David Collins

“ A combination appearing among the labouring people to raise the price of reaping for a day, the governor, being as desirous to encourage industry as to check every attempt at imposition, thought it necessary, on comparing our's with the price usually paid in England, to direct that ten shillings, and no more, should be demanded of, or given by any settler, under pain of losing the assistance of government, for reaping an acre of wheat. ”

“ In the infancy of the colony, however, but little was to be gained by their being restored to the rights and privileges of free people, as no one was in possession of such abundance as to afford to support another independent of the public store. Every man, therefore, must have wrought for his provisions; and if they had been gratified in their expectation of being paid for their labour, the price of provisions in this country would certainly have been found equal, if not superior, to any value they could have set upon their time and labour for the public. ”

“ A very large live oak tree was blown on the granary, which it dashed to pieces, and stove a number of casks of flour; but happily, by the activity of the officers and free people, the flour, Indian corn, and stores, were in a short time collected, and removed to the commandant's house, with the loss only of about half a cask of flour, and some small stores. At noon the gale blew with the utmost violence, tearing up whole forests by the roots. At one o'clock there were as many trees torn up by the roots as would have required the labour of fifty men for a fortnight to have felled. ”

“ There was also some reason to suppose, that several settlers would abandon their farms, and, leaving their families a burden to the store, embrace the change which was offered them by enlisting as East India soldiers. It was far better for us, if any were capable of bearing arms and becoming soldiers, to arm them in defence of their own lives and possessions, and, by embodying them from time to time as a militia, save to the public the expense of a regiment or corps raised for the mere purpose of protecting the public stores and the civil establishment of the colony. ”

“ Had it been possible to eradicate in any breast that love for the place of our birth, or where we have lived and grown from infancy to manhood, which is implanted in us by the kind hand of Nature, it surely would have been effected on two natives of New Holland, whose country did not possess a single charm in the eye even of a savage inhabitant of New Zealand.* But we now found that in every breast that sentiment is the same; and that a love for our native country is not the result of her being the seat of arts and arms; the residence of worth, beauty, truth, justice ”

“ The cove was now, for the first time, left without a ship; a circumstance not only striking by its novelty, but which forcibly drew our attention to the peculiarity of our situation. The Sirius was gone upon a long voyage to a distant country for supplies, the arrival of which were assuredly precarious. The Supply had left us, to look after a dangerous reef; which service, in an unknown sea, might draw upon herself the calamity which she was seeking to instruct others to avoid. ”

“ With a dreadful sick list, and with death making rapid strides among us, the month of April commenced: a lamentable circumstance to those who had to provide by their labour for the support of a colony, in which, from its great distance, not only from the parent country, but from every port where supplies could be procured, it became an object of the first magnitude and importance to endeavour speedily, and by every possible exertion, to place its inhabitants in a situation that accident or delay might not affect. ”

“ White, with six or eight seamen, having chosen a spot proper for their purpose, erected a flagstaff on the South Head of this harbour, whence, on the appearance of a ship in the offing, a signal might be made, as well to convey the wished-for information to the settlement, as to serve as a mark for the stranger. An hut was built for their accommodation, and this little establishment was of such importance, that our walks were daily directed to a spot whence it could be seen; thus fondly indulging the delusion, that the very circumstance of looking out for a sail would bring one into view. ”

“ Thus had the infant colony of New South Wales still been doomed to be the sport of contingency, the jarring interests of men co-operating with the dangers of the sea to throw obstacles in the way of that long-desired independence which would free the mother country from a heavy expense, and would deliver the colonists from the constant apprehension under which they laboured, of being one day left to seek their subsistence among the woods of the country, or along the shores of its coast*. ”

“ His Majesty's ship Guardian afforded a melancholy recollection how much this colony had already felt from misadventure, and the delay which occurred in the voyage of the Lady Juliana transport had proved equally calamitous. The recent circumstance of a ship arriving without a supply of flour, and other contingencies, spoke with a warning voice, and loudly demanded that every arm which could be raised should be exerted to make provision against the hour of want. ”

“ It was a pleasing circumstance to have in the woods of New Holland a thriving herd of wild cattle. Many proposals were made to bring them into the settlement; but in the day of want, if these should be sacrificed, in what better condition would the colony be for having possessed a herd of cattle in the woods?--a herd which, if suffered to remain undisturbed for some years, would, like the cattle of South America, always prove a market sufficient for the inhabitants of the country ”

