A Note on the Sources and Their Authors

1793 to 1795

1794 – 1795: OVERVIEW

While Phillip did not proceed with settlement in 1791 because of his concerns that the farmers should be proper people;the Hawkesbury would eventually provide farmland for the infant colony.

Settlement of the Hawkesbury commenced officially in 1794 within the context of the growth in power of the NSW Corps. Conflict between the settlers and Aboriginal peoplebegan almost immediately. It was exacerbated in 1795 by a drought, food shortages in the colony and an influx of new settlers, mostly officers and men of the NSW Corps. In 1795 the NSW Corps carried out at least two punitive expeditions against Aboriginal people on the Hawkesbury.

As the orders authorising the second punitive expedition were not cancelled until 1800 the NSW Corps was probably very busy on the Hawkesbury frontier.

A Note on the Sources and Their Authors

In describing the encounters on the Hawkesbury in 1794-95 there was no one on the frontier with the sensitivity or urbanity of Watkin Tench. Individual despatches, court records, private letters and books based on journals are incomplete and often conflicting. Collectively they make more sense when viewed in the contexts of Eighteenth Century patronage and the rule of the NSW Corps, separated from proper supervision, by time, distance and self-interest. Public documents were often written with a view of influence seeking and presenting the writer in the best light while hiding the business deals of the officers of the NSW Corps.Silence, omissions, denials, distortions and outright lies were, as now, standard bureaucratic literary tools. Unpleasantness was often covered quickly in case of possible repercussions such as a career put on hold or an invitation to a duel. Private journals and letters, which have been saved over the centuries and placed in the public domain, throw light onto events that officially did not exist and give insights into the character and motivations of the participants.

Understanding the interaction of the settlers and Aboriginal people in 1794 and 1795 is difficult. The public records present a picture of Aboriginal people gathering around the farms, plundering the crops for food and the settlers firing on them and collecting children for hostages and forced labour. Violence escalated with the taking of blankets and stores from huts followed by the spearing of settlers and reprisals by settlers. Eventually the NSW Corps carried out a number of punitive expeditions to protect the settlers and drive Aboriginal people away. This required the establishment of a permanent garrison to secure the frontier.

The written records are highly subjective and simplistic. Theofficers were portrayed as the hope and future of the colony. The ex-convict settlers were damned as riotous wastrels. John Wilson, perhaps the most individualistic of the convicts, was dismissed as “a wild idle young man, who, his term of transportation being expired, preferred living among the natives in the vicinity of the river, to earning wages of honest industry by working for the settlers”. Aboriginal people were presented as reacting to settlement in a pre-Darwinian romantic discourse of doomed savagery.No Aboriginalperson was identified by name or voice in the records 1794-95. The collective identity of Aboriginal people was clouded by the insistence of settlers imposing their own sense of social structure upon Aboriginal people. To David Collins there were coastal Aboriginal people and “natives from the woods”.

Despite these handicaps, the accounts left by David Collins and others point to diverse and complex reactions of the Aboriginal people of the Hawkesbury to the invasion of their land. The Aboriginalreaction was shaped by several events. Small pox expanded out of Sydney HarbourfracturingAboriginalsocial structures across the Sydney Plain.[1]Bardo Narang,[2] South Creek,[3] Freeman’s Reach[4] and the adjoining Lowlands,[5]were the heartland of Aboriginal people on the Hawkesbury and settlement there shattered their economy. Thirdly Aboriginal people may well have seen the settlers as unwelcome relatives rather than invaders. Aboriginal people observed the newcomers closely and used a variety of strategies to deal with them. From the attempt to direct the settlers southwards it is obvious that Aboriginal people on the Hawkesbury were talking to other Aboriginal people who had more contact with the settlers. Some Aboriginal people no doubt avoided the settlers. Some Aboriginal people watched the settlers. Some Aboriginal people ventured onto the farms for a variety of reasons with mixed results. Some warriors engaged in fierce conflicts with particular settlers. Some Aboriginal people strategically targeted isolated settlers in an attempt to curtail the expansion of settlement.

