Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/188

before July 1791. Phillip, anticipating a new era in which the colony would be self-sustaining, felt justified in believing that he left the colony safe from starvation.

The live stock taken to the colony encountered terrible risks on the voyage. Out of 119 cows embarked from various ports, only 28 were safely landed; but the public stock (as it was called) amounted in Dec. 1792 to 3 bulls, 15 cows, 5 calves, 11 horses, 105 sheep, 43 pigs, and a number of goats. To each emancipated settler, to each marine settler, and each settler from the Sirius, Phillip gave one ewe, and she-goats as they could be spared, begging the recipients to cherish them.

Bushranging, or robbing in the bush, could grow to no great dimensions while the inhabited territory was small; but garden robberies were frequent; and the early annals teem with notices of Cæsar, a convict black (not Australian), who absconded with a musket in May 1789, was apprehended, confined in fetters on Garden Island, escaped thence with a boat and provisions, was wounded by the natives, cured in hospital, and sent to the more confined sphere of Norfolk Island with a pardon, but returned subsequently only to pursue his old career, and to be shot in the bush in 1796, having given, according to Collins, more trouble than any other convict in the settlement.

The population at Phillip's departure is usually estimated at about 3500 in New South Wales, and 880 in Norfolk Island, but no accurate census was made at the time. As the currency at the Cape of Good Hope and Batavia (to both of which the colony resorted for supplies) consisted of dollars, dollars became, practically, for some time the coin used in Sydney.

It is worthy of mention that sperm-whale fishing was commenced during Phillip's government. The ship Britannia, belonging to Messrs. Samuel Enderby and Sons, carried convicts to New South Wales in 1791. The master, Thomas Melville, saw whales not far from Port Jackson. He revealed the secret to Phillip, imploring that he might be exempt from the necessity of carrying the convicts to Norfolk Island as had been intended. The Governor sympathized; Captain P. G. King (recently returned from England in H.M.S. Gorgon) warmly co-operated. Within