fired and Innis killed him, and wounded another ; they all fled. T h e number of savages were not less than one hundred and fifty. H a d not M r . Tuckey fortunately come up with the boat, no doubt but they would have killed M r . G a m m o n and M r . Harris and the 2 men. W e have great reason to think they are cannibals." T h e parson seems to have held the Commission of the Peace, for he thus relates of the first Magisterial decision:—"Nov. 2.—At eleven a complaint came before m e as a Magistrate that Robert Cannady, servant to M r . Humphreys, had promised Buckley, the Governor's servant, a waistcoat for a pair of shoes, which he had taken and worn, and would not return the waistcoat; but after hearing them on both sides I had the waistcoat given to Buckley." T h e complainant here was the same William Buckley w h o soon afterwards escaped, spent nearly half a tolerably long life with the blacks, and rejoined the whites. O n ioth November this "General Order" was issued:—-" T h e Lieutenant-Governor is concerned to learn that six m e n have been so blind to their o w n welfare as to absent themselves from the Settlement, and proceed in the desperate undertaking of travelling round to Port Jackson. If such is actually the motive of their absenting themselves, they must inevitably be lost in the attempt, and nothing more will ever be heard of them ; for, independent of the risk they run of being killed by the Natives, it is impossible for them with any quantity of provisions they could carry, to endure the fatigue of penetrating a thousand miles through the woods of this country; for such would be the distance which, by rounding the heads of the different harbours that, present themselves in the route they would have to travel. Although caution to them is n o w useless, yet it m a y not prove so to those w h o remain. H e therefore takes this occasion of informing them that, while admitting the probability of their succeeding, and reaching Port Jackson alive, they would instantly be apprehended, and sent back to this Settlement by the Governor, here to meet the punishment justly due to their rashness and offence." T h e first kangaroo killed by a white m a n was shot on the 13th November, by Lieutenant Pateshall. This happened on the Sabbath, and the next day there was a grand kangaroo dinner in camp, at which all the officers that could be spared from the "Calcutta" attended. According to the diarist, "It weighed when skinned, the head off, liver, heart, and entrails taken out, 68 lbs.; the skin of a dark-brown colour." Bird-nesting was a pernicious amusement, and on 30th November a humane prohibition was promulgated against "daily bringing birds' nests into the encampment, containing either eggs or young unfledged birds." T h e practice was denounced as cruel and destructive, and punishment promised for future similar offences. A barge's crew of the " Calcutta" the next day killed on the beach a sea-elephant, with skin of a light-brown colour, a head like a bulldog, 12 ft. long, 5 ft. 2 in. round the body, and weighing over 200 lbs. The first white baby born in Port Phillip was the son of Sergeant Thome, of the Detachment of Marines forming the escort of the Collins Convict Expedition. At nine a.m. of 25th November, 1803, the Sergeant's wife became the mother of a bouncing boy at Sorrento, the place of the temporary encampment. At noon of the following Christmas Day, and beneath the shade of an umbrageous gumtree after Divine service, the little Australian was baptised in the n a m e of William James Hobart Thorne, by the Rev. R. Knopwood, the Chaplain ; the Commandant, Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, kindly consenting to stand as the male sponsor. Baby Thorne of course accompanied the Expedition when it moved across the Straits to V a n Diemen's Land, and he not only grew up to man's estate, but lived to an advanced age there.
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THE CHRONICLES OF EARLY MELBOURNE.
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