Mill, and the stone foundation of the Log Prison, were much advanced.

October.] The governor, still turning his thoughts toward rectifying the abuses which had imperceptibly crept into the colony, arranged in the beginning of the following month (October) the muster lists which had lately been taken; and, many more impositions being detected, he ordered the delinquents to labour, after inflicting on them such punishments as their respective offences seemed to demand; by which means he was enabled considerably to increase the number of labouring people in the public gangs. On his going up to Parramatta, whither he was attended by Captain Johnston as his aid-de-camp, and Mr. Balmain (the surgeon) as a magistrate, he recovered at least one hundred men for government work.

Exclusive of the advantage which attended the recruiting of the public gangs in this way, another point was established by this examination, the discovering of several who had been victualled from the stores beyond the period (eighteen months) which had been fixed and considered by government as a sufficient time to enable an industrious man to provide for himself.

Directing his attention also toward the morality of the settlement, a point which he could not venture to promise himself that he should ever attain, he issued some necessary orders for enforcing attendance on divine service, and had the satisfaction of seeing the Sabbath better observed than it had been for some time past. But there were some who were refractory. A fellow named Carroll, an Irishman, abused and ill treated a constable who was on his duty, ordering the people to church; saying, that he would neither obey the clergyman nor the governor; for which, the next day, he was properly punished.

On the morning of the 16th, the people of a boat which had been sent to the north shore for wood found a man's hat, and a large hammer lying by it. One side of the hat had apparently been beaten in with the hammer, which was bloody; and much blood was also found in the hat, as well as about the spot where it was discovered. It was immediately conjectured, that a man who had been working there with some carpenter's tools had been murdered; and upon its being made known to the governor, he sent several persons to search for the body, which was found thrown over the cliff, and near the water side. On its being examined by the surgeons, the skull was found beaten in, which must have been effected with the hammer, and occasioned his death. Some suspicion falling upon two people, they were secured, and an examination was the next day taken before the magistrates; but nothing transpired that could fix the offence upon them.

This shocking circumstance was followed shortly after by another equally atrocious: a murder which was committed by a man on the person of a woman with whom he cohabited. It appeared that they had both been intoxicated, and had quarrelled on the night preceding and in the morning of the murder.

This made the fifth circumstance of the kind which had occurred within the last twelve months; and so excessively abandoned were the people, that it was scarcely possible to obtain sufficient proof to convict the offenders. Strong presumptive proof, indeed, was frequently adduced; but the kind of evidence necessary to establish the offence was almost constantly withheld.

About this time, some dissatisfaction appearing among the Irish convicts who were ordered to labour, and some threats having been made use of by them, the governor thought it necessary to inform the inhabitants of the colony in general, that, after having pointed out a number of people who had, by false pretences, and various impositions, obtained certificates of discharge from the commissary's books, he did not expect so soon to have occasion to enter again upon the same subject. He then, taking notice of those who had not hesitated to hold a language which implied a determination to resist all authority, declared, that if any officer, civil or military, any settler, or other person within the colony, should, after Monday, the 7th of November, retain in his or their service any one or more of the persons described in a former order, such persons should be considered as encouraging a set of lawless and seditious people, to the total subversion of all order and government, and to the weakening of His Majesty's authority in the settlement. He next informed the people whose conduct had occasioned this order, that if they were of opinion, that to threaten would be the best means of obtaining what they desired, they might repent that opinion when too late. That there would not be any difficulty found in furnishing them with a situation in the colony, or in some of its dependencies, where they would not be able to disturb the peace of their neighbours; and that if they were troublesome here, they should certainly be placed in that situation very soon. He concluded this order by informing all the inhabitants of the colony, whether in a civil or a military capacity, that he expected, as they valued His Majesty's authority, or the peace and civil government of the settlement, that they would exert every effort to preserve good order; and, to that end, that they should aid and assist the civil power when and wherever it might be necessary, and report all such persons as they might know to be in any way acting in opposition to this order.

It was hoped by the governor, that this order would convince the people particularly styled defenders, that, if they continued to be troublesome, they would not very readily escape from the punishment to which their turbulent and restless conduct might entitle them.

From the accession of numbers to the public gangs, the different works in hand at Sydney and Parramatta went rapidly on. At the former of these places the erection of a granary, 72 feet in length and 22 in breadth, was begun on the west side of the main street, there not being a building for the reception of grain yet prepared in that township.

Boats were sent round to the Hawkesbury, for various articles wanted at Sydney. From that part of the settlement, the timber most useful for boat and other buildings was occasionally received; shingles also of a good sort were brought round; and frequently the boats returned loaded with grain. It has been shown, in the account of this colony already published, that the farms upon the fertile banks of that river were superior, in point of soil, to any near the principal settlement; and that, had they been in the hands of good and industrious characters, they would have produced abundant crops, and enriched their owners. But every day's experience evinced, that the people thus fortunately situated were, unluckily, some of the most profligate wretches in the colony; and their distance from the immediate seat of government added much to the inconvenience. Such of these farms as were situated on the low grounds were often overflowed after very heavy falls of rain; but this circumstance was in no way injurious to the farmer, unless it happened when the grain was ripening.

Among other local arrangements which took place, and were extremely useful, must be reckoned the numbering of the houses of the towns of Sydney and Parramatta, and dividing them into portions; with a principal inhabitant at the head of each division, who was charged with the peace and good order of the district in which he lived.

The frame of the Log Prison at Sydney was got up in the course of this month, to the great annoyance of the worthless, who seemed to anticipate the lodging in it which they merited.

At Parramatta and Toongabbie a very few old stacks of wheat belonging to government were opened for the purpose of being thrashed out, when they were found to have been much injured by vermine.

In the course of this month, Bennillong, who had returned to all the habits of savage life, claimed the protection of the governor from the menaces of several of his countrymen, who, he with much agitation informed him, had assembled in a considerable body near the