1787

Setting fire to a house to defraud the insurance office.
Making and selling fireworks and squibs.

Throwing the same when on fire about the streets.
Uttering base money.

Selling base money under its denominated value.

Embezzlement in the woollen, silk, and other manufactures.
Offences by artificers and servants in various trades.

Combinations and conspiracies for raising the price of wages. Smuggling run goods, and other frauds relative to the excise and customs.

Keeping bawdy-houses and other disorderly houses.

VISIT OF HOPE TO SYDNEY COVE.

Where Sydney Cove her lucid bosom swells,
Courts her young navies and the storm repels;
High on a rock amid the troubled air

Hope stood sublime, and wav'd her golden hair;
Calm'd with her rosy smile the tossing deep,
And with sweet accents charm'd the winds to sleep;
To each wild plain she stretched her snowy hand,
High waving wood, and sea-encircled strand.
'Hear me,' she cried, ye rising realms! record
'Time's opening scenes, and Truth's unerring word.
'There shall broad streets their stately walls extend,
'The circus widen and the crescent bend;
'There, ray'd from cities o'er the cultured land,
'Shall bright canals and solid roads expand.
'There the proud arch, Colossus-like, bestride
'Yon glittering streams and bound the chafing tide;
'Embellish'd villas crown the landscape scene,

'Farms wave with gold and orchards blush between.
'There shall tall spires and dome-capt towers ascend,

And piers and quays their massy structures blend ;
"While with each breeze approaching vessels glide,
'And northern treasures dance on every tide!'
Then ceas'd the nymph; tumultuous echoes roar,
And Joy's loud voice was heard from shore to shore.
Her graceful steps descending press'd the plain,
And Peace, and Art, and Labour join'd her train.

1789

poetry.

Darwin's name was just then famous in the poetic world, his Loves of the Plants, which appeared in 1788, having captivated the public fancy by its ingenious mixture of botanical science and Popular floral amours. He was the grandfather of Charles Darwin, the great naturalist. An engraving of the medallion referred to was published in Erasmus Darwin's poem, The Botanic Garden (1791), p. 87, with the following lines addressed to Wedgwood:To call the pearly drops from Pity's eye,

Or stay Despair's disanimating sigh,

Whether, O Friend of Art! the gem you mould,
Rich with new taste, with antient virtue bold,
Form the poor fettered slave on bended knee
From Britain's sons imploring to be free;

Or with fair Hope the brightening scenes improve,
And cheer the dreary wastes at Sydney Cove;
Or bid Mortality rejoice and mourn

O'er the fine forms on Portland's mystic urn.

These lines allude to "two cameos of Mr. Wedgwood's manu

cameos.

facture; one of a Slave in Chains, of which he distributed many Wedgwood's hundreds to excite the humane to attend to, and to assist in, the abolition of the detestable traffic in human creatures; and the other a cameo of Hope attended by Peace and Art and Labour, which was made of clay from Botany Bay, to which place he sent many of them to show the inhabitants what their materials could do, and to encourage their industry."

Darwin had a curious gift of prophecy in science as well as in poetry. In the same poem (p. 29) occur the following lines :

Soon shall thy arm, Unconquer'd Steam! afar
Drag the slow barge or drive the rapid car.

:-

Dear sir,

THE AMERICAN LOYALISTS.

Marston House, Frome,

Somersetshire, October 21, 1784.

Of the many letters that I have long been pestered with on the subject of New South Wales, the enclosed is the only one that I am now desirous of answering, for which reason I take the liberty of sending it to you. I know that Mr. De Lancey, who An active is very sanguine on the business, has been active in procuring the emigration consent of many people to go, and as a settlement somewhere is essentially necessary to them, I wish to be authorised to give

agent.

1784

him a decisive answer, which, whatever my private opinion may be, I think would be improper till I hear from you. You will therefore do me a particular pleasure, if to the great trouble you Ministry un- have already taken in pushing forward this business for me, you would be so obliging as to tell me if the Ministry have come to a decided resolution to reject the plan, or if there be any chance of its being entered on in the spring season.

decided as to

settlement in New

South Wales.

