Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 5]
Smuggling - Whole Cargoe's have been put on shore in direct disobedienc of Public Orders; if you coud get from Mr King a Sight of the Public Orders which I have Issued, a Copy of which I sent home in order that His Majestys Minister might see what my principal Objects had been since My Arrival; You wou'd there observe repeated Orders on the Subject of Spirits, but which those Concern'd in such traffic paid little or no attention to; and it was difficult for me without proper assistance to bring the Charge of disobedience home to individuals, If I coud have done tthat by Legal Proof they shoud have found I was determind to be decisive.
At the time I landed at Sydney we cou'd not get together more Mess for any public labor at this place than Sufficient to unload a Longboat, it was at the same time known there were three or four hundred who ought to have been Employ'd on the Public Account, but they had been Sufferd to Separate & Smuggle themselves away, & were Conceald & Employd by private persons, whilst mintaind at the Public Expense.
These Shameful impositions were permitted, you may believe only until I coud be made acquainted with them, for I did not find any person in the Colony inclind to Open my Eyes, when they discoverd that I was disposed to look Narrowly into the Public Concerns; I have however Examind in the most Scrupulous Manner & have recoverd to the public about 250 laboring people, with whom we now make some progress in those Concerns which had been long standing still which private individuals were inriching themselves, by the labor of those who were fed & Cloathd at the Public