by Watkin Tench
12 The departure of the French from Botany Bay, and the return of the Supply from Norfolk Island, with a discovery made by Lieutenant Ball on his passage to it
† The Hawaiian Islands.
†2 Hawaii.
†3 ‘Here lies L. Receveur the Minorite, priest, physician, who died on 17 February 1788 while circumnavigating the globe under the leadership of La Perouse.’
13 Transactions at Port Jackson in the months of April and May 1788
† The Blue Mountains.
15 The face of the country, its productions, climate, etc.
† The mouth of the Hawkesbury was not yet discovered.
†2 Tench was encountering of course the distinctive and diverse heathland flora of the Sydney Sandstone. The shrub with white flowers is probably tea-tree or melaleuca.
†3 The former was probably a lilly pilly Syzygium, and the latter possibly a geebung Persoonia.
†4 In Tasmania.
†5 The South American emu is a rhea.
†6 The foot was three rather than two-toed.
†7 The testicles are placed in front of the penis in all marsupials.
†8 Snapper.
†9 Diamond python, Morelia spilotes.
17 Some thoughts on the advantages which may arise to the mother country from forming the colony
† Kentia palm.
Book Two
1 A retrospect of the state of the colony of Port Jackson on the date of my former narrative in July 1788
† William Shakespeare, Henry V, iv, i, 40: ‘Trail’st thou the puissant pike?’
†2 Source unidentified.
* ‘The Swedish prisoners, taken at the battle of Pultowa, were transported by the Czar Peter to the most remote parts of Siberia with a view to civilise the natives of the country and teach them the arts the Swedes possessed. In this hopeless situation all traces of discipline and subordination between the different ranks were quickly obliterated. The soldiers, who were husbandmen and artificers, found out their superiority, and assumed it; the officers became their servants.’ Voltaire.
3 Transactions of the colony from the commencement of the year 1789 until the end of March
† Sydney Cove.
* These appointments were confirmed by the admiralty.
*2 A vegetable creeper found growing on the rocks which yields, on infusion in hot water, a sweet astringent taste whence it derives its name. To its virtues the healthy state of the soldiery and convicts may be greatly attributed. It was drank universally.
4 Transactions of the colony in April and May 1789
* No solution of this difficulty had been given when I left the country in December 1791. I can, therefore, only propose queries for the ingenuity of others to exercise itself upon: is it a disease indigenous to the country? Did the French ships under Monsieur La Perouse introduce it? Let it be remembered that they had now been departed more than a year and we had never heard of its existence on board of them. Had it travelled across the continent from its western shore, where Dampier and other European voyagers had formerly landed? Was it introduced by Mr Cook? Did we give it birth here? No person among us had been afflicted with the disorder since we had quitted the Cape of Good Hope, seventeen months before. It is true that our surgeons had brought out variolous matter in bottles, but to infer that it was produced from this cause were a supposition so wild as to be unworthy of consideration.
*2 Very different had been his conduct on a former occasion of a similar kind. Soon after he was brought among us he was seized with a diarrhoea, for which he could by no persuasion be induced to swallow any of our prescriptions. After many ineffectual trials to deceive or overcome him, it was at length determined to let him pursue his own course and to watch if he should apply for relief to any of the productions of the country. He was in consequence observed to dig fern-root and to chew it. Whether the disorder had passed its crisis, or whether the fern-root effected a cure, I know not; but it is certain that he became speedily well.
*3 The regard was reciprocal. His Excellency had been ill but a short time before, when Arabanoo had testified the utmost solicitude for his ease and recovery. It is probable that he acquired, on this occasion, just notions of the benefit to be derived from medical assistance. A doctor is, among them, a person of consequence. It is certain that he latterly estimated our professional gentlemen very highly.
5 Transactions of the colony until the close of the year 1789
† Written in 1706 by the Irish playwright George Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer was the first play staged in the colony.
†2 The Blue Mountains.
†3 John Milton, Paradise Lost, II, 917: ‘Into this wild abyss the wary fiend / Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while / Pondering his voyage…’
* A squirrel-trap is a cavity of considerable depth, formed by art, in the body of a tree. When the Indians in their hunting parties set fire to the surrounding country (which is a very common custom) the squirrels, opossums, and other animals who live in trees, flee for refuge into these holes, whence they are easily dislodged and taken. The natives always pitch on a part of a tree for this purpose which has been perforated by a worm, which indicates that the wood is in an unsound state and will readily yield to their efforts. If the rudeness and imperfection of the tools with which they work be considered, it must be confessed to be an operation of great toil and difficulty.
*2 One of the convicts, a Negro, had twice eloped with an intention of establishing himself in the society of the natives, with a wish to adopt their customs and to live with them, but he was always repulsed by them, and compelled to return to us from hunger and wretchedness.
†4 Baneelon we know of course as Bennelong, who gave his name to the point where the Sydney Opera House now stands, the site of his house in the settlement.
†5 Tench is thinking of Oliver Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village: ‘Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won.’
*3 It is observable that this custom prevails as a pledge of friendship and kindness all over Asia, and has also been mentioned by Captain Cook to exist among the natives in the South Sea Islands.
