4 oo ACCOUNT OF THE ENGLISH COLONY [November, 



robbing the public ftore^houfe at Sydney and the fettlement at the 

 Hawkefbury. Two others were found guilty of manflaughter. 



Of thefe miferable people five were executed, purfuant to the fen- 

 tence of the court. The public juftice of the country being fatisfied, 

 the Governor extended the hand of mercy to the remaining three 

 who had been condemned to fuffer, by granting them a conditional 

 pardon. 



The court having ordered that Francis Morgan mould be hung in 

 chains upon the fmall ifland which is fituated in the middle of the har- 

 bour, and named by the natives Mat-te-wa-ye, a gibbet was accord- 

 ingly erected, and he was placed there, exhibiting an .object of much 

 greater terror to the natives, than to the white people, many of whom 

 were more inclined to make a je-ft of it ; but to the natives his ap- 

 pearance was fo frightful — his clothes making in the wind, and the 

 creaking of his irons, added to their fuperftitious ideas of ghofls (for 

 thefe children of ignorance imagined that, like a ghoft, this man might 

 have the power of taking hold of them by the throat\ all rendering 

 him fuch an alarming object to them, that they never trufted them- 

 felves near him, nor near the fpot where he hung, which until that time 

 had ever been with them a favourite place of refort. 



On the 1 6th of December, a general mufter of all defcriptions of 

 people took place over every part of the colony at the fame hour ; 

 for it had been found, that in muflering one diftrict at a time, a de- 

 ception had been fuccefsfully pra&ifed, by fome running from one 

 place to another, and anfwering to their names at each, thereby 

 drawing provifions from both Mores, having previoufly impofed them- 

 felves on the refpective ftorekeepers as belonging to their diftrict. This 

 could not, indeed, have long continued, if the ftorekeepers had been 

 properly attentive to the directions which they received ; but it was 

 almoft impoflible to guard againfl: the artful and well contrived decep- 

 tions which thefe people were conftantly playing off, to impofe upon 

 propriety, regulation, and good order. 



It 



