These people, however, though they had not been heard of where it might have been expected they would have proved troublesome, had not been so quiet in the neighbourhood of Parramatta. Between that settlement and Prospect Hill some settlers had been attacked by a party of armed natives and stripped of all their provisions. Reports of this nature had been frequently brought in, and many, perhaps, might have been fabricated to answer a purpose; but there was not a doubt that these people were very desirous of possessing our clothing and provisions; and it was noticed, that as the corn ripened, they constantly drew together round the settlers farms and round the public grounds, for the purpose of committing depredations.
Several gardens were robbed and some houses broken into during this month, the certain effect of a reduced ration. One burglary which was committed was of some magnitude, and deserving of mention. A sergeant of the New South Wales corps having been on guard, on his return to his hut in the morning, had the mortification of finding he had been robbed during his absence of a large quantity of wearing apparel, and twenty-seven pounds in guineas and dollars; in fact the thief had stripped him of all his moveable property, except only a spare suit of regimentals. The hut stood the first of a new row just without the town, and ought not to have been left without some person to take care of it. The spoil, no doubt, soon passed from one hand to another in the practice of that vice which, as already mentioned, too generally prevailed among the lower class of the people in the colony.
At Parramatta some people were taken up and punished, on being detected in issuing to themselves from the stores, where they were employed, a greater proportion of provisions than the ration. This offence had often been committed; and though it was always punished with severity, yet while convicts were employed, it was likely, notwithstanding the utmost vigilance, to continue. Vigilance seemed only to incite to deeper contrivances; and perhaps, though discoveries of this practice had often occurred, yet too many had been guilty of it with impunity, and, being alarmed, had withdrawn in time from the danger.
But very few appeared deserving of confidence; for, sooner or later, wherever it had been placed, either temptation was too strong, or opportunity proved too favourable; and many who had been deemed honest enough to be trusted ended their services by being detected in a breach of that duty which they owed to the public as a return for the faith which had been reposed in them.
This perhaps was owing to the uncertainty of reward for any services that they might render while in the class of convicts. As an exception to this rule, however, must be mentioned those people to whom unconditional emancipation had been held out at the expiration of a certain period, if then considered as deserving of his Majesty's mercy as at the time of making the promise. In the hope of this reward they continued to conduct themselves without incurring the slightest censure; and one of them, Samuel Burt, was deemed, through a conscientious and rigid discharge of his duty, to have merited the pardon he looked up to. Accordingly, on the last day of the month he was declared absolutely free. In the instrument of his emancipation it was stated, 'that the remainder of his term of transportation was remitted in consideration of his good conduct in discovering and thereby preventing the intended mutiny on board the Scarborough in her voyage to this country in the year 1790, and his faithful services in the public stores under the commissary since his arrival.' Independent of his integrity as a storekeeper, he was certainly deserving of some distinguishing mark of favour for having been the means of saving the transport in which he came out at the risk of his own life.
At the end of this month nearly four hundred acres were got ready for wheat at Sydney, and every exertion was making to increase that quantity.
A large number of slops having been prepared, a frock, shirt, and trousers, were served out to each male convict at Sydney and the interior settlements. Shoes were become an article of exceeding scarcity; and the country had hitherto afforded nothing that could be substituted for them. A convict who understood the business of a tanner had shown that the skin of the kangaroo might be tanned; but the animal was not found in sufficient abundance to answer this purpose for any number of people; and the skin itself was not of a substance to be applied to the soling of shoes.
Among the number of deaths this month was that of William Crozier Cook, who expired in consequence of eating two pounds of unground wheat, which was forced, by his immediately drinking a quantity of water, into the intestines, whence it could not pass; and though the most active medicines were administered a mortification took place in the lower part of his intestines, which put an end to his life. Cook had, for a length of time after his arrival in this country, been a worthless vagabond; but had latterly appeared sensible how much more to his advantage a different character would prove, and had gained the good word and opinion of the overseers and superintendants under whom he laboured.
February.] On the 4th of this month the watches which had remained so long undiscovered were brought down from Parramatta by Lieutenant Macarthur. By a chain of circumstances it appeared that they had been stolen by John Bevan, who at the time had broken out of the prison hut at Toongabbie, and coming immediately down to Sydney, in conjunction with Sutton (the man who was tried for stealing Mr. Raven's watch in October 1792) committed the theft, returning with the spoil to his hut at Toongabbie before he had been missed from it by any of the watchmen. He afterwards played at cards with another convict, and exchanged the watches for a nankeen waistcoat and trousers. From this man they got into the possession of two or three other people, and were at last, by great accident, found to be in the possession of one Batty, an overseer, in the thatch of whose hut they, together with ten dollars, were found safe and uninjured. The dollars were supposed to be part of the money stolen at the same time from Walsh at the hospital*, with whom Bevan, some time before, had made acquaintance, winning from him not only a hundred weight of flour, which he had almost starved himself to lay by, but deluding him also out of the secret of his money, with every particular that was necessary to his design of stealing it.
[* This wretched old man did not long survive the loss of his money.]