August.] An order having been given in the beginning of the month for assembling the court of civil judicature, a recommendation to the inhabitants was added, that when any bargain, contract, or agreement, was made, between any party or parties, on any subject whatsoever, the same should be reduced to writing, specifying in direct and clear terms what the nature of such bargain or contract might be, and causing the same to be properly witnessed, and subscribed by the parties concerned. This measure was calculated to prevent disputes, litigation, and misunderstandings, among the inhabitants, as well as to do away the great inconvenience which the members of the court experienced every time they were convened, from the loose and careless manner in which business was brought before them.
On the 1st day of this month the regulation directed by government, relative to the number of public servants which the officers were allowed to retain, was put in force.
The abandoned and dissipated disposition of most of those who were or had been convicts, so much to be regretted and so often mentioned, was particularly manifest in a shameful abuse of the Sabbath, and a profane ridicule with which every thing sacred was treated. A conduct so derogatory to every Christian principle had from time to time been severely reprobated; but it had now arrived at a height that called for the exertion of every advocate for morality to subdue. Observing, that, instead of employing the Sunday in the performance of those duties for which that day was set apart, it was passed in the indulgence of every abominable act of dissipation, the overseers of the different gangs were strictly ordered to see their men mustered every Sunday morning, and to attend with them at church. The superintendants and constables were to see this order complied with, and that the women (who, to their disgrace, were far worse than the men) were strictly looked after and made to attend divine service regularly. And, as example might do something, the officers were not only to send a certain number of their servants, but they were also called upon, civil and military, to assist in the execution of this order; to the meaning of which, the magistrates were required in a particular degree to pay their attention, in compelling a due obedience thereto, by preventing the opening of the licensed public houses during the hours of divine service as well as any irregularity on the day appropriated to the performance thereof.
In the evening of the 20th, the Pomona and Diana, whalers belonging to the southern fishery, anchored in the Cove. They brought an account of much disturbance and disaffection in Ireland. Too much of the same evil spirit seemed to prevail here among the late importations from that kingdom.
Wishing to have that part of the coast examined in which a strait was supposed to exist (between the latitude of 39 degrees 00 minutes S and the land hitherto deemed the southern Promontory of New Holland, and called Van Diemen's land), the governor resolved on sending Lieutenant Flinders and Mr. Bass of the Reliance on that service, in the Norfolk, the small decked boat which had lately arrived from Norfolk Island, and began fitting her properly for the voyage.
The battery on Point Maskelyne was nearly completed in this month. A few carpenters were employed in laying a floor in Government House, and other repairs; but several of the public works were nearly at a stand, many of the sawyers being in the hospital. The powder magazine having been found upon examination to be in a very insecure and dangerous state, the powder was taken out and sent on board the Supply. This removal was the more necessary, as an attempt had been made to open the door of the magazine in the night. The weather was bad; and it was supposed that the sentinel, whose box was thrown down and broken, had endeavoured to shelter himself in the magazine.
The agricultural hands were employed in breaking up ground for maize in the vicinity of Parramatta, and others were endeavouring to prepare materials for a water-mill there.
The natives about this time excited a great deal of interest.
A young woman (nearly related to Bennillong), who had resided from her infancy in the settlement, was most inhumanly murdered; and a native of the Botany Bay district had driven a spear through the body of the lad Nanbarrey. The name of the good-tempered girl (for such she was) was War-re-weer; but, to distinguish her from others of the same name, an addition was given to her in the settlement from a personal defect that she had. Being blind of one eye, she was called, War-re-weer Wo-gul Mi, the latter words signifying one eye. The circumstance of this girl's being killed, and Nanbarrey wounded, occasioned much violence on the part of their friends and relations, of which number were Cole-be and Bennillong; the former of whom, falling in with the man who had wounded the boy, revenged his treatment of him so fully that he died of his wounds the following morning. Bennillong, in consequence of this, was attacked, when alone, by two men; when he defended himself with much address, and would have defied and foiled them both, had they kept fairly and openly in his front; but one of them, with the treachery common to those savage people, contrived to skulk behind, and throw a spear into his side, the weapon penetrating seven inches into the cavity of his body, and, from its direction, being supposed to have wounded the intestines. He was taken on board the Reliance, where at first the wound was attended with some unfavourable symptoms, nothing remaining upon his stomach.
Gaining every day some further knowledge of the inhuman habits and customs of these people, their being so thinly scattered through the country ceased to be a matter of surprise. It was almost daily seen, that from some trifling cause or other they were continually living in a state of warfare; to this must be added their brutal treatment of their women, who are themselves equally destructive to the measure of population, by the horrid and cruel custom of endeavouring to cause a miscarriage, which their female acquaintance effect by pressing the body in such a way, as to destroy the infant in the womb; which violence not infrequently occasions the death of the unnatural mother also. To this they have recourse, to avoid the trouble of carrying the infant about when born, which, when it is very young, or at the breast, is the duty of the woman. The operation for this destructive purpose is termed Mee-bra. The burying an infant (when at the breast) with the mother*, if she should die, is another shocking cause of the thinness of population among them. The fact that such an operation as the Mee-bra was practised by these wretched people was communicated by one of the natives to the principal surgeon of the settlement.