An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales Volume I Part 25

The governor directed the commissary to purchase such part of the _Philadelphia's_ cargo as he thought was immediately wanting in the colony; and five hundred and sixty-nine barrels of American cured beef, each barrel containing one hundred and ninety-three pounds, and twenty-seven barrels of pitch and tar, were taken into store; the expense of which amounted to 2829 lls.

Notwithstanding the great length of time Captain Patrickson had been on his voyage (from the beginning of April to November) his speculation did not prove very disadvantageous to him. A great part of his cargo, that was not taken by government, was disposed of among the officers and others of the settlement; and the governor hired his vessel to take provisions to Norfolk Island, giving him 150 for the run. Captain Patrickson had formed some expectation of disposing of his vessel in this country; but the governor, having received intimation that the _Kitty_ might be detained in the service as long as he found it necessary after her arrival, did not judge it expedient to purchase the vessel.

On the 3rd of the month three warrants of emanc.i.p.ation pa.s.sed the seal of the territory: one to John Trace, a convict who came out in the first fleet; having but three months of his term of transportation remaining, that portion of it was given up to him, that he might become a settler.

The second was granted to Thomas Restil (alias Crowder) on the recommendation of the lieutenant-governor of Norfolk Island, on condition that he should not return to England during the term of his natural life, his sentence of transportation being _durante vitae_. The third warrant was made out in favour of one who whatever might have been his conduct when at large in society, had here not only demeaned himself with the strictest propriety, but had rendered essential services to the colony--George Barrington. He came out in the _Active_; on his arrival the governor employed him at Toongabbie, and in a situation which was likely to attract the envy and hatred of the convicts, in proportion as he might be vigilant and inflexible. He was first placed as a subordinate, and shortly after as a princ.i.p.al watchman; in which situation he was diligent, sober, and impartial; and had rendered himself so eminently serviceable, that the governor resolved to draw him from the line of convicts; and, with the instrument of his emanc.i.p.ation, he received a grant of thirty acres of land in an eligible situation near Parramatta.* Here was not only a reward for past good conduct, but an incitement to a continuance of it; and Barrington found himself, through the governor's liberality, though not so absolutely free as to return to England at his own pleasure, yet enjoying the immunities of a free man, a settler, and a civil officer, in whose integrity much confidence was placed.

[* He was afterwards sworn in as a peace officer.]

On the 13th the _Royal Admiral_ sailed for Canton. Of the private speculation brought out in this ship, they sold at this place and at Parramatta to the amount of 3600 and left articles to be sold on commission to the amount of 750 more.

Captain Bond was obliged to leave behind him one of his quartermasters and six sailors, who ran away from the ship. The quartermaster had served in the same capacity on board of the _Sirius_, and immediately after his arrival in England (in the snow) engaged himself with Captain Bond for the whole of the voyage; but a few days before the departure of the ship from this port, he found means to leave her, and, a.s.sisted by some of the settlers, concealed himself in the woods until concealment was no longer necessary. On giving himself up, he entered on board the _Atlantic_; but on his declaring that he did not intend returning to England, the governor ordered him into confinement. The sailors were put into one of the longboats, to be employed between this place and Parramatta, until they could be put on board a ship that might convey them hence.

It was never desirable that seamen should receive encouragement to run from their ships; they became public nuisances here; the masters of such ships would find themselves obliged to procure convicts at any rate to supply their places; indeed, so many might be shipped or secreted on board, as might render the safety of the vessel very precarious; and as the governor determined to represent the conduct of any master who carried away convicts without his approbation, so he resolved never to deprive them of their seamen. Under this idea, a hut, in which a seaman from the _Royal Admiral_ was found concealed, was pulled down, and two convicts who had been secreted on board that ship were sent up to Toongabbie, as a punishment, as well as to be out of the way of another attempt.

