An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales Volume I Part 39

Reaping our wheat-harvest commenced this month.

December.] The people of the _Mercury_ being perfectly recovered from the disorder which afflicted them when they arrived, that vessel sailed on the 7th of December for the north-west coast of America. The master had permission to ship five persons belonging to the colony, and on the day of his sailing several others were missing from the labouring gangs, and were supposed to have made their escape in her; but on the following morning they were all at their respective labours, not having been able to get on board.

Some of the seamen belonging to this vessel, preferring the pleasures they met with in the society of the females and the free circulation of spirituous liquors which they found on sh.o.r.e, to accompanying Mr. Barnet to the north-west coast of America, had left his vessel some days previous to her sailing. Application being made to the lieutenant-governor, several orders were given out calculated to induce them to return to their duty, informing them, that if they remained behind they would be certainly sent to hard labour, and the persons who had harboured them severely punished. But our settlements had now become so extensive, that orders did not so readily find their way to the settlers, as runaways and vagrants, who never failed of finding employment among them, particularly among those at the river.

On the 8th a farm of twenty-five acres of ground in the district of Concord was sold by public auction for thirteen pounds. Four acres were planted with Indian corn, and half an acre with potatoes; there was beside a tolerable hut on the premises. This farm was the property of Samuel Crane, a soldier, who, too industriously for himself, working on it on the Sunday preceding his death, received a hurt from a tree which fell upon him, and proved fatal.

Every preparation for accommodating the lieutenant-governor and his family being completed on board the _Daedalus_, he embarked in the evening of the 15th. Previous to his departure, such convicts as were at that time confined in the cells, or who were under orders for punishment, were released; several grants of lands were signed, conveying chiefly small allotments of twenty-five acres each to such soldiers of the regiment as were desirous of, and made application for that favour; and some leases of town lots were given.

With the lieutenant-governor went Mr. White, the princ.i.p.al surgeon of the colony; Mr. Bain, the chaplain, in whose absence the Rev. Mr. Marsden was to do his duty; Mr. Laing, a.s.sistant-surgeon of the settlement, and mate of the New South Wales corps; three soldiers; two women, and nine men.

The master of the transport had permission to ship twelve men and two women, whose sentences of transportation had expired.

The _Surprise_ sailed on the 17th. Mr. Campbell, being in want of hands, was allowed to receive on board sixteen men. He had shipped a greater number; but some, regardless of their own situation, and of the effect such an act might have on others, had been detected in the act of robbing the ship, and were turned on sh.o.r.e.

Mr. Campbell at his departure expressed his determination of trying his pa.s.sage to Bengal by the south cape of this country. The route of the _Daedalus_ was round the southern extremity of New Zealand.

The lieutenant-governor took with him all the doc.u.ments which were necessary to lay before government to explain the state of the different settlements under his command; such as the commissary's accounts, returns of stock, remains of provisions, etc, etc.; vouchers, in fact, of that true spirit of liberality which had marked the whole of his administration of the public affairs of this settlement.

Our society was much weakened by this departure of our friends; they carried with them, however, letters to our connexions, and our earnest wishes for their speedy, pleasant, and safe pa.s.sage to England.

The number of small boats at this time in the settlement was considerable, although wretchedly put together. Two of them were stolen during the month by several Irish prisoners, accompanied by some who came out in the _Surprise_. In it they went down to the Southhead, whence they took what arms they could find, and made off to sea. In a very few days they were all brought in from the adjacent bays, and punished for their rashness and folly. No example seemed to deter these people from thinking it practicable to escape from the colony; the ill success and punishment which had befallen others affected not them, till woeful experience made it their own; and then they only regretted their ill fortune, never attributing the failure to their own ignorance and temerity.

In the morning of Wednesday the 24th the signal was made at the South Head for a vessel (which they had seen the day before). She came in about three o'clock, and proved to be the _Experiment_, a snow from Bengal, laden with spirits, sugar, piece-goods, and a few casks of provisions; the speculation being suggested by Mr. Beyer, the agent for the _Sugar Cane_ and _Boddingtons_. Those ships had arrived safely at Bengal, and had sailed thence for England.

The _Experiment_ had had a pa.s.sage of three months from Calcutta, one month of which she had pa.s.sed since she saw the southern extremity of this country.

