Governor. “Well, Mr. Vaux, I shall send you to a place, where your roguery will very soon be found out.”
Vaux. “I hope not, your Excellency; I trust you will have”⸺
Governor. (Interrupting) “Well, I hope so too, Mr. Vaux; I hope so too, I hope so too, Sir; but mind—I only give you a caution; take care of yourself.”
Then hastily scribbling a few words on a scrap of paper, he handed it to me, and ordering a light-horseman to attend me, made a motion for me to withdraw, which I was glad enough to do, in order to be relieved from this embarrassing examination.—On going out, the horseman informed me he had orders to see myself and baggage on board the Parramatta passage-boat; the paper I had received proved to be an order to the boatman to that effect, and on the reverse was a memorandum, purporting that I was appointed clerk to Mr. Baker, Store-keeper at Hawkesbury. Both these documents were signed P. G. K., as was his usual custom; but the whole so unintelligibly written, that it cost me much pains and some inquiry to decipher them.—I now took up my little box, and my bed, and was conducted to the wharf, where I found the boat on the point of departure. After a pleasant passage, we arrived at Parramatta, at which place I rested the ensuing day, and, on Monday the 21st, continued my journey by land to Hawkesbury, a distance of twenty-six miles. On this occasion I joined a party of travellers, accompanied by a cart in which I had deposited my luggage; these persons formed a sort of caravan, and were all well-armed, the natives being at this time in a state of warfare, and the roads thereby rendered dangerous. Late in the evening we arrived at Hawkesbury, and being directed to Mr. Baker’s house, I immediately presented myself and my credentials to that gentleman.
CHAPTER XV.
My Conduct at Hawkesbury.—Continue for three Years to give Satisfaction to my Principal.—Ordered by Governor King into the Secretary’s Office.—Give way to the Temptations with which I am surrounded, and begin to lead a dissipated Life in company with some other Clerks.—Concert a System of Fraud upon the King’s Stores, which we practise successfully for some Time.—The Imposition is at length detected.—I am in consequence dismissed the Office and sent to hard Labour, for the first Time in my Life.
Mr. Baker received me with kindness, and great pleasure, as, my predecessor having quitted him some weeks before, he was at a loss for a proper assistant. In a few days I had a comfortable residence assigned me by the commanding officer of the settlement, and my duty being exempted from all hard labour, and of such a nature as I found pleasure in performing, I soon felt myself comparatively happy.—With retrospective satisfaction, I can truly say, that I behaved in this situation with so much propriety as to obtain the favour of my principal, and the good opinion of the resident magistrate, Dr. Arndell, whose four children I attended at my leisure hours, in the quality of preceptor. Both this gentleman and Mr. Baker vied with each other, in shewing me every mark of kindness in their power.—Mr. Baker informed me that Governor King made frequent and particular inquiries of him respecting my conduct, and I felt the highest gratification from the reflection that I had happily falsified his Excellency’s uncharitable prediction as to my real character. Mr. Palmer also, who had been the first kind promoter of my good fortune, made similar inquiries of Mr. Baker, and from the report he received of my talents, expressed a desire to transfer me from Hawkesbury to the Commissary’s Office at Sydney, in which department there was then a great press of business, and expert clerks were not, at that period, so numerous as at present. Mr. Baker, however, being unwilling to part with me, paid no attention to the wish of Mr. Palmer, until the latter gentleman at length ordered in direct terms, by an official letter, that I should be immediately sent to Sydney. The Governor coming up to Hawkesbury a day or two afterwards, Mr. Baker represented to his Excellency, the inconvenience he should suffer, if he was deprived of my assistance, and obtained an order from him to retain me in his service. This arrangement was not at all satisfactory to me, for I had long felt an earnest desire to be employed in the commissariat, as the public accompts therein kept, were of such a description as I always took delight in, and I still flatter myself that from my quickness in figures, I should be perfectly at home in such a situation. However I was not to be gratified on that occasion, and I continued in the service of Mr. Baker about three years. I had, in fact, reconciled myself to the idea of serving out my full term of banishment with this worthy man; but on a sudden, a letter was received by Mr. Arndell from Governor King, ordering my instant removal to Sydney, for the purpose of assisting as a clerk in the Secretary’s Office, which, as it was then established might be, and was generally, called the Governor’s Office, being attached to Government House, and under the immediate personal direction of the Governor himself. Though this preferment seemed to hold out a prospect of future advantage, and to confer increased respectability, it was with some regret I quitted my comfortable little house and garden at “The Green Hills[44],” where I had led a life of innocence and peaceful retirement; whereas I was now about to enter a vortex of dissipation, folly and wickedness, for such was Sydney compared to my late place of abode.
The Governor received me very graciously, allotted me a neat brick-house in the vicinity of the office, and a government-man, victualled from the King’s-stores, as a servant. For two or three months I continued very steady, and formed but few acquaintances. The Governor behaved to me with great liberality, and refused me no reasonable request. By degrees, however, I began to degenerate. I increased my acquaintance among the Commissary’s and some other clerks, most of whom lived an expensive and dissipated life. All I can say in my own favour, is that I continued to be regular in my attendance at the office, and was never found defective, or incapable of my duty; but no sooner was I at my own disposal than I eagerly sought my dissipated companions, and spent the rest of the day in drinking, and other irregularities, sometimes at public or disorderly houses, and frequently at my own, where I had often the expensive pleasure of entertaining a large party of my fellow-scribes at my own cost. This course of life unavoidably drew me into great expenses, and I contracted several debts. Governor King, whose vigilant observation nothing of this sort could escape, gave me frequent and serious admonitions for my good; but I was so infatuated as to disregard all advice, and only thought of devising pecuniary means to continue my licentious career. This was no easy task, as the nature of business in the Secretary’s Office afforded few opportunities of realizing money by fraud, at least without the assistance of one or more confederates in a neighbouring department. The expensive rate at which the Commissary’s clerks constantly lived, had become matter of surprise to the Governor as well as the magistrates, and was the theme of much conjecture among the inhabitants of Sydney. Still, though it was palpable they had recourse to fraud, they managed matters so adroitly that no irregularity could be detected; and the efforts of the executive authority, to develope their system, continued unavailing.
It was the custom of Governor King, as I have before observed, to use only his initials as a signature on common occasions, and by application and practice I acquired a knack of imitating this sign-manual with sufficient accuracy to impose upon the parties to whom the superscription was addressed. Finding these three letters to have the magical effect of procuring for me whatever articles I required, from the King’s-stores, I availed myself of their talismanic power, and converting the goods so obtained into money, I discharged my debts, and figured away with increased eclat, among my fellow-clerks. As it was, however, both impolitic and dangerous to carry this branch of fraud too far, or practice it too frequently, I at length found means to form a connexion with two or three of my most experienced friends, and we concerted such a system of ways and means as promised liberally to supply our wants, and, while we continued true to each other, seemed to preclude a possibility of detection.