On the 18th the _Kitty_ transport anch.o.r.ed in the cove from England, after a circuitous pa.s.sage of thirty-three weeks, round by the Rio de Janeiro and the Cape of Good Hope. She twice sailed from England. On her first departure, which was in March last, she had on board thirty female and ten male convicts; but being obliged to put back to Spithead, to stop a leak which she sprung in her raft port, eight of her ten male convicts found means to make their escape. This was an unfortunate accident; for they had been particularly selected as men who might be useful in the colony. Of the two who did remain, the one was a brick-maker and the other a joiner.

When her cargo was landing, it was found to have suffered considerably by the bad weather she had experienced; the flour in particular, an article which could at no time bear any diminution in this country, was much damaged. The convicts had for a long time been nearly as much distressed for utensils to dress their provisions, as they had been for provisions; and we had now the mortification to find, that of the small supply of iron pots which had been put on board, a great part were either broken or cracked, having been literally stowed among the provision casks in the hold.

There arrived in this ship two chests, containing three thousand eight hundred and seventy ounces of silver, in dollars, amounting to 1001.

This remittance was sent out for the purpose of paying such sums as were due to the different artificers who had been employed in this country. It was also applied to the payment of the wages due to the superintendants, who had experienced much inconvenience from not receiving their salaries here; and indeed the want of public money had been very much felt by every one in the colony. When the marines, who became settlers before and at the relief of the detachment, were discharged for that purpose, they would have suffered great difficulties from the want of public money to pay what was due to them, had not the commissary taken their respective powers of attorney, and given them notes on himself, payable either in cash, or in articles which might be the means of rendering them comfortable, and of which he had procured a large supply from Calcutta.

These notes pa.s.sed through various hands in traffic among the people of the description they were intended to serve, and became a species of currency which was found very convenient to them.

The female convicts who arrived in the _Kitty_, twenty-seven in number, were immediately sent up to Parramatta.

Government had put on board the _Kitty_ a naval agent, Lieutenant Daniel Woodriff, for the purpose of seeing that no unnecessary delays were made in the voyage, and that the convicts on board were not oppressed by the master or his people. This officer, on his arrival, stated to the governor his opinion that the master had not made the best of his way, and that he had remained longer in the port of Rio de Janeiro than there could possibly be occasion for. He likewise stated several disagreements which had occurred between him and the master, and in which the latter seemed to think very lightly of the authority of a naval agent on board his ship. There was also on board this ship, on the part of the crown, a medical gentleman who was appointed for the express purpose of attending to such convicts as might be ill during the voyage; so extremely solicitous were the members of Administration to guard against the evils which had befallen the convicts in former pa.s.sages to this country.

At Parramatta a brick hospital, consisting of two wards, was finished this month; and the sick were immediately removed into it. The spot chosen for this building was at some distance from the princ.i.p.al street of the town, and convenient to the water; and, to prevent any improper communication with the other convicts, a s.p.a.ce was to be inclosed and paled in round the hospital, in which the sick would have every necessary benefit from air and exercise.

At the other settlement they had begun to reap the wheat which was sown in April last; and for want of a granary at that place it was put into stacks. From not being immediately thrashed out, there was no knowing with certainty what the produce of it was; but it had every appearance of turning out well. The ear was long and full, and the straw remarkably good.

December.] On the 3rd of this month, the governor, as one of his last acts in the settlement, ordered one pound of flour to be added to the weekly ration, which, by means of this addition, stood on his departure at 3 pounds of flour, 5 pounds of rice, 4 pounds of pork or 7 pounds of beef, 3 pounds of dholl, and 6 ounces of oil.

On the 7th the _Philadelphia_ sailed for Norfolk Island, having on board for that settlement Mr. Grimes, the deputy surveyor; Mr. Jamieson who was to superintend the convicts employed there in cultivations; Mr. Peat, the master-carpenter (there being a person* in that situation here of much ability); a convict who came out in the _Royal Admiral_, to be employed as a master-tailor; two Convicts sawyers, and one convict carpenter, the same who came out with his family in the _Kitty_; together with some provisions and stores. His excellency had always attended to this little colony with a parental care; often declaring, that from the peculiarity of its situation he would rather that want should be felt in his own government than in that dependency; and as they would be generally eight or ten weeks later than this colony in receiving their supplies, by reason of the time which the ships necessarily required to refit after coming in from sea, he purposed furnishing them with a proportion of provisions for three months longer than the provisions in store at this place would last: and his excellency took leave of that settlement, by completing, as fully as he was able, this design.