In 1794 and 1795 encounters between Aboriginal people and settlers on the Hawkesbury were documented both publicly and privately. These sources are:

• The Historical Records of NSW and the Historical Records of Australia. These works contain the despatches of the British authorities to NSW and the despatches to England of the acting Governors of NSW, Grose and Paterson, and a variety of private letters. As well, the exchanges between Lieutenant-Governor King and Acting Governor Grose over the management of affairs on Norfolk Island, coupled with Portland’s censure of Grose provides valuable insights into the privileged position Grose had placed the NSW Corps and the character of Lieutenant Abbott who was to command the expedition to the Hawkesbury. Fortunately, King was a prolific letter writer and his correspondence to Nepean and Dundas contains details of Abbott’s conduct that did not enter the public record at the time. Intriguingly, a later copy of King’s private letter to Under-Secretary Nepean published by the National Library of Australia on the Internet contains a damaging comment on Abbott that was excluded from the copy published in the Historical Records of Australia.Not all historical records appear in these works. One letter cited in these works comes from the King Letters, held in the Mitchell Library.

• David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales.David Collins,[6] was Judge-Advocate and private secretary to Phillip, Grose, Paterson and Hunter. He retained this role until he finally left accompanied by his mistress and their children on 29 September 1796 to reunite with his wife after a decade’s absence. He published the first volume of his work in 1798 to further his career,[7] which had languished after the death of his father and his chief patron. Collins’ work is invaluable, despite his circumspection. Collins was more open than Grose or Paterson regarding the conflicts with Aboriginal people. However, when it involved his fellow officers Collins was quite selective and roundabout in what he included and excluded. He did not identify Macarthur as the officer responsible for the cursory examination of Forrester in 1794. His comments on the conflict between King and Grose were muted and his concerns about the activities of Abbot and MacKelllar on the Hawkesbury were only voiced privately. Unfortunately his damning of the Hawkesbury settlers was done with a broad brush and no doubt done to highlights the virtues of the officers of the NSW Corps.

As well, there are a number of less well-known documents that complement the above sources.

• The Bench of Magistrates Minutes of Proceedings provides us with the minutes of the “examination” of the settlers involved in the killing of anAboriginal boy in 1794. While Collins refers to the killing in his book and is far more judgemental than the enquiry, he makes only passing reference to the “examination” which was probably carried out by John Macarthur. As well, they contain the affair of Boston’s Pig which provides insights into the roles and relationship of officers and men in the NSW Corps.
  
• While the Journal of Richard Atkins makes limited reference to events on the Hawkesbury is invaluable when read in conjunction with Collins. Atkins’ disgust with the NSW Corps experiment with slavery allows the reader to draw out the full implication of Collins’ circumspection on this and other matters.

• Three private letters describing the punitive expedition of June 1795, each contradicting Paterson’s despatches and Collins’s later account. They were all written in the week before Captain Raven[8] took the Britannia out of Sydney Harbour on the 18th June 1795 and accompanied Paterson’s despatches. The letters are:

A private letter of David Collins written on 11th June 1795.

A private letter by the Reverend Thomas Fyshe Palmer, a “gentleman convict”, written on 13thJune 1795.

A private letter written by William Paterson to Sir Joseph Banks on 14th June 1795.

In writing this account of the events of 1794 and 1795 I am indebted to four secondary works for alerting me to the existence of primary material that I had not located myself. I first read the account of the inquiry into the death of a native boy inJ.E. Nagle’s, Collins, the Courts and the Colonies, Law and Society in Colonial New South Wales 1788-1796, UNSW Press, 1996. Brook and Cohen’s, The Parramatta Native Institution and the Black Town, NSW University Press, 1991,contains Fyshe Palmer’s letter of 13th of June 1795 (though it ascribes the date to the 11th). David Collin’s letter of 11th June 1795 appears in John Currey’s, David CollinsA Colonial Life, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Press, 2000. In that same work I saw for the first time the linkage of David Collins and the “Scottish martyrs” as documented in The Journal of Daniel Paine 1794-1797, Library of Australian History, Sydney, 1983.Jan Barkley-Jack in Hawkesbury Settlement Revealed, Rosenberg, 2009 has demonstrated the importance of the Land Grant Records in untangling what was happening on the Hawkesbury[9].