I shall go next Thursday, for a few days, to Lord Conyers, Benham Place, Berks, where your letter to me, under Lord Cork's cover, will safely reach me. My company, to be sure, is not politically orthodox; but when I assure you that I am not contaminated by their heresies, you will excuse the direction. I shall always be Correspond extremely cautious of obtruding on your time, and were you to see but a list of the fiftieth part of the letters I am perplexed with about the South Seas, I know you would pardon this instance.

ence about

it.

Evan Nepean, Esq.

I am, &c.,

JAMES M. MATRA.

[Enclosure.]

Nova Scotia.

Dear sir,

Southampton, October 12, 1784.

I should have answered yours of the 31st of August sooner, but waited in expectation of another letter from you, which would have contained something decisive in regard to New South Wales.

My brother will deliver this to you; he wishes much to have this business determined one way or the other, in order that, if the plan of making a settlement in the southern hemisphere should be given up, he may think of some other way of rendering himself usefull, as he has an active mind and does not chuse to remain idle.

The season for a voyage to that country will soon be elapsed, and unless the equipment is speedily sett afoot, another year will be lost and my prospect of procuring settlers from the Loyalists in Loyalists in Nova Scotia rendered less favorable; for by next year I should suppose, most of them who have gone there will have procured some kind of habitation for themselves, and will not chuse to quit them for an uncertain settlement in New South Wales; and I would like to have among the emigrants some of the better sort, and should not chuse to have this colony composed of persons who would not get their living anywhere else.

Emigrants

of the better sort.

I find that the Treasury Board have met, and therefore hope that now the Ministers have returned to town, some final determination will be had on this business, and flatter myself that a measure which appears to meet with general approbation will not be abandoned.

J. M. Matra, Esq.

JAMES DE LANCEY.

LIVE STOCK.

THE first statistical return of Live Stock in the colony was made In 1788. under Phillip's instructions, for the purpose of ascertaining the exact number of stock in the colony on the 1st May, 1788. The result was as follows:

An Account of Live Stock in the Settlement, May 1st, 1788.

Since the 1st of May, three sheep dead, and the cows and bulls lost.

ANDW. MILLER,

Commissary.

The increase which has taken place in the live stock of the In 1888. colony during the past century may be seen in the following table :

The total number of Live Stock in the different colonies at the end of the In all the year 1887 is returned as follows:

colonies.

Mistaken ideas.

Tastes differ.

Sturt.

Mimosa

gum,

NATIVE FOOD SUPPLY.

CAPTAIN, now SIR GEORGE, GREY, in his Journal of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-west and Western Australia, vol. ii, p. 259, describes the native supplies of food in the interior as follows:

:

One mistake very commonly made with regard to the natives of Australia is to imagine they have small means of subsistence, or are at times greatly pressed for want of food; I could produce many almost humorous instances of the errors which travellers have fallen into upon this point. They lament in their journais that the unfortunate aborigines should be reduced by famine to the miserable necessity of subsisting on certain sorts of food, which they have found near their huts; whereas in many instances the articles thus quoted by them are those which the natives most prize, and are really neither deficient in flavour nor nutritious qualities. I will give a remarkable example of an error of this kind into which a traveller of great ability has fallen; but this will only render palpable the ignorance that has prevailed with regard to the habits and customs of this people when in their wild state, for those who frequent European towns and the outskirts of population are soon compelled by the force of circumstances to depart in a great measure from their original habits.

Captain Sturt, to whom I allude, says in his travels, vol. i, p. 118:"Among other things, we found a number of bark troughs filled with the gum of the mimosa, and vast quantities of gum made into cakes upon the ground. From this it would appear that these unfortunate creatures were reduced to the last extremity, and, being unable to procure any other nourishment, had been obliged to collect this mucilaginous food."

The gum of the mimosa thus referred to is a favourite article of food amongst the natives; and when it is in season they assemble in large numbers upon the plains of the character previously described by Captain Sturt, in order to enjoy this luxury. The profusion in which this gum is found enables large bodies to meet together, which, from their subsistence being derived from wild animals and vegetables of spontaneous growth, they can only do when some particular article is in full season, or when a whale is thrown ashore. In order more fully to show how little the habits of this people have been understood, I may state with regard to this very gum, called by the natives kwow-nat, that about the time the above account was published by Captain Sturt an expedition was sent out from King George's Sound, in Western Australia, in