lantic under medical treatment, being weak, emaciated, and unfit for any kind of labour; and the list was daily increasing. It might have been supposed, that on changing from the unwholesome air of a ship's between decks to the purer air of the country, the weak would have gathered strength; but it had been observed, that in general, soon after landing, the convicts were affected with dysenteric complaints, perhaps caused by the change of water, many dying, and others who had strength to overcome the disease recovering from it but slowly. On the 28th the William and Ann transport arrived, having on board one serjeant and twelve privates, one hundred and eighty-one male convicts, with her proportion of stores and provisions. She had lost seven convicts on the passage; the remainder were very healthy, five only being so ill as to require removal.

The town beginning to fill with strangers (officers and seamen from the transports), and spirituous liquors finding their way among the convicts, it was ordered that none should be landed until a permit had been granted by the Judge-advocate. Bal-loo-der-ry, the proscribed native, having ventured into the town with some of his friends, one or two armed parties were sent to seize him; and a spear having been thrown (it was said by him) two musquets were fired, by which one of his companions was wounded in the leg; but Bal-loo der-ry was not taken. On the following day it was given out in orders, that he was to be taken whenever an opportunity offered; and that any native attempting to throw a spear in his defence (as it was well known among them why vengeance was denounced against him) was, if possible, to be prevented from escaping with impunity. On 3d of September, near two hundred male convicts, with a serjeant's party of the New South Wales corps, some stores and provisions, having been put on board the Salamander, she sailed for Norfolk Island; and the Mary Ann returned from that settlement on the 8th, having been absent only four weeks and two days. The convicts, stores, and provisions were all safely landed; but an unexpected surf rising at the back of the reef, filled the only boat (a Greenland whale boat) which the master took with him, and she was dashed upon the reef, and stove: the people fortunately saved themselves by swimming.

On the 21st, his Majesty's ship Gorgon, of 44 guns, commanded by Captain John Parker, anchored within the heads. She had sailed from England on the 15th of March last, touching at the islands of Teneriffe and St. Jago, and at the Cape of Good Hope, where she remained six weeks, taking in three bulls, twenty-three cows, sixty-eight sheep, eleven hogs, two hundred fruit-trees, a quantity of garden-seed, and other articles for the colony. Unfortunately, the bulls and seven of the cows died; but a bull-calf, which had been produced on board, arrived in good condition.

Six months' provisions for about nine hundred people, with stores for his majesty's armed tender the Supply, and for the marine detachment, were sent out in the Gorgon; wherein also was embarked Mr King, the late commandant of Norfolk Island, now appointed by his Majesty Lieutenant-governor of that settlement, and a commander in the navy; together with a deputy surveyor-general, to be employed at Norfolk Island; the chaplain and quarter-master of the New South Wales corps, and a superintendant of convicts. By this ship also came a public seal, to be affixed to all instruments drawn in his Majesty's name; and a commission under the great seal, empowering the Governor for the time being to remit, either absolutely or conditionally, the whole or any part of the term for which felons, or other offenders, should have been, or might hereafter be transported to that country. Duplicates of each pardon were to be sent to England for the purpose of inserting the names of the persons so emancipated in the first general pardon which should afterwards issue under the great seal of the kingdom.

The cattle were immediately landed, and turned into the inclosures which had been prepared for them. One cow died in the boat going up. The remaining transports of the fleet

;

:

were now dropping in. On the 26th, the Active from England, and the Queen from Ireland, with convicts of that country, arrived. On board of the Active, beside the serjeant's guard, were one hundred and fifty-four male convicts. An officer's party was on board the Queen, with one hundred and twenty-six male and twenty-three female convicts, and three children. These ships had been unhealthy, and had buried several convicts in their passage. The sick which they brought in were landed immediately; and many of those who remained, and were not so ill as to require medical assistance, were brought ashore in an emaciated and feeble condition, particularly the convicts from the Active. They in general complained of not having received the allowance intended for them; but their emaciated appearance was to be ascribed as much to confinement as to any other cause. The convicts from the Queen, however, accusing the master of having withheld their provisions, an enquiry took place before the magistrates, and it appeared, beyond a doubt, that great abuses had been practised in the issuing of the provisions; but as to the quantity withheld, it was not possible to ascertain it so clearly, as to admit of directing the deficiency to be made good, or of punishing the parties with that retributive justice for which the heinousness of their offence so loudly called: the proceedings of the magistrates were therefore submitted to the governor, who determined to transmit them to the secretary of state.

