Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/181

further, that the right of every man, free or bond, to his crop, was secured by the law; while at the same time a fair market price would be given by the government for provisions.

To guard against losses of cattle Phillip employed convicts in enclosing ground at Parramatta.

In Nov. 1791 Phillip was constrained to assemble the newly-arrived convicts, and declare that runaways would be fired upon, and that recaptured prisoners would be put on a desolate place or chained together and fed on bread and water, until their sentences of transportation had expired. Further, as there were rumours that the stores were to be attacked, he promised instant death to every one taken in the attempt; while at the same time he displayed clemency for past misdeeds. In Dec. 1791 the convicts at Parramatta, disliking the regulation that their food should be issued daily, "met in rather a tumultuous manner before the Governor's house at Parramatta" to request that the provisions should be issued on Saturdays. The Governor dispersed them without granting their request, and as murmurs were heard in the crowd, with confused threats to obtain otherwise what was refused to entreaty, he told them that they were led by eight or ten designing men, whose names he knew, and that on any open discontent he would make immediate examples of them. This first public meeting unconvened by authority in Australia promised implicit obedience to orders, and was dismissed. The meeting was ascribed by Collins to the spirit of villainy lately imported by the new-comers from England and Ireland. Phillip issued a proclamation declaring that in case of riot or disturbance, every convict seen out of his but at night, or during hours of rest from labour, or absent from his labour during working hours, should be deemed to be aiding and assisting the rioters, and be punished accordingly. Meetings of the convicts were strictly forbidden, and all complaints were to be made through the superintendents.

Towards the end of 1792 some sailors who left some of the vessels in the harbour were enlisted in the New South Wales Corps, and also several "convicts of good character, to complete the company formed from the marines under Captain Johnston." In Oct. 1793 conditional pardons