The Book of the Bush - Containing Many Truthful Sketches Of The Early Colonial - Life Of Squatters, Whalers, Convicts, Diggers, And Others - Who Left Their Native Land And Never Returned by George Dunderdale
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page 19 of 391 (04%)
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native custom. It was through the resident that all the trading of
the tribe was carried on. He bought and paid for the flax, and employed men to cut the pine logs and float them down the rivers to the ships. Every whaling and trading vessel that returned to Sydney or Van Diemen's Land brought back accounts of the wonderful prospects which the islands afforded to men of enterprise, and New Zealand became the favourite refuge for criminals, runaway prisoners, and other lovers of freedom. When, therefore the crew of the schooner 'Industry' threw Captain Blogg overboard, it was a great comfort to them to know that they were going to an island in which there was no Government. Captain Blogg had arrived from England with a bad character. He had been tried for murder. He had been ordered to pay five hundred pounds as damages to his mate, whom he had imprisoned at sea in a hencoop, and left to pick up his food with the fowls. He had been out-lawed, and forbidden to sail as officer in any British ship. These were facts made known to, and discussed by, all the whalers who entered the Tamar, when the whaling season was over in the year 1835. And yet the notorious Blogg found no difficulty in buying the schooner 'Industry', taking in a cargo, and obtaining a clearance for Hokianga, in New Zealand. He had shipped a crew consisting of a mate, four seamen, and a cook. Black Ned Tomlins, Jim Parrish, and a few other friends interviewed the crew when the 'Industry' was getting ready for sea. Black Ned was a half-breed native of Kangaroo Island, and was looked upon as the best whaler in the colonies, and the smartest man ever seen in a boat. He was the principal speaker. He put the case to the crew in |
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