A Boat Was Overset In The Harbour
Baneelon And Some Other Natives, Who Saw The Accident Happen, Immediately
Plunged In, And Saved All The People.
When they had brought them on shore,
they undressed them, kindled a fire and dried their clothes, gave them
fish to eat and conducted them to Sydney.
The other instance was of a soldier lost in the woods, when he met a party
of natives. He at first knew not whether to flee from them, or to implore
their assistance. Seeing among them one whom he knew, he determined
to communicate his distress to him and to rely on his generosity.
The Indian told him that he had wandered a long way from home, but that
he would conduct him thither, on the single condition of his delivering up
a gun which he held in his hand, promising to carry it for him and to
restore it to him at parting. The soldier felt little inclination
to surrender his arms, by which he would be put entirely in their power.
But seeing no alternative, he at last consented; on which the whole party
laid down their spears and faithfully escorted him to the nearest part
of the settlement, where the gun was given up, and they took their leave
without asking for any remuneration, or even seeming to expect it.
The distressful state of the colony for provisions continued gradually
to augment until the 9th of July, when the Mary Anne transport arrived
from England. This ship had sailed from the Downs so lately as
the 25th of February, having been only four months and twelve days
on her passage. She brought out convicts, by contract, at a specific sum
for each person. But to demonstrate the effect of humanity and justice,
of 144 female convicts embarked on board only three had died, and the rest
were landed in perfect health, all loud in praise of their conductor.
The master's name was Munro; and his ship, after fulfilling her engagement
with government, was bound on the southern fishery. The reader must not
conclude that I sacrifice to dull detail, when he finds such benevolent
conduct minutely narrated. The advocates of humanity are not yet become
too numerous: but those who practise its divine precepts, however humble
and unnoticed be their station, ought not to sink into obscurity,
unrecorded and unpraised, with the vile monsters who deride misery
and fatten on calamity.
July, 1791. If, however, the good people of this ship delighted us
with their benevolence, here gratification ended. I was of a party
who had rowed in a boat six miles out to sea, beyond the harbour's mouth,
to meet them; and what was our disappointment, on getting aboard,
to find that they had not brought a letter (a few official ones
for the governor excepted) to any person in the colony! Nor had they
a single newspaper or magazine in their possession; nor could they
conceive that any person wished to hear news; being as ignorant
of everything which had passed in Europe for the last two years
as ourselves, at the distance of half the circle.
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