An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 1: With Remarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc. of The; Native Inhabitants of That Country. to Which Are Added, Some; Particulars of New Zealand; Compiled, By Permission, From; The Mss. of Lieutenant-Governor King.Collins, David
History
An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 1: With Remarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc. of The; Native Inhabitants of That Country. to Which Are Added, Some; Particulars of New Zealand; Compiled, By Permission, From; The Mss. of Lieutenant-Governor King.
Collins, David
New South Wales -- Description and travel
Caesar, being closely attended to, was at length apprehended and secured.
This man was always reputed the hardest working convict in the country;
his frame was muscular and well calculated for hard labour; but in his
intellects he did not very widely differ from a brute; his appetite was
ravenous, for he could in any one day devour the full ration for two
days. To gratify this appetite he was compelled to steal from others, and
all his thefts were directed to that purpose. He was such a wretch, and
so indifferent about meeting death, that he declared while in
confinement, that if he should be hanged, he would create a laugh before
he was turned off, by playing off some trick upon the executioner.
Holding up such a mere animal as an example was not expected to have the
proper or intended effect; the governor therefore, with the humanity that
was always conspicuous in his exercise of the authority vested in him,
directed that he should be sent to Garden Island, there to work in
fetters; and in addition to his ration of provisions he was to be
supplied with vegetables from the garden.
The _Sirius_ had, in the gale of wind which she met with off Tasman's
Head, sustained much more damage, and was, upon inspection, found to have
been weakened much more than was at first conjectured. This was the more
unfortunate, as, from the nature of our situation, many important
services were yet to be rendered by her to the colony. It became,
therefore, a matter of public concern to have her damages repaired and
the ship strengthened as expeditiously and as efficaciously as our
abilities would admit. A convenient retired cove on the north shore being
fixed on for the purpose of a careening cove, she dropped down and took
possession of it toward the latter end of the month. She could have been
refitted with much ease at Sydney; but there was no doubt that the work
necessary to be done to her would meet with fewer interruptions, if the
people who were engaged in it were removed from the connections which
seamen generally form where there are women of a certain character and
description.
The gang under the direction of the overseer employed at the brick fields
had hitherto only made ten thousand bricks in a month. A kiln was now
constructed in which thirty thousand might be burnt off in the same time,
which number the overseer engaged to deliver.
The carpenter of the _Supply_, who had undertaken the construction of the
hoy, being obliged to proceed with that vessel on her going to sea, the
direction of the few people employed upon her was left with the carpenter
of the _Sirius_ during his absence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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