A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson | Page 4

the Proceedings and State of the Colony, brought up to the beginning of
July, 1788, which was well received, and passed through three editions.
This could not but inspire both confidence and gratitude; but gratitude,
would be badly manifested were he on the presumption of former
favour to lay claim to present indulgence. He resumes the subject in the
humble hope of communicating information, and increasing knowledge,
of the country, which he describes.
He resided at Port Jackson nearly four years: from the 20th of January,
1788, until the 18th of December, 1791. To an active and
contemplative mind, a new country is an inexhaustible source of
curiosity and speculation. It was the author's custom not only to note
daily occurrences, and to inspect and record the progression of
improvement; but also, when not prevented by military duties, to
penetrate the surrounding country in different directions, in order to
examine its nature, and ascertain its relative geographical situations.
The greatest part of the work is inevitably composed of those materials
which a journal supplies; but wherever reflections could be introduced
without fastidiousness and parade, he has not scrupled to indulge them,
in common with every other deviation which the strictness of narrative
would allow.
When this publication was nearly ready for the press; and when many
of the opinions which it records had been declared, fresh accounts from
Port Jackson were received. To the state of a country, where so many
anxious trying hours of his life have passed, the author cannot feel
indifferent. If by any sudden revolution of the laws of nature; or by any
fortunate discovery of those on the spot, it has really become that fertile

and prosperous land, which some represent it to be, he begs permission
to add his voice to the general congratulation. He rejoices at its success:
but it is only justice to himself and those with whom he acted to declare,
that they feel no cause of reproach that so complete and happy an
alteration did not take place at an earlier period.

CHAPTER I.

A Retrospect of the State of the Colony of Port Jackson, on the Date of
my former Narrative, in July, 1788.
Previous to commencing any farther account of the subject, which I am
about to treat, such a retrospection of the circumstances and situation of
the settlement, at the conclusion of my former Narrative, as shall lay its
state before the reader, seems necessary, in order to connect the present
with the past.
The departure of the first fleet of ships for Europe, on the 14th of July,
1788, had been long impatiently expected; and had filled us with
anxiety, to communicate to our friends an account of our situation;
describing the progress of improvement, and the probability of success,
or failure, in our enterprise. That men should judge very oppositely on
so doubtful and precarious an event, will hardly surprise.
Such relations could contain little besides the sanguineness of hope,
and the enumeration of hardships and difficulties, which former
accounts had not led us to expect. Since our disembarkation in the
preceding January, the efforts of every one had been unremittingly
exerted, to deposit the public stores in a state of shelter and security,
and to erect habitations for ourselves. We were eager to escape from
tents, where a fold of canvas, only, interposed to check the vertic beams
of the sun in summer, and the chilling blasts of the south in winter. A
markee pitched, in our finest season, on an English lawn; or a transient
view of those gay camps, near the metropolis, which so many
remember, naturally draws forth careless and unmeaning exclamations
of rapture, which attach ideas of pleasure only, to this part of a soldier's
life. But an encampment amidst the rocks and wilds of a new country,
aggravated by the miseries of bad diet, and incessant toil, will find few

admirers.
Nor were our exertions less unsuccessful than they were laborious.
Under wretched covers of thatch lay our provisions and stores, exposed
to destruction from every flash of lightning, and every spark of fire. A
few of the convicts had got into huts; but almost all the officers, and the
whole of the soldiery, were still in tents.
In such a situation, where knowledge of the mechanic arts afforded the
surest recommendation to notice, it may be easily conceived, that
attention to the parade duty of the troops, gradually diminished. Now
were to be seen officers and soldiers not "trailing the puissant pike" but
felling the ponderous gum-tree, or breaking the stubborn clod. And
though "the broad falchion did not in a ploughshare end" the possession
of a spade, a wheelbarrow, or a dunghill, was more coveted than the
most refulgent arms in which heroism ever dazzled. Those hours,