher lines that his uncivilised life
now and then forced into the fore-ground.
[* And he did not trust in vain. We saw him from time to time for several
weeks walking about with the spear unmoved, even after suppuration had
taken place; but at last heard that his wife, or one of his male friends,
had fixed their teeth in the wood and drawn it out; after which he
recovered, and was able again to go into the field. His wife War-re-weer
showed by an uncommon attention her great attachment to him.]
On the 27th the _Sovereign_ sailed for Bengal; and on the last day of the
year the signal for a sail was made at the South Head, too late in the
day for it to be known what or whence the vessel was.
The harvest formed the principal labour this month both public and
private. At Sydney, another attempt being made to steal a cask of pork
from the pile of provisions which stood before the storehouse, the whole
was removed into one of the old marine barracks. The full ration of salt
provisions being issued to every one, it was difficult to conceive what
could be the inducement to these frequent and wanton attacks on the
provisions, whenever necessity compelled the commissary to trust a
quantity without the store. Perhaps, however, it was to gratify that
strong, propensity to thieving, which could not suffer an opportunity of
exercising their talents to pass, or to furnish them with means of
indulging in the baneful vice of gaming.
At the Hawkesbury, in the beginning of the month, an extraordinary
meteorological phenomenon occurred. Four farms on the creek named Ruse's
Creek were totally cut up by a fall, not of hail or of snow, but of large
flakes of ice. It was stated by the officer who had the command of the
military there, Lieutenant Abbott, that the shower passed in a direction
NW taking such farms as fell within its course. The effect was
extraordinary; the wheat then standing was beaten down, the ears cut off,
and the grain perfectly threshed out. Of the Indian corn the large thick
stalks were broken, and the cobs found lying at the roots, A man who was
too far distant from a house to enter it in time was glad to take shelter
in the hollow of a tree. The sides of the trees which were opposed to its
fury appeared as if large shot had been discharged against them, and the
ground was covered with small twigs from the branches. On that part of
the race-ground which it crossed, the stronger shrubs were all found cut
to pieces, while the weaker, by yielding to the storm, were only beaten
down. The two succeeding days were remarkably mild; notwithstanding which
the ice remained on the ground nearly as large as when it fell. Some
flakes of it were brought to Lieutenant Abbott on the second day, which
measured from six to eight inches long, and at that time were two fingers
at the least in thickness.
On this officer's representing to the governor the distress which the
settlers had suffered whose farms had lain in the course of the shower
such relief was given them as their situations required. Nothing of this
kind had been felt either at Parramatta or at Sydney.
There died this month Mr. Barrow, a midshipman belonging to his Majesty's
ship _Supply_. His death, which was rather sudden, was occasioned by an
obstruction in the bowels, brought on by bathing when very much heated
and full. He had attended divine service on the Sunday preceding his
death, and heard Mr. Johnson preach on uncertainty of human life, little
thinking how soon he was himself to prove the verity of the principal point
of his discourse--'That death stole upon us like a thief in the night.'
Two male convicts died at Sydney. One of them, John Durham, had been for
upwards of two years a venereal patient in the hospital; and died at last
a wretched but exemplary spectacle to all who beheld him, or who knew his
sufferings. There died, during the year 1795, one assistant to the
surgeons; one sergeant of the New South Wales corps; two settlers;
thirteen male convicts; seven female convicts and one child; and one male
convict was executed. Making a total of twenty-six persons who lost their
lives during the year.