THE SETTLEMENT OF 1803 31 



crime that he will never pass over, and to prevent as far as in 

 him lies their disgracing themselves, and the royal and honourable 

 corps to which they belong, by incurring the censure of Court 

 Martial, he directs that in future their allowance of watered spirits 

 shall not be taken to their tents, but drunk at the place where it is 

 mixed, in the presence of the officer of the day." Grim as were 

 the surroundings, and serious no doubt as were the irregularities 

 which called for such an order, the spectacle of forty or fifty men 

 marching up to the commissariat tent in Indian file, and tossing off 

 in turn their half-pint of fiery rum under the eye of their officer, is 

 not without its ludicrous side. If they went astray afterwards the 

 blame certainly could not be laid on the " social glass ". 



Several of the orders were called forth by the attempts made 

 by the convicts to abscond in the vain hope of reaching Port 

 Jackson, or, as some of them believed, even getting to China. In 

 his proclamation the Commander dilates upon the almost certain 

 destruction that awaits them, either by starvation, or at the hands 

 of the natives ; and that even should they surmount these diffi- 

 culties, they would be promptly seized by the authorities, if they 

 reached Port Jackson, and returned to him for punishment. While 

 dwelling upon the sufferings of some of the returned runaways, 

 who had preferred coming back and taking the flogging awaiting 

 them to facing the apparently sure starvation of the bush, he 

 expresses his surprise at what he calls this "strange desertion of 

 the people ". He could have understood it had they been ill- 

 treated, badly fed or clothed, or overworked, but the contrary was 

 so notoriously the case that he was " quite at a loss to discover 

 the motive". 



Altogether some fifteen or so ran away at various times ; one 

 was shot by a sentinel in the attempt, and the bulk of them gravi- 

 tated back to the flesh pots, contrite, emaciated and broken-spirited. 

 Three at least were never heard of again, and one man of gigantic 

 frame and tough constitution, William Buckley, who had been the 

 Lieutenant-Governor's servant, managed to drag out a savage 

 existence amongst the aborigines for over thirty years, and to be 

 eventually restored to the society of his countrymen after he had 

 forgotten his own language and the usages of civilised life. Had 