We learned from Mr. E. McClellan, the master, that a large ship named the _Neptune_ had been freighted with cattle, etc in pursuance of the contract entered into with Mr. Bampton, and had sailed from Bombay in July last, but was unfortunately lost in the river by sailing against the monsoon. When Mr. Bampton might be expected was uncertain.

The direction of the colony during the absence of the governor and lieutenant-governor devolving upon the officer highest in rank then on service in the colony, Captain William Paterson, of the New South Wales corps, on Christmas Day took the oaths prescribed by his Majesty's letters patent for the person who should so take upon him the government of the settlement. This officer, expecting every day the arrival of Governor Hunter, made no alteration in the mode of carrying on the different duties of the settlement now entrusted to his care and guidance.

At the latter end of the month a general muster was ordered of all the male convicts, together with the persons who had served their several terms of transportation, as well those residing at Sydney and Parramatta, as those on the banks of the river Hawkesbury. The following ration was also ordered, the maize being nearly expended, viz.

To Civil, Military, Free People, and Free Settlers 8 lbs of flour, 7 lbs of beef, or 4 lbs of pork, 3 pints of peas, 6 oz of sugar.

To Male Convicts 4 lbs of flour 7 lbs of beef, or 4 lbs of pork, 3 pints of peas, 6 ozs of sugar, and 3 pints of rice.

Women and children were to receive the usual proportion, and a certain quant.i.ty of slops was directed to be issued to the male and female convicts who came out in the _Surprise_ transport, they being very much in want of clothing.

A jail gang was also ordered to be established at Toongabbie, for the employment and punishment of all bad and suspicious characters.

Wheat was this month directed to be purchased from the settlers at ten shillings per bushel. Much of that grain was found to have been blighted this season. The ground about Toongabbie was p.r.o.nounced to be worn out, the produce of the last harvest not averaging more than six or seven bushels an acre, though at first it was computed at seventeen. The Northern farms had also failed through a blight.

Our loss by death in the year 1794 was, two settlers; four soldiers; one soldier's wife; thirty-two male convicts; ten female convicts; and ten children; making a total of fifty-nine persons.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Gangs sent to till the public grounds The _Francis_ sails Regulations for the Hawkesbury Natives Works Weather Deaths Produce at the river Transactions there Natives The _Francis_ arrives from the Cape The _Fancy_ from New Zealand Information The _Experiment_ sails for India A native killed Weather Wheat Criminal Court Ration reduced The _Britannia_ hired to procure provisions Natives at the Hawkesbury The _Endeavour_ arrives with cattle from Bombay Deaths Returns of ground sown with wheat The _Britannia_ sails for India The _Fancy_ for Norfolk Island Convicts Casualties

1795.]

January.] From the great numbers of labouring convicts who were employed in the town of Sydney, and at the grounds about Petersham; of others employed with officers and settlers; of those who, their terms of transportation having expired, were allowed to provide for themselves; and of others who had been permitted to leave the colony, public field-labour was entirely at a stand. The present commanding officer wishing to cultivate the grounds belonging to government, collecting as many labourers as could be got together, sent a large gang, formed of bricklayers, brickmakers, timber-carriage men, etc. etc. to Parramatta and Toongabbie, there to prepare the ground for wheat for the ensuing season. At the muster which had been lately taken fifty people were found without any employment, whose services still belonged to the public; most of these were laid hold of, and sent to hard labour; and it appeared at the same time that some few were at large in the woods, runaways, and vagabonds. These people began labouring in the grounds immediately after New Year's day, which as usual was observed as a holiday.

On the 22nd, the convict women who had children attended at the store, when they received for each child three yards of flannel, one shirt, and two pounds of soap.

On the day following, the colonial schooner sailed for the river, having on board a mill, provisions, etc. for the settlers there. A military guard was also ordered, the commanding officer of which was to introduce some regulations among the settlers, and to prevent, by the effect of his presence and authority, the commission of those enormities which disgraced that settlement. For the reception of such quant.i.ty of the Indian corn and wheat grown there this season as might be purchased by government, a store-house was to be erected under the inspection of the commissary; and Baker, the superintendant who arrived in the _Surprise_, was sent out to take the charge of it when finished. The master of the schooner was ordered, after discharging his cargo, to receive on board Mr. Charles Grimes, the deputy surveyor-general, and proceed with him to Port Stephens, for the purpose of examining that harbour.

