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RESEARCHED BY PETER KILLACKEY
A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay
by Watkin Tench
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CHAPTER XIII.
Transactions at Port Jackson in the Months of April and May.
As winter was fast approaching, it became necessary to secure ourselves
in quarters, which might shield us from the cold we were taught to expect
in this hemisphere, though in so low a latitude. The erection of barracks
for the soldiers was projected, and the private men of each company undertook
to build for themselves two wooden houses, of sixty-eight feet in length,
and twenty-three in breadth. To forward the design, several saw-pits
were immediately set to work, and four ship carpenters attached to
the battalion, for the purpose of directing and completing this necessary
undertaking. In prosecuting it, however, so many difficulties occurred,
that we were fain to circumscribe our original intention; and, instead
of eight houses, content ourselves with four. And even these, from the badness
of the timber, the scarcity of artificers, and other impediments, are,
at the day on which I write, so little advanced, that it will be well,
if at the close of the year 1788, we shall be established in them.
In the meanwhile the married people, by proceeding on a more contracted scale,
were soon under comfortable shelter. Nor were the convicts forgotten;
and as leisure was frequently afforded them for the purpose, little edifices
quickly multiplied on the ground allotted them to build upon.
But as these habitations were intended by Governor Phillip to answer only
the exigency of the moment, the plan of the town was drawn, and the ground
on which it is hereafter to stand surveyed, and marked out. To proceed
on a narrow, confined scale, in a country of the extensive limits we possess,
would be unpardonable: extent of empire demands grandeur of design.
That this has been our view will be readily believed, when I tell the reader,
that the principal street in our projected city will be, when completed,
agreeable to the plan laid down, two hundred feet in breadth, and all the rest
of a corresponding proportion. How far this will be accompanied with adequate
dispatch, is another question, as the incredulous among us are sometimes
hardy enough to declare, that ten times our strength would not be able
to finish it in as many years.
Invariably intent on exploring a country, from which curiosity promises
so many gratifications, his Excellency about this time undertook an expedition
into the interior parts of the continent. His party consisted of
eleven persons, who, after being conveyed by water to the head of the harbour,
proceeded in a westerly direction, to reach a chain of mountains,
which in clear weather are discernible, though at an immense distance,
from some heights near our encampment. With unwearied industry they continued
to penetrate the country for four days; but at the end of that time,
finding the base of the mountain to be yet at the distance of more than
twenty miles, and provisions growing scarce, it was judged prudent to return,
without having accomplished the end for which the expedition had been
undertaken.
To reward their toils, our adventurers had, however, the pleasure
of discovering and traversing an extensive tract of ground, which they
had reason to believe, from the observations they were enabled to make,
capable of producing every thing, which a happy soil and genial climate
can bring forth. In addition to this flattering appearance, the face
of the country is such, as to promise success whenever it shall be cultivated,
the trees being at a considerable distance from each other, and the
intermediate space filled, not with underwood, but a thick rich grass,
growing in the utmost luxuriancy. I must not, however, conceal, that in this
long march, our gentlemen found not a single rivulet, but were under
a necessity of supplying themselves with water from standing pools,
which they met with in the vallies, supposed to be formed by the rains
that fall at particular seasons of the year. Nor had they the good fortune
to see any quadrupeds worth notice, except a few kangaroos.
To their great surprize, they observed indisputable tracks of the natives
having been lately there, though in their whole route none of them were
to be seen; nor any means to be traced, by which they could procure subsistence
so far from the sea shore.
On the 6th of May the 'Supply' sailed for Lord Howe Island, to take on board
turtle for the settlement; but after waiting there several days was obliged
to return without having seen one, owing we apprehended to the advanced season
of the year. Three of the transports also, which were engaged by the
East India Company to proceed to China, to take on board a lading of tea,
sailed about this time for Canton.
The unsuccessful return of the 'Supply' cast a general damp on our spirits,
for by this time fresh provisions were become scarcer than in a blockaded town.
The little live stock, which with so heavy an expense, and through so many
difficulties, we had brought on shore, prudence forbade us to use; and fish,
which on our arrival, and for a short time after had been tolerable plenty,
were become so scarce, as to be rarely seen at the tables of the first
among us. Had it not been for a stray kangaroo, which fortune now and then
threw in our way, we should have been utter strangers to the taste
of fresh food.
Thus situated, the scurvy began its usual ravages, and extended its baneful
influence, more or less, through all descriptions of persons. Unfortunately
the esculent vegetable productions of the country are neither plentiful,
nor tend very effectually to remove this disease. And, the ground we had
turned up and planted with garden seeds, either from the nature of the soil,
or, which is more probable, the lateness of the season, yielded but a scanty
and insufficient supply of what we stood so greatly in need of.
During the period I am describing, few enormous offences were perpetrated
by the convicts. A petty theft was now and then heard of, and a spirit
of refractory sullenness broke out at times in some individuals: one execution
only, however, took place. The sufferer, who was a very young man,
was convicted of a burglary, and met his fate with a hardiness
and insensibility, which the grossest ignorance, and most deplorable
want of feeling, alone could supply.
A Narrative of the Expedition
to Botany Bay
by Watkin Tench |
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