Here terminates the transcription of my diary. It were vain to suppose,
that it can prove either agreeable or interesting to a majority of readers but
as this work is intended not only for amusement, but information, I considered
it right to present this detail unaltered, either in its style or arrangement.
A return of the number of persons employed at Rose Hill, November 16th, 1790.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
How Employed | Troops | Civil dept | Troops | Convicts |
| | |Wives | Children| Men | Women | Children|
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Storekeeper 1
Surgeon 1
Carpenters 24
Blacksmiths 5
Master Bricklayer 1
Bricklayers 28
Master Brickmaker 1
Brickmakers 52
Labourers 326*
Assistants to the
provision store 4
Assistants to the
hospital 3
Officers' servants 6
Making Clothing 50
Superintendants 4
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Total number of
persons 552| 29 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 450 | 50 | 13 |
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[*Of these labourers, 16 are sawyers. The rest are variously employed
in clearing fresh land; in dragging brick and timber carts;
and a great number in making a road of a mile long, through the main street,
to the governor's house.]
CHAPTER XI.
Farther Transactions of the Colony in November, 1790.
During the intervals of duty, our greatest source of entertainment now lay in
cultivating the acquaintance of our new friends, the natives. Ever liberal
of communication, no difficulty but of understanding each other subsisted
between us. Inexplicable contradictions arose to bewilder our researches
which no ingenuity could unravel and no credulity reconcile.
Baneelon, from being accustomed to our manners, and understanding a little
English, was the person through whom we wished to prosecute inquiry, but he had
lately become a man of so much dignity and consequence, that it was not always
easy to obtain his company. Clothes had been given to him at various times,
but he did not always condescend to wear them. One day he would appear
in them, and the next day he was to be seen carrying them in a net slung
around his neck. Farther to please him, a brick house of twelve feet square
was built for his use, and for that of such of his countrymen as might choose
to reside in it, on a point of land fixed upon by himself. A shield,
double cased with tin, to ward off the spears of his enemies, was also
presented to him, by the governor.
Elated by these marks of favour, and sensible that his importance with
his countrymen arose in proportion to our patronage of him, he warmly attached
himself to our society. But the gratitude of a savage is ever a precarious
tenure. That of Baneelon was fated to suffer suspension, and had well nigh
been obliterated by the following singular circumstance.
One day the natives were observed to assemble in more than an ordinary number
at their house on the point, and to be full of bustle and agitation,
repeatedly calling on the name of Baneelon, and that of 'deein' (a woman).
Between twelve and one o'clock Baneelon, unattended, came to the governor
at his house, and told him that he was going to put to death a woman
immediately, whom he had brought from Botany Bay.
