There were, however,
among the convicts some who were so unthinking, or so depraved, as
wantonly to destroy a canoe belonging to a fine young man, a native, who
had left it at some little distance from the settlement, and as he hoped
out of the way of observation, while he went with some fish to the huts.
His rage at finding his canoe destroyed was inconceivable; and he
threatened to take his own revenge, and in his own way, upon all white
people. Three of the six people who had done him the injury, however,
were so well described by some one who had seen them, that, being closely
followed, they were taken and punished, as were the remainder in a few
days after.
The instant effect of all this was, that the natives discontinued to
bring up fish; and Bal-loo-der-ry, whose canoe had been destroyed,
although he had been taught to believe that one of the six convicts had
been hanged for the offence, meeting a few days afterwards with a poor
wretch who had strayed from Parramatta as far as the Flats, he wounded
him in two places with a spear. This act of Ballooderry's was followed by
the governor's strictly forbidding him to appear again at any of the
settlements; the other natives, his friends, being alarmed, Parramatta
was seldom visited by any of them, and all commerce with them was
destroyed.
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