Daily experience proved, that those people whose sentences of transportation had expired were greater evils than the convicts themselves. It was at this time impossible to spare the labour of a single man from the public work. Of course, no man was allowed to remove himself from that situation without permission. But, notwithstanding this had been declared in public orders, many were known to withdraw themselves from labour and the provision-store on the day of their servitude ceasing. On their being apprehended, punished for a breach of the order, and ordered again to labour, they seized the first opportunity of running away, taking either to the woods to subsist by depredations, or to the shelter which the Hawkesbury settlers afforded to every vagabond that asked it.
By these people we were well convinced every theft was committed. Their information was good; they never attempted a house that was not an object of plunder; and wherever there was any property they were sure to pay a visit. The late robberies at the clergyman's and at Captain Townson's were among the most striking instances.
It was on these occasions generally conjectured, that the domestics of the house must aid and assist in the theft; for the perpetrator of it always seemed to know where to lay his hand on the article for which he thus risked his neck; and we never found them make an attempt on the house of a poor individual.
On Wednesday the 11th, to the great satisfaction of the settlement at large, the Britannia storeship arrived safe from Calcutta and Madras, entering this port for the fifth time with a valuable cargo on board.
She was now freighted with salted provisions, and a small quantity of rice on account of government, procured by order of the presidencies of Calcutta and Madras. On private account, the different officers of the civil and military departments received the various commissions which they had been allowed to put into the ship; and one young mare, five cows, and one cow-calf, of the Bengal breed, were brought for sale.
On board of this ship arrived two officers of the Bengal army, Lieutenant Campbell and Mr. Phillips, a surgeon of the military establishment for the purpose of raising two hundred recruits from among those people who had served their respective terms of transportation. They were to be regularly enlisted and attested, and were to receive bounty-money; and a provisional engagement was made with Mr. Raven, to convey them to India, if no other service should offer for his ship.
On the first view of this scheme it appeared very plausible, and we imagined that the execution of it would be attended with much good to the settlement, by ridding it of many of those wretches whom we had too much reason to deem our greatest nuisances: but when we found that the recruiting officer was instructed to be nice as to the characters of those he should enlist, and to entertain none that were of known bad morals, we perceived that the settlement would derive less benefit from it than was at first expected. There was also some reason to suppose, that several settlers would abandon their farms, and, leaving their families a burden to the store, embrace the change which was offered them by enlisting as East India soldiers. It was far better for us, if any were capable of bearing arms and becoming soldiers, to arm them in defence of their own lives and possessions, and, by embodying them from time to time as a militia, save to the public the expense of a regiment or corps raised for the mere purpose of protecting the public stores and the civil establishment of the colony.
Recruiting, therefore, in this colony for the Bengal army, being a measure that required some consideration, and which the governor thought should first have obtained the sanction of administration, he determined to wait the result of a communication on the subject with the secretary of state, before he gave it his countenance. At the same time he meant to recommend it in a certain degree, as it was evident that many good recruits might be taken, without any injury to the interests of the settlement, from that class of our people who, being no longer prisoners, declined labouring for government, and, without any visible means of subsisting, lived where and how they chose.
The Britannia, in her passage to Batavia, anchored in Gower's Harbour, New Ireland (on the 16th of July), where she completed her wood and water, and sailed on the 23rd. On the 2nd of September following she arrived at Batavia; and it appearing to Mr. Raven (as before observed) but too probable that he should be detained by the government if he ventured to wait even for their determination respecting supplying the provisions, he sailed on the 7th for Bengal, arriving in the Ganges on the 12th of October. Not being able to procure at Calcutta the full quantity of provisions that his ship could contain, he sailed for Madras on the 1st of February, where he anchored on the 15th. There he completed his cargo, and sailed, with five homeward-bound Indiamen, on the 27th of the same month. His passage to this country was long and tedious, owing to the prevalence of light and contrary winds; but we were all well pleased to be in possession of the comforts he brought us from that part of the world, and to congratulate him on his personal escape from the sickly and now inimical port of Batavia, as well as from the cruisers of the enemy, with which he had reason to suppose he might fall in on the Indian coast.
On his return from this his second voyage to India, Mr. Raven gave it as his opinion, that the passage to be pursued from New South Wales to India depended wholly upon the season in which the ship might leave Port Jackson. From the month of November to April, or rather from October to the beginning of March, which ought to be the latest period that any ship should attempt a northern passage, he recommended making Norfolk Island; and thence, passing between the Loyalty islands* and New Caledonia, to keep as nearly as circumstances would allow in the longitude of 165 degrees East; until the ship should reach the latitude of 8 degrees South; and then shape a course to cross the equator in 160 degrees East; after which the master should steer to the NW by N or NNW until in the latitude of 5 degrees 20 minutes or 5 degrees 30 minutes North; in which latitude Mr. Raven would run down his longitude, and pass the south end of Mindanao, and between that island and Bascelan; and thence through the straits of Banguey into the China Sea. In running this passage, it would be necessary to pay attention to Mr. Dalrymple's charts of those islands, etc. which Mr. Raven found very accurate.