ALCOHOL THE CURRENCY OF THE COLONY.

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voured to promote a good understanding—a task involving great difficulties, arising from the brutality of the convicts and the untameable The tribes that swarmed round Port Jackson

nature of the savages. and Botany Bay have, with one exception, all died out; the character and customs of those who survive in less settled districts remain unchanged, or at any rate not more changed than the fox chained in a courtyard, or a pheasant in an aviary.

In September, 1795, Governor Hunter arrived, superseded Lieutenant-Governor Grose, and remained the usual term of five years. His difficulties were less formidable than those of Governor Phillip, which were not extravagantly rewarded by a retiring pension of £500; his office was no sinecure.

He had had a large body of convict colonists under his command who would not work, who would drink, and who were therefore dependent for subsistence on supplies imported from England and India. By every ship that left the harbour there was an attempt, generally successful, to escape, on the part of convicts; fifty were taken from one ship at a time "when the loss of the labour of one man was important;" and it was no wonder that all who could endeavoured to fly from a colony where the population was annually put on short allowance of food, and very often in danger of actual starvation.

At this period, and for more than twenty years, spirits were the ordinary currency of the colony. Almost all extra work was paid for in spirits, and it was thought quite proper to stimulate the diligence of prisoners, in unloading a vessel laden with government stores, by giving half a pint of spirits to each. Among free and bond, drunkenness was a prevailing vice. The tyranny of the prisoneroverseers was so great that the best-inclined convicts were goaded to recklessness and crime. Criminal assaults on women were so common that "the poor unfortunate victims were designated by a title expressive of the insults they had received."

The whole population, on the arrival of Captain Hunter, with the exception of one hundred and seventy-nine, were dependent on the public stores for rations, many of the exceptions being reputed thieves, presumed to subsist on plunder from stores and gardens.

The most favourable feature of this epoch was the extension of cultivation by settlers along the rich alluvial land on the banks of the River Hawkesbury, one of the first districts which seemed to yield a fair return to industry.

Among the events of this five years may be noted the first use of a printing-press, the discovery of the lost herd of cattle, and the

foundation of a settlement, called Newcastle, on the Coaeve or Hunter's River.

A printing-press had been sent out with the first fleet, but no printers; and all public and private announcements were made in manuscript, or by the bellman, until Governor Hunter discovered a printer among his convict subjects, and established a government gazette. In this age of newspapers it seems incredible that a number of officers and gentlemen should have been satisfied for so many years without something in the shape of a newspaper; but the colony was divided into slavedrivers and slaves, who were equally content to spend their time in feeding pigs and getting drunk.

The reports of the natives led the governor to send out as scouts men employed as hunters, to collect fresh provisions for public use, and they discovered, feeding on rich pastures on the other side of the River Nepean, still known as Cow Pastures, a herd of sixty cattle, the produce of the five cows and two bulls lost in 1788.

To realize this sight, so pleasant to the eyes of men condemned to perpetual rations of salt meat, rarely varied by fresh pork, the governor himself set out on an expedition, and tracked and viewed the herd with great delight. An old bull, fiercely and obstinately charging, was

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slaughtered in self-defence; he proved to be of the humpy-shouldered Cape breed of the lost stock, which left no doubt of the identity of the herd, and dispelled the notion of indigenous cattle; the party made a delicious meal, and a few pounds were carried back thirtyeight miles, over a rough road, to Paramatta, the rest being left to the native dogs and hawks, with deep regret, as meat fresh or salt had long been a rarity with the poor sick in the hospital." Many an Australian within the last ten years, galloping through Cow Pastures to purchase the finest cattle at £2 a head, to boil down for tallow, has been reminded of the time when a bit of bull beef, that a well-bred dog would now reject, was a luxury to a governor and his suite!

These wild cattle were preserved and increased greatly, dividing into "mobs," each under the charge of a victorious bull, until the general increase of stock diminished their value: many were consumed by surrounding small settlers, and the rest, being fierce and a nuisance, were destroyed by order of the government, when beef ceased to be a luxury.

About the time these wild herds were discovered, three miserable cows of the Indian breed sold for £189, and two years afterwards two colonial ships were employed eight months in bringing 51 cows, 3 bulls, and 90 sheep from the Cape, at a cost exceeding the highest price ever paid for the finest short-horns.

Governor Hunter, with the best intentions and an excusable ignorance of the laws of political economy, more than once endeavoured to fix the wages of labour, by a convention of employers, and mutual agreement not to outbid each other. Harvest wages were settled at 10s. a day; but we find, from frequent proclamations, that the rule of supply and demand prevailed, and labourers when much needed obtained "exorbitant terms," although a reward and indemnity were offered to informers.

