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
In his passage to Batavia, Lieutenant Ball saw some islands, to which,
conjecturing, from not finding them in any charts which he had on board,
that he might claim being the discoverer of them, he gave names
accordingly. Although anxious to make an expeditious passage, he had the
mortification to be baffled by contrary winds both to and from Batavia;
and at that settlement, instead of finding the governor-general (to whom
in his orders he was directed to apply for permission to purchase
provisions, and for a ship to bring them) ready to forward the service he
came on, which he represented as requiring the utmost expedition, he was
referred to the Sabandhaar, Mr. N. Engelhard, who, after much delay and
pretence of difficulty in procuring a vessel, produced one, a snow, which
they estimated at three hundred and fifty tons burden, and demanded to be
paid for at the rate of eighty rix dollars for every ton freight,
amounting together to twenty-eight thousand rix dollars, each rix dollar
being computed at forty-eight Dutch pennies; and the freight was to be
paid although the vessel should be lost on the passage.
As it was impossible to hire any vessel there upon cheaper terms,
Lieutenant Ball was compelled to engage for the _Waaksamheyd_ (that being
her name, which, englished, signified 'Good look out') upon the terms
they proposed. Of the provisions which he was instructed to procure, the
whole quantity of flour, two hundred thousand pounds, was not to be had,
he being able only to purchase twenty thousand and twenty-one pounds, for
which they charged ten stivers per pound, and an addition of about
one-third of a penny per pound was charged for grinding it*. Instead of
the flour Lieutenant Ball purchased two hundred thousand pounds of rice,
at one rix dollar and forty-four stivers per hundred weight over and
above the seventy thousand pounds he was directed to procure. The salt
provisions were paid for at the rate of seven stivers per pound, and the
amount of the whole cargo, including the casks for the flour, wood for
dunnage, hire of cooleys, and of craft for shipping the provisions, was
thirty thousand four hundred and forty-one rix dollars and thirty-three
stivers; which added to the freight (twenty-eight thousand rix dollars)
made a total of fifty-eight thousand four hundred and forty-one rix
dollars and thirty-three stivers, or £11,688 6s 9d sterling.
[* The flour, without the freight, including one hundred and ten rix
dollars which were charged for twenty-two half leagers in which it was
contained, amounted as nearly as possible to tenpence three farthings per
pound.]
Mr. Ormsby, a midshipman from the _Sirius_, was left to come on with the
snow, which it was hoped would sail in a few weeks after the _Supply_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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