Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/359

 OS* KTSGt, 30a imsnccessfully endeavonred to prevent, although seconded, ^^^ bnt not Tory actively, by the officers. At first the two classes were on the best of terms, bnt they began to drink and gamble together, and the natural consequences followed. Quarrels arose, which at first were merely personal, but as the convicts and soldiers, when their disputes brought them under the notice of the authorities, were not dealt with alike, the two classes became hostile to each other, andciAM antipathies. a very bitter feeling was engendered. The quarrel was aggravated by the licentiousness of some of the soldiers, who intrigued with the wives of the convict settlers, and continued their improper conduct affcer they had been ordered by their officers to desist. A soldier named Windsor, who had seduced a settler's wife and had been forbidden to go near the place, enticed the woman from her home, and the husband met the two together. In his anger he struck the soldier, who made a complaint. The settler. The settler a man named Dring,* whose sentence as a convict had tidier? expired, was brought before the Justices, who fined him twenty shillings. As the defendant had not the means of payment. King allowed the fine to stand over until he had got in his crops. He was also required to give securifcy for good behaviour towards Windsor for twelve months. The soldiers, who had placed themselves upon a level with the convict population by voluntarily associating with them, con- sidered it a heinous offence for one of that class to strike a member of the Corps, and an outcry arose both against the levity of the sentence and its suspension by the Lieutenant- Governor. A settler named Smith, who was a friend of Dring and became his surety, was drawn into the quarrel. Other disputes followed. The parties complained of each open other to the magistrates, who ordered in one instance a hundred lashes to a convict named Cooper for striking a soldier, but the punishment was remitted by King at the request of the soldier and his comrades. King as a yerj useful man. — Historical Beeords, yoL ii, p. X(yk,
 * -I . rupture.
 * Dring wBB empiojrd as coxBwain of tiie boati, and vrat described by