At this period officers were allowed the use of ten prisoners for agricultural and three for domestic services, and so on in a diminishing scale to every description of settler down to the emancipist, who was allowed the use of one prisoner to assist in tilling his grant. All these servants were fed and clothed by the crown.

In 1797 the first school building was erected for the benefit of three hundred children, and the chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Johnson, began to catechise them after the service on each Sunday.

That instruction was much needed among all classes there can be no doubt; for on one occasion the sails of the public mill, by which the

corn of the settlers was gratuitously ground, were stolen in the absence of the miller. On another, with a superstition worthy of the middle ages, the authorities compelled a soldier suspected of murdering his comrade to handle the dead body, in order to see whether it would bleed, and so accuse him.

In 1798 the great Irish expedition in search of China took place. We laugh at it, yet it was not more foolish than many expeditions and theories patronized in the 19th century. It is also memorable for the foundation of the first brick church, built on the model of the stables of a citizen's mansion, with clock tower.

A return made in this year shows 6,270 acres in crop with wheat or maize, a much larger quantity of arable land in proportion to the population than is now cultivated in any of the Australian colonies. Among the more industrious settlers, George Barrington, the celebrated pickpocket, figures as the owner of twenty acres of wheat, thirteen sheep, fifty-five goats, and two mares: he was a constable.

In the following year the colony was again threatened with famine, partly owing to the deficiency of live stock, and partly to the incurable barrenness of the Sydney district.

In 1800 Captain Hunter was superseded by Captain King.

Under Governor King the Female Orphan School was founded, and the first issue of copper coin took place. The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, the first Australian paper, was founded by a prisoner, George Howe, and published by authority in 1803. The insurrection of prisoners, two hundred and fifty strong, armed with muskets, broke out at Castlehill, on the 4th March, 1804, and was defeated in fifteen minutes by Major Johnstone, of the New South Wales Corps, with twenty-four men. Sixty-seven insurgents fell on the field; ten were tried and five hung.

A penal settlement was formed in Van Diemen's Land by Captain Collins. In the first instance he proceeded to Port Phillip, but unfortunately landed on the eastern arm, where there was a deficiency of water; and being, as most military men are, a bad colonist, he abandoned it and proceeded to the Derwent. Had he made his way to the Yarra Yarra River the probability is that Sydney would have become the second settlement; and, with the profusion of white slave labour then available applied on the fine agricultural land of Port Phillip, it is probable that by this time a population of five millions would have been established there.

1806 was signalized by the great flood on the River Hawkesbury, on the banks of which the principal grain cultivation of the colony was carried

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on. The Hawkesbury in ordinary periods winds in a strangely tortuous course through a deep valley, between the precipitous banks above which, on the occurrence of heavy rains, it rises as much as thirty feet in a very few hours. These floods are not periodical. Until 1806 none of importance had occurred; the people had settled down on the rich "interval" land, the deposit of former overflowings. Crops, houses, and many colonists were all swept away in one night, without warning. Famine was the immediate result. The two-pound loaf rose to 5s.; wheat fetched 80s. a bushel, and every vegetable in proportion. A serious flood had occurred in 1801, but this far exceeded it. Indeed it is difficult to teach caution in such matters. A flood which occurred in the Maneroo district in May, 1851, turned into lakes twenty feet deep two townships carefully laid out by the Government surveyor, besides destroying several farms, drowning a number of settlers, and a tribe of blacks.

But this great flood on the Hawkesbury caused eventually a complete rearrangement of the cultivation and occupation of that district.

Calamities, according to popular prejudice, seldom come single; it was certainly the case in New South Wales in 1806, for the clock tower fell, and Governor Bligh arrived. Captain King resigned his

command on the 13th of March.

RECOLLECTIONS OF PRISONERS.

On the Hawkesbury and its tributaries the first successful agricultural colonies were planted, and there dwell a few representatives of the first fleeters.

These settlers, who are chiefly known by nicknames, such as Old Red Jacket and Smashem, are all in comfortable circumstances, some positively wealthy. Among the last was Mr. Smith, better known as Smashem,' from the Thurlow-like energy with which he spoke his mind, to high and low. Smashem had been free almost ever since he arrived in the colony, and had never been ‘in trouble.' He was an old man, with a large-featured, handsome, military sort of face, of a red-brown complexion, shaved clean. His dress consisted of a red flannel shirt, with a black bandana, tied sailor fashion, exposing his strong neck, and a pair of fustian trousers. Out of compliment to the lady he put on a blue coat with gilt buttons, but, being evidently uncomfortable, consented to take it off again. He refused to see the party until he learned that it was 'the Mrs. Chisholm;' and is usually rough and rude to those he does not respect.

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