adopted steps of an hostile complexion, several unfortunate
convicts being found murdered in the woods. In vain did the
governor issue order after order, and proclamation after
proclamation; insults still continued to be offered to the
natives, and such acts of retaliation ensued as circumstances
would allow. Governor Phillip, himself, was wounded by a spear
which one of the savages threw at him, under the influence of a
momentary apprehension. Another evil to which the colony was
subjected, arose from the pressure of occasional scarcity, which
relaxed the sinews of industry, where it did exist, or
strengthened the pretexts of indolence: when men were reduced
from a plentiful allowance, to a weekly ration, which scarcely
sufficed to preserve existence; when the storehouses were almost
empty of provisions, and the boundless ocean presented no object
of relief to the aching and strained eyes of the sufferers; and
when the busy mind painted to itself the dangers, inseparable
from a voyage of such length, which might intervene to delay the
arrival of succours, until horror and wretchedness should have
been heightened to the utmost; no inclination to laborious
exertion existed, and no hand had the power to wield and employ
the implements of toil. The progress of the settlement towards
maturity was necessarily retarded; and the operations which
proceeded, at these periods of general debility, were compelled
to move with a slowness which afforded but a faint promise of
speedy perfection. Under this combination of disadvantages, it
affords proof of no common perseverance to find, that the
settlement had been scarcely established four years, before two
towns were formed, and the colony seemed rapidly advancing to the
appearance of maturity.