6 Transactions of the colony, from the beginning of the year 1790 until the end of May following
* See the ration of the 27th of March, a few pages back.
*2 When the age of this provision is recollected, its inadequacy will more strikingly appear. The pork and rice were brought with us from England. The pork had been salted between three and four years, and every grain of rice was a moving body from the inhabitants lodged within it. We soon left off boiling the pork as it had become so old and dry that it shrunk one half in its dimensions when so dressed. Our usual method of cooking it was to cut off the daily morsel and toast it on a fork before the fire, catching the drops which fell on a slice of bread, or in a saucer of rice. Our flour was the remnant of what was brought from the Cape by the Sirius, and was good. Instead of baking it, the soldiers and convicts used to boil it up with greens.
† Batavia: modern Jakarta.
†2 Virgil, Aeneid, XII, 59: ‘Our frail state depends utterly on you.’
†3 Shakespeare, Othello, III, iii, 351.
*3 Its preservation in some cases was found impracticable. Three or four instances of persons who perished from want have been related to me. One only, however, fell within my own observation. I was passing the provision store when a man with a wild haggard countenance who had just received his daily pittance to carry home came out. His faltering gait and eager devouring eye led me to watch him, and he had not proceeded ten steps before he fell. I ordered him to be carried to the hospital where, when he arrived, he was found dead. On opening the body, the cause of death was pronounced to be inanition.
7 Transactions of the colony in June, July and August 1790
† The madness of King George III.
* These words bring to my mind an anecdote which, though rather out of place, I shall offer no apology for introducing. Among other inq
uiries, we were anxious to learn whether Monsieur La Perouse, with the two ships under his command bound on a voyage of discovery, had arrived in France. We heard with concern that no accounts of them had been received since they had left Botany Bay in March 1788. I remember, when they were at that place, one day conversing with Monsieur La Perouse about the best method of treating savage people. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘I have sometimes been compelled to commit hostilities upon them, but never without suffering the most poignant regret; for, independent of my own feelings on the occasion, His Majesty’s (Louis XVI) last words to me, de sa propre bouche [from his own mouth] when I took leave of him at Versailles, were: ‘It is my express injunction that you always treat the Indian nations with kindness and humanity. Gratify their wishes and never, but in a case of the last necessity, when self-defence requires it, shed human blood.’ Are these the sentiments of a tyrant, of a sanguinary and perfidious man?
*2 Accident only prevented her from making it in eighteen days less, for she was then in sight of the harbour’s mouth, when an unpropitious gale of wind blew her off. Otherwise she would have reached us one day sooner than the Lady Juliana. It is a curious circumstance that these two ships had sailed together from the River Thames, one bound to Port Jackson and the other bound to Jamaica. The Justinian carried her cargo to the last mentioned place, landed it and loaded afresh with sugars, which she returned with and delivered in London. She was then hired as a transport, reladen, and sailed for New South Wales. Let it be remembered that no material accident had happened to either vessel. But what will not zeal and diligence accomplish!
†2 Mt Prudhoe, Razorback Range.
8 Transactions of the colony in the beginning of September 1790
† Sailors were in the habit of calling the salt meat they ate on long voyages ‘junks’, but the word was also used synonymously with ‘chunks’.
†2 A dirk was a kind of dagger.
* Such preparation is equal to what cocking a gun, and directing it at its object, would be with us. To launch the spear, or to touch the trigger, only remains.
*2 His Excellency described the shock to me as similar to a violent blow, with such energy was the weapon thrown.
*3 They have never since been heard of. Before they went away they tried in vain to procure firearms. If they were not swallowed by the sea, probably they were cut off by the natives on some part of the coast where their necessities obliged them to land.
9 Transactions of the colony in part of September and October 1790
† The Aborigines of the Sydney area were slight of stature, possibly the result of living in such a nutrient-poor environment.
†2 Imeerawanyee was doing battle with a grass tree (Xanthorrhoea).
* It had long been our wish to establish a commerce of this sort. It is a painful consideration that every previous addition to the cabinet of the virtuosi from this country had wrung a tear from the plundered Indian.
*2 Look at the account of the governor being wounded, when his detestation of this man burst forth.
*3 The S is a letter which they cannot pronounce, having no sound in their language similar to it. When bidden to pronounce sun, they always say tun; salt, talt, and so of all words wherein it occurs.
10 The arrival of the Supply from Batavia; the state of the colony in November 1790
† A snow was a small brig-like sailing vessel.
* The best crop of barley ever produced in New South Wales was sown by a private individual, in February 1790, and reaped in the following October.
†2 A rod is five metres long.
*2 As all the trees on our cleared ground were cut down, and not grubbed up, the roots and stumps remain, on which account a tenth part of surface in every acre must be deducted. This is slovenly husbandry; but in a country where immediate subsistence is wanted it is perhaps necessary. None of these stumps, when I left Port Jackson, showed any symptoms of decay, though some of the trees had been cut down four years. To the different qualities of the wood of Norfolk Island and New South Wales, perhaps the difference of soil may in some measure be traced. That of Norfolk Island is light and porous: it rots and turns into mould in two years. Besides its hardness that of Port Jackson abounds with red corrosive gum, which contributes its share of mischief.