[* Mr. Thomas Livingstone, at a salary of 50 per annum.]

He was now about taking leave of his own government. The accommodations for his excellency and the officers who were going home in the _Atlantic_ being completed, the detachment of marines under the command of Lieutenant Poulden embarked on the 5th, and at six o'clock in the evening of Monday the 10th Governor Phillip quitted the charge with which he had been entrusted by his Sovereign, and in the execution of which he had manifested a zeal and perseverance that alone could have enabled him to surmount the natural and artificial obstacles which the country and its inhabitants had thrown in his way.

The colony had now been established within a few weeks of five years; and a review of what had been done in cultivation under his excellency's direction in that time cannot more properly be introduced than at the close of his government.

Previous to the sailing of the _Britannia_ on the 24th of last October, an accurate survey of the whole ground in cultivation, both on account of the crown, and in the possession of individuals, was taken by the surveyor-general, and transmitted to England by that ship; and from the return which he then made, the following particulars were extracted:

GROUND IN CULTIVATION, THE 16TH OCTOBER 1792 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Acres Acres Acres Ground Total in in in Garden cleared number wheat barley maize ground of timber of acres ----------------------------------------------------------------------- At Parramatta 7 308 - - 316 At and leading to 171 14 511 - - 696 Toongabbie Total public ground 172 21 819 - - 1012

_Belonging to Settlers and others_ At Parramatta, (1 The governor's garden - 2 (3 vines - 6 Garden ground belonging to different people, including convicts' gardens - - - 104 - 104 At Parramatta, 1 settler 3 - 18 1 7 29 At Prospect Hill, four miles to the westward of Parramatta, 18 settlers 11 - 84 - - 95 At the Ponds, two miles to the northeast of Parramatta, 16 settlers 10 2 63 3 16 95 At the Northern boundary farms, two miles from Parramatta, 5 settlers 3 - 35 2 11 51 At the Field of Mars, on the north sh.o.r.e, near the entrance of the creek leading to Parramatta, 8 settlers, (marines) 4 - 44 2 31 81 At the Eastern farms, 12 settlers - - 40 - 12 53 On the creek leading to Parramatta, 7 settlers 4 - 80 4 22 111 In cultivation by the civil and military at Sydney - - - - 6 6 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 208 24 1186 121 162 1703 -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Of the sixty-seven settlers above enumerated, one, James Ruse, who had a grant of thirty acres at Parramatta, went upon his farm the latter end of November 1789; but none of the others began to cultivate ground upon their own accounts earlier than the middle of July 1791; but many of them at a much later date. The eight marine settlers at the Field of Mars took possession of their allotments at the beginning of February 1792. The conditions held out to settlers were, to be victualled and clothed from the public store for eighteen months from the term of their becoming settlers; to be furnished with tools and implements of husbandry; grain to sow their grounds, and such stock as could be spared from the public.

They were likewise to have a.s.signed them the services of such a number of convicts as the governor should think proper, on their making it appear that they could employ, feed, and clothe them. Every man had a hut erected on his farm at the public expense. At the time of the governor's departure, many of them, by their own industry, and the a.s.sistance he had afforded them, were enabled to have one or two convicts off the store, and employed by them at their farms; and such as were not married were allowed a convict hutkeeper. In general they were not idle, and the major part were comfortably situated.

