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guard-house of any soldier or seaman who should be found straggling after the taptoo had been beat. They were to use their utmost endeavours to trace out offenders on receiving accounts of any depredation; and in addition to their night duty, they were directed to take cognizance of such convicts as gained, or sold or bartered their slops or provisions, and report them for punishment. A return of all occurrences during the night was to be made to the judge-advocate; and the military were required to furnish the watch with any assistance they might be in need of, beyond what the civil power could give them. They were provided each with a short staff, to distinguish them during the night, and to denote their office in the colony; and were instructed not to receive any stipulated encouragement or reward from any individual for the conviction of offenders, but to expect that negligence or misconduct in the execution of their trust would be punished with the utmost rigour. It was to have been wished, that a watch established for the preservation of public and private property had been formed of free people, and that necessity had not compelled us, in selecting the first members of our little police, to appoint them from a body of men in whose eyes, it could not be denied, the property of individuals had never before been sacred. But there was not any choice. The military had their line of duty marked out for them, and between them and the convict there was no description of people from whom overseers or watchmen could be provided. It might, however, be supposed, that among the convicts there must be many who would feel a pride in being distinguished from their fellows, and a pride that might give birth to a returning principle of honesty. It was hoped that the convicts whom we had chosen were of this description; some effort had become ne cessary to detect the various offenders who were prowling about with security under cover of the night; and the convicts who had any property were themselves interested in defeating such practices. They promised fidelity and diligence, from which the scorn of their fellow-prisoners should not induce them to swerve, and began with a confidence of success the duty which they had themselves offered to undertake.'

A species of disturber now infested the colony, against which the vigilance of a police could not guard. Rats, in immense numbers, had attacked the provision-stores, and could be counteracted only by removing the provisions from one store to another. When their ravages were first discovered, it

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found that eight casks of flour were already destroyed by these vermin. Such of these animals as escaped the dogs, which were set upon them, flew to the gardens of individuals; where they rioted on the Indian corn that was growing, and did considerable mischief.

In reading this account of the South Wales Colony, we are too frequently shocked with the most melancholy narratives of extreme suffering from want of provisions. In April 1790, the weekly allowance to each male convict was no more than flour 22lb. rice 2lb. pork 21b.

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The following statement conveys a dreadful idea of the wretched condition to which those unhappy people must have been reduced by this scarcity:

• It was naturally expected, that the miserable allowance which was issued would affect the healths of the labouring convicts. A circumstance occurred on the 12th of this month, (May 1790,) which seemed to favor this idea: an elderly man dropped down at the store, whither he had repaired with others to receive his day's subsistence. Fainting with hunger, and unable through age to hold up any longer, he was carried to the hospital, where he died the next morning. On being opened, his stomach was found quite empty. It appeared, that not having any utensil of his own wherein to cook his provisions, nor share in any, he was frequently compelled, short as his allowance for the day was, to give a part of it to any one who would supply him with a vessel to dress his victuals; and at those times when he did not choose to afford this deduction, he was accustomed to eat his rice and other provisions undressed, which brought on indigestion, and at length killed him.'

Several transport-ships arriving about this time put an end to the sufferings of the colonists from hunger: but, in some of those transports, calamities perhaps more dreadful than hunger itself were found to exist. Of the arrival of the Neptune and Scarborough, the following account is given :

• On the evening of Monday the 28th of June, the Neptune and Scarborough transports anchored off Garden Island, and were warped into the cove the following morning.

• We were not mistaken in our expectations of the state in which they might arrive. By noon the following day, two hundred sick had been landed from the different transports. The west side afforded a scene truly distressing and miserable; upwards of thirty tents were pitched in front of the hospital, the portable one not being yet put up; all of which, as well the hospital and the adjacent huts, were filled with people, many of whom were labouring under the complicated diseases of scurvy and the dysentery, and others in the last stage of either of those terrible disorders, or yielding to the attacks of an infectious fever.

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The appearance of those who did not require medical assistance was lean and emaciated. Several of these miserable people died in the boats as they were rowing on shore, or on the wharf as they were lifting out of the boats; both the living and the dead exhibiting more horrid spectacles than had ever been witnessed in this country. All this was to be attributed to confinement, and that of the worst species, confinement in a small space and in irons, not put on singly, but many of them chained together. On board the Scarborough a plan had been formed to take the ship, which would certainly have been attempted, but for a discovery which was fortunately made by one of the convicts (Samuel Burt) who had too much principle left to enter into it. This necessarily, on board that ship, occasioned much future circumspection; but Captain Marshall's humanity considerably lessened

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lessened the severity which the insurgents might naturally have expected. On board the other ships, the masters, who had the entire direction of the prisoners, never suffered them to be at large on deck, and but few at a time were permitted there. This consequently gave birth to many diseases. It was said, that on board the Neptune several had died in irons; and what added to the horror of such a circumstance was, that their deaths were concealed, for the purpose of sharing their allowance of provisions, until chance, and the offensiveness of a corpse, directed the surgeon, or some one who had authority in the ship, to the spot where it lay.'

The horrors of the slave-trade vanish before this picture! but it will be grateful to the reader to learn that care was taken to transmit to government an account of those dreadful circumstances, verified on oath. Have the men who were answerable for them been punished?

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Norfolk Island, to which New South Wales was a mothercountry, must have been generally more liable than that colony to suffer from scarcity. The settlers there, however, sometimes obtained a temporary supply from a source which was unknown in Sydney Cove.

