Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/243

 AND DAWES. 205 provisions from a convict, but he denied that they were ^"^ rations in the sense in which the term was used in the order. The convict in question was "baker to the garrison/' and it was known, Lieutenant Dawes asserted^ to all the officers that the man received a weekly allowance of flour " as the just perquisite of his business, which I therefore presumed became his own property, and as such was deemed by everyone to be entirely at his own disposal." He denied that he had ever purchased from any of the convicts any article of their ration. Phillip forwarded Dawes's statement phuup's to Lord Grenville, with a memorandum in which he stated thSwn! that he could not admit that Lieutenant Dawes had never purchased rations from convicts. Major Boss had, he alleged, been requested (presumably by Phillip himself) to point out to Dawes, " some time before,'* the impropriety of purchasing pease from convicts ; and in one case in which a convict appeared before the magistrates charged with a breach of the order in question, he admitted having given forty pounds of flour and twenty pounds of sugar to Lieu- tenant Dawes for *' spirits and other articles.'* As no inquiry was held, it is impossible to say to what An extent the regulation was infringed by Lieutenant Dawes; but it is apparent from his own account that he was at least guilty of an indiscretion. The order was prohibitory; it forbade the purchase of provisions from convicts under any circumstances whatever, and it was the duty of every officer to see that it was strictly enforced. If the flour which he purchased was the convict baker's perquisite, the proper course would have been for him to bring the matter under the notice of the Commissary before making any purchase from a convict, even though he happened to be baker to the garrison. The second charge was more serious than the first. It The second arose out of a difficulty with the natives in December, 1790. Some of the tribes, to avenge themselves for injuries thej had received from the convicts, altocked with speaxB any