To this pernicious practice of drinking to excess, more of the crimes which disgraced the colony were to be ascribed than to any other cause; and more lives where lost through this than through any other circumstance; for the settlement had ever been free from epidemical or fatal diseases. How much then was the importation of spirits to be lamented! How much was it to be regretted, that it had become the interest of any set of people to vend them!
Several robberies which at this time had been committed were to be imputed to the same source.
A new enemy to agriculture made its appearance in this month. A destructive grub-worm was discovered in several parts of the cultivated ground; and at the Hawkesbury a caterpillar had commenced its ravages wherever it found any young grain just shooting out of the earth. This occasioned some delay in sowing the government ground.
It having been for several days reported, that the crews of two boats, which had been permitted to go to Hunter's River for a load of coals, had been cut off by the natives, the governor ordered his whale boat to be well armed, and to proceed thither in quest of the boats and their crews; sending in her Henry Hacking, a person on whom he could depend. Upon his return, he informed the governor, that on his arrival he found an attempt had been made to burn the smaller boat, which had had three men in her, who were each provided with a musket. The boat was there, but the men were not to be found. Going immediately in search of them, he fell in with a large body of natives all armed. On desiring them to inform him what was become of the white men, they told him they were gone to Sydney. This did not satisfy him, as he found they had taken away the sails of the boats, the men's blankets, and every thing that they had with them. He then threatened to kill them if they did not instantly inform him, and presented his musket at them. This they laughed at, and said, that if he did not go away, and leave them a small two-oared boat which he had brought with him, and the whale boat, they would destroy every white man there, and poised their spears in a threatening manner. He again levelled his piece at them, and snapped it without priming, in the hope of alarming them; but they were not so easily frightened, and became most noisy and violent. Finding that an attack was almost certain, he charged his gun with buck shot, and ordered them to leave the place; but, their clamour increasing, he fired, and four of them fell, one of whom got up again and ran off, the other three remaining upon the ground, probably mortally wounded. The whole body disappeared, and no more was seen of them, leaving Hacking to fill his boat and effect his retreat unmolested.
Our people having frequently visited this river for coals, and always treating with kindness and civility the natives whom they met, this behaviour was not to be accounted for, except by its being allowed that all savages are under the dominion of a sudden impulse; which renders it impossible to know when to trust them.
As the men belonging to the boat were not heard of for a considerable time, it was feared they had been murdered by the natives; but they fortunately reached the settlement safe.
On the morning of the 24th, the Nautilus returned from Norfolk Island, and with her came in a Spanish ship, a prize to two whalers, which they had captured off Cape Blanco on the coast of Peru. She was bound from Lima to Guiaquill.
A court of vice-admiralty having been assembled, she was condemned as a legal prize, and part of her cargo* was in a few days sold by public auction.
[* This consisted of sugar, flour, and an ardent spirit similar to the aqua ardente of the Brazils. The governor would not allow this article to be sold by auction.]
This was a new circumstance in the annals of the settlement, and wore the appearance of rendering it of more consequence than it had hitherto been. Did it not go to prove, that at some future period, in the event of a Dutch or Spanish war, it might become a place of much importance, by offering a reception to the prizes of our cruisers, a court whereat they could be condemned, and a market for their cargoes?