A person of the name of Smith having procured a passage from England in the Lady Penrhyn, with a design to proceed to India in the event of his not finding any employment in this country, on his offering his services, and professing to have some agricultural knowledge was received into the colony, and, being judged a discreet prudent man, was placed about the provision store under the assistant to the commissary at Rose Hill, and was moreover sworn in as a peace-officer, to act as such immediately under the provost-marshal; a line wherein, from the circumstance of his being a free man, it was supposed he might render essential aid to the civil department of the colony. It was farther intended, at a future period, to place some people under his direction, to give him an opportunity of exercising the abilities he was said to possess as a practical farmer.
14th.] The magazine at the Point being now completed, the powder belonging to the settlement was lodged safely within its walls.
It being of importance to the colony to ascertain the precise situation and extent of the reefs seen by Mr. Blackburn, in the Golden Grove storeship, in November last, Leiutenant Ball (who was proceeding to Norfolk Island with provisions and convicts) was directed to perform that duty on his return. He sailed with the vessel under his command on the 17th, having on board twenty-one male and six female convicts, and three children; of the latter two were to be placed under Mr. King's care as children of the public. They were of different sexes; the boy, Edward Parkinson, who was about three years of age, had lost his mother on the passage to this country, the girl, who was a year older, had a mother in the colony; but as she was a woman of abandoned character*, the child was taken from her to save it from the ruin which would otherwise have been its inevitable lot. These children were to be instructed in reading and writing, and in husbandry. The commandant of the island was directed to cause five acres of ground to be allotted and cultivated for their benefit, by such person as he should think fit to entrust with the charge of bringing them up according to the spirit of this intention, in promoting the success of which every friend of humanity seemed to feel an interest.
[* The same who was wounded by Ruglass, earlier this chapter]
The cove was now, for the first time, left without a ship; a circumstance not only striking by its novelty, but which forcibly drew our attention to the peculiarity of our situation. The Sirius was gone upon a long voyage to a distant country for supplies, the arrival of which were assuredly precarious. The Supply had left us, to look after a dangerous reef; which service, in an unknown sea, might draw upon herself the calamity which she was seeking to instruct others to avoid. Should it have been decreed, that the arm of misfortune was to fall with such weight upon us, as to render at any time the salvation of this little vessel necessary to the salvation of the colony, how deeply was every one concerned in her welfare! Reflection on the bare possibility of its miscarriage made every mind anxious during her absence from the settlement.
From the evident necessity that existed of maintaining a strict discipline among the military employed in this country, it became a requisite to punish with some severity any flagrant breach of military subordination that might occur. Joseph Hunt, a soldier in the detachment, having been found absent from his post when stationed as a sentinel, was tried by a court-martial, and sentenced to receive seven hundred lashes; which sentence was put in execution upon him at two periods, with an interval of three weeks.
Toward the end of this month the detachment took possession of their barracks; two of which, having been nearly twelve months in hand, were now completed, and ready for their reception. A brick house, forty feet by thirteen, was begun on the east side for the commissary; and materials were preparing for a guard-house.
At Rose Hill the people were principally employed in clearing and cultivating land; but the labour of removing the timber off the ground when cut down very much retarded the best efforts of the people so employed. The military and convicts still lived under tents; and, as a proof of the small space which they occupied, two Emus or Cassowaries, who must have been feeding in the neighbourhood, ran through the little camp, and were so intermingled with the people, who ran out of their tents at so strange an appearance, that it became dangerous to fire at them; and they got clear off, though literally surrounded by a multitude of people, and under the very muzzles of some of their muskets.
Very little molestation was at this time given by the natives; and had they never been ill treated by our people, instead of hostility, it is more than probable that an intercourse of friendship would have subsisted.
March.] The impracticability of keeping the convicts within the limits prescribed for them became every day more evident. Almost every month since our arrival had produced one or more accidents, occasioned principally by a non-compliance with the orders which had been given solely with a view to their security; and which, with thinking beings, would have been of sufficient force as examples to deter others from running into the same danger. But neither orders nor dangers seemed to be at all regarded where their own temporary convenience prompted them to disobey the one, or run the risk of incurring the other. A convict belonging to the brick-maker's gang had strayed into the woods for the purpose of collecting sweet tea; an herb so called by the convicts, and which was in great estimation among them. The leaves of it being boiled, they obtained a beverage not unlike liquorice in taste, and which was recommended by some of the medical gentlemen here, as a powerful tonic. It was discovered soon after our arrival, and was then found close to the settlement; but the great consumption had not rendered it scarce. It was supposed, that the convict in his search after this article had fallen in with a party of natives, who had killed him. A few days after this accident, a party of the convicts, sixteen in number, chiefly belonging to the brick-maker's gang, quitted the place of their employment, and, providing themselves with stakes, set off toward Botany Bay, with a determination to revenge, upon whatever natives they should meet, the treatment which one of their brethren had received at the close of the last month. Near Botany Bay they fell in with the natives, but in a larger body than they expected or desired. According to their report, they were fifty in number; but much dependance was not placed on what they said in this respect, nor in their narrative of the affair; it was certain, however, that they were driven in by the natives, who killed one man and wounded six others. Immediately on this being known in the settlement, an armed party was sent out with an officer, who found the body of the man that had been killed, stripped, and lying in the path to Botany Bay. They also found a boy, who had likewise been stripped and left for dead by the natives. He was very much wounded, and his left ear nearly cut off. The party, after burying the body of the man, returned with the wounded boy, but without seeing any of the perpetrators of this mischief; the other wounded people had reached the settlement, and were taken to the hospital. The day following, the governor, judging it highly necessary to make examples of these misguided people, who had so daringly and flagrantly broken through every order which had been given to prevent their interfering with the natives as to form a party expressly to meet with and attack them, directed that those who were not wounded should receive each one hundred and fifty lashes, and wear a fetter for a twelvemonth; the like punishment was directed to be inflicted upon those who were in the hospital, as soon as they should recover from their wounds; in pursuance of which order, seven of them were tied up in front of the provision store, and punished (for example's sake) in the presence of all the convicts.