endeavour by every possible means to acquire and cultivate the friendship of the natives of such places as he might discover or visit, and to avoid exercising any act of hostility upon them. 1788 porary There is nothing here to justify the statement that the natives had been "wantonly fired upon," even if it might be inferred that some of them were killed. As to the small-pox, the evidence against Spreading small-pox. the French has been collected by Rusden, vol. i, p. 134n. It consists substantially of two assertions: (1) That "the early settlers, when able to converse with the natives, came to the conclusion that small-pox had been introduced by the French"; and (2) that "the natives (in the far interior) concurred in declaring that only at that epoch were its ravages heard of amongst the tribes, and none but the aged bore traces of it in 1835." The testimony of the early settlers and the natives, thus alleged, amounts to nothing more than tradition, and is not entitled to any weight unless it can be connected with ascertained facts. The facts here are altogether against the tradition. Among "the early settlers," the best witnesses are the men who made it their business to ascertain Contemand record in their journals every fact of interest or importance witnesses. that came within the range of their observation. Both Collins (p. 65, 597) and Hunter (p. 134) record the outbreak of the small-pox in April, 1789; but neither of them makes any reference to the French in connection with it. Had there been any reason to suppose that it had been introduced by them, it is not likely that either of those chroniclers would have omitted to say so. Their silence on that point may be easily accounted for. The simple fact that the disease did not make its appearance until April, 1789, more than twelve months after the French ships had No signs sailed, is enough to show that there could not have been any reason twelve for connecting the two things together. Had the germs of the disease been introduced by the French, it could not have failed to make itself known very soon after their departure; and if any of the Frenchmen had been suffering from it while in Botany Bay, the fact could not have escaped the notice of the English officers, who frequently exchanged visits with the strangers. of it for months. despatch. The only foundation for the supposition seems to lie in an allusion contained in one of Phillip's despatches, in which he said :- Phillip's "Whether the small-pox, which has proved fatal to great numbers of the natives, is a disorder to which they were subject before any Europeans visited the country, or whether it was 1788-91 brought by the French ships, we have not yet attained sufficient knowledge of the [native] language to determine. It never ap peared on board any of the ships on our passage." Tench's opinion. A native disease. Mitchell. If Phillip had been aware of any fact or circumstance pointing to a French origin of the disease, he would not have omitted to mention it; and it may be assumed that whatever was known on the subject at that time was known to him. How the French came to be mixed up in the matter at all may be seen in the following passage from Tench (Complete Account, page 18), where the idea appears in the shape of a query :— No solution of this difficulty had been given when I left the country, in December, 1791. I can, therefore, only propose queries for the ingenuity of others to exercise itself upon. Is it a disease indigenous to the country? Did the French ships under Monsieur de Peyrouse introduce it? Let it be remembered that they now had been departed more than a year; and we had never heard of its existence on board them. Had it travelled across the continent from its western shore, where Dampier and other European voyagers had formerly landed? Was it introduced by Mr. Cook? Did we give it birth here? No person among us had been afflicted with the disorder since we had quitted the Cape of Good Hope, seventeen months before. It is true that our surgeons had brought out variolous matter in bottles; but to infer that it was produced from this cause were a supposition so wild as to be unworthy of consideration. The most probable of these suppositions is that it was "indigenous to the country"-or rather, that it was a disease which originated among the natives, as a natural result of their habits of life. Some confirmation of this theory may be found in the fact that it has been observed under circumstances which clearly repudiate a French origin. Major Mitchell, for instance, found it among the natives whom he met with after crossing the Liverpool Range in 1831: We reached, at length, a watercourse, called by the natives Currungài, and encamped upon its banks beside the tribe from Dartbrook, which had crossed the range before us, apparently to join some of their tribe who lay extremely ill at this place, being affected with a virulent kind of small-pox. We found the helpless creatures stretched on their backs beside the water, under the shade of the wattle or mimosa trees, to avoid the intense heat of the sun. We gave them from our stock some medicine; and the wretched sufferers seemed to place the utmost confidence in its efficacy. Three Expeditions, p. 26. There is some positive testimony, on the other hand, to show that 1788-90 the French had nothing to do with the matter. Lieutenant King referred to it in his Journal in these terms (Hunter, p. 406) :— : This dreadful distemper, which, there is no doubt, is a distemper King's natural to the country, together with the difficulty of procuring a opinion. subsistence, renders the situation of these poor wretches truly miserable. As King was in daily communication at that time-April, 1790with Phillip and all the officers of the establishment, it is not con- General ceivable that he could have been under any misapprehension on opinion. the matter. The opinion expressed by him was evidently the public opinion of the time. A PATHETIC LETTER.