n retired to a
shrubbery in his master's garden, and shot himself through the head.

From the love of money, which no mean authority has pronounced to be
"the root of all evil,"[105] arose likewise that spirit of gambling,
which ended in murder on one occasion before the settlement had existed
more than six years; and which on many occasions was the manifest cause
of misery and ruin to those in whom this evil spirit had taken up its
abode. To such excess was the pursuit of gambling carried among the
convicts, that some had been known, after losing provisions, money, and
all their spare clothing, to have staked and lost the very clothes on
their wretched backs, standing in the midst of their associates as
degraded, and as careless of their degradation, as the natives of the
country which these gamblers disgraced. Money was their principal
object, for with money they could purchase spirits, or whatever else
their passions made them covet, or the colony could furnish. These
unhappy men have been seen to play at their favourite games for six,
eight, and ten dollars each game; and those who were not expert at
these, instead of pence, tossed up for dollars![106]

[105] 1 Tim. vi. 10.

[106] Collins' Account of New South Wales, pp. 243, 244.

CHAPTER VIII.

FURTHER PROGRESS OF THE COLONY TO 1821.

The month of August, 1795, was marked in the annals of New South Wales
by the arrival of the second governor of the colony, Captain Hunter, who
continued five years in power, and returned to England in the year 1800,
after having seen the colony over which he was placed prospering and
thriving enough in worldly matters, though in other more important
points it continued poor and naked indeed. It was a great object with
the new governor to check and restrain that love of liquor, which he saw
working so much mischief among his people; and several private stills
were found and destroyed, to the great regret of their owners, who made
twice as large a profit from the spirit distilled by them out of wheat,
as they would have been able to have gained, had they sold their grain
for the purpose of making bread. So common was the abuse of paying
wages in liquor,[107] that it was pretended that the produce of these
stills was only to be paid away in labour, whereas it was sold for a
means of intoxication to any person who would bring ready money for it.
At the commencement of harvest, in the November immediately following
the