At this time the quant.i.ty of land which had pa.s.sed to settlers* in this territory under the seal of the colony amounted to three thousand four hundred and seventy acres; of which quant.i.ty four hundred and seventeen acres and a half were in cultivation, and the timber cleared from one hundred more, ready for sowing; which, compared with the total of the _public ground_ in cultivation (one thousand and twelve acres and three quarters) will be found to be by eleven acres more than equal to one half of it. A striking proof of what some settlers had themselves declared, on its being hinted to them that they had not always been so diligent when labouring for the whole, 'We are now working for ourselves.' One material good was, however, to be expected from a tract of land of that extent being cultivated by individuals, if at any time an accident should happen to the crop on the public ground, they might be a resource, though an inconsiderable one. Fortunately, no misfortune of that nature had ever fallen upon the colony; but it had been, at the beginning of this month, very near experiencing a calamity that would have blasted all the prospects of the next season, and in one moment have rendered ineffectual the labour of many hands and of many months. Two days after the wheat had been reaped, and got off the ground at Toongabbie, the whole of the stubble was burnt. The day on which this happened had been unusually hot, and the country was every where on fire. Had it befallen us while the wheat was upon the ground, nothing could have saved the whole from being destroyed. From this circ.u.mstance, however, one good resulted; precautions against a similar accident were immediately taken, by clearing the timber for a certain distance round the cultivated land.

[* Some few had been added since the surveyor's return of the 16th October.]

The stock belonging to the public was kept at Parramatta. It consisted of three bulls*, two bull calves, fifteen cows, three calves, five stallions, six mares, one hundred and five sheep, and forty-three hogs.

[* Two from Calcutta, and one which was calved on board the _Gorgon_.]

Of the sheep, the governor gave to each of the married settlers from the convicts, and to each settler from the marines, and from the _Sirius_, one ewe for the purpose of breeding; and to others he gave such female goats as could be spared. This stock had been procured at much expense; and his excellency hoped that the people among whom he left it would see the advantage it might prove to them, and cherish it accordingly.

His excellency, at embarking on board the _Atlantic_, was received near the wharf on the east-side, (where his boat was lying), by Major Grose, at the head of the New South Wales corps, who paid him, as he pa.s.sed, the honors due to his rank and situation in the colony. He was attended by the officers of the civil department, and the three marine officers who were to accompany him to England.

At daylight on the morning of the 11th, the _Atlantic_ was got under way, and by eight o'clock was clear of the Heads, standing to the ESE with a fresh breeze at south. By twelve o'clock she had gained a considerable offing.

With the governor there embarked, voluntarily and cheerfully, two natives of this country, Bennillong and Yem-mer-ra-wan-nie, two men who were much attached to his person; and who withstood at the moment of their departure the united distress of their wives, and the dismal lamentations of their friends, to accompany him to England, a place that they well knew was at a great distance from them."

One or two convicts also who had conducted themselves to his satisfaction, and whose periods of transportation were expired, were permitted by the governor to return to England in the same ship with himself.

The _Atlantic_ had likewise on board various specimens of the natural productions of the country, timber, plants, animals, and birds. Among the animals were four fine kangaroos, and several native dogs.

The _Atlantic_ had been put into excellent condition for the voyage which she had to perform; she was well found and well manned, and there appeared no reason to doubt her reaching England in six months from her departure. A safe and speedy pa.s.sage to her was the general wish, not only on account of the governor, whose health and const.i.tution (already much impaired) might suffer greatly by the fatigues of a protracted voyage; but that the information of which his excellency was in possession respecting these settlements, from their establishments to the moment of his quitting them, might as quickly as possible be laid before administration.

The government of the colony now devolved, by his Majesty's letters patent under the great seal of Great Britain, upon the lieutenant-governor.

This office was filled by the major-commandant of the New South Wales corps, Francis Grose, esq who arrived in February last in the _Pitt_ transport. At his taking upon himself the government, on which occasion the usual oaths were administered by the judge-advocate, he gave out the following order, regulating the mode of carrying on the duty at Parramatta:

'All orders given by the captain who commands at Parramatta, respecting the convicts stationed there, are to be obeyed; and all complaints or reports that would be made to the lieutenant-governor when present, are in his absence to be communicated to captain Foveaux, or such other captain as may be doing duty with the detachment.'

