Of the three bulls which were landed two only were living at this period, beside the bull calf produced on board the Gorgon. Of the twenty-eight cows only twenty, and of the five calves only two were living; but the cows which arrived in the Gorgon had produced three cow and two bull calves; and one small cow must be added to the number in the colony, which had been presented by the Spanish commodore to the lieutenant-governor.
Sheep, horses, and hogs were found, better than any other stock, to stand the rough weather which was in general met with between the Cape of Good Hope and this country.
The mortality which had happened among the stock on board the Britannia set a high price on those which survived. For the cows Mr. Raven bought at the Cape he gave twenty dollars each, and for each horse he gave thirty dollars. For the cow with her calf, which he purchased at Santa Catharina, he gave no more than sixteen Spanish dollars.
On Saturday the 29th, the lieutenant-governor determining to try the present ration yet another week, the usual allowance was issued, and on the next day the following general order appeared: 'It being unsafe to continue at the present ration, the commissary has received instructions to reduce the weekly allowance, either one pound of pork, or two pounds of beef, making a proportionate deduction from the women and children. This alteration to take place on Saturday the 6th of July.'
The natives had lately become troublesome, particularly in lurking between the different settlements, and forcibly taking provisions and clothing from the convicts who were passing from one to another. One or two convicts having been wounded by them, some small armed parties were sent out to drive them away, and to throw a few shot among them, but with positive orders to be careful not to take a life.
Several of these people, however, continued to reside in the town, and to mix with the inhabitants in the most unreserved manner. It was no uncommon circumstance to see them coming into town with bundles of fire-wood which they had been hired to procure, or bringing water from the tanks; for which services they thought themselves well rewarded with any worn-out jacket or trousers, or blankets, or a piece of bread. Of this latter article they were all exceedingly fond, and their constant prayer was for bread, importuning with as much earnestness and perseverance as if begging for bread had been their profession from their infancy; and their attachment to us must be considered as an indication of their not receiving any ill treatment from us.
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,
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:
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.
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.]