being directed by their fires to the place where they lay, they
discovered a large body of natives, collected, no doubt, for the purpose
of attacking and plundering the settlers. Being unwilling to take any of
their lives, a volley of musketry was fired over their heads, which so
alarmed and terrified them, that they instantly fled, leaving behind them
their spears, etc. and about 20 bushels of Indian corn which they had
stolen.
It was distressing to observe, that every endeavour to civilise these
people proved fruitless. Although they lived among the inhabitants of the
different settlements, were kindly treated, fed, and often clothed, yet
they were never found to possess the smallest degree of gratitude for
such favours. Even Bennillong was as destitute of this quality as the
most ignorant of his countrymen. It is an extraordinary fact, that even
their children, who had been bred up among the white people, and who,
from being accustomed to follow their manner of living, might have been
supposed to ill relish the life of their parents, when grown up, have
quitted their comfortable abodes, females as well as males, and taken to
the same savage mode of living, where the supply of food was often
precarious, their comforts not to be called such, and their lives
perpetually in danger. As a proof of the little personal safety which
they enjoyed, a young woman, the wife of a man named Ye-ra-ni-be, both of
whom had been brought up in the settlement from their childhood, was
cruelly murdered at the brick-fields by her husband, assisted by another
native, Cole-be, who first beat her dreadfully about the head (the common
mode of chastising their women), and then put an end to her existence by
driving a spear through her heart.
When spoken to or censured for robbing the maize-grounds, these people,
to be revenged, were accustomed to assemble in large bodies, burn the
houses of the settlers if they stood in lonely situations, and frequently
attempted to take their lives; yet they were seldom refused a little corn
when they would ask for it. It was imagined that they were stimulated to
this destructive conduct by some run-away convicts who were known to be
among them at the time of their committing these depredations. In order
to get possession of these pests, a proclamation was issued, calling on
them by name to surrender themselves within 14 days, declaring them
outlaws if they refused, and requiring the inhabitants, as they valued
the peace and good order of the settlement, and their own security, to
assist in apprehending and bringing them to justice. The governor also
signified his determination, if any of the natives could be detected in
the act of robbing the settlers, to hang one of them in chains upon a
tree near the spot as a terror to the others. Could it have been
foreseen, that this was their natural temper, it would have been wiser to
have kept them at a distance, and in fear, which might have been effected
without so much of the severity which their conduct had sometimes
compelled him to exercise towards them. But the kindness which had been
shown them, and the familiar intercourse with the white people in which
they had been indulged, tended only to make them acquainted with those
concerns in which they were the most vulnerable, and brought on all the
evils which they suffered from them.
In the evening of the 16th, his Majesty's ship _Supply_ arrived from
the Cape of Good Hope; from which place she sailed about the middle of
last month, with a quantity of young cattle on board for the settlement.
She had met with much bad weather on her passage, and, being exceedingly
infirm, her pumps had been kept constantly at work. She landed 31 cows,
five mares, and 27 ewe sheep, all of them in good health, though much
weakened from the nature of their voyage: eight cows, two bulls, and 13