1791 3 July. at Norfolk Island. Mr. R. [Riou], as an officer, ought to have informed Capt. Blanket [Blankett] of it, who employed him alone after the partnership was dissolved, and Riou herc-but it appears by a letter from B—t [Captain Blankett] to Commodore Cornwallis that De Wit's conduct was very different. I hope, after the first accounts are arrived in England, that I shall be gratified with learning that my officiousness is not disapproved of. By a mid., belonging to the Sirius, who Quarrelling is second mate of the Neptune, I find the quarrelling and jangling is transferred from P.J. [Port Jackson] to N.I. [Norfolk Island], where they distinguish themselves by different partys. Governor P. [Phillip] and your brother* was in good health. I am much surprized that there were no letters either for you or Mrs. N. from the latter. I made particular enquiry but could not hear of any. From the present state of Norfolk Island, I hope you will see the very great necessity there is for some regulation in judicial matters --for much punishment may be necessary, but if possible will be avoided, and without some regular mode things must fall into confusion. Should I be named president, or any other character in the court, I should hope you would consider my present small stipend. That and every other consideration I must leave to your friendship. Yours, &c., Judicial affairs. 5 July. The Pitt. Useful convicts. A vessel in frame. PHILIP GIDLEY KING. THE RIGHT HON. HENRY DUNDAST TO GOVERNOR PHIllip. In selecting the convicts who compose the present embarkation care has been taken that no persons but such as are likely to be useful in the settlement will now be sent out. It will, I am afraid, be impossible, unless the Pitt should be detained longer than is expected, to furnish you by her with copies of the several Orders of Council for fixing the destination of these people; but, as another vessel will be dispatched to you in the course of the autumn with a further number of convicts, I shall avail myself of that opportunity of forwarding them to you. You will receive by the Pitt a vessel in frame, which, when set up, will, I have no doubt, be found extremely useful to you; and also a proportion of salted beef and pork for four hundred Provisions. convicts for twelve months. The supply was confined to these articles on the idea that, with the grain produced in the settlements, the flour already sent from home, the quantity purchased Captain Nicholas Nepean. † Afterwards Viscount Melville. He succeeded Lord Grenville at the Home Office in June, 1791, Grenville going to the Foreign Office. Ante, p. 461. 1791 5 July. at Batavia, and the supply intended to be forwarded to you from Calcutta, you would not, at least for the present, be in want of flour or rice. I shall, however, before the departure of the next ship, endeavour to form the best opinion I can from your communications of the exact state of the settlement in this respect, and shall then make such preparation as may appear requisite for furnishing you with such further supplies as you may be supposed Further to stand in need of. The tonnage taken up in stowing away the vessel in frame has prevented your receiving by this opportunity some articles, particularly the clothing for the convicts now embarked, which could not, from the want of room, be taken on board. supplies. American Vancouver's The ship Dædalus will proceed in the course of a few days to the north-west coast of America, to receive possession of the Northseveral places there which, in consequence of the late convention possessions. between his Majesty and the King of Spain, are to be restored.* This vessel, after the performance of that service and delivering to Captain Vancouver (employed in surveying the said coast) such stores and provisions as he may be able to take on board, will, agreeably to the intimation made to you by Lord Grenville in his letter before referred to, repair to New South Wales, where she may be expected early in the year 1793, and her commander will Captain then follow your orders, either for going to Calcutta or elsewhere, instructions. for the purpose of procuring supplies. It is probable, however, that Captain Vancouver will not be able to take on board so much of the cargo of the Dædalus as may be sufficient to enable him to execute the orders he has received; if it should so happen, he will apply to you to order the Dædalus to rejoin him at the Sandwich Daedalus. Islands during the following winter with the remainder of her cargo; and on receiving such application you will comply therewith, or send some other vessel, which may then be with you, with those supplies, and any others he may stand in need of, which the settlement under your government may, without inconvenience, be able to furnish. Major Grose proceeds in the Pitt with one Major company of his corps; the other will follow in the next ship. The disposition which has in many instances been shown by the convicts to mutiny during the passage appears to render a military guard at all times indispensably necessary.† LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR KING TO UNDER SECRETARY NEPEAN. As I find the Juliana will sail in two or three days, I have a little more time than when my letters by the Dutch packet were despatched, and which I hope have come to your hands long e'er now. * Ante, p. 451. This despatch is unsigned, but it is obviously from the Right Hon. Henry Dundas. Grose. 6 July. 1791 6 July. Cattle. American enterprise. provisions. The Gorgon will be round here about the fifteenth, and I hope the weather will be so favourable to us in embarking the cattle, &c., that we shall get away from hence before the end of the month. As the cattle are all strong, and have been kept up at dry feed this fortnight past, I hope the major part of them will survive the length of our passage, which I hope will not be more than five weeks, and at the time you receive this I hope to be on my way to Norfolk Island from Port Jackson. Application has been made by an American to be freighted with the Guardian's provisions and stores, and to have 1,500 guineas for the run, but as that is a step too delicate for such subalterns as Parker and myself to have anything to do with, we declined it. There is a Whitehaven man who, on his own head, intends going immediately to America and carrying out two vessells -one of 100 or 120 tons, a Marble Head schooner, and the other a brig of 150 tons-both which he means to load with salt beef and pork, which he can afford to sell in the colony for 7d. a pound. He wished encouragement from me; but anything of that kind being out of my power to give him, he has taken a decided part, and means to run the risque. I mention this that you may know what is meant. From a calculation which I have made, and being assisted by the accounts I have got from the masters of the Six months' Neptune and Juliana, I think there is about six months' provisions in the colony at whole allowance from August, making sure of the Supply and the snow she carried with her being arrived at Port Jackson, and including what the Gorgon may be able to land. Should any ship be sent here with a view to