Page:Admiral Phillip.djvu/209

 'But toil cannot be long supported without adequate refreshment. The first step in every community, which wishes to preserve honesty, should be to set the people above want. The throes of hunger will ever prove too powerful for integrity to withstand. Hence arose a repetition of petty delinquencies, which no vigilance could detect, and no justice reach. Gardens were plundered; provisions pilfered; and the Indian corn stolen from the fields, where it grew for public use. Various were the measures adopted to check this depredatory spirit. Criminal courts, either from the tediousness of their process, or from the frequent escape of culprits from their decision, were seldomer convened than formerly. The Governor ordered convict-offenders either to be chained together, or to wear singly a large iron collar, with two spikes projecting from it, which effectually hindered the party from concealing it under his shirt; and thus shackled, they were compelled to perform their quota of work.

'Had their marauding career terminated here, humanity would have been anxious to plead in their defence; but the natives continued to complain of being robbed of spears and fishing-tackle. A convict was at length taken in the act of stealing fishing-tackle from Daringa, the wife of Colbee (Coleby). The Governor ordered that he should be severely flogged, in the presence of as many natives as could be assembled, to whom the cause of punishment should