Watkin Tench's 1788 (22 page)

The main street of the new town is already begun. It is to be a mile long, and of such breadth as will make Pall Mall and Portland Place ‘hide their diminished heads'.
^{††â€} 
It contains at present thirty-two houses completed, of twenty-four feet by twelve each, on a ground floor only, built of wattles plastered with clay, and thatched. Each house is divided into two rooms, in one of which is a fireplace and a brick chimney. These houses are designed for men only; and ten is the number of inhabitants allotted to each; but some of them now contain twelve or fourteen, for want of better accommodation. More are building. In a cross street stand nine houses for unmarried women; and exclusive of all these are several small huts where convict families of good character are allowed to reside. Of public buildings, besides the old wooden barrack and store, there is a house of lath and plaster, forty-four feet long by sixteen wide, for the governor, on a ground floor only, with excellent outhouses and appurtenances attached to it. A new brick storehouse, covered with tiles, 100 feet long by twenty-four wide, is nearly completed; and a house for the storekeeper. The first stone of a barrack, 100 feet long by twenty-four wide, to which are intended to be added wings for the officers, was laid today. The situation of the barrack is judicious, being close to the storehouse, and within 150 yards of the wharf, where all boats from Sydney unload. To what I have already enumerated must be added an excellent barn, a granary, an enclosed yard to rear stock in, a commodious blacksmith's shop, and a most wretched hospital, totally destitute of every conveniency. Luckily for the gentleman who superintends this hospital, and still more luckily for those who are doomed in case of sickness to enter it, the air of Rose Hill has hitherto been generally healthy. A tendency to produce slight inflammatory disorders, from the rapid changes
^***
of the temperature of the air, is most to be dreaded.

The hours of labour for the convicts are the same here as at Sydney. On Saturdays after ten o'clock in the morning they are allowed to work in their own gardens. These gardens are at present, from the long drought and other causes, in a most deplorable state. Potatoes, I think, thrive better than any other vegetable in them. For the public conveniency a baker is established here in a good bakehouse, who exchanges with every person bread for flour, on stipulated terms, but no compulsion exists for anyone to take his bread; it is left entirely to everybody's own option to consume his flour as he pleases. Divine service is performed here, morning and afternoon, one Sunday in every month, when all the convicts are obliged to attend church, under penalty of having a part of their allowance of provisions stopped, which is done by the chaplain, who is a justice of the peace.

For the punishment of offenders, where a criminal court is not judged necessary, two or more justices occasionally assemble, and order the infliction of slight corporal punishment, or short confinement in a strong room built for this purpose. The military present here consists of two subalterns, two sergeants, three corporals, a drummer, and twenty-one privates. These have been occasionally augmented and reduced, as circumstances have been thought to render it necessary.

Brick-kilns are now erected here, and bricks manufactured by a convict of the name of Becket, who came out in the last fleet, and has fifty-two people to work under him. He makes 25,000 bricks weekly. He says that they are very good, and would sell at Birmingham, where he worked about eighteen months ago, at more than 30 shillings per thousand.

Nothing farther of public nature remaining to examine, I next visited a humble adventurer, who is trying his fortune here. James Ruse, convict, was cast for seven years at Bodmin assizes in August 1782. He lay five years in prison and on board the
Dunkirk
hulk at Plymouth, and then was sent to this country. When his term of punishment expired, in August 1789, he claimed his freedom, and was permitted by the governor, on promising to settle in the country, to take, in December following, an uncleaned piece of ground with an assurance that, if he would cultivate it, it should not be taken from him. Some assistance was given him to fell the timber, and he accordingly began. His present account to me was as follows:

I was bred a husbandman, near Launcester in Cornwall. I cleared my land as well as I could, with the help afforded me. The exact limit of what ground I am to have, I do not yet know; but a certain direction has been pointed out to me, in which I may proceed as fast as I can cultivate. I have now an acre and a half in bearded wheat, half an acre in maize, and a small kitchen garden. On my wheat land I sowed three bushels of seed, the produce of this country, broad cast. I expect to reap about twelve or thirteen bushels. I know nothing of the cultivation of maize, and cannot therefore guess so well at what I am likely to gather. I sowed part of my wheat in May, and part in June. That sown in May has thriven best. My maize I planted in the latter end of August, and the beginning of September. My land I prepared thus: having burnt the fallen timber off the ground, I dug in the ashes, and then hoed it up, never doing more than eight, or perhaps nine, rods in a day; by which means it was not like the government farm, just scratched over, but properly done. Then I clod-moulded it, and dug in the grass and weeds. This I think almost equal to ploughing. I then let it lie as long as I could, exposed to air and sun; and, just before I sowed my seed, turned it all up afresh. When I shall have reaped my crop, I purpose to hoe it again, and harrow it fine, and then sow it with turnip seed, which will mellow and prepare it for next year. My straw I mean to bury in pits, and throw in with it everything which I think will rot and turn to manure. I have no person to help me at present but my wife, whom I married in this country; she is industrious. The governor, for some time, gave me the help of a convict man, but he is taken away. Both my wife and myself receive our provisions regularly at the store, like all other people. My opinion of the soil of my farm is that it is middling; neither good or bad. I will be bound to make it do with the aid of manure, but without cattle it will fail. The greatest check upon me is the dishonesty of the convicts who, in spite of all my vigilance, rob me almost every night.

The annexed return will show the number of persons of all descriptions at Rose Hill, at this period. On the morning of the 17th, I went down to Sydney.

Here terminates the transcription of my diary. It were vain to suppose that it can prove either agreeable or interesting to a majority of readers but as this work is intended not only for amusement, but information, I considered it right to present this detail unaltered, either in its style or arrangement.

