The men were very weak, having had nothing to eat for four days but some sow thistles and a musk duck, and the pull to Port Fairy was hard and long.  They landed about four o’clock in the afternoon, and Captain Mills told them not to eat anything, saying he would give them something better.  At that time there was a liquor called “black strap,” brought out in the convict ships for the use of the prisoners, and it was sold with the ships’ surplus stores in Sydney and Hobarton.  Mills had some of it at Port Fairy.  He now put a kettle full of it on the fire, and when it was warmed gave each man a half a pint to begin with.  He then told them to go and get supper, and afterwards he gave each of them another half pint.

Rum was in those days a very profitable article of commerce, and the trade in it was monopolised by the Government officers, civil and military.  Like flour in the back settlements of the United States, it was reckoned “ekal to cash,” and was made to do the office of the pagoda tree in India, which rained dollars at every shake.

The boat that was lost by Smith at the Hopkins was found in good condition, half filled with sand.  Joe Wilson went for it afterwards, and brought it back to Port Fairy.  He was a native of Sydney, and nephew of Raibey of Launceston, and was murdered not long afterwards at the White Hills.  He was sent by Raibey on horseback to Hobarton to buy the revenue cutter ‘Charlotte’, which had been advertised for sale.  He was shot by a man who was waiting for him behind a tree.  He fell from his horse, and although he begged hard for his life, the man beat out his brains with the gun.  The murderer took all the money Wilson had, which was only one five-pound note, the number of which Raibey knew.  A woman tried to pass it in Launceston, and her statements led to the discovery and conviction of the murderer, who was hanged in chains at the White Hills, and the gibbet remained there for many years.

WHALING.

“I wish I were in Portland Bay,
Oh, yes, Oh! 
Harpooning whales on a thirtieth lay,
A hundred years ago.”

In the year 1837, J. B. Mills had charge of the Portland Fishery, and Davy went with him in the ‘Thistle’ schooner as mate and navigator, and they were over a month on the passage.  Charles Mills was second in command at the station at Portland, and Peter Coakley, an Irishman, was third; the remainder of the crew required for whaling was on board the ‘Thistle’.  Among them was one named McCann, a Sydney native, a stonemason by trade, and father of the McCann who was afterwards member of Parliament for Geelong.  During a westerly gale the schooner ran to Western Port for shelter.  In sailing through the Rip, McCann, who was acting as steward, while going aft to the cabin, had to cross over a colonial sofa which was lashed on deck.  Instead of stepping over it gently, he made a jump, and the vessel lurching