1797.3 OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 41* 



When fpoken to, or cenfured, for robbing the maize grounds, 

 thefe people, to be revenged, were accuftomed to affemble in large 

 bodies, and burn the houfes of the fettlers if they flood in lonely fitua- 

 tions, frequently attempting to take their lives ; yet they were feldom 

 refufed a little corn when they would afk for it. It was imagined 

 that they were ftimulated to this deftru&ive conduct by fome run- 

 away convicts, who were known to be among them at the time of 

 their committing thefe depredations. In order to get poffeffion of 

 ^hefe perls, a proclamation was iffued, calling on them by name to 

 furrender themfelves within fourteen days ; declaring them out-laws 

 if they refufed ; and requiring the inhabitants, as they valued the 

 peace and good order of the fettlement, and their own fecurity, to 

 affifl in apprehending and bringing them to juftice. The Governor 

 alfo fignified his determination, if any of the natives were taken in the 

 ac"t of robbing the fettlers, to hang them in chains near the fpot as an 

 example to others. Could it have been forefeen, that this was their 

 natural temper, it would have been vvifer to have kept them at a dis- 

 tance, and in fear ; which might have been effected without fo much 

 of that feverity which their conducl: had fometimes caufed to be exer- 

 cifed toward them. But the kindnefs which had been fhewn them, and 

 the familiar intercourfe with the white people in which they had been 

 indulged, tended only to make them acquainted with thole concerns 

 in which they were the mod vulnerable, and brought on all the evils 

 that they fuffered from them. 



On the 1 6th, his Majefty's fhip Supply arrived from the Cape of 

 Good Hope. She had met with much bad weather on her paflage, 

 and, being exceedingly infirm, her pumps had been kept conftantly 

 at work. This fhip brought 31 cows, 5 mares, and 27 ewe fheep-j 

 all of which were in good health : 8 cows, 2 bulls, and 1 3 fheep, had 

 died. 



On the following morning, a boat which had been fifhing to the 

 fouthward of Botany Bay brought up to the fettlement three perfons, 

 late belonging to a fhip called the Sydney Cove, which had failed from 



302 Bengal 