A return of the number of persons employed at Rose Hill, November 16th, 1790.

†
A snow was a small brig-like sailing vessel.

*
The best crop of barley ever produced in New South Wales was sown by a private individual, in February 1790, and reaped in the following October.

††
A rod is five metres long.

**
As all the trees on our cleared ground were cut down, and not grubbed up, the roots and stumps remain, on which account a tenth part of surface in every acre must be deducted. This is slovenly husbandry; but in a country where immediate subsistence is wanted it is perhaps necessary. None of these stumps, when I left Port Jackson, showed any symptoms of decay, though some of the trees had been cut down four years. To the different qualities of the wood of Norfolk Island and New South Wales, perhaps the difference of soil may in some measure be traced. That of Norfolk Island is light and porous: it rots and turns into mould in two years. Besides its hardness that of Port Jackson abounds with red corrosive gum, which contributes its share of mischief.

†††
Milton,
Paradise Lost
, IV, 34.

***
In the close of the year 1788, when this settlement was established, the thermometer has been known to stand at 50° a little before sunrise, and between one and two o'clock in the afternoon at above 100°.

11

Farther transactions of the colony in November 1790

DURING the intervals of duty our greatest source of entertainment now lay in cultivating the acquaintance of our new friends, the natives. Ever liberal of communication, no difficulty but of understanding each other subsisted between us. Inexplicable contradictions arose to bewilder our researches which no ingenuity could unravel and no credulity reconcile.

Baneelon, from being accustomed to our manners and understanding a little English, was the person through whom we wished to prosecute inquiry, but he had lately become a man of so much dignity and consequence that it was not always easy to obtain his company. Clothes had been given to him at various times, but he did not always condescend to wear them. One day he would appear in them, and the next day he was to be seen carrying them in a net slung around his neck. Farther to please him, a brick house of twelve feet square was built for his use, and for that of such of his countrymen as might choose to reside in it, on a point of land fixed upon by himself.
^†
A shield, double cased with tin, to ward off the spears of his enemies, was also presented to him by the governor.

Elated by these marks of favour, and sensible that his importance with his countrymen arose in proportion to our patronage of him, he warmly attached himself to our society. But the gratitude of a savage is ever a precarious tenure. That of Baneelon was fated to suffer suspension, and had well nigh been obliterated by the following singular circumstance.

One day the natives were observed to assemble in more than an ordinary number at their house on the point, and to be full of bustle and agitation, repeatedly calling on the name of Baneelon and that of
deein
(a woman). Between twelve and one o'clock Baneelon, unattended, came to the governor at his house, and told him that he was going to put to death a woman immediately, whom he had brought from Botany Bay. Having communicated his intention, he was preparing to go away, seeming not to wish that the governor should be present at the performance of the ceremony. But His Excellency was so struck with the fierce gestures and wild demeanour of the other, who held in his hand one of our hatchets and frequently tried the sharpness of it, that he determined to accompany him, taking with him Mr Collins and his orderly sergeant. On the road, Baneelon continued to talk wildly and incoherently of what he would do, and manifested such extravagant marks of fury and revenge that his hatchet was taken away from him, and a walking-stick substituted for it.

When they reached the house, they found several natives of both sexes lying promiscuously before the fire, and among them a young woman, not more than sixteen years old who, at sight of Baneelon, started, and raised herself half up. He no sooner saw her than, snatching a sword of the country, he ran at her, and gave her two severe wounds on the head and one on the shoulder, before interference in behalf of the poor wretch could be made. Our people now rushed in and seized him; but the other Indians continued quiet spectators of what was passing, either awed by Baneelon's superiority or deeming it a common case, unworthy of notice and interposition. In vain did the governor by turns soothe and threaten him. In vain did the sergeant point his musket at him. He seemed dead to every passion but revenge; forgot his affection to his old friends and, instead of complying with the request they made, furiously brandished his sword at the governor, and called aloud for his hatchet to dispatch the unhappy victim of his barbarity. Matters now wore a serious aspect. The other Indians appeared under the control of Baneelon and had begun to arm and prepare their spears, as if determined to support him in his violence.

Farther delay might have been attended with danger. The
Supply
was therefore immediately hailed, and an armed boat ordered to be sent on shore. Luckily, those on board the ship had already observed the commotion and a boat was ready, into which Captain Ball with several of his people stepped, armed with muskets, and put off. It was reasonable to believe that so powerful a reinforcement would restore tranquillity, but Baneelon stood unintimidated at disparity of numbers and boldly demanded his prisoner, whose life, he told the governor, he was determined to sacrifice, and afterwards to cut off her head. Everyone was eager to know what could be the cause of such inveterate inhumanity. Undaunted, he replied that her father was his enemy, from whom he had received the wound in his forehead beforementioned; and that when he was down in battle, and under the lance of his antagonist, this woman had contributed to assail him. ‘She is now,' added he, ‘my property: I have ravished her by force from her tribe: and I will part with her to no person whatever, until my vengeance shall be glutted.'

Farther remonstrance would have been wasted. His Excellency therefore ordered the woman to be taken to the hospital in order that her wounds might be dressed. While this was doing, one of the natives, a young man named Boladèree, came up and supplicated to be taken into the boat also, saying that he was her husband, which she confirmed and begged that he might be admitted. He was a fine, well grown lad, of nineteen or twenty years old, and was one of the persons who had been in the house in the scene just described, which he had in no wise endeavoured to prevent, or to afford assistance to the poor creature who had a right to his protection.