Letters Home – 1794

The following excerpts are taken from a collection of newspaper articles assembled and titled “Early News from a New Colony:  British Museum Papers by Various, Unknown”.   First published in 1893, the Newspaper Extracts in this book relate to the new colony of New South Wales – from the years 1785 to 1795.  An excerpt of the introduction to this fascinating record of Australia’s colonisation reads:

The accounts of the colony (many of them written by private individuals to their friends in England), which appeared from time to time in the newspapers and magazines of one hundred years ago, . . .  contained, in very many cases, information for which we look in vain in the official despatches of the Governor or his subordinates . . .

cropped-POI-Australia-Favicon-e1406709399487.png  The following excerpt is an article published in the ‘Saunders’s News-Letter’ on the 21st August 1795.  Thomas Daveney, went to the new colony as a free settler and was employed, for a time, as a superintendent of convicts:

THOMAS DAVENEY TO A FRIEND AT WYCOMBE.
[Extract]

Toongabbe, 1st July, 1794.   

THIS place is situated eighteen miles inland from Sydney Cove.  I thank God we live at present in a state of ease and tranquillity, having a plentiful supply of every necessary from England, the East Indies, and America.

On the 8th of March, at eleven o’clock in the morning, the last ounce of animal food then in store was actually issued to all ranks and descriptions of people alike, and nothing but absolute famine stared us in the face; the labour of the convicts was remitted, and everyone seemed to despond, when, in the evening of the same day, the William arrived from London, and a ship from Bengal, loaded with provisions of every kind.

At present everything bears the appearance of plenty, there being about 2,000 acres of wheat.  I am now a farmer in my own right, having a grant of 100 acres of fine land, well watered, and in good cultivation.  I have 100 head of fine goats, and am hopeful by Christmas to have both horses, cows, and sheep.  I have this season returned to his Majesty’s stores 1,514 bushels of Indian corn, at 5s. per bushel, and have now upwards of 1,000 bushels on the farm, in order to pay for men’s labour in building a dwelling-house, barns, out-houses, &c.  I have likewise purchased a farm called Egleton’s, containing sixty acres of land, felled and cleared, for which I paid sixty guineas, and am going to sow the whole with millet.

Upwards of 4,000 acres of land being cleared, thunder and lightning are by no means so violent as before.  There are nearly 300 convicts whose term of transportation is expired, and who live by their labour.  I have six of those men employed on my farm at taskwork, who earn from 18s. to a guinea per week, so that no settler is at a loss for men to perform his work.  I am well persuaded that trade will soon be established between America, Batavia, Bengal, and the Cape of Good Hope, as this place will at all times take off the entire cargoes of provisions and liquors.  Goats thrive better than sheep here, and fetch from seven to ten pounds each.

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cropped-POI-Australia-Favicon-e1406709399487.png  The following excerpt is an article published in the ‘Saunders’s News-Letter’ on the 31st July 1795.  The Editor describes the letter as “an abstract of a narrative written by a native of Derby, in the New South Wales Corps, now in Botany Bay,” adding that its authenticity could be depended upon.  The letter contains internal evidence of having been written by a passenger on board the ‘Pitt’:

A SOLDIER’S LETTER.

Sydney, 13th December, 1794.   

ON the 17th July, 1791, we sailed from Portsmouth.  After passing the Land’s End we bade adieu to our native country, and for awhile to every sight of terra firma, not seeing any shore until the 27th, when at a distance we saw Cape Ortegal (the Spanish shore), which appeared very mountainous.  August 6th, saw the Deserters, three small islands near Madeira.  16th, made Port Praya Bay, Island of St. Jago.  This is the first port we anchored at since we left England.  Goats and poultry are here plentiful.  Fruit, viz., pines, grapes, bananas, cocoanuts, lemons, oranges, tamarinds, &c., are in abundance.  It is intensely hot, burning your feet through your shoes.  This place belongs to the Portuguese; wretched fortifications, and their military cut as bad a figure.  The houses, or more properly huts, are all on the groundfloor.  The native women adorn themselves beautifully with a cloth gauze of their own manufacture in the Chinese fashion; like other negroes, they smell filthily of oil.  Fresh water is here very scarce.  The current coins are—dollar, 5s.; crusado nova, 3s. 2d.; and pistareen, 1s.  In September the seamen and soldiers died three and four in a day of a fever caught at St. Jago, and I hourly expected the same fate.  It was a dreadful disease, and deprived them of life in twelve hours raging mad.  On the 15th Sept., passed the Line.  October 7, we passed the Tropic of Capricorn.  The 8th, anchored in the delightful harbour of Rio de Janeiro, in South America.  This is truly a pleasant and fertile country.  In sailing up the harbour nature is profusely displayed, and art also, in defence of this Portuguese settlement, in innumerable batteries.  About five miles from the entrance of the river is the pleasant city of St. Sebastian; the buildings are lofty and sumptuous, and in general white.  The decorations of their chapels surpass all description.  The Roman Catholic religion appears to be the sole pleasure of these people.  I was admitted into a nunnery; this also surprised my imagination—rich, elegant, beautiful, and sublime.  The women do not appear in the daytime, as their devotions are performed after sunset.  No foreigner is suffered here to walk the streets without being regularly attended according to his rank.  At the corner of almost every street is the figure of our Saviour, &c., to which the inhabitants pay great adoration when passing by.  They support their religion to great excess.  I observed the priest when administering the sacrament drink the wine himself.  We happened to arrive at a particular season of their festivity; very beautiful illuminations were in every street.  The market for the negroes up the country is Sunday, who attend curiously ornamented with feathers, each village having their colours and music.  The people are very pompous, as every tailor, barber, and boy wears a sword, tho’ in other respects almost naked.  Poultry, vegetables, and fruit plentiful and cheap.  English goods of every sort are to be had at this place.

