The night-watch was found of infinite utility.  The commission of crimes, since their institution, had been evidently less frequent, and they were instrumental in bringing forward for punishment several offenders who would otherwise have escaped.  The fear and detestation in which they were held by their fellow-prisoners was one proof of their assiduity in searching for offences and in bringing them to light; and it possibly might have been asserted with truth, that many streets in the metropolis of London were not so well guarded and watched as the small, but rising town of Sydney, in New South Wales.

By their activity, a woman (a female convict of the name of Ann Davis alias Judith Jones), was apprehended for breaking into the house of Robert Sidaway (a convict) in the daytime, and stealing several articles of wearing apparel thereout.  The criminal court being assembled, she was tried and found guilty.  On receiving sentence to die, she pleaded being quick with child; but twelve of the discreetest women among the convicts, all of whom had been mothers of children, being impanelled as a jury of matrons, they pronounced that she was not pregnant; on which she was executed the Monday following, acknowledging at that fatal moment which generally gives birth and utterance to truth, that she was about to suffer justly, and that an attempt which she made, when put on her defence, to criminate another person (a woman whose character was so notorious that she hoped to establish her own credit and innocence upon her infamy), as well as her plea of pregnancy, were advanced merely for the purpose of saving her life.  She died generally reviled and unpitied by the people of her own description.

The summer was observed to be the chief season of fish.  A fishing-boat belonging to the colony had so many fish in the seine, that had it not burst at the moment of landing, it was imagined that a sufficiency would have been taken to have served the settlement for a day; as it was, a very considerable quantity was brought in; and not long after a boat belonging to the Sirius caught forty-seven of the large fish which obtained among us the appellation of Light Horse Men, from the peculiar conformation of the bone of the head, which gave the fish the appearance of having on a light-horse man’s helmet.

The governor, after the death of the native who was carried off by the smallpox in May last, never had lost sight of a determination to procure another the first favourable opportunity.  A boat had several times gone down the harbour for that purpose; but without succeeding, until the 25th of this month, when the first lieutenant of the Sirius, accompanied by the master, fortunately secured two natives, both men, and brought them up to the settlement without any accident.  Being well known to the children, through their means every assurance was given them of their perfect safety in our possession.  They were taken up to the governor’s, the place intended for their future residence, where such restraint was laid upon their persons as was judged requisite for their security.