September.] In England some dependence had been placed on fish as a resource for the settlement, but sufficient for a general distribution had not hitherto been caught at any one time.  On the 4th of this month the people belonging to the Supply had a very large haul; their seine was so full, that had they hauled it ashore it must have burst; the ropes of it were therefore made fast on shore, and the seine was suffered to lie until left dry by the tide.  The fish were brought up to the settlement, and distributed among the military and convicts.  A night or two after this, a fishing-boat caught about one hundred dozen of small fish; but this was precarious, and, happening after the provisions were served, no other advantage could be derived from the circumstance, than that of every man’s having a fish-meal.

On the 10th a criminal court of judicature was assembled for the trial of Henry Wright, a private soldier in the detachment, for a rape on a child of eight years of age; of which heinous offence being found guilty, he received sentence to die; but being recommended by the court to the governor, his excellency was pleased to pardon him, on condition of his residing, during the term of his natural life, at Norfolk Island.  This was an offence that did not seem to require an immediate example; the chastity of the female part of the settlement had never been so rigid, as to drive men to so desperate an act; and it was believed, that beside the wretch in question there was not in the colony a man of any description who would have attempted it.

On the 12th, the butter, which had hitherto been served at six ounces per week to each man in the settlement, being expended, the like quantity of sugar was directed to be issued in its stead.  This was the first of the provisions brought from England which had wholly failed; and, fortunately, the failure was in an article which could be the best spared.  It never had been very good, and was not, strictly speaking, a necessary of life.

A small boat belonging to a gentleman of the settlement, having been too deeply laden with cabbage-trees which had been collected in a bay down the harbour for the purpose of building, was overset on her return to the cove, by touching on a rock which lay off one of the points.  There were three people in her, two of whom swam on shore; the third remained five hours on her keel, and was accidentally met with and picked up by the people of a fishing boat.

Captain Hunter, unwilling to lose any opportunity of rendering a service to the colony, while the repairs of his ship were going on, surveyed the two adjoining harbours of Broken Bay and Botany Bay; and correct charts were thus obtained of these two harbours, so admirably situated with relation to Port Jackson.