“It was hard work for some days, we were like a dab chick scufling & flutering along among the Flags & Mud, & then we got into clearer water & made Sail at a good rate, & then into a River which we thought this will bring us to the sea, But no we got into more Lakes & swamps, and then river a gain & so on, & then we had to get out and track the Canoe with Ropes to steddy its coarse along the rapids, & once we was forced to carry it overland to a void the Falls. And some times we never thought but what we sho’d be lost an starved in the Wilds, all the country round nothing but Rocks & Sands. But we all kep up a good Heart, no want of Pluck among the Gent men, and I can’t say we wanted for Vittles only going without Bread mostly thanks to the Fish & Wildfowl.
“I sho’d never have done if I was to tell you All. Well after better than a Month were do you think we come to at last, why to a Colony of White men, that had been hid like in the Wilds best part of three Hundred years & never seen no Christian peple all that time only them selves. Its true I a sure you, & its compewted theirs nearer 4 milian than three totell number of Soles in the Country. How serprised we was to see em & hear em hail us in English, for their of English Dissent mostly only some mixture of Duch & German & Swiss. Its an odd sort of English too they speak, but we got usd to it in a little wile, their lingo isnt worse than broaed Scoch or Yorkshire.
“Well you may be sure if they wonderd to see us we was wondring how they come their. And it seems they came out in former times when their was great trubles in Europe to make a settlement and live in Piece & Quiet, And their Vessels was driven on the coast, & they got a shore & landed all their stores safe, & then went up & setled in the Interier, being they found the coast unhealthy. Its a fine Country they have got to now, as big I am thinking as Great Briton & Ireland put to gether, for they arnt no ways prest for room, but make a new Setlement were they likes. They treated us very kindly in deed & seamed glad to see us as if we had been brethren like, as they say’d. And very good Towns & good Living their is among them, tho’ they arnt quite so high civilised as English Peple, as stands to Reason being they have livd so long out of the World like.
“And some queer ways they have among them to be sure, quite different from ours. Theirs not a bit of Bacca to be had for love nor money, nor Grog neither, as for Rum or Whisky or the like they dont know what it means. I usd to tell em how theyd stare if they was to come among us & see writen up every were Dealer in Tea Coffee To Bacco & Snuff, & Dealer in Spirtuos Liquors, for they havent nothing of the kind. But how ever they have good ale that I must say & Wine & Cyder to plenty, & very hospy table peple, but no way given to liquor, I never see a drunken Man all the time, & they say its like the Savages to get drunk. And theirs truth in that I can testyfy, for those Black felows will drink as long as they can stand in the Colony and longer two if they can come at liquor. They say wo’dnt you reckon it a Great Miss fortune if you was to go out of your Mind & have to be put in a mad House, and if a Man gets drunk he goes out of his mind, & ought to be shut up in confinement, & they say if a Man was a reglar drunkard they wou’d shut him up two.
“They are good farmers I must say & good breeders too. you tell Mr. Evans, & my respects to him hope he is well & all his family, I haven’t for got all the farming I learnt under him tho’ I was but a lad, I wish he cou’d see the fine cows like the Holderness in the low grounds, and a breed like the alderney on the Mountaneous parts, & sheep to both long & short wool, such fleeces as I think he never see. But as for Mutton I can’t speak, for only think they never heard tell of Mutton, for theyd think it a most as big a sin to kill a Sheep or a Bulock & eat it as we shou’d to kill a Christian & eat his flesh like the Cannibles does. Theirs a queer peple for you. But they goes out hunting the Wild Cattle and wild Hog, theyve plenty of them, & they dont object by no means to a bit of wild pork or beef.
“A nother fancy of theirs is they never will have Joints of meat servd up nor any thing done hole, not a pig or a foul or a fish if its ever so small, but all done in chops or Hash or the like of that. And they said we must be like the savages to feed on hole carcasses & Limbs of Annimals, as Egles & Woolves does. They calls a Dingo a woolf, thats the Newholland wild dog.
“We went out with them several times, Hunting & shooting. They have guns only not so good as ours, but they shoot with Bows & Arows be sides, & wonderful good shots some of em is. Sometimes when we went out we had only to look on at them shooting, because they woudnt have no firing for fear of scaring away the game. But sometimes we had a grand Battoo & then all had guns & our Gentmen shot as well as the best of them. Mr. Jones made a present of his double baril Gun to one Gentman of the Country & mightyly pleased he was, for their workmen arnt up to a double Baril. And I shewd them a thing or too about the build & rigging of their fishing-boats that they wasnt up to. And very great full & handsome they was I must say, for they gave me as much in their money & other things as comes to better than 50£ besides several curosities as a sort of Keep sake like, I got new rigged from top to toe all in cloaths of their fashion hat & all & a comical hat you’d think if you was to see it.
“Mr. Jones he said at first all the peple looked like musheroms they have hats as big as a small table, but that is to keep off the sun which it is very glearing in new Holland.
“Then it was so strange to hear all about Kings & Sennates & Parliments & Piers & Lord mayers, just like being in a new World like. The thing is they have eleven states something like the States of America, only some is kingdoms & some is republicks & what not. I harly knew weather I was a sleep or a wake, it seam’d a kind of dream like.
“Then I went several times to parties of pleasure something in the Nature of our Wakes they calls them Rebels & I a tended my Masters to wait upon them at some of the Rebels of the Gentry, and high & low their was plenty of mirth at all. But the first time I went with the Gentmen I thought their was to be a Ball or the like of that just as the gentlefolks have in England, & sure anuff their was Gentmen & Lords & Lady’s a playing at Bowls or something like, & some shooting at a target, & some at other games in the nature of tenis & trap-ball, all as fond of the sport as boys & girls, & they all grown up Gent folks & no mistake. And the best of it is they thinks dansing is only fit for children & Savages. It’s as true as I am sitting hear.