“ Notwithstanding this far exceeded the number which had at home been thought necessary, the governor did not conceive this to be the moment for reducing it, much as he wanted men. A wheat harvest was approaching; ground was planting with Indian corn; not a man was unemployed; but he saw and explained that a reduction must take place; that government could not be supposed much longer to feed, maintain, and clothe the hands that wrought the ground, and at the same time pay for the produce of their labour, particularly when every public work was likely to stand still for want of labourers. ”

“ I could have enlarged very much the foregoing account of the natives of New South Wales; but, both in describing their customs and in detailing their language, I have chosen to mention only those facts about which, after much attention and inquiry, I could satisfy my own mind. That they are ignorant savages cannot be disputed; but I hope they do not in the foregoing pages appear to be wholly incapable of becoming one day civilized and useful members of society. ”

“ I have at times observed a great degree of indolence in their dispositions, which I have frequently seen the men indulge at the expence of the weaker vessel the women, who have been forced to sit in their canoe, exposed to the fervour of the mid-day sun, hour after hour, chanting their little song, and inviting the fish beneath them to take their bait; for without a sufficient quantity to make a meal for their tyrants, who were lying asleep at their ease, they would meet but a rude reception on their landing. ”

“ Of that right, however, no other nation has chosen to avail itself. Whether the western coast is unpromising in its appearance, or whether the want of a return proportioned to the expense which the mother-country must sustain in supporting a settlement formed nearly at the farthest part of the globe, may have deterred them, is not known; but Great Britain alone has followed up the discoveries she had made in this country, by at once establishing in it a regular colony and civil government. ”

“ The features of many of these people were far from unpleasing, particularly of the women: in general, the black bushy beards of the men, and the bone or reed which they thrust through the cartilage of the nose, tended to give them a disgusting appearance; but in the women, that feminine delicacy which is to be found among white people was to be traced even upon their sable cheeks; and though entire strangers to the comforts and conveniencies of clothing, yet they sought with a native modesty to conceal by attitude what the want of covering would otherwise have revealed. ”

“ The extreme danger attendant on a man's going beyond the bounds of his own knowledge in the forests of an unsettled country could no where be more demonstrable than in this. To the westward was an immense open track before him, in which, if unbefriended by either sun or moon, he might wander until life were at an end. Most of the arms which extended into the country from Port Jackson and the harbour on each side of Port Jackson, were of great length, and to round them without a certain and daily supply of provisions was impossible*. ”

“ The great want of men in the colony must be supplied as soon as a peace shall take place; but the want of respectable settlers may, perhaps, be longer felt; by these are meant men of property, with whom the gentlemen of the colony could associate, and who should be thoroughly experienced in the business of agriculture. Should such men ever arrive, the administration of justice might assume a less military appearance, and the trial by jury, ever dear and most congenial to Englishmen, be seen in New South Wales. ”

“ The seed-wheat as yet escaped, and might remain untouched for another fortnight. The Indian corn was ripening; and it was hoped, that by making some little deduction from the wheat, it would be ready in time to save all the seed that had been reserved for the next season. To lose the seed-wheat would be to repel every advance which had been made toward supporting ourselves, and to crush every hope of independence. All that had been done in cultivation, every acre which was preparing for the ensuing crop, would long have remained a memorial of our distress ”

“ On the 26th, some of our people witnessed an extraordinary transaction which took place among the natives at the brick-fields. A young man of the name of Bing-yi-wan-ne, well known in the settlement, being detected in the crisis of an amour with Maw-ber-ry, the companion of another native, Ye-ra-ni-be Go-ru-ey, the latter fell upon him with a club, and being a powerful man, and of superior strength, absolutely beat him to death. ”

“ At this time the quantity of ground in wheat, and cleared and broken up for maize, there and at Parramatta, was such as (if not visited again by a dry season) would at least, computing the produce even at what it was the last year, yield a sufficiency of grain for all our numbers for a twelvemonth. But every one doubted the possibility of getting all the corn into the ground within the proper time, unless the colony should be very speedily relieved from its distresses, as the reduction in the ration would inevitably be followed by a diminution of the daily labour. ”

“ A delay of a month in her voyage would have placed the colony in a state that must have excited the commiseration of its greatest enemies; a vast body of hard-working people depending for their support upon one pound and a half of soujee, or bad Bengal flour, four pounds of maize, one pound of rice, and one quart of peas for one man per week, without one ounce of meat! ”