A practice having been discovered, of purchasing the soldiers regimental necessaries for the purpose of disposing of them among the shipping, and this requiring a punishment that should effectually check it, Bond, a convict who baked for the hospital and others, was brought before two magistrates, and, being convicted of having bought several articles of wearing apparel which had been served to a soldier, was sentenced to pay the penalty prescribed by act of parliament, five pounds; or, on failure within a certain time, to go to prison. Having made some considerable profits in the exercise of his trade as a baker, he preferred paying the penalty.
It being always desirable to go as near the established ration as the state of the stores would allow, and the governor never wishing to keep the labouring man one moment longer than was absolutely necessary upon a reduced allowance of provisions, he directed two pounds of rice to be added to the weekly proportion of that article; but, although by this addition eight pounds of grain were issued, viz three pounds of flour and five pounds of rice, the ration was far from being brought up to the standard established by the Treasury for the colony; five pounds of bad worm-eaten rice making a most inadequate substitute for the same quantity of good flour. In the article of meat the labouring man suffered still more; for in a given quantity of sixty pounds, which were issued on one serving day to two messes, there were no less than forty pounds of bone, and the remainder, which was intended to be eaten, was almost too far advanced in putrefaction for even hunger to get down. It must be observed that it came in the snow from Batavia.
Patrick Burn, a person employed to shoot for the commanding officer of the marine detachment, died this month: and the hut that he had lived in was burnt down in the night a few hours after his decease, by the carelessness of the people, who were Irish and were sitting up with the corpse, which was with much difficulty saved from the flames, and not until it was much scorched.
August.] On Monday, the 1st of August, the Matilda, the first of the expected fleet of transports, arrived, after an extraordinary passage of four months and five days, from Portsmouth; having sailed from thence on the 27th day of March last, with four sail of transports for this place, with whom she parted company that night off Dunnoze. Another division of transports had sailed a week before from Plymouth Sound. On board the Matilda were two hundred and five male convicts, one ensign, one. sergeant, one corporal, one drummer, and nineteen privates, of the New South Wales corps; and some stores and provisions calculated as a supply for the above number for nine months after their arrival.
The master of this ship anchored for two days in a bay of one of Schoeten's Islands, distant from the main land about twelve miles, in the latitude of 42 degrees 15 minutes S.: where, according to his report, five or six ships might find shelter. Those who were on shore saw the footsteps of different kinds of animals, and traces of natives, such as huts, fires, broken spears, and the instrument which they use for throwing the spear. They spoke of the soil as sandy, and observed that the ground was covered with shrubs such as were to be found here.
The convicts in this ship, on their landing, appeared to be aged and infirm, the state in which they were said to have been embarked. It was not therefore to be wondered at, that they had buried twenty-five on the passage. One soldier also died. Twenty were brought in sick, and were immediately landed at the hospital.
It was intended by the governor that this ship should have proceeded immediately to Norfolk Island with the greater part of the convicts she had on board, together with all the stores and provisions; but the master, Mr. Matthew Weatherhead, requesting that as the ship was very leaky the Mary Ann might be permitted to perform the service required, instead of the Matilda (both ships belonging to the same owners), and the Mary Ann being perfectly ready for sea, the governor consented to this proposal; and that ship was hauled alongside the Matilda to receive her cargo. Fifty-five of the convicts brought in this ship, selected from the others as farmers or artificers, were sent up to Parramatta; of the remainder, those whose health would permit them to go were put on board the Mary Ann, together with thirty-two convicts of bad character from among those who came out in the preceding year, and eleven privates of the New South Wales corps. On the Monday following (the 8th) the Mary Ann sailed for Norfolk Island.
At Parramatta the only accommodation which the shortness of the notice admitted of being provided for the people who were on their passage was got up; two tent huts, one hundred feet long, thatched with grass, were erected; and, independent of the risk which the occupiers might run from fire, they would afford good and comfortable shelter from the weather.
The governor had now chosen situations for his settlers, and fixed them on their different allotments. Twelve convicts, whose terms of transportation had expired, he placed in a range of farms at the foot of a hill named Prospect Hill, about four miles west from Parramatta; fifteen others were placed on allotments in a district named the Ponds, from a range of fresh-water ponds being in their vicinity; these were situated two miles in a direction north-east of Parramatta. Between every allotment, a space had been reserved equal to the largest grant on either side, pursuant to the instructions which the governor had received; but it was soon found that this distribution might be attended with much disadvantage to the settler; a thick wood of at least thirty acres must lie between every allotment; and a circumstance happened which showed the inconvenience consequent thereon, and determined the governor to deviate from the instructions, whenever, by adhering to them, the settlers were likely to be material sufferers.
In the beginning of the month information was received, that a much larger party of the natives than had yet been seen assembled at any one time had destroyed a hut belonging to a settler at Prospect Hill, who would have been murdered by them, but for the timely and accidental appearance of another settler with a musket. There was no doubt of the hut having been destroyed, and by natives, though perhaps their numbers were much exaggerated; the governor, therefore, determined to place other settlers upon the allotments which had been reserved for the crown; by which means assistance in similar or other accidents would be more ready.