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• The supply of provisions, Mr. Collins tells us, which was dispatched in the Justinian and Surprise, reached them at a critical point of time, there being in store on the 7th of August, when they ap.. peared off the island, provisions but for a few days at the ration then issued, which was three pounds of flour and one pint of rice; or, in licu of flour, three pounds of Indian meal or of wheat, ground, and not separated from the husks or the bran. Their salt provisions were so nearly expended, that while a bird or a fish could be procured no salt meat was issued. The weekly ration of this article was only one pound and an half of beef, or seventeen ounces of pork. What their situation might have been but for the providential supply of birds which they met with, it was impossible to say; to themselves it was too distressing to be contemplated. On Mount Pitt they were fortunate enough to obtain, in an abundance almost incredible, a species of aquatic birds, answering the description of that known by the name of the Puffin. These birds came in from the sea every evening, in clouds literally darkening the air, and, descending on Mount Pitt, deposited their eggs in deep holes made by themselves in the ground, generally quitting them in the morning, and returning to seek their subsistence in the sea. From two to three thousand of these birds were often taken in a night. Their seeking their food in the ocean left no doubt of their own flesh partaking of the quality of that upon which they fed; but to people circumstanced as were the inhabitants on Norfolk Island, this lessened not their importance; and while any Mount Pitt birds (such being the name given them) were to be had, they were eagerly sought.'

The first settler in this country who declared himself able to live on the produce of his farm, without any assistance from the stores, was James Ruse; who, in April 1790, relinquished

his claim to any farther share of the public provision. As a reward, the governor immediately put him in possession of an allotment of thirty acres.

In the July of the same year,

• The convicts whose terms of transportation had expired were now collected, and by the authority of the governor informed, that such of them as wished to become settlers in this country should reeeive every encouragement; that those who did not, were to labour for their provisions, stipulating to work for twelve or eighteen months certain; and that in the way of such as preferred returning to England no obstacles would be thrown, provided they could procure passages from the masters of such ships as might arrive; but that they were not to expect any assistance on the part of government to that end. The wish to return to their friends appeared to be the prevailing idea, a few only giving in their names as settlers, and none engaging to work for a certain time.'

That the wish to return home was strong indeed, and paramount to all other feelings, was evinced in a very melancholy instance some time before. A convict, an elderly man, was found dead in the woods, near the settlement; who, on being opened, it appeared had died from want of nourishment; and it was found that he was accustomed to deny himself even what was absolutely necessary to his existence, abstaining from his provisions, and selling them for money, which he was reserving, and had somewhere concealed, in order to purchase his passage to England when his time should terminate !

Of some convicts whose terms of transportation had expired, the governor established a new settlement in August 1791 at a place which he called Prospect Hill, about twenty miles distant from Sydney Cove; and another residence was formed at the Ponds within three or four miles of the former. This made the fourth settlement in the colony, exclusively of that at Norfolk Island.

About this time, the governor received from England a public seal for the colony on the obverse of which were the king's arms and royal titles; and on the reverse, emblematic figures suited to the situation of the people for whose use it was designed. The motto was " Sic fortis Etruria crevit;" and in the margin were the words "Sigillum Nov. Camb. Auft. A commission also arrived, empowering him to remit absolutely, or conditionally, the whole or any part of the term for which the felons sent to the colony might be transported. By this power, he was enabled to bestow on superior honesty and industry the most valuable reward which, in such circumstances, they could receive.

In addition to the calamities under which the settlement had so often laboured from being reduced to very short allowance

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of provisions, and the frequency of the ordinary diseases which were to be expected among a people so situated, a new malady of a very alarming nature was perceived about April 1792. Several convicts were seized with insanity; and, as the major part of those who were visited by this calamity were females, who, on account of their sex, were not harassed with hard labour, and who in general shared largely of such little comforts as were to be procured in the settlement, it was difficult to assign a cause for this disorder. We hear no more of its progress, however, during the remainder of the period which this account comprehends.

The colony had at this time assumed somewhat of an established form:

Brick huts were in hand for the convicts in room of the miserable hovels occupied by many, which had been put up at their first landing, and in room of others which, from having been erected on such ground as was then cleared, were now found to interfere with the direction of the streets which the governor was laying out. People were also employed in cutting paling for fencing in their gardens. At Parramatta and the New Grounds, during the greatest part of the month, (May 1792,) the people were employed in getting in the maize and sowing wheat. A foundation for an hospital was laid, a house built for the master carpenter, and roofs prepared for the different huts either building, or to be built in future."

In December 1792, when Capt. Phillip resigned the government, nearly five years from the foundation of the colony, there were in cultivation at the different settlements 1429 acres, of which 417 belonged to settlers; that is, sixty-seven settlers, for there were no more, cultivated nearly half as much ground as was cultivated by the public labour of all the convicts;-a striking proof of the superior zeal and diligence with which men exert themselves when they have an interest in their labour. Of free settlers, whose exertions promised so fairly to promote the interests of the colony, several arrived from England in January 1793, and fixed themselves in a situation which they called "Liberty Plains." To one of these, Thomas Rose, a farmer from Dorsetshire, and his family of a wife and four children, 120 acres were allotted. The conditions under which these people agreed to settle were, "to have their passage provided by government *; an assortment of tools and implements to be given to them out of the stores; that they should be supplied with two years' provisions; that their lands should be granted free of expence; the service of

* Government paid for the passage of each person above ten years of age, 81. 8s. and one shilling per day for victualling them.

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