Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/183

impossible he showed the remains of the guinea and buckle and confessed that he had resorted to this sham discovery in order to extort valuables from the officers of two ships then in the harbour. He was punished with 100 lashes and sentenced "to wear a canvas frock with the letter 'R' cut and sewn upon it, to distinguish him more particularly from others as a rogue." Four months afterwards the poor wretch was executed for housebreaking; and one of the receivers of the stolen goods, a woman, was sentenced to have her hair cut and to wear a canvas frock on which the letters "R.S.G." (receiver of stolen goods) were painted in large characters. So quaint were the devices with which Phillip fought his battle among his curious subjects.

The struggle to extort food from the soil has already been adverted to as one of Phillip's principal cares. One James Ruse, the first freed settler, declared in March 1791 that he would relinquish all claim on the Government provisions and support himself on his own farm. Phillip granted him "thirty acres in the situation which he then occupied." Two months afterwards it was rumoured that Ruse was starving, and the Governor offered him some salt provisions, but Ruse declined them and proved that he was setting not only a good but a successful example; though it is painful to find that his farm (Experiment Farm, as it was called) was sold in 1793 in consequence of the failure of a crop. In 1794 he settled at the Hawkesbury.

Phillip impressed upon every Secretary of State the urgent necessity of procuring free settlers. He did not, like one of his successors, Macquarie, contemplate the formation of a virtuous community by emancipating convicts, by making them magistrates to administer the laws they had been condemned for breaking, and by inviting them to his table. During Phillip's sojourn there were several Secretaries of State-Lord Sydney; W. W. (afterwards Lord) Grenville; and Henry Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville.^[1]