besides garden seeds, grain, and other requisites.




CHAPTER XI


A Description of the Natives of New South Wales, and our Transactions
with them.


I doubt not my readers will be as glad as I feel myself, to conclude the
dull detail of the last chapter. If they please, they may turn from the
subtle intricacies of the law, to contemplate the simple, undisguised
workings of nature, in her most artless colouring.

I have already said, we had been but very few days at Port Jackson, when
an alteration in the behaviour of the natives was perceptible; and I
wish I could add, that a longer residence in their neighbourhood had
introduced a greater degree of cordiality and intermixture between
the old, and new, lords of the soil, than at the day on which this
publication is dated subsists.

From their easy reception of us in the beginning, many were induced to
call in question the accounts which Mr. Cook had given of this people.
That celebrated navigator, we were willing believe, had somehow by
his conduct offended them, which prevented the intercourse that would
otherwise have taken place. The result, however, of our repeated
endeavours to induce them to come among us has been such as to confirm