They Furnished Us Liberally With Provisions,
And Administered Cheerfully To All Our Wants." It May Not Be Improper
To Remark, That Owhyee Was Not One Of The Islands Visited By This Gentleman.
In the short stay made by these ships at Botany Bay, an Abbe, one of the
naturalists on board, died, and was buried on the north shore.
The French
had hardly departed, when the natives pulled down a small board, which
had been placed over the spot where the corpse was interred, and defaced
everything around. On being informed of it, the Governor sent a party over
with orders to affix a plate of copper on a tree near the place,
with the following inscription on it, which is a copy of what was written
on the board:
Hic jacet L. RECEVEUR,
E.F.F. minnibus Galliae, Sacerdos, Physicus, in
circumnavigatione mundi, Duce De La Perrouse.
Obiit die 17 Februarii, anno 1788.
This mark of respectful attention was more particularly due, from
M. De Perrouse having, when at Kamschatka, paid a similar tribute of gratitude
to the memory of Captain Clarke, whose tomb was found in nearly as ruinous
a state as that of the Abbe.
Like ourselves, the French found it necessary, more than once, to chastise
a spirit of rapine and intrusion which prevailed among the Indians
around the Bay. The menace of pointing a musquet to them was frequently used;
and in one or two instances it was fired off, though without being attended
with fatal consequences. Indeed the French commandant, both from a regard
to the orders of his Court as well as to our quiet and security, shewed
a moderation and forbearance on this head highly becoming.
On the 20th of March, the 'Supply' arrived from Norfolk Island, after having
safely landed Lieutenant King and his little garrison. The pine-trees
growing there are described to be of a growth and height superior, perhaps,
to any in the world. But the difficulty of bringing them away will not be
easily surmounted, from the badness and danger of the landing place.
After the most exact search not a single plant of the New Zealand flax
could be found, though we had been taught to believe it abounded there.
Lieutenant Ball, in returning to Port Jackson, touched at a small island
in latitude 31 deg 36 min south, longitude 159 deg 4 min east of Greenwich,
which he had been fortunate enough to discover on his passage to Norfolk,
and to which he gave the name of Lord Howe's Island. It is entirely
without inhabitants, or any traces of any having ever been there.
But it happily abounds in what will be infinitely more important to
the settlers on New South Wales: green turtle of the finest kind frequent it
in the summer season. Of this Mr. Ball gave us some very handsome
and acceptable specimens on his return. Besides turtle, the island
is well stocked with birds, many of them so tame as to be knocked down
by the seamen with sticks. At the distance of four leagues from
Lord Howe Island, and in latitude 31 deg 30 min south, longitude 159 deg 8 min
east, stands a remarkable rock, of considerable height, to which Mr. Ball gave
the name of Ball's Pyramid, from the shape it bears.
While the 'Supply' was absent, Governor Phillip made an excursion to Broken
Bay, a few leagues to the northward of Port Jackson, in order to explore it.
As a harbour it almost equals the latter, but the adjacent country was found
so rocky and bare, as to preclude all possibility of turning it to account.
Some rivulets of fresh water fall into the head of the Bay, forming
a very picturesque scene. The Indians who live on its banks are numerous,
and behaved attentively in a variety of instances while our people
remained among them.
CHAPTER XIII.
Transactions at Port Jackson in the Months of April and May.
As winter was fast approaching, it became necessary to secure ourselves
in quarters, which might shield us from the cold we were taught to expect
in this hemisphere, though in so low a latitude. The erection of barracks
for the soldiers was projected, and the private men of each company undertook
to build for themselves two wooden houses, of sixty-eight feet in length,
and twenty-three in breadth. To forward the design, several saw-pits
were immediately set to work, and four ship carpenters attached to
the battalion, for the purpose of directing and completing this necessary
undertaking. In prosecuting it, however, so many difficulties occurred,
that we were fain to circumscribe our original intention; and, instead
of eight houses, content ourselves with four. And even these, from the badness
of the timber, the scarcity of artificers, and other impediments, are,
at the day on which I write, so little advanced, that it will be well,
if at the close of the year 1788, we shall be established in them.
In the meanwhile the married people, by proceeding on a more contracted scale,
were soon under comfortable shelter. Nor were the convicts forgotten;
and as leisure was frequently afforded them for the purpose, little edifices
quickly multiplied on the ground allotted them to build upon.
But as these habitations were intended by Governor Phillip to answer only
the exigency of the moment, the plan of the town was drawn, and the ground
on which it is hereafter to stand surveyed, and marked out. To proceed
on a narrow, confined scale, in a country of the extensive limits we possess,
would be unpardonable: extent of empire demands grandeur of design.
That this has been our view will be readily believed, when I tell the reader,
that the principal street in our projected city will be, when completed,
agreeable to the plan laid down, two hundred feet in breadth, and all the rest
of a corresponding proportion. How far this will be accompanied with adequate
dispatch, is another question, as the incredulous among us are sometimes
hardy enough to declare, that ten times our strength would not be able
to finish it in as many years.
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