About the middle of the month a convict, on entering the door of his hut, was bit in the foot by a black snake; the effect was, an immediate swelling of the foot, leg, and thigh, and a large tumour in the groin.

Mr. Thompson, the a.s.sistant-surgeon, was fortunately able to reduce all these swellings by frequently bathing the parts in oil, and saved the man's life without having recourse to amputation. While we lived in a wood, and might naturally have expected to have been troubled with them, snakes and other reptiles were by no means so often seen, as since, by clearing and opening the country about us, the natives had not had opportunities of setting the woods so frequently on fire. But now they were often met in the different paths about the settlements, basking at mid-day in the sunshine, and particularly after a shower of rain.

We heard and saw much of the natives about this time. At the Hawkesbury a man had been wounded by some of the Wood tribe. Two women (natives) were murdered not far from the town of Sydney during the night, and another victim, a female of Pe-mul-wy's party (the man who killed McIntyre), having been secured by the males of a tribe inimical to Pe-mul-wy, dragged her into the woods, where they fatigued themselves with exercising acts of cruelty and l.u.s.t upon her.

The princ.i.p.al labour performed in January was preparing the ground for wheat. The Indian corn looked every where remarkably well; it was now ripening, and the settlers on the banks of the Hawkesbury supposed that at least thirty thousand bushels of that grain would be raised among them.

Several native boys, from eight to fourteen years of age, were at this time living among the settlers in the different districts. They were found capable of being made extremely useful; they went cheerfully into the fields to labour, and the elder ones with ease hoed in a few hours a greater quant.i.ty of ground than that generally a.s.signed to a convict for a day's work. Some of these were allowed a ration of provisions from the public stores.

In consequence of the heavy rains, the river at the Hawkesbury rose many feet higher than it had been known to rise in other rains, by which several settlers were sufferers. At Toongabbie the wheat belonging to government was considerably injured. At Parramatta the damage was extensive; the bridge over the creek, which had been very well constructed, was entirely swept away; and the boats with their moorings carried down the river. At Sydney some chimneys in the new barracks fell in.

Mr. Jones, the quarter-master sergeant of the New South Wales corps, a person of much respectability, and whose general demeanor indicated an education far beyond what is met with in the sphere of life in which he moved, died this month.

A convict lad, in the service of Mr. William Smith the store-keeper, died on the 26th, having swallowed a.r.s.enic. It was remarkable in his untimely end, that he himself placed the poison with a view of destroying the rats with which the house was infested, and was particularly cautioned against it. How he came, after that, to take it himself, was not to be accounted for.

February.] Early in February, the storehouse at the Hawkesbury being completed, the provisions which had been sent round in the schooner were landed and put under the care of Baker. Some officers who had made an excursion to that settlement, with a view of selecting eligible spots for farms, on their return spoke highly of the corn which they saw growing there, and of the picturesque appearance of many of the settlers' farms.

The settlers told them, that in general their grounds which had been in wheat had produced from thirty to thirty-six bushels an acre; that they found one bushel (or on some spots five pecks) of seed sufficient to sow an acre; and that, if sown as early as the month of April or May, they imagined the ground would produce a second crop, and the season be not too far advanced to ripen it. Their kitchen gardens were plentifully stocked with vegetables. The master of the schooner complained that the navigation of the river was likely to be hurt. The settlers having fallen many trees into the water, he was apprehensive they would drift ash.o.r.e on some of the points of the river where, in process of time, sand, etc.

might lodge against them, and form dangerous obstructions in the way of craft which might be hereafter used on the river. No doubt remained of the ill and impolitic conduct of some of the settlers toward the natives.

