Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/394

 (8th Dec.) declared that the Loyal Associations would be embodied *Ho guard against the first effects of auy un- expected attack from the enemy/' The Irish insurrection in March 1804 found the community better prepared than it mi^ht have l)eeii if not thus avouBed to a sense of duty. News arrived fitfully ; hut prizes were occasionally taken to Port Jackson to he eonderaned. In May IHOB, when H.M.H. Glaiiou sailed for England, the Oovernoi' wrote that a small trading vessel owned at Madras had recently arrived from South America, Sailuig southwards from Coqumibo the captain was ** chased by an armed vessel which took his boat and thirteen men*** Eecent captures on the South American coast were enumerated, and the force of the enemy — ** two frigates, a ship of fifty guns (that sails very ill, built in Peru), two anned whalers, a cutter brig, and a lugger, I have judged it pro^jer to -state thi« cii*cumstance to possess your Lord- whip of the hazard that any commercial enterprise on that coast is attended with." War tidings stirred the remote sons of England like the booming of tUstant guns. In Nov, 1804 the sound camo to their doors. The look-out officer at the South Head sig- nalled for an officer from head-jpiarters. Lieut. Houstoun was despatched from Sydney. Two sliips were in sight, J)rums heat to arms. The New South Wales Corps and the lioyal Association were assembled (Si/dfief/ Gazette) to a troo[jer spurred in haste to Government House. A battle was fought outside the heads. The English whaler Polictf {carrying letters of marque), with six twelve-pounders, chased by a Dutch vessel, the Swift, with six eighteen- jmunders, made ready for action, bore down upon the Sicift^ was at chjse quarters at half-past eleven, and io two hours comiJelled the Dutchmen to strike their colours. Twenty thousand Spanish dollars were on board the prize, which was (hily coiKiemned and sold in Sydney. As traffic in the Pacific increased, the temptations of a dissolute life began to attract numbers of Europeans, " among whom'' (the Governor wrote BOth April 1805) ** are some of inditferent not to say bad characters, mostly left by Bhi2)s goin^t; to the north-west of America, whalers, and I 4 4
 * welcome the strangers." At eleven o'clock in the morning