Part 83

The plot was revealed to a seaman of the Sirius, who lived with Mr. King as a gardener, by a female convict who cohabited with him. On being acquainted with the circumstances, the Commandant took such measures as appeared to him necessary to defeat the object of the plotters; and several who were concerned in the scheme were arrested and confessed the share they were to have had in the execution of it.

Mr. King had hitherto, from the peculiarity of his situation--secluded from society, and confined to a small speck in the vast ocean, with but a handful of people--drawn them around him, and had treated them in a kindly and even confidential and affectionate manner; but now he saw that these felons were too ingrained with vice to appreciate such treatment, and one of his first steps was to clear the ground as far as was possible round the settlement, that future villainy might not find a shelter in the woods. To this truly providential circumstance many of the colonists were afterwards indebted for their lives in an outbreak that took place after he had quitted the island.

At this time there were on the island 16 free people, 51 male and 23 female convicts, and 4 children.

In June, 1789, Lieutenant Creswell was sent with 14 privates of the Marines to Norfolk Island, and with a written order from His Excellency requiring Creswell to take upon himself the direction and execution of the authority invested in Lieutenant King, in the event of any accident happening to the latter.

In March, 1790, 116 male and 68 female convicts were sent to Norfolk Island and 27 children. Major Ross was appointed to supersede King; both the Sirius and the Supply arrived, but unhappily the former ran upon the reef on the 19th April. All the officers and people were saved, being dragged on shore through the surf on a grating.

King returned to New South Wales in the Supply. There had been disaster and distress in the colony there. The sheep had been stolen and the cattle lost in the woods, and these were not found till 1795, after they had been lost for seven years, and they were then found grazing on a remote clearing, and had increased to a surprising degree.

It was now determined that Lieutenant King should return to England and report progress. A Dutch vessel was hired to take him and the officers and men of the Sirius home. He sailed in the Batavia in April, 1790, and arrived in England December 20th, 1790.

Philip Gidley King was appointed Governor of New South Wales, September, 1800, and held that appointment till 15th August, 1806, when his health failing he returned to England, and died at Lower Tooting, Surrey, 3rd September, 1808.

He was the father of Rear-Admiral Philip Parker King, who was born on Norfolk Island, 13th December, 1791, after his father had left for England. He entered the Royal Navy as first-class volunteer in 1807, midshipman in 1809, lieutenant in 1814. He married Harriet, daughter of Christopher Lethbridge, of Launceston, and died at Sydney 25th February, 1856, and was buried at Parramatta beside his mother, who had been laid there many years before, not having come to England. There is no record as to who and what she was.

For information relative to Philip Gidley King his Diary may be consulted in John Hunter's Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island, 1795; see also David Collins's Account of the English Colony of New South Wales, 1798-1802.

HICKS OF BODMIN

William Robert Hicks was born at Bodmin on 1st April, 1808--not to be an April fool himself, but to be a right merry jester, and not infrequently to make fools of others. He was the son of a schoolmaster, and he, Sir William Molesworth, of Pencarrow, and Colonel Hamley were educated together for a while in the school of his father.

William Robert became Clerk of the Board of Guardians, Clerk of the Highway Board, and Governor of the County Lunatic Asylum. He was a man of many parts, a good mathematician, a clear-headed and cool man of business, a musician, who could play on the violin and play it well. But he was noted above everything else as a humorist.

He was a short man and inordinately stout, weighing sixteen stone. He had a broad, flexible, somewhat flabby face, with a pair of twinkling grey eyes, a short nose, somewhat protruding thick under lip, and double chin that was very pronounced, and whiskers. What was noticeable in Hicks's face was its flexibility. He possessed the art and the power to tell his story with his countenance as with his voice. Indeed, the alterations of mood in his face were like a musical accompaniment to a song. He was thought the best story-teller of his day; was known as such in Cornwall and Devon, but was not so well appreciated in London, where the peculiar dry humour of the West, as well as the dialect, did not appeal to ordinary hearers as they do in the two Western Counties. One of his many Cornish friends once took Hicks up to town and dined him at his club, thinking that he would keep the table in a roar. But it was not so. His stories fell somewhat flat, and that damped his spirits and he subsided.