The remainder of the transports expected did not arrive till the middle of October. The Albemarle was off the coast some days, and arrived on the 15th, with two hundred and fifty male and six female convicts, her proportion of stores and provisions, and a serjeant's party. The convicts of this ship made an attempt, in conjunction with some of the seamen, to seize her on the 9th of April, soon after she left England; and they would in all probability have succeeded, but for the activity and resolution shewn by the master, Mr George Bowen, who, hearing the alarm, had just time to arm himself with a loaded blunderbuss, which he discharged at one of the mutineers, William Sydney (then in the act of aiming a blow with a cutlass at the man at the wheel), and lodged its contents in his shoulder. His companions, seeing what had befallen him, instantly ran below; but the master, his officers, and some of the seamen of the ship, following them, soon secured the ring-leaders, Owen Lyons and William Sydney. A consultation was held with the naval agent, the ship's company, and the military persons on board; the result of which was, the immediate execution of those two at the fore-yard-arm. They had at this time parted company with the other transports, and no other means seemed so likely to deter the convicts from any future attempt of the like nature. It afterwards appearing that two seamen had supplied them with instruments for sawing off their irons, these were left at the island of Madeira, to to be sent prisoners to England.

On the following day the Britannia arrived, with one hundred and twenty-nine male convicts, stores, and provisions on board; and on the 16th the Admiral Barrington, the last of the ten sail of transports, anchored in the cove, having on board a captain and a party of the New South Wales corps, with two hundred and sixty-four male convicts, four women, and one child. She too had been unhealthy, having lost thirty-six convicts in the passage, and brought in eighty-four persons sick. Her stores and proportion of provision were the same as on board of the other ships.

The whole number of convicts now received into the colony, including thirty on board the Gorgon, were, male convicts one thousand six hundred and ninety-five; females one hundred and sixty-eight; and children nine. There were also eight free women (wives of convicts), and one child; making a total number of one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one persons, exclusive of the military. Upwards of two hundred convicts, male and female, had died on their passage.

Of the ten sail of transports, five, after delivering their cargoes, were to proceed on the Southern Whale Fishery. The

L

other transports were to proceed to Bombay. The quantity of provisions received by these ships being calculated for the numbers on board of each for nine months only after their arrival; and as, so large a body of convicts having been sent out, it was not probable that they should soon have another supply, the Governor judged it expedient to send one of the transports to Bengal, to procure provision for the colony; for which purpose he hired the Atlantic at fifteen shillings and sixpence per ton per month.

On the anniversary of his Majesty's accession to the throne, a salute of one and twenty guns was fired by the Gorgon; and at the public dinner given on the occasion at the Government-house, upwards of fifty officers were assembled; a greater number than had ever before met in that colony.

On the 26th the Atlantic sailed for Norfolk Island and Calcutta; for the first of these places, she had on board Lieutenant-Governor King and his family; a Captain of the New South Wales corps; an assistant-surgeon; the Rev. Mr Johnson, who voluntarily visited Norfolk Island for the purpose of performing those duties of his office which had hitherto been omitted through the want of a minister to perform them; twenty-nine settlers discharged from the marines; several male and female convicts, and some few settlers from that class of people.

The tranquillity of the little town of Sydney was much less disturbed than it was imagined would have been the case, from the great influx of disorderly seamen who were at times let loose from the transports; this, probably, was owing to the enforcing of the port-orders, from the first, with some degree of severity.

On the first day of November, information was received from Parramatta, that a body of twenty male convicts and one female, of those lately arrived in the Queen transport from Ireland, each taking a week's provision, and armed with tomahawks and knives, had absconded from that settlement, with the chimerical idea of walking to China, or of finding