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Updated: June 18, 2025
After clearing the boat, they collected the oars and such articles as had been driven on shore in different places; and in these friendly offices, Bannelong was very assiduous: this behaviour gave Governor Phillip an opportunity of receiving him in a more kindly manner than he had done since his bad behaviour.
Bannelong appeared very much at his ease, and not under the least apprehension of being detained; promising, when he went away, to bring his wife over, which he did two days afterwards: his sister and two men came likewise, and a third soon followed: blankets, and some cloathing were given them, and each had a belly-full of fish; Bannelong sat down to dinner with Governor Phillip, and drank his wine and coffee as usual.
Bannelong and Colebe with their wives, dined at the governor's on the 8th of May, and came in as usual, to have a glass of wine and a dish of coffee; after which they left the house to go and sleep at Bannelong's hut on the point; but, in the middle of the night, Governor Phillip was called up by the cries of the young girl whom he had formerly rescued from Bannelong: she, it seems, had gone to sleep in a shed at the back of the governor's house, and Bannelong, Colebe, and two others got over the paling, and were endeavouring to carry her off, which the centinels prevented; and, as Governor Phillip did not know at the moment, but that Bannelong and those who were with him, had returned to sleep in the yard after he went to bed, and before the gate was locked, they were permitted to escape; which, indeed, could only have been prevented by ordering them to be put to death.
After this business was over, most of them returned and sat down in the yard at the back of Governor Phillip's house; but Bannelong went into the house as usual, and finding the governor writing, sat down by him: he appeared very much out of humour, and frequently said that he was going to beat a woman with a hatchet which he held in his hand: it was impossible to persuade him to say he would not beat her, and after some time he got up, saying that he could not dine with the governor, as he was going to beat the woman.
Bannelong, after an absence of several days, returned to the settlement; and the services he had rendered the boat's crew when they were in danger of being lost, being considered as an atonement for his past offences, he was admitted into Governor Phillip's house; in consequence of this reconciliation, the number of visitors greatly increased, the governor's yard being their head quarters.
Ballederry, the young native who absented himself after wounding a man, in revenge for some of the convicts having destroyed his canoe, had lately made several enquiries by his friends, whether Governor Phillip was still angry; and they were always told in answer to those enquiries, that he was angry, and that Ballederry should be killed for wounding a white man; yet this did not deter him from coming into the cove in a canoe, and the governor being informed of it, ordered a party of soldiers to go and secure him; but Bannelong, who was present at the time, seeing the soldiers go towards the point, gave him the alarm, and he went off.
Bannelong was a perfect Lazarus, and though he was easily persuaded to go to the hospital and rub himself, yet it was not possible to make him stay there till he was cured. On the 28th of August, the William and Ann transport anchored in the cove.
A few minutes before this affair happened, nineteen of the natives had been counted round our party, and the position they took showed their judgment: on the ground where Bannelong and Colebe joined them, the trees stood at the distance of forty or fifty feet from each other, and, had the natives kept together, shelter might have been found from their spears behind a tree; but whilst four of them remained in front, at the distance of forty yards, four or five others placed themselves on the right, and the same number on the left, at about the same distance; others again were planted between them and the beach, at the distance of ten or fifteen yards, which rendered it impossible either to carry off their companions or to gain shelter from their spears, if hostilities commenced; and though these people do not always keep their spears in their hands, they are seldom without their throwing-sticks, and generally have a spear lying near them in the grass, which they move with their feet as they change their ground: however, it is not likely that this disposition was made with any bad intention, but merely as a security for Bannelong and Colebe; indeed, these men directed the manoeuvre and waited till it was made, before they came near enough to shake hands.
The three natives slept that night at Rose-Hill, and though fed very plentifully, yet, the next morning, they were very desirous of returning; on this, Governor Phillip sent the boat down with them, on the return of which he fully expected to hear that mistress Barangaroo's head was under the care of the surgeon; but, to his great surprise, both she and her husband came up in the boat the next morning, and Bannelong said he had not beat her; but whether he was deterred by what had so frequently been said to him on the subject, or from some other cause, could not be known: however, a reconciliation had taken place, and they both dined with the governor in great good humour.
This man had stood for some time peaceably and quietly, and the governor certainly was more in his power before he went to call the officers out of the boat, than at the time the spear was thrown; it is therefore most likely that the action proceeded from a momentary impulse of fear; but the behaviour of Bannelong on this occasion is not so easily to be accounted for; he never attempted to interfere when the man took the spear up, or said a single word to prevent him from throwing it; he possibly did not think the spear would be thrown, and the whole was but the business of a moment.
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