†3 Milton, Paradise Lost, IV, 34.
*3 In the close of the year 1788, when this settlement was established, the thermometer has been known to stand at 50° a little before sunrise, and between one and two o’clock in the afternoon at above 100°.
11 Farther transactions of the colony in November 1790
† Bennelong Point, the site of the Sydney Opera House.
* This good-tempered lively lad was become a great favourite with us, and almost constantly lived at the governor’s house. He had clothes made up for him and, to amuse his mind, he was taught to wait at table. One day a lady, Mrs McArthur, wife of an officer of the garrison, dined there, as did Nanbaree. This latter, anxious that his countryman should appear to advantage in his new office, gave him many instructions, strictly charging him, among other things, to take away the lady’s plate whenever she should cross her knife and fork, and to give her a clean one. This Imeerawanyee executed, not only to Mrs McArthur, but to several of the other guests. At last Nanbaree crossed his knife and fork with great gravity, casting a glance at the other, who looked for a moment with cool indifference at what he had done, and then turned his head another way. Stung at this supercilious treatment, he called in rage to know why he was not attended to as well as the rest of the company. But Imeerawanyee only laughed; nor could all the anger and reproaches of the other prevail upon him to do that for one of his countrymen which he cheerfully continued to perform to every other person.
†2 Omai was a Tahitian who travelled to London with James Cook, played chess well, and met Dr Johnson.
12 Transactions of the colony in part of December 1790
* From the aversion uniformly shown by all the natives to this unhappy man, he had long been suspected by us of having in his excursions shot and injured them. To gain information on this head from him, the moment of contrition was seized. On being questioned with great seriousness, he, however, declared that he had never fired but once on a native, and then had not killed but severely wounded him, and this in his own defence. Notwithstanding this death-bed confession, most people doubted the truth of the relation, from his general character and other circumstances.
*2 He had, it seems, visited the governor about noon, after having gained information from Nanbaree of our march, and for what purpose it was undertaken. This he did not scruple to tell to the governor, proclaiming at the same time a resolution of going to Botany Bay, which His Excellency endeavoured to dissuade him from by every argument he could devise: a blanket, a hatchet, a jacket, or aught else he would ask for, was offered to him in vain, if he would not go. At last it was determined to try to eat him down, by setting before him his favourite food, of which it was hoped he would feed so voraciously as to render him incapable of executing his intention. A large dish of fish was accordingly set before him. But after devouring a light horseman [snapper] and at least five pounds of beef and bread, even until the sight of food became disgusting to him, he set out on his journey with such lightness and gaiety as plainly showed him to be a stranger to the horrors of indigestion.
*3 I had often read of this contrivance to facilitate the passage of a morass. But I confess that in my confusion I had entirely forgotten it, and probably should have continued to do so until too late to be of use.
*4 The words which are quoted may be found in Mr Cook’s first voyage, and form part of his description of Botany Bay. It has often fallen to my lot to traverse these fabled plains; and many a bitter execration have I heard poured on those travellers, who could so faithlessly relate what they saw.
13 The transactions of the colony continued to the end of May 1791
* They did not arrive in England until April 1792.
*2 I am of opini
on that such protection is always extended to children who may be left destitute.
† ‘Love of one’s homeland.’
*3 It was my fate to fall in again with part of this little band of adventurers. In March 1792, when I arrived in the Gorgon at the Cape of Good Hope, six of these people, including the woman and one child, were put on board of us to be carried to England. Four had died, and one had jumped overboard at Batavia. The particulars of their voyage were briefly as follows. They coasted the shore of New Holland, putting occasionally into different harbours which they found in going along. One of these harbours, in the latitude of 30° south, they described to be of superior excellence and capacity. Here they hauled their bark ashore, paid her seams with tallow, and repaired her. But it was with difficulty they could keep off the attacks of the Indians. These people continued to harass them so much that they quitted the mainland and retreated to a small island in the harbour, where they completed their design. Between the latitude of 26° and 27°, they were driven by a current thirty leagues from the shore, among some islands, where they found plenty of large turtles. Soon after they closed again with the continent, when the boat got entangled in the surf and was driven on shore, and they had all well nigh perished. They passed through the straits of Endeavour and, beyond the gulf of Carpentaria, found a large freshwater river, which they entered, and filled from it their empty casks.
Until they reached the gulf of Carpentaria, they saw no natives or canoes differing from those about Port Jackson. But now they were chased by large canoes, fitted with sails and fighting stages, and capable of holding thirty men each. They escaped by dint of rowing to windward. On the 5th of June 1791 they reached Timor, and pretended that they had belonged to a ship which, on her passage from Port Jackson to India, had foundered; and that they only had escaped. The Dutch received them with kindness and treated them with hospitality. But their behaviour giving rise to suspicion, they were watched; and one of them at last, in a moment of intoxication, betrayed the secret. They were immediately secured and committed to prison. Soon after Captain Edwards of the Pandora, who had been wrecked near Endeavour straits, arrived at Timor, and they were delivered up to him, by which means they became passengers in the Gorgon.
