An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales Volume I Part 19

After the arrival of the _Matilda_, the governor, judging that his stores would admit of increasing the weekly allowance of flour, directed that (instead of three) five pounds of that article should be issued to each man; and to each woman an addition of half a pound to the three which they before received. The other articles of the ration remained as before.

The platform which had been constructing on the West Point since June last being ready for the reception of the cannon, they were moved thither about the middle of the month; in doing which, a triangle which was made use of, not being properly secured, slipped and fell upon a convict (an overseer), by which accident his thigh was dislocated, and his body much bruised. He was taken to the hospital, where, fortunately, Mr. White immediately reduced the luxation.

About noon on Sat.u.r.day the 20th, the _Atlantic_ transport anch.o.r.ed in the cove from Plymouth, whence she sailed with two other transports, and parted with them about five weeks since in bad weather between Rio de Janeiro and this port, the pa.s.sage from which had not been more than ten weeks. She had on board a sergeant's party of the new corps as a guard to two hundred and twenty male convicts, eighteen of whom died on the pa.s.sage. The remainder came in very healthy, there being only nine sick on board. The evening before her arrival she stood into a capacious bay, situated between Long Nose and Cape St. George, where they found good anchorage and deep water. Lieutenant Richard Bowen, the naval agent on board, who landed, described the soil to be sandy, and the country thickly covered with timber. He did not see any natives, but found a canoe upon the beach, whose owners perhaps were not far off. This canoe, by Lieutenant Bowen's account, appeared to be on a somewhat stronger construction than the canoes of Port Jackson.

The signal for another sail was made the next morning at the Lookout, and about one o'clock the _Salamander_ transport arrived. She sailed from England under Lieutenant Bowen's orders, with a sergeant's party of the new corps and one hundred and sixty male convicts on board, one hundred and fifty-five of whom she brought in all healthy, except one man who was in the sick list. The party arrived without the sergeant, he having deserted on their leaving England.

Both these transports having brought a supply of provisions calculated to serve nine months for the convicts that were embarked, the governor directed the commissary to issue the full ration of provisions, serving rice in lieu of peas; the reduced ration having continued from Sat.u.r.day the 2nd day of last April to Sat.u.r.day the 27th of August; twenty-one weeks.

A party of one hundred convicts were sent from the Atlantic to Parramatta, the remainder were landed and disposed of at Sydney. The _Salamander_ was ordered to proceed to Norfolk Island with the people and the cargo she had on board.

There were at this time not less than seventy persons from the _Matilda_ and _Atlantic_ under medical treatment, being weak, emaciated, and unfit for any kind of labour; and the list was increasing. It might have been supposed that on changing from the unwholesome air of a ship's between-decks to the purer air of this country, the weak would have gathered strength; but it had been observed, that in general soon after landing, the convicts were affected with dysenteric complaints, perhaps caused by the change of water, many dying, and others who had strength to overcome the disease recovering from it but slowly.

On the 28th the _William and Ann_ transport arrived (the last of Lieutenant Bowen's division). She had on board one sergeant and twelve privates of the new corps, one hundred and eighty-one male convicts, with her proportion of stores and provisions. She sailed with one hundred and eighty-eight convicts from England, but lost seven on the pa.s.sage; the remainder came in very healthy, five only being so ill as to require removal. The first mate of this ship, Mr. Simms, formerly belonged to the _Golden Grove_ transport.

The town beginning to fill with strangers (officers and seamen from the transports) and spirituous liquors finding their way among the convicts, it was ordered that none should be landed until a permit had been granted by the judge-advocate; and the provost-marshal, his a.s.sistant, and two princ.i.p.als of the watch, were deputed to seize all spirituous liquors which might be landed without.

Ballooderry, the proscribed native, having ventured into the town with some of his friends, one or two armed parties were sent to seize him, and a spear having been thrown (it was said by him) two muskets were fired, by which one of his companions was wounded in the leg; but Ballooderry was not taken. On the following day it was given out in orders, that he was to be taken whenever an opportunity offered; and that any native attempting to throw a spear in his defence, as it was well known among them why vengeance was denounced against him, was, if possible, to be prevented from escaping with impunity.

Those who knew Ballooderry regretted that it had been necessary to treat him with this harshness, as among his countrymen we had no where seen a finer young man. The person who had been wounded by him in the month of June last was not yet recovered.

Discharging the transports formed the princ.i.p.al labour of the month; the shingles on the roof of the old hospital being found to decay fast, and many falling off, the whole were removed, and the building was covered with tiles.

The convicts at Parramatta were employed in opening some ground about a mile and a half above that settlement, along the south side of the creek; and it was expected from the exertions which they were making, that between forty and fifty acres would be soon ready for sowing with Indian corn for this season. Their labour was directed by Thomas Daveney, a free person who came out with the governor.

