Читать книгу The English Colony in New South Wales (Vol. 1&2). Narrative of the British First Settlement in Australia 1788-1801 онлайн

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[* She was afterwards generally known by the name of The Lump, a word more strictly applying to her size and construction.]

Our enemies the rats, who worked unseen, and attacked us where we were most vulnerable, being again observed in numbers about the provision store, the commissary caused the provisions to be moved out of one store into another; for, alas! at this period they could be all contained in one. These pernicious vermin were found to be very numerous, and the damage they had done much greater than the state of our stores would admit. Eight casks of flour were at one time found wholly destroyed. From the store, such as escaped the hunger of the different dogs that were turned loose upon them flew to the gardens of individuals, where they rioted upon the Indian corn which was growing, and did considerable mischief

The presence of a captain being no longer deemed necessary at Rose Hill, the military guard there for the protection of the stores was reduced to a subaltern officer, and a proportionate number of privates. Mr. Dodd, who had for some time been authorized by the governor to inflict corporal punishment on the convicts for idleness, rioting, or other misdemeanors, had obtained such an influence over them, that military coercion was not so necessary as when the settlement was first established. Of this person, the officers who had been on duty at Rose Hill from time to time gave the most favourable reports, speaking of him as one in every respect qualified to execute the trust which had been reposed in him by the governor.