On the 31st of October we left this luxuriant country, and on November 26th entered the harbour of Table Bay (Cape of Good Hope), and saw the remains of the unfortunate ship Guardian.  On the 23rd December left the plentiful and nourishing refreshments of the Cape; and on the 7th of February, 1792, we passed the South Cape of Van Dieman’s Land.  I looked very anxiously at a continent on which I was likely to spend the prime of my life.  We sailed along the coast until the 14th Feb., when we anchored in Sydney Cove port.  Providence has been good to me the whole voyage, being almost a stranger to sickness.  I have many great friends here, and live much better than might have been expected in my station—in a military life.

The settlement on the coast of New South Wales contains two principal towns: Sydney, the capital, and Pamaratta [sic] (formerly named Rose Hill), distant about seventeen miles.  Sydney is situated at the head of a beautiful cove, which leads into an excellent harbour.  Major Grose has made great improvements.  Sydney contains 700 good comfortable huts, exclusive of numerous brick buildings, the property of Government.  The soil is sandy, but by industry will produce sufficiently.  Most of the gentlemen have farms about four miles from Sydney, which have grown a good crop of wheat, and I am of opinion that wheat will be plentiful in a few years.  There are many settlers in different parts.

The only or principal thing wanting is cattle, which might be kept in any number, grass being in plenty.  We have many pigs and goats, but they are chiefly in the hands of gentlemen.  Poultry and fish are tolerably cheap, but it must be remembered that this is the most flourishing period the colony ever experienced.

Spirits being now plentiful, a number of persons retail the same, but the price, as well as quality, varies much; the gentlemen always purchase the cargoes, and this watery mixture is sold at 16s. per gallon.  A convict was not, until very lately, on any account suffered to take spirits in payment for his work, but now the prisoners have plenty of liquor.  Liquor, or more properly grog, purchases what money will not, viz., settlers’ farms or crops unripe, &c.  Kangaroos formerly were plenty, but they are retired up the country.  The trees never entirely shed their leaves.  The summer is intensely hot, and the winters are very cold at nights and in the mornings, though the climate is much milder since I have been here, owing to the country being cleared.  The seasons here are precisely opposite to the seasons in England, your winter being our summer.

Paramatta is a town situated at the extreme cove of Port Jackson.  On your ascending the wharf appears a row of huts on each side, and a spacious road to the distance of a mile; at the upper end, Governor Phillips erected his country seat.  The garden that surrounds it is beautiful, abounding, in the season, with grapes, melons, pumpkins, and every other fruit and vegetable.  The florist may also amuse himself.  In short, the country may well be called Botany Bay; for the botanist, I believe, may here find the most beautiful shrubs and evergreens that produce very fragrant flowers.  The Governor’s garden at Paramatta is so situated by nature that, in my opinion, it is impossible for art to form so rural a scene.

Five miles from Paramatta is another village.  At this place Government have a great deal of land in cultivation.  Every mile you travel inland the soil improves.  At fourteen miles from the village of Irongabber [Toongabbie] is another settlement, called the Hawkesbury, at which place is a spacious fresh-water river, and the soil rich; and I have not a doubt but in a short time this place will be very flourishing.

December 13, 1794.—The farmers are now gathering their wheat.  It may appear to you extraordinary, but true it is, that the summers will produce two crops of vegetables.  The quantity of timber surpasses all description, though the country has been so much cleared since I came.  A great number of boats have been built, which supply us with plenty of fish, and the oysters are the largest I ever saw.

About nine days sail from Sydney is Norfolk Island, a most fertile place, about the size of the Isle of Wight.

The natives, in general, of Botany Bay are tall and slender, with very black curly hair, flat faces, and very large mouths; some of them run sticks through their nose; they draw the front tooth in tribute to their chief, are much scarified on the back and breast, done by an oyster-shell cemented with gum at the end of the whommora (or throwing-stick); they talk very quick, dance by raising their arms and wheeling in a circle, at same time singing or making a continued noise.  One of the females sits thumping her stomach, which gives a droll sound.  They burn their dead, are very expert at throwing their spears, and with exactness at a great distance.  Their canoes are formed of solid bark, which they carve from the trees by means of a stone axe.  They fight in a most savage manner.  Their subsistence is chiefly on fish, the women being very expert at this duty; the lines are curiously platted from the bark of trees, and the hook is a piece of bark (sic).  They assemble in small tribes, each having a different size.  The children, when young, ride on the parents’ shoulders, holding by the hair of the head.  After death they expect a removal to the sun, which they worship.  They are a very dirty and lazy set of people.

The Dædalus, that conveys this, takes also our worthy Major Grose and family to Europe, and we expect Governor Hunter soon.  My commanding officer, prior to his departure, was pleased to give me a grant of twenty-five acres of good rich land for ever, so that in a short time I hope to be a respectable farmer, having besides with me a hut of three comfortable rooms, a good garden of half an acre of land, where I have every production of this place in profusion.  My live stock at present are two pigs, twelve fowls, three pigeons, a dog and a cat, which with my station, stock, garden, and farm, give sufficient employ.

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Source:  Excerpts – ‘Early News from a New Colony:  British Museum Papers’ – by Various, Unknown [Newspaper Extracts concerning the Colony of New South Wales, 1785-1795.] – published 1893

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View other important events in New South Wales’ History . . .

View other important information on The Evolution of Australia (formally New Holland) . . .

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