The NSW Corps, Norfolk Island andBoston’s Sow

In June 1790 the first detachment of NSW Corps arrived to replace the Marines. They were followed in February 1792 by the second detachment with their commanding officer, Major Francis Grose,[10] who replaced Robert Ross as Lieutenant Governor of the colony. Grose almost immediately raised with Phillip the issue of land grants to officers. Grose had been on half-pay for six years before accepting the command of the NSW Corps and like many other officers would have lived in straitened conditions when not on active service. In July 1792, the Right Hon. Henry Dundas[11] advised Phillip, “In answer to the request made by several of the military and civil officers to have grants of land made them, which they may dispose of at their departure, I do not forsee that any inconvenience can arise from your complying with their requisitions.[12]

In December 1792 Phillip left and Major Grose, while retaining his role as military chief, took on an acting role as Governor. Major Grose changed the direction of the colony. He increased private enterprise and placed the NSW Corps in a position of power and influence. Events on Norfolk Island showed that the privileges he gave the military broke with the Common Law concept of equality of all before the courts. Officers received numerous land grants and assigned convicts. The Military began to receive a different ration. Grose did away with civil magistrates replacing them with military officers. In January 1793 Parramatta effectively came under the direct rule of Lieutenant John Macarthur when Grosemade him inspector of public works andplaced him in charge of superintendents, overseers and convicts. In 1795 when the government store was built at what is now Windsor it was under Macarthur’s rule.

Captain William Paterson[13] succeeded Major Grose as Acting Governor on 17 December 1794. As Acting Governor he did nothing to curtail the growing power of the officers of the NSW Corps. While Grose and Paterson were keen in their despatches to highlight their good deeds and stressed their adherence to the government’s orders regarding the treatment of Aboriginal people; despatches from London, court records, private letters and the journals of David Collins, provide a more balanced interpretation.[14]

Between 1793 and 1796 on Norfolk Island and at Sydney there occurred a well-documented series of events involving officers and soldiers of the NSW Corps who were to have significant roles in attacks uponAboriginal people in the Hawkesbury. These events provide insights into the character and motivation of the participants and exemplify the arrogance that permeated the NSW Corps from the commander down to junior officers and private soldiers.

On Norfolk Island the hostility of a detachment of the NSW Corps commanded by Lieutenant Abbott[15] towards the settlers and Lieutenant-Governor King[16] culminated in a mutiny of the detachment. Acting-Governor Grose responded by censuring Lieutenant-Governor King. Fortunately for the historical record Lieutenant-Governor King was a prolific letter writer. Apart from his despatches to Lieutenant-Governor Grose recorded in the Historical Records of Australia, he wrote to Henry Dundas, the Home Secretary and Evan Nepean, Under-Secretary of State in the Home Office. The mixture of public and private record provides an explanation of the mutiny and allows insights into the operations of the NSW Corps and relationships between individuals within the Corps.

Problems started on Norfolk Island when Captain Patterson’s company was relieved in March 1793 leaving behind a detachment commanded by Lieutenant Abbott. The other officers in the detachment were another lieutenant, described by King as an alcoholic, and an ensign. Lieutenant-Governor King was advised that a Captain was not available to command the detachment but one would be sent when available.[17]King’s concern was valid. Should he die on duty at such an isolated outpost it was imperative he be succeeded by an officer of maturity and experience.

For these junior officers exerting control and discipline over difficult soldiers while maintaining a proper distance was to prove an insurmountable challenge. In a private letter of the 10th of March 1794[18]to Henry Dundas, Secretary of State, King described the following privileges that the NSW Corps were allowed or took upon themselves.

• Female convicts who accompanied the soldiers were allowed to stay with them.
• A distinction was made between the civil/convict ration and military rations until full rations were restored.
• Several overseers who had cleared land for themselves were dispossessed in favour of the NSW Corps.
• The NSW Corps received a preferential distribution of alcohol.
• Soldiers were intimate with convicts, gambling and “connecting” with their wives.

From March to November 1793, Norfolk Island remained isolated until the Britannia, under Captain Raven, arrived, enroute to Bengal. One of the passengers on board was Captain Nicholas Nepean of the NSW Corps who was going home on convalescent leave. On his own initiative, King detained the Britannia for ten days, leaving the Island under the temporary command of Captain Nepean while he took two Maoris home to New Zealand. The Maoris had been acquired by Captain Vancouver and sent to Norfolk Island on the assumption that they would be able to provide insights into flax-weaving. Unfortunately these Maoris did not have this skill and pined for home. While King’s gesture may well have been entirely humanitarian, New Zealand historians have suggested that his visit may have been an opportunistic placement of himself for a future governorship.[19]We know about King’s visit to New Zealand from a private letter of the nineteenth of November 1793[20] to Evan Nepean, Under-Secretary of State and Captain Nepean’s older brother.

Lieutenant Abbott, as second in command, objected to Captain Nepean being given temporary command of Norfolk Island by King. Abbott felt that it should have been him. Officially, King made this decision because he believed that a senior officer should hold the position and that there was a need to maintain a sufficient number of officers to form a court-martial if necessary.

