Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/76

This page needs to be proofread.
48
48

friends, that ** after niatiire deliberation, reflecting on the number of prisoners, and the temptation that might arise from the vast quantity of silver on board the frigate, they at last came to a resolution to try and execute them there, which was accordingly done, and they embarked immediately afterwards for Batavia?'* If these things eoukl happen on the Mest coast amongst free men, what miglit not happen in the more remote east, in a community of criminals with scant guards to control them? Such tlioughts must have passed through the minds of many of the bold men who now in the South had reared the flag of England. But whatever may have been their forecast, a strict performance of duty was their practice. The imminent present furnished enough to think of* How long could the scanty stores of food be guarded agamst a craving band of convicts, oiitnumbermg so many times their guardians? Nay, worse. Qhih fHstodiet ipsos rnskHfes / AVhen Hunter returned from the Cape, he says, *' Another melancholy piece of information we received on our arrival was tiiat si marines had been tried by a criminal court and found guilty of robbing the public stores; they were sentenced to death and executed accordingly," This was in May, 17B9. In Jan., 1790 (Hunter wrote):— "The conversation turned iipon the loa^ expected arrivals from England^ which we had Iweii foi* some time paiit in daily escpe station of, with a supply of proviaionB. Our store here was now in a v^ery exhausted state, much more no than we ever expected it would have heen j . . . as it waa always untlergtood thfit the settlement would never have heen reduced lower than one year's provisions In store. . . . We all looked forward with hope foi' arrivals with a relief. ... In Fehruary*' wo bcgiui to look a little aeriouis on our disappointment of arrivals ; . . . 1 received an order to prepare the Striut tor sea, and to embark the Lt.-Gov. (Ross) with one eompany of marines, and the otlicer-^, haggage^ and also 181j convicts; in all, *J21 persona ; . » , and I was directed to land them upon Norfolk Island. * At Norfolk Island, in Jan., 1789, there was a plot to seize the Lt, -Governor and his officers, and obtain a vessel for the conyicts to escape with. The scheme was discovered

  • ' It IB noteworthy that the following remark o€ourB in one of Phillip's

Ldespatchea written in this gloomy month : — *' Aa near two years have now I passed since we first lauded in this eountry, some judgment may be formed lof the climate, and I believe a finer or more healthy climate ia not to Ije iouml ill any part of the world." 4 4 4