Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/349

rations. However, no exertion will be wanting to prevent you from want. . . . I think you will be perfectly justifiable in the existing state of your settlement in causing every useless dog to be destroyed. Every useless dog I consider not only as a public nuisance, but a destroyer of what ought to maintain the inhabitants."

To the Secretary of State King wrote that because of the "uncertainty of supplies of salt meat arriving from England, I have directed that kangaroo flesh be received into the stores (at Hobart and Port Dalrymple) from the officers and soldiers who can procure them, at 6d. a lb., and issued as rations, which I hope your Lordship may approve." A later despatch on the subject (March 1806) to Lord Camden, said:―

"Colonel Collins has informed me that he has long been in expectation of receiving provisions, &e., from England. What reason he has for that hope I am not acquainted with, but I trust it may be the case. His wants have been liberally supplied, and indeed anticipated, from hence as long as our stores and resources admitted. What those supplies have been is stated in the enclosure.

"The wants of Port Dalrymple are equally, if not more, pressing, as the formation of that settlement was entirely from hence, whereas Colonel Collins brought the most ample supplies from England-many still remaining, except provisions which have been long since expended. Providing these supplies in the still infant state of this part of the territory, I can assure you, my Lord, requires much attention and forethought, as it is not only the present but the future wants of the new settlements I have to provide for. It may reasonably be hoped that Colonel Collins' settlement will very soon produce a sufficiency of grain for its own consumption, having now been settled two years, and that Port Dalrymple will soon contribute to its own support. . . . Still they must be fostered, nor must they be suffered to languish, or to cut at the root of their future subsistence by the great reduction of labour that attends a reduced ration, or being obliged to kill their breeding stock, which has cost so much, and cannot be replaced but at a very great expense."

Six hundred and twenty-two cows were landed safely from one vessel at Port Dalrymple in 1805, under the contract with Campbell. Two hundred and eighty-eight had died on the voyage. Those landed appeared healthy, but disease afterwards swept off nearly two-thirds of them. To Hobart, King had sent other cattle brought from India by H.M.S. Buffalo, and by a vessel of Campbell's in 1804.

At both settlements there were robberies to obtain food. Three soldiers and a convict charged with robbing the stores were sent by Colonel Paterson to Sydney for trial by the Criminal Court. All were sentenced to death. One