carrying out stock to New South Wales, I should think the summer will be the best time, as we must expect much boisterous Live stock. weather, and which will, of course, hurt the stock; and the kind of cattle that ought to be taken from hence is what is here called the "bastard European cow." This kind would have been taken in the Gorgon, but the price being so much more than the common kind that, when compared with Gov'r Phillip's and Riou's account, it would naturally have the air of peculating. The stock we take from hence are very healthy and strong, and I do hope they will continue so. When the last accounts are closed I shall send duplicates of the letters I sent from hence, dated July 3rd, by a Dutch packet. State of I beg once more to recommend to your attention the state Norfolk Island must be in if there is no mode of inflicting punishments with some appearance of legality. You know the critical situation I was once in, and I must say that I am conscious that the whole originated in the knowledge the people on the island had of my incompetency to inflict severe punishments; and now there is so great an addition to their numbers a decided and firm line of conduct must and will be adopted by me, and I shall only" any 1791 6 July. necessary. have reason and equity to apologize for violent measures that may find it necessary to adopt. The distance from N.I. to Port J is great, and the irregularity of communication between Violent these places is so very uncertain that I can assure you if I had a measures necessity I shall not hesitate a moment in inflicting the last and may be most dreadfull of punishments rather than suffer things to fall into disorder and to neglect the trust reposed in me. If I have said too much on this head I ask your excuse, and can assure you that I have a heart as susceptible of humanity as most people; but still my wish and endeavours to promote industry and preserve peace shall not for the future expose me and the island to those risques which I have once escaped, and I hope the necessity of having some legal court of justice, and some ostensible character Court of justice in judicial matters being vested in me (which must create respect required. to authority), will be obvious to you. I beg to offer my best wishes for your health and Mrs. Nepean, to whom I beg my respects. I am, &c., PHILIP GIDLEY KING. THE RIGHT HON. HENRY DUNDAS TO THE LORDS OF THE My Lords, 6th July, 1791. 6 July. I transmit to your Lordships herewith the duplicate and translation of a letter from Count Florida Blanca, † signifying his Catholic Majesty's orders to the Spanish officer commanding at Nootka to cause such officer as may be appointed on the part of Nootka. his Majesty to be put in possession of the buildings and districts or parcells of land therein described, which were occupied by his subjects in the month of April, 1789, agreeably to the first article of the late convention; and also to deliver up any persons in the service of British subjects who may have been detained in those parts. Dædalus. The Daedalus transport having, I understand, taken on board The the provisions and stores demanded by Capt. Vancouver for the supply of the Discovery and Chatham, tender, it is his Majesty's pleasure that your Lordships should order Lieut. Hergest, her commander, the moment she is ready for sea, to proceed with her to the Sandwich Islands, and on meeting with Captain Vancouver to deliver to him the letters above mentioned relative to the restitutions, and to put himself under his direction for the execution of this service, in order that Capt. Vancouver may be impeded as little as possible in the progress of his intended survey; but as the Instrueseason is now so far advanced, it appears extremely probable that Captain Vancouver will have left the Sandwich Islands before the * Unsigned, but endorsed in Sir Joseph Banks's handwriting, "Dra't to the Admiralty about the Dædalus." This letter is obviously from the Right Hon. Henry Dundas. A Spanish statesman and political economist. When this letter was written Count Florida Blanca was First Secretary of State. "Annual Register," 1790, p. 292. tions. 1791 6 July. To wait at To make friends with the Spaniards and the natives. arrival of the Dædalus, and if it should so happen, Lieut. Hergest should be directed to make the best of his way to Nootka, where he may expect to be met by a Spanish officer, to whom he is to deliver Count Florida Blanca's letter, and to receive from him, on the part of his Majesty, possession of the buildings and districts or parcells of land of which his Majesty's subjects were possessed at that port, as well as at Port Cox and any other places on that coast; and having so done he is to wait at Nootka until he shall be joined by Capt. Vancouver, who, as your Lordships will see by an extract of a letter from him, may be expected there in the course of the next summer. During L❜t Hergest's continuance at Nootka or elsewhere on the American coast, he is to avoid with the utmost caution the giving any ground of complaint to the subjects or officers of his Catholic Majesty whom he may meet with, and to treat them in the most amicable and friendly manner; and if he should fall in with any Spanish ships employed on the said coast, he is to afford to the officer commanding such ships every possible degree of assistance and information, and he is to offer to him that they should make to each other reciprocally a free and unreserved communication of all plans and charts of discoveries made by them during their respective voyages. He is also to be particularly enjoined to treat in the most friendly manner the subjects or vessels of any other power or state or any of the native Indians which he may happen to meet with, and to be careful not to do anything which may give occasion to any interruption of that peace which now happily subsists between his Majesty and all other powers. Your Lordships will likewise instruct L't Hergest on no account whatever to touch at any port on the continent of America to the southward of the lat. of 30° No., unless from any accident of lat. 30 N. he should find it necessary for his immediate safety to take shelter Not to go southward Contingencies. there, and in case of such an event to continue there no longer than may be absolutely necessary. This restriction should also be strongly enforced on Capt. Vancouver, in order to prevent his having any communication with that part of the coast comprised within the lat. above mentioned and that part of South America where on his return home he is directed to commence his intended survey, that any complaints on the part of Spain upon this point may, if possible, be prevented. If From the nature of the service on which Capt. Vancouver is employed, a variety of circumstances may occur which may prevent his reaching the port of Nootka during the ensuing summer. it should so happen, or that he does not arrive there before the month of November, it will be proper that Lieut. Hergest should be directed to proceed from thence to Karahoa Bay, and endeavour to fall in with him there or elsewhere in the Sandwich Islands, where Capt. Vancouver proposes to pass the winter. |