The price of fresh meat at Port Jackson was so exorbitant, that it was impossible to think of purchasing it on the public account. I obtained one quarter of beef for the ship's company, in exchange for salt meat, and the governor furnished us with some baskets of vegetables from his garden; and in lieu of the daily pound of biscuit, each man received a pound and a quarter of soft bread, without any expense to government. But with these exceptions, I was obliged to leave the refreshment of the people to their own individual exertions; assisting them with the payment due for savings of bread since leaving the Cape of Good Hope, and the different artificers with the money earned by their extra services in refitting the ship. Fish are usually plentiful at Port Jackson in the summer, but not in the winter time; and our duties were too numerous and indispensable to admit of sending people away with the seine, when there was little prospect of success; a few were, however, occasionally bought alongside, from boats which fished along the coast.
In purchasing a sea stock for the cabin, I paid £3 a head for sheep, weighing from thirty to forty pounds when dressed. Pigs were bought at 9d. per pound, weighed alive, geese at 10s. each, and fowls at 3s.; and Indian corn for the stock cost 5s. a bushel.
To complete the ship's provisions, I entered into a contract for 30,000 pounds of biscuit, 8000 pounds of flour, and 156 bushels of kiln-dried wheat; but in the meantime, the ship Coromandel brought out the greater part of the twelvemonths' provisions, for which I had applied on sailing from Spithead; and the contractor was prevailed upon to annul that part of the agreement relating to flour and wheat. The biscuit cost 33s. per hundred pounds; and considering that the colony was at short allowance, and that the French ships were to be supplied, it was a favourable price. From two American vessels which arrived, I purchased 1483 gallons of rum at 6s. 6d. per gallon; which, with what remained of our former stock was a proportion for twelve months. In other respects our provisions were completed from the quantity sent out from England; and the remaining part was lodged in the public stores, in charge of the commissary, until our return.
In addition to the melancholy loss of eight officers and men, at the entrance of Spencer's Gulf, and the previous deficiency of four in the complement, I found it necessary to discharge the man who had been bitten by a seal at Kangaroo Island, as also a marine, who was invalided; so that fourteen men were required to complete my small ship's company. Mr John Aken, chief mate of the ship Hercules, was engaged to fill the situation of master, and five men, mostly seamen, were entered, but finding it impossible to fill up the complement with free people, I applied to the governor for his permission to enter such convicts as should present themselves, and could bring respectable recommendations. This request, as every other I had occasion to make to His Excellency, was complied with; and when the requisite number was selected, he gave me an official document, containing clauses relative to these men, well calculated to ensure their good conduct. As this document may be thought curious by many readers, it is here inserted; premising, that the men therein mentioned, with the exception of two, were convicts for life.
By His Excellency Philip Gidley King, Esq.,
captain-general and governor in chief, in and
over His Majesty's territory of New South Wales
and its dependencies, etc., etc., etc.
"Whereas Captain Matthew Flinders, commander of His Majesty's ship Investigator, has requested permission to receive on board that ship the undermentioned convicts as seamen, to make up the number he is deficient. I do hereby grant Thomas Toney, Thomas Martin, Joseph Marlow, Thomas Shirley, Joseph Tuzo, Richard Stephenson, Thomas Smith, Francis Smith, and Charles Brown permission to ship themselves on board His Majesty's ship Investigator, and on the return of that ship to this port, according to Captain Flinders' recommendation of them, severally and individually, they will receive conditional emancipations or absolute pardons, as that officer may request.
"And in the interim I do, by virtue of the power and authority in me vested, grant a provisional-conditional emancipation to the said Thomas Toney, etc.; for the purpose of their being enabled to serve on board His Majesty's said ship Investigator, whilst in the neighbourhood of this territory; which conditional emancipation will be of no effect, in case any of those named herein do individually conduct themselves so ill, as to put it out of captain Flinders' power to recommend them for a conditional or absolute pardon on his return to this port.
"Given under my hand and seal at government house Sydney,
in New South Wales, this 15th day of July, in the year
of our Lord 1802. (Signed) Philip Gidley King, (L. S.)"
Several of these men were seamen, and all were able and healthy; so that I considered them a great acquisition to our strength. With respect to themselves, the situation to which they were admitted was most desirable; since they had thereby a prospect of returning to their country, and that society from which they had been banished; and judging from the number of candidates for the vacancies, such was the light in which a reception on board the Investigator was considered in the colony. When the master was entered, one of the men, being over the complement, was sent to the Lady Nelson, with a reserve of the privilege above granted.
I had before experienced much advantage from the presence of a native of Port Jackson, in bringing about a friendly intercourse with the inhabitants of other parts of the coast; and on representing this to the governor, he authorised me to receive two on board. Bongaree, the worthy and brave fellow who had sailed with me in the Norfolk, now volunteered again; the other was Nanbaree, a good-natured lad, of whom Colonel Collins has made mention in his Account of New South Wales.