One of Hicks's earliest and best friends was George Wightwick, the architect, born at Mold in Flintshire in 1802, who set up as architect in Plymouth in 1829, and was employed to build additions to Bodmin Gaol in 1842 and 1847. He was author of The Palace of Architecture, published in 1840. And though he was an excellent raconteur, second only to Hicks, he was a most egregiously bad architect. Yet, strangely enough, Mr. Wightwick supposed himself to be enlightened in the matter of Gothic architecture, and in 1835 published in Loudon's Architectural Magazine "A few observations on reviving taste for pointed Architecture, with an illustrated description of a chapel just erected at Bude Haven under the direction of the author."

Wightwick it was who had the merit of discovering Hicks and of introducing him to notables in Devon and Cornwall, for, miserable architect though he was, he had got the ear of the public in the West as a man of charming manners and teeming with anecdote. Through him Hicks obtained access into many a country house, where they would sing, accompanying themselves on the violin, and tell stories.

Hicks was made Governor of Bodmin Asylum in 1848, and found the old barbarous system of treatment of the insane in full swing. He at once adopted gentle methods and in a short while radically changed the entire mode of treatment, with markedly good results.

One poor fellow, whom he found chained in a dark cell on a bed of straw as a dangerous lunatic, he nearly cured by kindly treatment. As the fellow showed indications of great shrewdness and wit, Hicks released him and made much of him. A gentleman on a visit to the asylum once said to the lunatic, "I hear, man, that you are Hicks's fool."

"Aw," replied he; "I zee you do your awn business in that line."

He was once asked, "Whither does this path go, my man?" He answered readily, "Zure I cannot tell 'ee. I've knawed un bide here these last twenty year."

He was sitting on the high wall of the asylum that commanded the road for some distance, with a turnpike at the bottom of the hill. The company of a circus passed by, with the various horses. As the manager rode past, the lunatic said to him, "'Ow much might 'ee pay turnpike for they there spekkady hosses?" "Oh," said the manager, "the same as for the others." "Do 'ee now?" said the man on the wall. "Well to be zure; my vather 'ad a spekkady hoss that never paid no turnpike. They there sparky (speckled) hosses don't pay no turnpikes here."

"Bless my life," said the manager; "I am much obliged to you for informing me of the fact. So, sir, I am to understand that piebald horses are exempt from paying at the toll-gate?"

"What I zed I bides by. They there spekkady hosses never pay no turnpikes here in Cornwall. What they may do elsewhere, I can't zay."

The lunatic watched the cavalcade proceed down the hill, and when it reached the turnpike, he enjoyed watching a lively altercation going on between the toll-taker and the manager. Presently the latter came galloping back, very hot and angry.

"What do you mean by telling me that in Cornwall piebald horses pay no turnpike?"

"Right it is so--cos you have to pay it vor 'un," said the man and stepped out of reach inside the wall.

One day this same man was put to watch a raving maniac, who, for his own safety, when the fit was on him, used to be put in a padded room. There was an eyehole in the door, and the lunatic, whom Mr. Collier calls Daniel, was set to watch him. The poor wretch in his ravings called, "Bring down the baggonets! Oh, marcy on me! Forty thousand Roosians! Oh! oh! oh! I wish I was in Abraham's bosom," and began to kick and plunge furiously. On which Daniel shouted to him through the hole, "Why I tell'ee if you was, you'd kick the guts out of 'un."

Daniel came from Tavistock, where he used to walk out with a girl. As he told the story himself--"I was keepin' company with a maid, and I went to the parson. Says I to he, 'I want you, however, to promise me wan thing,' says I. 'What is it?' says he. 'I want you to promise me,' says I, 'never to marry me to thickee there maid when I be drunk.' He zaid he'd promise me that, quite sure. 'Thankee, your honour,' said I; 'then I'm all right, for I'll take damned good care you never do it when I'm zober.'"