although it had hitherto been the intention and the practice of government to give them every possible encouragement, as well as others who had employed themselves in growing corn, by taking off their hands all their surplus grain at such prices as had from time to time been thought fair and reasonable, it was not, however, to be expected, as the colony advanced in the means of supplying itself with bread, that such heavy expences could be continued. He therefore recommended to them to consider what reduction in the price of wheat and Indian corn they could at present submit to, as their offers in that respect would determine him how far it might be necessary in future to cultivate on the part of government, instead of taking or purchasing a quantity from individuals at so great a price.
This proposal, he thought, could not be considered otherwise than as fair and reasonable, when they recollected that the means by which individuals had so far improved their farms had arisen from the very liberal manner in which government had given up the labour of so great a number of its own servants, to assist the industry of others. If this representation should not have the effect which he hoped and expected, by a reduction of the present high price of grain, he thought it his duty to propose, that those who were assisted with servants from government, should at least undertake to furnish those servants with bread.
To those who had farms on the banks of the Hawkesbury he thought it necessary to observe, that, there not being any granaries in that district belonging to government, the expense of conveying their grain from thence to this part of the settlement rendered it absolutely necessary that they should lower their prices; otherwise they must be at that expence themselves, and bring their surplus corn to market either at Sydney or Parramatta, where government had stores where in to deposit it, and where only the commissary could be permitted to receive it.
A report from the river was current about this time, that the natives had assembled in a large body, and attacked a few settlers who had chosen farms low down the river, and without the reach of protection from the other settlers, stripping them of every article they could find in their huts. An armed party was directly sent out, who, coming up with them, killed four men and one woman, badly wounded a child, and took four men prisoners. It might have been supposed that these punishments, following the enormities so immediately, would have taught the natives to keep at a greater distance; but nothing seemed to deter them from prosecuting the revenge they had vowed against the settlers for the injuries they had received at their hands.
A savage of a darker hue, and full as far removed from civilisation, black Caesar, once more fled from honest labour to the woods, there to subsist by robbing the settlers. It was however reported, that he had done one meritorious action, killing Pe-mul-wy, who had just before wounded Collins (the native) so dangerously, that his recovery was a matter of very great doubt with the surgeons at our hospital, whose assistance Collins had requested as soon as he was brought into town by his friends. A barbed spear had been driven into his loins close by the vertebrae of the back, and was so completely fixed, that all the efforts of the surgeons to remove it with their instruments were ineffectual. Finding, after a day or two, that it could not be displaced by art, Collins left the hospital determined to trust to nature.* He was much esteemed by every white man who knew him, as well on account of his personal bravery, of which we had witnessed many distinguishing proofs, as on account of a gentleness of manners which strongly marked his disposition, and shaded off the harsher lines that his uncivilised life now and then forced into the fore-ground.
[* And he did not trust in vain. We saw him from time to time for several weeks walking about with the spear unmoved, even after suppuration had taken place; but at last heard that his wife, or one of his male friends, had fixed their teeth in the wood and drawn it out; after which he recovered, and was able again to go into the field. His wife War-re-weer showed by an uncommon attention her great attachment to him.]
On the 27th the Sovereign sailed for Bengal; and on the last day of the year the signal for a sail was made at the South Head, too late in the day for it to be known what or whence the vessel was.
The harvest formed the principal labour this month both public and private. At Sydney, another attempt being made to steal a cask of pork from the pile of provisions which stood before the storehouse, the whole was removed into one of the old marine barracks. The full ration of salt provisions being issued to every one, it was difficult to conceive what could be the inducement to these frequent and wanton attacks on the provisions, whenever necessity compelled the commissary to trust a quantity without the store. Perhaps, however, it was to gratify that strong, propensity to thieving, which could not suffer an opportunity of exercising their talents to pass, or to furnish them with means of indulging in the baneful vice of gaming.
At the Hawkesbury, in the beginning of the month, an extraordinary meteorological phenomenon occurred. Four farms on the creek named Ruse's Creek were totally cut up by a fall, not of hail or of snow, but of large flakes of ice. It was stated by the officer who had the command of the military there, Lieutenant Abbott, that the shower passed in a direction NW taking such farms as fell within its course. The effect was extraordinary; the wheat then standing was beaten down, the ears cut off, and the grain perfectly threshed out. Of the Indian corn the large thick stalks were broken, and the cobs found lying at the roots, A man who was too far distant from a house to enter it in time was glad to take shelter in the hollow of a tree. The sides of the trees which were opposed to its fury appeared as if large shot had been discharged against them, and the ground was covered with small twigs from the branches. On that part of the race-ground which it crossed, the stronger shrubs were all found cut to pieces, while the weaker, by yielding to the storm, were only beaten down. The two succeeding days were remarkably mild; notwithstanding which the ice remained on the ground nearly as large as when it fell. Some flakes of it were brought to Lieutenant Abbott on the second day, which measured from six to eight inches long, and at that time were two fingers at the least in thickness.
On this officer's representing to the governor the distress which the settlers had suffered whose farms had lain in the course of the shower such relief was given them as their situations required. Nothing of this kind had been felt either at Parramatta or at Sydney.