CHAPTER XIV

The _Salamander_ sails for, and the _Mary Ann_ arrives from Norfolk Island Bondel, a native, returns A seaman, for sinking a canoe, punished The _Gorgon_ arrives Commission of emanc.i.p.ation, and public seal The _Active_ and _Queen_ arrive Complaints against the master of the _Queen_ _Supply_ ordered home _Albemarle_ arrives Mutiny on board _Britannia_ and _Admiral Barrington_ arrive Future destination of the transports The _Atlantic_ and _Queen_ hired _Atlantic_ sails for Bengal _Salamander_ returns from Norfolk Island Transactions Public works Suicide

September.] It became necessary to land the cargo brought out in the _Salamander_, for the purpose of restowing it in a manner convenient for getting it out at Norfolk Island while the ship was under sail. The great inconvenience attending landing a cargo in such a situation had been pointed out in letters which could not yet have been attended to. It was at the same time suggested, that ships should be freighted purposely for Norfolk Island, with casks and bales adapted to the size of the island boats, which would in a great measure lessen the inconvenience above mentioned.

On the 3rd, near two hundred male convicts, with a sergeant's party of the New South Wales corps, some stores and provisions, having been put on board the _Salamander_, she sailed for Norfolk Island the following morning: and the _Mary Ann_ returned from that settlement on the 8th, having been absent only four weeks and two days. The convicts, troops, stores, and provisions, were all landed safely; but an unexpected surf rising at the back of the reef, filling the only boat (a Greenland whale-boat) which the master took with him, she was dashed upon the reef, and stove; the people, who all belonged to the whaler, fortunately saved themselves by swimming.

From Norfolk Island we learned, that the crops of wheat then in the ground promised well, having been sown a month earlier than those of the last season. Of the public ground ninety acres were in wheat, and one hundred in Indian corn: of the ground cleared by the convicts, and cultivated by themselves for their own maintenance, there were not less, at the departure of the transport, than two hundred and fifty acres.

Bondel, a native boy, who went thither with Captain Hill, to whom he was attached, in the month of March last, came back by this conveyance to his friends and relations at Port Jackson. During his residence on the island, which Mr. Monroe said he quitted reluctantly, he seemed to have gained some smattering of our language, certain words of which he occasionally blended with his own.

Some prisoners having been sent from Norfolk Island, the criminal court was a.s.sembled on the 15th for the trial of one of them for a capital offence committed there; but for want of sufficient evidence he was acquitted. Great inconvenience was experienced from having to send prisoners from that island with all the necessary witnesses. In the case just mentioned the prosecutor was a settler, who being obliged to leave his farm for the time, the business of which was necessarily suspended until he could return, was ruined: and one of the witnesses was in nearly the same situation. But as the courts in New South Wales would always be the superior courts, it was not easy to discover a remedy for these inconveniences.'

A seaman of one of the transports having been clearly proved to have wantonly sunk a canoe belonging to a native, who had been paddling round the ship, and at last ventured on board, he was ordered to be punished, and to give the native a complete suit of wearing apparel, as a satisfaction for the injury he had done him, as well as to induce him to abandon any design of revenge which he might have formed. The corporal punishment was however afterwards remitted, and the seaman ordered to remain on board his ship while she should continue in this port.

Some of the soldiers who came out in the _William and Ann_ transport having exhibited complaints against the master, whom they accused of a.s.saulting and severely beating them during the pa.s.sage, the affair was investigated before three magistrates, and a fine laid upon the master, which he paid.

On Wednesday the 21st his Majesty's ship _Gorgon_ of forty-four guns, commanded by Captain John Parker, anch.o.r.ed within the heads of the harbour, reaching the settlement the following morning, and anchoring where his Majesty's late ship _Sirius_ used to moor.

The _Gorgon_ sailed from England on the 15th of March last, touching on her pa.s.sage at the islands of Teneriffe and St. Iago, and at the Cape of Good Hope, where she remained six weeks, taking in three bulls, twenty-three cows, sixty-eight sheep, eleven hogs, two hundred fruit trees, a quant.i.ty of garden seed, and other articles for the colony.

Unfortunately, the bulls and seven of the cows died; but a bull calf, which had been produced on board, arrived in good condition.

Six months provisions for about nine hundred people, with stores for his Majesty's armed tender the _Supply_, and for the marine detachment, were sent out in the _Gorgon_; wherein also was embarked Mr. King, the late commandant of Norfolk Island, now appointed by his Majesty lieutenant-governor of that settlement, and a commander in the navy; together with Mr. Charles Grimes, commissioned as a deputy surveyor-general to be employed at Norfolk Island; the chaplain and quarter-master of the New South Wales corps, and Mr David Burton, a superintendant of convicts.

