Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/201

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NEW SOUTH WALES CORPS AT NORFOLK ISLAND. 173 A settler at the island cut short all need for trial of a thief in one case in 1792. It was at a time of short rations, when, to prevent the voracious swallowing of a week's allowance at a meal, King ordered the divided ration to be issued twice in the week. A convict took to the woods and obtained food by plundering gardens at night. Leonard Dyer shot him in the act. King sent the deposi- tions to Phillip. Phillip, on the eve of departure for Eng- land, promised to represent to the English ministers the evils arising from the want of a Court of Criminal Jus- tice at the island, and the act of Leonard Dyer was never challenged. When Grose upbraided King for his manner of restoring the Maoris to New Zealand, he at the same time (Feb. 1794) complained of the manner in which King had main- tained discipline in the detachment of the New South Wales Corps stationed at Norfolk Island. The audacity which he had been unable to cope with in Sydney he was unwilling to see controlled by King. A private in the corps, on the complaint of one Dring, a freed settler, had been forbidden by Lieut. Abbott to frequent the settler's house. The settler's wife was enticed abroad, and Dring found her with her tempter, whom he at once struck. The soldier complained. Dring was fined twenty shillings for an assault. Another soldier for a similar offence was pulled by the nose by a marine settler. The magistrates fined the settler ten shillings. The soldiery were indignant at the leniency of the sentences. King incurred odium by giving Dring time to pay the fine whenever his corn might be garnered, another settler giving security in the mean- time. In reporting the case to Grose, King had said that Dring, in striking the soldier, had been "actuated by the same principle that would have actuated any man;" but the soldiers at Norfolk Island, expecting support from Grose, became insolent. Four of them attacked on his own farm the settler who had become security for Dring. The settler complained to King, who referred him to the commanding oflScer, by whose order the principal rioter was confined in the guard-house. Two other soldiers thereupon brutually assaulted Dring. They also in like manner were complained of and confined. T^ o^^tA^^^^