However, in his private letter to Nepean, King gave three additional reasons for appointing Nepean’s younger brother over Abbott. The first two reasons appear in both the HRNSW version and the NLA version of the letter. The third reason appears only in the NLA version. According to King:

in June 1793 Abbott had engaged some soldiers to pick a quarrel with a settler and beat him, which led to a complaint coming to the Lieutenant-Governor.

Abbott’s second in commandwas a drunkard and not fit to succeed Abbott should he suddenly die.

Lieutenant Abbott neglected to pass on a complaint made by a junior officer regarding the unfair distribution of rations in an outlying settlement to the Lieutenant-Governor.

Following are the two extracts describing the confrontation and Lieutenant Abbott’s near mutinous behaviour. That Ensign Piper later came to Lieutenant-Governor King to deny that Lieutenant Abbott spoke on his behalf supports King’s concerns.

Lieutenant Governor King on Lieutenant Abbott

‘CAPTAIN ABBOTT.

In my public letter to Mr. Dundas respecting my going to New Zealand I have suppressed a circumstance respecting my leaving the command of the island to your brother during my ten days' absence. For my reason I must refer you to the above letter. When I had resolved on going, I issued the General Order which is an enclosure in No. 2.[21] Mr. Abbot, who is the senior of the three subalterns, came to me, and in the most contemptuous, and I may almost say mutinous, manner (in the presence of the Deputy Surveyor),[22] and positively and unequivocally (in his own name and that of the other subs.), refused obeying the order in any one respect. I endeav'd to point out what I thought the consequences of such behaviour might be, but that only seemed to make him more irritable and obstinate in continuing his avowed intention of disobeying the order in toto, which he doubted if Capt. N. would obey or not. On my sending for your brother, on putting the question to him and stating Mr. Abbot's conduct (which he avowed before Capt. N.), he answered that he considered himself as an officer liable to be called into service in these colonies on any emergency, and that he considered it his duty, as a capt. belonging to the N.S.W. Corps and in full pay, to obey any legal order which he might receive from a superior for the good of the King's service. After Mr. Abbot had for some time endeavoured to persuade Capt. N. that he was totally incompetent to take the command, and that I had grievously oppressed him (Lt. Abbot) in thinking of such a thing, I cut the matter short by telling Lt. A. that as Capt. Nepean thought it his duty to obey my orders he might do as he chose, on which he left me, saying he should consider more about it. It was now seven o'clock in the evening, and I intended to embark early next morning. The next morning, at seven o'clock, Lieut. Abbot came to me and said that he should not retard the service by continuing a disobedience to the order, but that he should represent the oppression he laboured under. At nine o'clock, my commission, with my order to Capt. N., was read, and I embarked, and neither at my embarking or landing did any one of those officers attend me. After my return Lieut. Abbot sent Ensign Piper to me to ask whether I meant to write home respecting what had taken place previous to my embarking, because if I did he would make a representation to ye Sec'y at War. I declined giving that officer any information on that head. Soon after I received a letter from Ensign Piper denying that he had ever given Lient. Abbot the least reason to make use of his name (in refusing to obey the order), as Lieut. Abbot had not even spoke to him on the business previous to his (Lt. A.) coming to me and making use of both the officers' names. The other sub'n was so much intoxicated with liquor that he was incapable of giving any opinion. Mr. Abbot thought proper to wait upon me, and before the D'y Surveyor he acknowledged that neither of the officers gave him permission to make use of their names, and that he had never consulted them previous to his making me that declaration, but that they since were and continued of his opinion. As this is the substance of this business, I must leave you to make your comments on it. Independent of the necessity I found myself under to leave a suff’t number of officers to form court-martials, I had another reason which, in my opinion, militated against my leaving Lieut. Abbot in command here. Six months ago that officer engaged some soldiers to pick a quarrel with a settler in order to beat him, which the settler having notice of had collected other settlers to repel force by force, but, fortunately for the peace and tranquility of this island, the soldiers did not carry their plan into execution. This came before me as a complaint. This was one reason which I had not to give the command to Lt. A. Another reason was that the officer next to him is a beastly drunkard, and by no means fit to succeed Lt. Abbot in case of death, had I been inclined to leave the government with ye latter. I find some kind of representation is sent by Lt. A. to the Secretary at War, I do not wish to injure Mr. A., although I have great reason and provocation. I have therefore suppressed making any mention of this transaction in my publick letters, leaving it to you to make what use of this you may think proper.’[23]