The Book of the Bush | Page 3

George Dunnerdale
Jack was sorely tempted
to follow the shilling-a-month men. He quietly slipped ashore, hurried
off to Botany Bay, and lived in retirement until his ship had left Port
Jackson. He then returned to Sydney, penniless and barefoot, and began
to look for a berth. At the Rum Puncheon wharf he found a
shilling-a-month man already installed as cook on a colonial schooner.
He was invited to breakfast, and was astonished and delighted with the

luxuries lavished on the colonial seaman. He had fresh beef, fresh bread,
good biscuit, tea, coffee, and vegetables, and three pounds a month
wages. There was a vacancy on the schooner for an able seaman, and
Jack filled it. He then registered a solemn oath that he would "never go
back to England no more," and kept it.
Some kind of Government was necessary, and, as the first inhabitants
were criminals, the colony was ruled like a gaol, the Governor being
head gaoler. His officers were mostly men who had been trained in the
army and navy. They were all poor and needy, for no gentleman of
wealth and position would ever have taken office in such a community.
They came to make a living, and when free immigrants arrived and
trade began to flourish, it was found that the one really valuable
commodity was rum, and by rum the officers grew rich. In course of
time the country was divided into districts, about thirty or thirty-five in
number, over each of which an officer presided as police magistrate,
with a clerk and staff of constables, one of whom was official flogger,
always a convict promoted to the billet for merit and good behaviour.
New Holland soon became an organised pandemonium, such as the
world had never known since Sodom and Gomorrah disappeared in the
Dead Sea, and the details of its history cannot be written. To mitigate
its horrors the worst of the criminals were transported to Norfolk Island.
The Governor there had not the power to inflict capital punishment, and
the convicts began to murder one another in order to obtain a brief
change of misery, and the pleasure of a sea voyage before they could be
tried and hanged in Sydney. A branch pandemonium was also
established in Van Diemen's Land. This system was upheld by England
for about fifty years.
The 'Britannia', a convict ship, the property of Messrs. Enderby & Sons,
arrived at Sydney on October 14th, 1791, and reported that vast
numbers of sperm whales were seen after doubling the south-west cape
of Van Diemen's Land. Whaling vessels were fitted out in Sydney, and
it was found that money could be made by oil and whalebone as well as
by rum. Sealing was also pursued in small vessels, which were often
lost, and sealers lie buried in all the islands of the southern seas, many

of them having a story to tell, but no story-teller.
Whalers, runaway seamen, shilling-a-month men, and escaped convicts
were the earliest settlers in New Zealand, and were the first to make
peaceful intercourse with the Maoris possible. They built themselves
houses with wooden frames, covered with reeds and rushes, learned to
converse in the native language, and became family men. They were
most of them English and Americans, with a few Frenchmen. They
loved freedom, and preferred Maori customs, and the risk of being
eaten, to the odious supervision of the English Government. The
individual white man in those days was always welcome, especially if
he brought with him guns, ammunition, tomahawks, and hoes. It was
by these articles that he first won the respect and admiration of the
native. If the visitor was a "pakeha tutua," a poor European, he might
receive hospitality for a time, in the hope that some profit might be
made out of him. But the Maori was a poor man also, with a great
appetite, and when it became evident that the guest was no better than a
pauper, and could not otherwise pay for his board, the Maori sat on the
ground, meditating and watching, until his teeth watered, and at last he
attached the body and baked it.
In 1814 the Church Missionary Society sent labourers to the distant
vineyard to introduce Christianity, and to instruct the natives in the
rights of property. The first native protector of Christianity and letters
was Hongi Hika, a great warrior of the Ngapuhi nation, in the North
Island. He was born in 1777, and voyaging to Sydney in 1814, he
became the guest of the Rev. Mr. Marsden. In 1819 the rev. gentleman
bought his settlement at Kerikeri from Hongi Hika, the price being
forty-eight axes. The area of the settlement was thirteen thousand acres.
The land was excellent, well watered, in a fine situation, and near a
good harbour. Hongi next
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