Would be the reply. They use a direct and positive negative,
but express the affirmative by a nod of the head or an inclination
of the body.
Opinions have greatly differed, whether or not their language be copious.
In one particular it is notoriously defective. They cannot count with
precision more than four. However as far as ten, by holding up the
fingers, they can both comprehend others and explain themselves. Beyond
four every number is called great; and should it happen to be very large,
great great, which is an Italian idiom also. This occasions their
computations of time and space to be very confused and incorrect. Of the
former they have no measure but the visible diurnal motion of the sun
or the monthly revolution of the moon.
To conclude the history of a people for whom I cannot but feel some share
of affection. Let those who have been born in more favoured lands and who
have profited by more enlightened systems, compassionate, but not despise
their destitute and obscure situation. Children of the same omniscient
paternal care, let them recollect that by the fortuitous advantage
of birth alone they possess superiority: that untaught, unaccommodated
man is the same in Pall Mall as in the wilderness of New South Wales.
And ultimately let them hope and trust that the progress of reason and the
splendor of revelation will in their proper and allotted season
be permitted to illumine and transfuse into these desert regions,
knowledge, virtue and happiness.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Observations on the Convicts.
A short account of that class of men for whose disposal and advantage
the colony was principally, if not totally, founded, seems necessary.
If it be recollected how large a body of these people are now congregated
in the settlement of Port Jackson and at Norfolk Island, it will, I think,
not only excite surprise but afford satisfaction, to learn, that in a
period of four years few crimes of a deep dye or of a hardened nature
have been perpetrated. Murder and unnatural sins rank not hitherto in the
catalogue of their enormities, and one suicide only has been committed.
To the honour of the female part of our community let it be recorded
that only one woman has suffered capital punishment. On her condemnation
she pleaded pregnancy, and a jury of venerable matrons was impanneled
on the spot, to examine and pronounce her state, which the forewoman,
a grave personage between sixty and seventy years old, did, by this short
address to the court; 'Gentlemen! she is as much with child as I am.'
Sentence was accordingly passed, and she was executed.
Besides the instance of Irving, two other male convicts, William
Bloodsworth, of Kingston upon Thames, and John Arscott, of Truro,
in Cornwall, were both emancipated for their good conduct, in the years
1790 and 1791. Several men whose terms of transportation had expired,
and against whom no legal impediment existed to prevent their departure,
have been permitted to enter in merchant ships wanting hands: and
as my Rose Hill journals testify, many others have had grants of land
assigned to them, and are become settlers in the country.
In so numerous a community many persons of perverted genius and of
mechanical ingenuity could not but be assembled. Let me produce the
following example. Frazer was an iron manufacturer, bred at Sheffield,
of whose abilities as a workman we had witnessed many proofs. The
governor had written to England for a set of locks to be sent out for the
security of the public stores, which were to be so constructed as to be
incapable of being picked. On their arrival his excellency sent for
Frazer and bade him examine them telling him at the same time that they
could not be picked. Frazer laughed and asked for a crooked nail only,
to open them all. A nail was brought, and in an instant he verified his
assertion. Astonished at his dexterity, a gentleman present determined
to put it to farther proof. He was sent for in a hurry, some days after,
to the hospital, where a lock of still superior intricacy and expense to
the others had been provided. He was told that the key was lost and that
the lock must be immediately picked. He examined it attentively, remarked
that it was the production of a workman, and demanded ten minutes to make
an instrument 'to speak with it.' Without carrying the lock with him,
he went directly to his shop, and at the expiration of his term returned,
applied his instrument, and open flew the lock. But it was not only in
this part of his business that he excelled: he executed every branch
of it in superior style. Had not his villainy been still more notorious
than his skill, he would have proved an invaluable possession to a new
country. He had passed through innumerable scenes in life, and had played
many parts. When too lazy to work at his trade he had turned thief in
fifty different shapes, was a receiver of stolen goods, a soldier and a
travelling conjurer. He once confessed to me that he had made a set of
tools, for a gang of coiners, every man of whom was hanged.
Were the nature of the subject worthy of farther illustration, many
similar proofs of misapplied talents might be adduced.
Their love of the marvellous has been recorded in an early part of this
work. The imposture of the gold finder, however prominent and glaring,
nevertheless contributed to awaken attention and to create merriment.
He enjoyed the reputation of a discoverer, until experiment detected the
imposition. But others were less successful to acquire even momentary
admiration. The execution of forgery seems to demand at least neatness
of imitation and dexterity of address. On arrival of the first fleet
of ships from England, several convicts brought out recommendatory letters
from different friends.
