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Historical Records of New Zealand

Governor Hunter to The Duke of Portland

Governor Hunter to The Duke of Portland.

Sydney, New South Wales, 10th January, 1798.

My Lord Duke,—

Since I had the honor of writing your Grace upon the concerns of the colony by the ship Britannia (via Canton), duplicates of which letters I herewith transmit, I had occasion to send the small Colonial schooner to Norfolk Island, and I have heard from thence.

The Britannia sailed from Sydney in company with the Ganges, in August, 1797

page 218

The commanding officer* there complains that they are without wheat, and informs me that the settlers on the island are afraid to risk any attempt to raise that grain, from the ill success which has heretofore attended all their efforts; that in consequence of their endeavours to increase their breed of swine their consumption of maize has been so great that they are become short of that grain also. For these reasons he requests that I will give him a discretional power occasionally to raise the price of fresh pork, by way of encouraging a proper attention to and care of that stock; but this desire I have not judged expedient to comply with, conceiving it may insensibly lead to inconveniences of some extent.

The settlers have petitioned me to the like effect, and also to be permitted to build a vessel for navigating between the island and this place; but as I do not think the reasons urged in their petition are of sufficient weight, and I suppose that the same rage for traffic which prevails here has already reached that island, and will in due time effect the ruin of the settlers there, as it has done many here, I have positively forbid the building a vessel.

Enclosed is my letter to the commanding officer on the subject of his complaints, and paper No. 2, which I have sent to be made public. They certainly labor under very great inconveniences, and are exposed to numerous impositions in the purchase of such articles as are occasionally sent from hence for sale there; but that is an hardship which I have it not in my power to remedy or remove. True it is that they generally exact an advance of five hundred per cent. upon the price charged here, and that is seldom less than an equal increase on the original value, so that the labour of twelve months will go but very little way in the purchase of those trifling comforts which, until they arrived here, they may have been all their lives accustomed to receive. This, your Grace will see, is a very hard case, and, no doubt, furnishes grounds for discontent.

If what I have said and taken the liberty to suggest in my letter No. 25, relating to the establishment of a public store on account of Government, should be adopted, a branch of that store might be fixed upon Norfolk Island, and I am convinced that Government might be very moderate, and by a very small advantage might, thro’ the means of such a store, lessen the expence of maintaining the convicts; and was such a store established, I would recommend that a certain quantity of spirits be sent, for the purpose of putting an entire and decided stop to the importation of that article by any but through the immediate

* Captain Townson.

The enclosures are missing.

page 219 channel of Government. In short, my Lord, I confess myself at a loss what means to devise for preventing the importation of this article in large quantities by individuals.

The public labor on Norfolk Island, as well as at this place, is now very slowly carried on, for want of a supply of those stores which have been long solicited. At this time, my Lord, I am obliged to order the iron bars from the windows of various buildings to work up into tools and implements of husbandry, and we make nails from old iron hoops. These various wants your Grace will pardon my mentioning so often.

In the accounts received from Norfolk Island, I am informed of an American snow,* which had refitted here, having called there and landed thirty-five people who had been left at Dusky Bay, in New Zealand, when the ship Endeavour was wrecked there, about twenty months before. As I had long been apprehensive that some of these people might still be in that melancholy situation, upon the master of this American having offered to go thither and take off such people as he might find, and land them upon Norfolk Island, on condition that I would permit his taking from the wreck what stores he might want, I refused my sanction to his taking anything from the wreck, but said he might make what terms he could with the people he might find belonging to her, and that I would give him a letter to the commanding officer upon Norfolk Island to permit his landing these people there. This service he has performed under many difficulties, and has sent me a copy of his agreement with those unfortunate people whose deplorable situation for so long a time had given me much concern.

I have, &c.,

Jno. Hunter.

* The American vessel was called the Mercury (Collins, vol. ii, p. 48). The Endeavour, in consequence of her unseaworthy condition, was abandoned at Dusky Bay, by Captain Bampton, in October, 1796.