ON THE HIGH SEAS. 167 



jects V The truth was that Captain Chase was preparing to 

 take the sea once more, and not wishing to fall in with an 

 American vessel without his full crew on board, was filling 

 vacancies by the method of the press-gang. As he kept to his 

 ship, and as pressing for the Navy was legal, Macquarie could 

 not restrain him, and by Chase's orders men were impressed 

 " both afloat and ashore ". The Governor pointed out to Lord 

 Bathurst how unsuitable was the " Impress Service " to a country 

 where the " great mass of the population is made up of Convicts" 

 to press whom was " at direct variance with the object of their 

 transportation ". The Secretary of State agreed and made re- 

 presentations to the Admiralty, but as the war soon came to an 

 end no more was heard of such practices and the matter dropped. 2 

 Except for naval store-ships coming to New South Wales or 

 New Zealand for timber, or vessels on voyages of discovery, the 

 whole territory lay beyond the track of the Navy. It was in the 

 trade with New Zealand and in the South Sea Islands and in 

 transportation of convicts that the limits of the jurisdiction of 

 the courts of New South Wales were most severely felt. 



The traders in the South Seas were rough, adventurous men 

 ruling with foul speech and brutal punishments their wild and 

 turbulent crews. 3 The annals of the Pacific are filled with 

 stories of murder and revenge. They tell of outrages on the 

 natives followed by fierce reprisals, mutinies successful or un- 

 successful alike ending in bloodshed, and scarcely credible op- 

 pressions practised by the captains on their crews. 4 Macquarie's 

 missionary-magistrates had jurisdiction only when crimes were 

 committed on land. Even then, being wholly without coercive 

 powers, they could do nothing effective. In New South Wales 

 itself there was no court which could take cognisance of offences 

 committed on the Islands or on the High Seas. The pnly thing 



1 D.8, i 4 th August, 1813. R.O., MS. 



2 See D. above and correspondence of C.O., MS., 1814. 



3 These vessels were of varying size, from 2^0 tons to 800 tons, for no vessel 

 of less than 250 tons might navigate in these seas according to the East India 

 Charter. The cargoes taken to the natives consisted of Bengal prints, slates and 

 pencils, gunpowder and muskets. The Marquesas Islands, however, were so well 

 supplied with muskets from America that they would take no English ones. See 

 Appendix, Bigge's Reports. R.O., MS. 



*e.g., the master of a ship would entice men to join his crew and then starve 

 and ill-treat them, apparently for no reason save the gratification of his brutality. 

 See case of " General Gates," Appendix to Bigge's Reports. R.O., MS. 