By this ship we received a public seal to be affixed to all instruments drawn in his Majesty's name, and a commission under the great seal empowering the governor for the time being to remit, either absolutely or conditionally, the whole or any part of the term for which felons, or other offenders, should have been or might hereafter be transported to this country. Duplicates of each pardon were to be sent to England, for the purpose of inserting the names of the persons so emanc.i.p.ated in the first general pardon which should afterward issue under the great seal of the kingdom.

To deserving characters, of which description there were many convicts in the colony, a prospect of having the period of their banishment shortened, and of being restored to the privilege which by misconduct they had forfeited, had something in it very cheering, and was more likely to preserve well intentioned men in honest and fair pursuits, than the fear of punishment, which would seldom operate with good effect on a mind that entertained no hope of reward for propriety of conduct. The people with whom we had to deal were not in general actuated by that nice sense of feeling which draws its truest satisfaction from self approbation; they looked for something more substantial, something more obvious to the external senses.

In determining the device for the seal of the colony, attention had been paid to its local and peculiar circ.u.mstances. On the obverse were the king's arms, with the royal t.i.tles in the margin; on the reverse, a representation of convicts landing at Botany Bay, received by Industry, who, surrounded by her attributes, a bale of merchandise, a beehive, a pickaxe, and a shovel, is releasing them from their fetters, and pointing to oxen ploughing and a town rising on the summit of a hill, with a fort for its protection. The masts of a ship are seen in the bay. In the margin are the words _Sigillum. Nov. Camb. Aust._; and for a motto _'Sic fortis Etruria crevit.'_ The seal was of silver; its weight forty-six ounces and the devices were very well executed.

The cattle were immediately landed, and turned into the inclosures which had been prepared for them. One cow died in the boat going up.

The remaining transports of the fleet were now dropping in. On the 26th the _Active_ from England, and the _Queen_ from Ireland, with convicts of that country arrived and anch.o.r.ed in the cove. On board of the _Active_, beside the sergeant's guard, were one hundred and fifty-four male convicts. An officer's party was on board the _Queen_, with one hundred and twenty-six male and twenty-three female convicts and three children.

These ships had been unhealthy, and had buried several convicts in their pa.s.sage. The sick which they brought in were landed immediately; and many of those who remained, and were not so ill as to require medical a.s.sistance, were brought on sh.o.r.e in an emaciated and feeble condition, particularly the convicts from the _Active_. They in general complained of not having received the allowance intended for them; but their emaciated appearance was to be ascribed as much to confinement as to any other cause. The convicts from the _Queen_, however, accusing the master of having withheld their provisions, an inquiry took place before the magistrates, and it appeared beyond a doubt, that great abuses had been practised in the issuing of the provisions; but as to the quant.i.ty withheld, it was not possible to ascertain it so clearly, as to admit of directing the deficiency to be made good, or of punishing the parties with that retributive justice for which the heinousness of their offence so loudly called; the proceedings of the magistrates were therefore submitted to the governor, who determined to transmit them to the secretary of state.

Nothing could have excited more general indignation than the treatment which these people appeared to have met with; for, what crime could be more offensive to every sentiment of humanity, than the endeavour, by curtailing a ration already not too ample, to derive a temporary advantage from the miseries of our fellow-creatures!

By the arrival of these ships several articles of comfort were introduced among us, there being scarcely a vessel that had not brought out something for sale. It could not, however, be said that they were procurable on easier terms than what had been sold here in the last year.

The Spanish dollar was the current coin of the colony, which some of the masters taking at five shillings and others at four shillings and six-pence, the governor, in consideration of the officers having been obliged to receive the dollars at five shillings sterling when given for bills drawn in the settlement, issued a proclamation fixing the currency of the Spanish dollar at that sum.

The _Supply_ was now carefully surveyed, when it appeared, that her defects were such as to render it by no means difficult to put her into a state that would enable her to reach England; but that if she remained six months longer in this country, she would become wholly unserviceable.

It was therefore determined to dispatch her immediately to England.

Timber had with infinite labour been procured for her main-mast, and her other repairs were put in train for her sailing hence in the course of the next month.

October.] The remainder of the transports expected did not arrive until the middle of October. The _Albermarle_ was off the coast some days, being prevented by a southerly current from getting in. She arrived on Thursday the 13th, with two hundred and fifty male and six female convicts, her proportion of stores and provisions, and one sergeant, one corporal, one drummer, and twenty privates of the new corps.

