Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/156

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ARABANOO.

to restrain the passions of his convict subjects, and goaded by the increasing hostilities, Phillip passed several months; and finally determined to cut the knot of his difficulties by seizing one or two natives in order to acquire their language from them. Accordingly, on the 30th Dec., by Lieut. Ball, of the Supply, and Lieut. George Johnston, of the marines, "a young man was seized and brought up." A second was seized, but after dragging into water beyond his depth the man who seized him, he escaped. The captive, Arabanoo, was manacled and confined in a hut close to the guard-house, near the Governor's dwelling, and a trusty convict was employed to watch him. Phillip took care to send him down the harbour several times so that his friends might converse with him and know that he was well treated. He speedily became a favourite among his captors, and through him a limited vocabulary was obtained. Phillip thus explained (Feb. 1890) to the Secretary of State his resort to force.

"Not succeeding in my endeavour to persuade some of the natives to come and live with us, I ordered one to be taken by force, which was what I would gladly have avoided, as I knew it must alarm them; but not a native would come to the settlement for many months, and it was absolutely necessary that we should attain their language or teach them ours, that the means of redress might be pointed out to them if they were injured, and to reconcile them by showing the many advantages which they would enjoy by mixing with us. A young man, who appeared to be about twenty-four years of age, was taken in Dec. (1788), and unfortunately died of the small-pox[1] in May, when he was perfectly reconciled to his situation, and appeared so sensible of the advantages he enjoyed, that, fully persuaded he would not leave us, I had for some time freed him

  1. ↑ Some discussion has taken place about this outbreak of small-pox. Phillip said:—"Whether the small-pox which has proved fatal to great numbers of the natives is a disorder to which they were subject before any Europeans visited this country, or whether it was brought by the French ships, we have not yet attained sufficient knowledge of the language to determine. It never appeared on board any of the ships in our passage." (Its ravages amongst the natives were great, and as they) "always retired from where the disorder appeared, and which some must have carried with them, it must have been spread to a considerable distance, as well inland as along the coast. We have seen the traces of it wherever we have been."
    Further observation confirmed the supposition that the disease, of which Captain Cook's companions had in 1770 seen no traces, was introduced by the French.

    The early settlers, when able to converse with the natives, came to that conclusion. In a paper prepared by Jamison, the principal surgeon (Sydney Gazette, 14th Oct. 1804), it was stated: "It is generally accredited by the medical gentlemen of the colony on its first establishment, that the small-pox

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