The alteration which this order produced, consisted in subst.i.tuting the military for the civil officer. Before this period, all complaints had been inquired into by the civil magistrate, who, in the governor's absence from Parramatta, punished such slight offences as required immediate cognizance, reporting to the governor from time to time whatever he did; and all orders and directions which regarded the convicts, and all reports which were made respecting them, went through him.

The military power had hitherto been considered as requisite only for the protection of the stores, and the discharge of such duties as belonged to their profession, without having any share in the civil direction of the colony*; but as it was provided by his Majesty's commission already spoken of, that, in case, of the death or absence both of the governor and lieutenant-governor of the territory, the officer next in rank on service in the colony should take upon himself and exercise the functions of the governor, until such time as instructions should be received from England; under this idea, the lieutenant-governor issued the above order, placing the captain commanding the detachment of the New South Wales corps at Parramatta, in the direction of the civil duties of that settlement.

[* The commanding officer of the corps or regiment serving in the territory excepted, who held likewise the _civil_ appointment of lieutenant-governor.]

Similar regulations took place at Sydney, where 'the captain of the day was directed to report to the commanding officer all convict prisoners, stating by whom and on what account they might be confined;' and this order was in a few days after enforced by another, which directed 'that all inquiries by the civil magistrate were in future to be dispensed with, until the lieutenant-governor had given directions on the subject; and the convicts were not on any account to be punished but by his particular order.'

At Sydney, it had been usual for the magistrates to take examinations, and make enquiry into offences, either weekly, or as occasion required, and to order such punishment as they thought necessary, always reporting their proceedings to the chief authority.

It must be noticed, that at this time the civil magistrates in the colony consisted of the lieutenant-governor and the judge-advocate, who were justices of the peace by virtue of their respective commissions; the Rev.

Mr. Johnson; Augustus Alt and Richard Atkins*, Esquires, who had been sworn in as magistrates by authority of the governor.

[* This gentleman had been appointed registrar of the court of vice-admiralty by Governor Phillip.]

As no inconvenience had ever been experienced in the mode which was practised of conducting the business of the settlement, the necessity or cause of these alterations was not directly obvious, and could not be accounted for from any other motive than that preference which a military man might be supposed to give to carrying on the service by means of his own officers, rather than by any other.

On Sat.u.r.day the 15th the convicts received their provisions according to the ration that was issued before the governor's departure; but on the Monday following, the usual day of serving provisions to the civil and military, a distinction was made, for the first time, in the ration they received; the commissary being directed to issue to the officers of the civil and military departments, the soldiers, superintendants, watchmen, overseers, and settlers from the marines, six pounds of flour, and but two pounds of rice per man, per week, instead of three pounds of flour, and five pounds of rice, which was the allowance of the convicts. This distinction was intended to be discontinued whenever the full ration could be served.

The stock which had been distributed among the married settlers and others by Governor Phillip for the purpose of breeding from (as has been already observed) appeared to have been thrown away upon them when viewed as a breeding stock for settlers. No sooner had the _Atlantic_ sailed, than the major part of them were offered for sale; and there was little doubt (many of their owners making no scruple to publish their intentions) that had they not been bought by the officers, in a very few weeks many of them would have been destroyed. By this conduct, as far as their individual benefit was concerned, they had put it out of their own power to reap any advantage from the governor's bounty to them; but the stock by this means was saved, and had fallen into hands that certainly would not wantonly destroy it. There were a few among the settlers who exchanged their sheep for goats, deeming them a more profitable stock; but, in general, spirits were the price required by the more ignorant and imprudent part of them; and several of their farms, which had been, and ought to have always been, the peaceful retreats of industry, were for a time the seats of inebriety and consequent disorder.

About this time there anch.o.r.ed in the cove an American ship, the _Hope_, commanded by a Mr. Benjamin Page, from Rhode island, with a small cargo of provisions and spirits for sale. The cause of his putting into this harbour, the master declared, was for the purpose of procuring wood and water, of which he stated his ship to be much in want; thus making the sale of his cargo appear to be but a secondary object with him.