In revenge for some cruelties which they had experienced, they threatened to put to death three of the settlers, Michael Doyle, Robert Forrester, and ---- Nixon; and had actually attacked and cruelly wounded two other settlers, George Shadrach and John Akers, whose farms and persons they mistook for those of Doyle and Forrester. These particulars were procured through the means of one Wilson, a wild idle young man, who, his term of transportation being expired, preferred living among the natives in the vicinity of the river, to earning the wages of honest industry by working for settlers. He had formed an intermediate language between his own and theirs, with which he made shift to comprehend something of what they wished him to communicate; for they did not conceal the sense they entertained of the injuries which had been done them. The tribe with whom Wilson a.s.sociated had given him a name, Bun-bo-e, but none of them had taken his in exchange. As the gratifying an idle wandering disposition was the sole object with Wilson in herding with these people, no good consequence was likely to ensue from it; and it was by no means improbable, that at some future time, if disgusted with the white people, he would join the blacks, and a.s.sist them in committing depredations, or make use of their a.s.sistance to punish or revenge his own injuries.

Mr. Grimes purposed taking him with him in the schooner to Port Stephens.

There were at this time several convicts in the woods subsisting by theft; and it being said that three had been met with arms, it became necessary to secure them as soon as possible. Watchmen and other people immediately went out, and in the afternoon of the 14th a wretched fellow of the name of Suffini was killed by one of them. This circ.u.mstance drove the rest to a greater distance from Sydney, and they were reported, some days afterwards, to have been met on their route to the river. Suffini would not have been shot at, had he not refused to surrender when called to by the watchman while in the act of plundering a garden.

About the latter end of the month the natives adjusted some affairs of honour in a convenient spot near the brick-fields. The people who live about the south sh.o.r.e of Botany Bay brought with them a stranger of an extraordinary appearance and character; even his name had something extraordinary in the sound--Gome-boak. He had been several days on his journey from the place where he lived, which was far to the southward. In height he was not more than five feet two or three inches; but he was by far the most muscular, square, and well-formed native we had ever seen.

He fought well; his spears were remarkably long, and he defended himself with a shield that covered his whole body. We had the satisfaction of seeing him engaged with some of our Sydney friends, and of observing that neither their persons nor reputations suffered any thing in the contest.

When the fight was over, on our praising to them the martial talents of this stranger, the strength and muscle of his arm, and the excellence of his sight, they admitted the praise to be just (because when opposed to them he had not gained the slightest advantage); but, unwilling that we should think too highly of him, they a.s.sured us, with horror in their countenances, that Gome-boak was a cannibal.*

[* Gome-boak, we learned, was afterwards killed among his own people in some affair to the southward.]

March.] On the 1st of March the _Francis_ returned from Port Stephens.

Mr. Grimes reported, that he went into two fresh-water branches, up which he rowed, until, at no very great distance from the entrance, he found them terminate in a swamp. He described the land on each side to be low and sandy, and had seen nothing while in this harbour which in his opinion could render a second visit necessary. The natives were so very unfriendly, that he made but few observations on them. He thought they were a taller and a stouter race of people than those about this settlement, and their language was entirely different. Their huts and canoes were something larger than those which we had seen here; their weapons were the same. They welcomed him on sh.o.r.e with a dance, joined hand in hand, round a tree, to express perhaps their unanimity; but one of them afterwards, drawing Mr. Grimes into the wood, poised a spear, and was on the point of throwing it, when he was prevented by young Wilson, who, having followed Mr. Grimes with a double-barrelled gun, levelled at the native, and fired it. He was supposed to be wounded, for he fell; but rising again, he attempted a second time to throw the spear, and was again prevented by Wilson. The effect of this second shot was supposed to be conclusive, as he was not seen to rise any more. Mr. Grimes got back to his boat without any other interruption.

Mr. House in his way thither ran close along the sh.o.r.e, and saw not any shelter for a ship or vessel from Broken Bay to Port Stephens. The schooner was only fourteen hours on her return.

About this time, the spirit of inquiry being on foot, Mr. c.u.mmings, an officer of the corps, made an excursion to the southward of Botany Bay, and brought back with him some of the head bones of a marine animal, which, on inspection, Captain Paterson, the only naturalist in the country, p.r.o.nounced to have belonged to the animal described by M. de Buffon, and named by him the Manatee. On this excursion Mr. c.u.mmings received some information which led him to believe that the cattle that had been lost soon after our arrival were in existence. The natives who conversed with him were so particular in their account of having seen a large animal with horns, that he shortly after, taking some of them with him as guides, set off to seek them, but returned without success, not having met with any trace that could lead him to suppose they might ever be found.