An officer with a detachment of troops, was sent in pursuit of them;
but after a harassing march returned without success. In the course
of a week the greatest part of them were either brought back by
different parties who had fallen in with them, or were driven in by famine.
Upon being questioned about the cause of their elopement, those whom hunger
had forced back, did not hesitate to confess that they had been
so grossly deceived as to believe that China might easily be reached,
being not more than 100 miles distant, and separated only by a river.
The others, however, ashamed of the merriment excited at their expense,
said that their reason for running away was on account of being overworked
and harshly treated, and that they preferred a solitary and precarious
existence in the woods to a return to the misery they were compelled
to undergo. One or two of the party had certainly perished by the hands
of the natives, who had also wounded several others.
I trust that no man would feel more reluctant than myself to cast
an illiberal national reflection, particularly on a people whom I regard
in an aggregate sense as brethren and fellow-citizens; and among whom,
I have the honour to number many of the most cordial and endearing intimacies
which a life passed on service could generate. But it is certain
that all these people were Irish.
CHAPTER XVI
Transactions of the colony until 18th of December 1791,
when I quitted it, with an Account of its state at that time.
The Gorgon had arrived on the 21st of September, and the hour of departure
to England, for the marine battalion, drew nigh. If I be allowed to speak
from my own feelings on the occasion, I will not say that we contemplated
its approach with mingled sensations: we hailed it with rapture
and exultation.
The 'Supply', ever the harbinger of welcome and glad tidings, proclaimed
by her own departure, that ours was at hand. On the 26th of November
she sailed for England. It was impossible to view our separation
with insensibility: the little ship which had so often agitated our hopes
and fears, which from long acquaintance we had learned to regard as part
of ourselves, whose doors of hospitality had been ever thrown open
to relieve our accumulated wants, and chase our solitary gloom!
In consequence of the offers made to the non-commissioned officers
and privates of the marine battalion to remain in the country as settlers
or to enter into the New South Wales corps, three corporals, one drummer
and 59 privates accepted of grants of land, to settle at Norfolk Island
and Rose Hill.