The convicts of this ship had made an attempt, in conjunction with some of the seamen, to seize her on the 9th of April, soon after she had sailed from England; and they would in all probability have succeeded, but for the activity and resolution shown by the master Mr. George Bowen, who, hearing the alarm, had just time to arm himself with a loaded blunderbuss, which he discharged at one of the mutineers, William Syney (then in the act of aiming a blow with a cutla.s.s at the man at the wheel), and lodged its contents in his shoulder. His companions, seeing what had befallen him, instantly ran down below; but the master, his officers, and some of the seamen of the ship, following them, soon secured the ringleaders, Owen Lyons and William Syney. A consultation was held with the naval agent, Lieutenant Robert Parry Young, the ship's company, and the military persons on board, the result of which was, the immediate execution of those two at the fore-yard arm. They had at this time parted company with the other transports, and no other means seemed so likely to deter the convicts from any future attempt of the like nature. It afterwards appearing that two of the seamen had supplied them with instruments for sawing off their irons, these were left at the island of Madeira, where the _Albermarle_ touched, to be sent prisoners to England.

On the day following the _Britannia_ arrived, with one hundred and twenty-nine male convicts, stores, and provisions on board; and on the 16th the _Admiral Barrington_, the last of the ten sail of transports, anch.o.r.ed in the cove. This ship had been blown off the coast, and fears were entertained of her safety, as she left the cape with a crippled main-mast and other material defects. She had on board a captain and a party of the New South Wales corps, with two hundred and sixty-four male convicts, four free women, and one child. She had been unhealthy too, having lost thirty-six convicts in the pa.s.sage, and brought in eighty-four persons sick, who were immediately landed. Her stores and proportion of provisions were the same as on board of the other ships.

The whole number of convicts now received into the colony, including thirty on board the _Gorgon_, were, male convicts one thousand six hundred and ninety-five; female convicts one hundred and sixty-eight; and children nine. There were also eight free women (wives of convicts) and one child; making a total number of one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one persons, exclusive of the military. Upwards of two hundred convicts, male and female, did not reach the country.

Of the ten sail of transports lately arrived, five, after delivering their cargoes, were to proceed on the southern whale fishery, viz the _Mary Ann_, _Matilda_, _William and Ann_, _Salamander_, and _Britannia_.

Melville, the master of the _Britannia_, conceiving great hopes of success on this coast from the numbers of spermaceti whales which he saw between the south cape and this port, requested to be cleared directly on his coming in, that he might give it a trial; and, the governor consenting, his ship was ready by the 22nd (a week after her arrival), and sailed on the 24th with the other whalers.

The _Queen_, _Atlantic_, _Active_, _Albemarle_, and _Admiral Barrington_, after being discharged from government employ, were to proceed to Bombay, by consent of the East India Company, and load home with cotton upon private account under the inspection of the company's servants at that settlement, provided the cotton should be afterwards sold at the company's sales, subject to the usual expenses (their duty only excepted), and provided the ships did not interfere with any other part of the company's exclusive commerce*.

[* Notwithstanding this provision, which was expressed more at large in the licence given by the company, and which extended to the prohibition of every article except the stores and provisions put on board by government, there was on board of these ships a very large quant.i.ty of iron, steel, and copper, intended for sale at a foreign settlement in India, with the produce of which they were to purchase the homeward-bound investment of cotton.]

The quant.i.ty of provisions received by these ships being calculated for the numbers on board of each for nine months only after their arrival, and as, so large a body of convicts having been sent out, it was not probable that we should soon receive another supply, the governor judged it expedient to send one of the transports to Bengal, to procure provisions for the colony; for which purpose he hired the _Atlantic_ at fifteen shillings and sixpence per ton per month. In the way thither she was to touch at Norfolk Island, where lieutenant-governor King, with some settlers, was to be landed; and the _Queen_ transport was hired for the purpose of bringing back lieutenant-governor Ross, and the marine detachment serving there, relieved by a company of the New South Wales corps.

On the 25th, the anniversary of his Majesty's accession to the throne, a salute of twenty-one guns was fired by the _Gorgon_, and the public dinner given on the occasion at the government-house was served to upwards of fifty officers, a greater number than the colony had ever before seen a.s.sembled together.

The following morning the _Atlantic_ sailed for Norfolk Island and Calcutta. For the first of these places, she had on board Lieutenant-Governor King and his family; Captain Paterson of the New South Wales corps (lately arrived in the _Admiral Barrington_); Mr.

Balmain, the a.s.sistant-surgeon, sent to relieve Mr. Considen; the Rev.

Mr. Johnson, who voluntarily visited Norfolk Island for the purpose of performing those duties of his office which had hitherto been omitted through the want of a minister to perform them; twenty-nine settlers discharged from the marines; several male and female convicts, and some few settlers from that cla.s.s of people.