An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 1 - With Remarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc. of The - Native Inhabitants of That Country. to Which Are Added, Some - Particulars of New Zealand; Compiled, By Permission, From - The Mss. of Lieutenant-Governor King.

David Collins

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• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
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Title: An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1
With Remarks On The Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc. Of The
Native Inhabitants Of That Country. To Which Are Added, Some
Particulars Of New Zealand; Compiled, By Permission, From
The Mss. Of Lieutenant-Governor King.

Author: David Collins
Release Date: June 9, 2004 [EBook #12565]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW SOUTH WALES, VOL. 1 ***
Produced by Col Choat
AN ACCOUNT OF THE ENGLISH COLONY IN NEW SOUTH
WALES:
WITH
REMARKS ON THE DISPOSITIONS, CUSTOMS, MANNERS,
etc. OF THE NATIVE INHABITANTS OF THAT COUNTRY.
TO WHICH ARE ADDED,
SOME PARTICULARS OF NEW ZEALAND;
COMPILED, BY PERMISSION,
FROM THE MSS. OF LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR KING.
By DAVID COLLINS, Esquire,
LATE JUDGE ADVOCATE AND SECRETARY OF THE COLONY.
ILLUSTRATED BY ENGRAVINGS.
VOLUME I.
Many might be saved who now suffer an ignominious and an early death;
and many might be so much purified in the furnace of punishment andadversity, as to become the ornaments of that society of which they had
formerly been the bane. The vices of mankind must frequently require the
severity of justice; but a wise State will direct that severity to the greatest
moral and political good. ANON.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR T. CADELL JUN. AND W. DAVIES, IN THE
STRAND.
1798.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THOMAS LORD VISCOUNT SYDNEY
One of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council,
Chief Justice in Eyre South of Trent,
A Governor of the Charter-house,
and a Vice-President of the Asylum
MY LORD,
The honour that your Lordship has done me, in permitting this volume to goforth into the world under the sanction of your name, demands my warmest
acknowledgments. I can only wish that the Work had been more worthy of its
patron.
The originator of the plan of colonization for New South Wales was too
conspicuous a character to be overlooked by the narrator of its rise and
progress. The benevolent mind of your Lordship led you to conceive this
method of redeeming many lives that might be forfeit to the offended laws; but
which, being preserved, under salutary regulations, might afterward become
useful to society: and to your patriotism the plan presented a prospect of
commercial and political advantage. The following pages will, it is hoped, serve
to evince, with how much wisdom the measure was suggested and conducted;
with what beneficial effects its progress has been attended; and what future
benefits the parent country may with confidence anticipate.
That your Lordship may long live to enjoy those grateful reflections which a
sense of having advanced the public welfare must be presumed to excite; and
that our most gracious sovereign, the father of his people, may long, very long
reign over these kingdoms, and continue to be served by statesmen of tried
talents and integrity, is the earnest prayer of,
MY LORD,
Your Lordship's much obliged,
and most devoted servant,
DAVID COLLINS
Poland Street,
May 25, 1798Chart of the three harbours of Botany Bay, Port Jackson, and Broken
Bay, showing the cultivated grounds in and about the different
settlements, with the course of the Rivers Hawkesbury and Nepean, and
the situation of the wild cattle to the westward of the last-mentioned river.
PREFACE
To the public the following work is with respectful deference submitted by its
author, who trusts that it will be found to comprise much information interesting
in its nature, and that has not been anticipated by any former productions on the
same subject. If he should be thought to have been sometimes too minute in his
detail, he hopes it will be considered, that the transactions here recorded were
penned as they occurred, with the feelings that at the moment they naturally
excited in the mind; and that circumstances which, to an indifferent reader, may
appear trivial, to a spectator and participant seem often of importance. To the
design of this work (which was, to furnish a complete record of the transactions
of the colony from its foundation), accuracy and a degree of minuteness in
detail seemed essential; and on reviewing his manuscript, the author saw little
that, consistently with his plan, he could persuade himself to suppress.
For his labours he claims no credit beyond what may be due to the strictest
fidelity in his narrative. It was not a romance that he had to give to the world; nor
has he gone out of the track that actual circumstances prepared for him, to
furnish food for sickly minds, by fictitious relations of adventures that never
happened, but which are by a certain description of readers perused with
avidity, and not unfrequently considered as the only passages deserving of
notice.
Though to a work of this nature a style ornamental and luxuriant would have
been evidently inapplicable, yet the author has not been wholly inattentive to
this particular, but has endeavoured to temper the dry and formal manner of the
mere journalist, with something of the historian's ease. Long sequestered,
however, from literary society, and from convenient access to books, he had no
other models than those which memory could supply; and therefore does not
presume to think his volume proof against the rigid censor: but to liberal
criticism he submits, with the confidence of a man conscious of having neither
negligence nor presumption to impute to himself. He wrote to beguile the
tedium of many a heavy hour; and when he wrote looked not beyond the
satisfaction which at some future period might be afforded to a few friends, as
well as to his own mind, by a review of those hardships which in common with
his colleagues he had endured and overcome; hardships which in some
degree he supposes to be inseparable from the first establishment of any
colony; but to which, from the peculiar circumstances and description of the
settlers in this instance, were attached additional difficulties.
In the progress of his not unpleasing task, the author began to think that his
labours might prove interesting beyond the small circle of his private friends;
that some account of the gradual reformation of such flagitious characters as
had by many (and those not illiberal) persons in this country been considered
as past the probability of amendment, might be not unacceptable to the
benevolent part of mankind, but might even tend to cherish the seeds of virtue,
and to open new streams from the pure fountain of mercy*.
[* "It often happens," says Dr. Johnson, "that in the loose and thoughtless
and dissipated, there is a secret radical worth, which may shoot out by
proper cultivation; that the spark of heaven, though dimmed and
obstructed, is yet not extinguished, but may, by the breath of counsel andexhortation, be kindled into flame . . .
"Let none too hastily conclude that all goodness is lost, though it may for a
time be clouded and overwhelmed; for most minds are the slaves of
external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould
them; roll down any torrent of custom in which they happen to be caught; or
bend to any importunity that bears hard against them."
Rambler, No. 70.]
Nor was he without hope, that through the humble medium of this history, the
untutored savage, emerging from darkness and barbarism, might find additional
friends among the better-informed members of civilized society.
With these impressions, therefore, he felt it a sort of duty to offer his book to the
world; and should the objects alluded to be in any degree promoted by it, he
shall consider its publication as the most fortunate circumstance of his life.
Occurrences such as he has had to relate are not often presented to the public;
they do not, indeed, often happen. It is not, perhaps, once in a century that
colonies are established in the most remote parts of the habitable globe; and it
is seldom that men are found existing perfectly in a state of nature. When such
circumstances do occur, curiosity, and still more laudable sentiments, must be
excited. The gratification even of curiosity alone might have formed a sufficient
apology for the author; but he has seen too much of virtue even among the
vicious to be indifferent to the sufferings, or backward in promoting the felicities
of human nature.
A few words, he hopes, may be allowed him respecting the colony itself, for
which he acknowledges what, he trusts, will be considered as at least an
excusable partiality. He bore his share of the distresses and calamities which it
suffered; and at his departure, in the ninth year of its growth, with pleasure saw
it wear an aspect of ease and comfort that seemed to bid defiance to future
difficulties. The hardships which it sustained were certainly attributable to
mischance, not to misconduct. The Crown was fortunate in the selection of its
governors, not less with respect to