* "SAMUEL PEYTON, convict, for having on the evening of the King's Birthday broke open an officer's marquee with an intent to commit robbery, of which he was fully convicted, had sentence of death passed on him at the same time as Corbet; and on the following day they were both executed, confessing the justness of their fate, and imploring the forgiveness of those whom they had injured. Peyton, at the time of his suffering, was but twenty years of age, A juvenile the greatest part of which had been invariably passed in the mission of crimes that at length terminated in his ignominious end. The following letter, written by a fellow-convict to the sufferer's unhappy mother, I shall make no apology for presenting to the reader; it affords a melancholy proof that not the ignorant and untaught only have provoked the justice of their country to banish them to this remote region : Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, com New South Wales, 24 June, 1788. My dear and honoured mother, offender. With a heart oppressed by the keenest sense of anguish, and too much agitated by the idea of my very melancholy condition to express my own sentiments, I have prevailed on the goodness of a commiserating friend to do me the last sad office of acquainting Sunt you with the dreadful fate that awaits me. My dear mother! with lachryma what agony of soul do I dedicate the last few moments of my life to bid you an eternal adieu: my doom being irrevocably fixed, and * Tench, Narrative, p. 112. rerum, 1788 ere this hour to-morrow I shall have quitted this vale of wretchedness to enter into an unknown and endless eternity. I will not distress your tender maternal feelings by any long comment on the cause of my present misfortune. Let it therefore suffice to say that, impelled by that strong propensity to evil, which neither the virtuous precepts nor example of the best of parents could eradicate, I have at length fallen an unhappy though just victim to my own follies. Too late I regret my inattention to your admonitions, and feel myself sensibly affected by the remembrance of the many anxious moments you have passed on my account. For these and all my other transgressions, however great, I supplicate the Divine forgiveness; and encouraged by the promises of that Saviour who died for us all, I trust to receive that mercy in the world to come which my offences have deprived me of all hope or expectation of in this. The affliction which this will cost you I hope the Almighty will et mentem enable you to bear. Banish from your memory all my former indiscretions, and let the cheering hope of a happy meeting hereafter console you for my loss. Sincerely penitent for my sins; sensible of the justice of my conviction and sentence, and firmly relying on the merits of a blessed Redeemer, I am at perfect peace with all mankind, and trust I shall yet experience that peace which this world cannot give. Commend my soul to the Divine mercy. I bid you an eternal farewell. mortalia tangunt. To Mrs. Peyton, London. Your unhappy, dying son, SAMUEL PEYTON. Lieutenant- KING'S COMMISSION AS LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF NORFOLK ISLAND. GEORGE REX. GEORGE THE THIRD, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, To our trusty and well-beloved Lieutenant PHILIP GIDLEY We, reposing especial trust and confidence in your loyalty, courage, and experience, do by these presents constitute and appoint You to be Lieutenant-Governor of Norfolk Island in the Pacific Ocean. You are therefore, as Lieutenant-Governor, to take the said island into your care and charge and carefully and diligently to discharge the duty of Lieutenant-Governor thereof, by doing and performing all and all manner of things thereunto belonging: And we do hereby strictly charge and require all our officers and soldiers who shall hereafter be in our said island, and all others 1790 whom it may concern, to obey you as our Lieutenant Governor Given at our Court at St. James', the twenty-eighth day of By his Majesty's command, Lieutenant Philip Gidley King, W. W. GRENVILLE. in the Pacific Ocean. PHILLIP'S INSTRUCTIONS TO KING. Instructions for Philip Gidley King, Esq., Superintendant and dant and WITH these instructions you will receive my Commission appointing you to superintend and command the settlement to be formed on Superinten Norfolk Island, and to obey all such orders as you shall from time Comto time receive from me, his Majesty's Governor-in-Chief and mandant. Captain-General of the Territory of New South Wales and its dependencies, or from the Lieutenant-Governor in my absence. You are therefore to proceed in his Majesty's armed tender Supply, whose commander has my orders to receive you, with the men and women, stores and provisions necessary for forming the Commission intended settlement, and on your landing on Norfolk Island take to be upon you the execution of the trust reposed in you, causing my read. Commission appointing you Superintendant over the said settlement to be publicly read. publicly and corn. And after having taken the necessary measures for securing yourself and people, and for the preservation of the stores and provisions, you are immediately to proceed to the cultivation of the flax plant, which you will find growing spontaneously on the Flax, island, as likewise to the cultivation of cotton, corn, and other cotton, grains with the seeds of which you are furnished and which you are to regard as public stock, and of the increase of which you are to send me an account, that I may know what quantity may be drawn from the island for the public use, or what supplies may be necessary to send hereafter. It is left to your discretion to use such part of the corn that is raised, as may be found necessary; but this you are to do with the greatest economy. And as the corn, flax, cotton, and other grains are the property of the Crown and are as such |