[109] About the time of Captain Hunter’s taking the reins of government a cow was sold for 80l., a horse cost 90l., and a Cape sheep 7l. 10s. Other prices were in proportion; fresh meat was very scarce, and the various attempts to import live stock had been far from successful. Still a beginning had been made, and it is astonishing how rapidly rural wealth began to multiply in New South Wales, after the difficulties of the first eight or ten years had been overcome.
[110] Promissory notes were given, payable in rum instead of money.—Judge Burton on Education and Religion in New South Wales, p. 7, note.
[111] Thus writes the Bishop of Australia in 1840.—“Neither can I comprehend or approve the policy which thus leaves multitudes without moral or religious guidance, under every inducement to commit acts of violence and rapine, which are not only the sources of infinite misery to the unhappy perpetrators, and to their wretched victims, but actually bring upon the government itself ten times the pecuniary charge which would be incurred by the erection of as many churches, and providing for the support of as many clergymen, as the necessities of every such district require.”
[112] “More labour would have been performed by one hundred free people from any part of England or Scotland, than had at any time been derived from three hundred of these (convicts), with all the attention that could be paid to them.”—Collins’ Account of the Colony of New South Wales, p. 415.
[113] Barrington’s History of New South Wales, p. 376.
[114] At a time of great distress, when 270 additional inhabitants had just made good their landing at Norfolk Island, whilst the ships and provisions sent with them from Port Jackson were almost entirely lost, these birds of providence, as they were justly called, furnished a supply for the necessities of the people. Mount Pitt, the highest ground in the island, was observed to be crowded with these birds during the night, for in the day-time they go out to sea in search of food. They burrow in the ground, and the hill was as full of holes as a rabbit-warren; in size they were not bigger than pigeons, but they looked much larger in their feathers. Their eggs were well tasted enough, and though the birds themselves had a fishy flavour, hunger made them acceptable. They were easily taken, for when small fires were kindled to attract their notice, they would drop down faster than the people could seize them. For two months together, it is said, that not less than from two to three thousand of these birds were taken every night, so that it was with reason that the starving population of Norfolk Island called them birds of providence.
[115] A peculiar language prevailed in this horrid place. It is said that a bad man was called a good man, and that one who was ready to perform his duty was generally called a bad man; and so, in other respects, language was adapted to the complete subversion of the human heart there existing. See Ullathorne’s Evidence before the Committee on Transportation, 1838, No. 271, p. 27.
[116] See Montgomery Martin’s New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, p. 257.
[117] Compare Lang’s History of New South Wales, vol. i. p. 71, and Collins’ Account of New South Wales, p. 197 and 201. See also Barrington’s History of New South Wales, p. 115.
[118] “The first religious edifice that was ever reared in the great Terra Australis, by voluntary and private exertion.” See Lang’s Narrative of the Settlement of the Scots’ Church in New South Wales, p. 8. The Doctor, in his Presbyterian zeal, had forgotten Mr. Johnson’s church.