On the 1st of March a reduction in the allowance of spirits took place; the half pint per diem, which had hitherto been issued to each man who was entitled to receive it, was to be discontinued, and only the half of that allowance served.  Thus was the gradual decrease in our stores followed by a diminution of our daily comforts and necessaries.

One immediate consequence, and that an evil one, was the effect of the intended embarkation for Norfolk Island.  It being found that great quantities of stock were killed, an order was immediately given to prevent the further destruction of an article so essential in our present situation, until some necessary regulations could be published; but the officers and people who were about to embark were not included in this prohibition.  The mention of future regulations in this order instantly begat an opinion among the convicts, that on the departure of the ships all the live stock in the colony would be called in, or that the owners would be deprived of the benefits which might result from the possession of it.  Under colour, therefore, of its belonging to those who were exempted in the late order, nearly all the stock in the settlement was in the course of a few nights destroyed; a wound being thereby given to the independence of the colony that could not easily be salved, and whose injurious effects time and much attention alone could remove.

The expected supplies not having arrived, on the 3rd, the two companies of marines with their officers and the colours of the corps embarked on board the Sirius and the Supply.  With them also embarked the lieutenant-governor, and Mr. Considen the senior assistant surgeon of the settlement.  On the day following, one hundred and sixteen male and sixty-eight female convicts, with twenty-seven children, were put on board; among the male convicts the governor had sent the troublesome and incorrigible Caesar, on whom he had bestowed a pardon.  With these also was sent, though of a very different description, a person whose exemplary conduct had raised him from the situation of a convict to the privileges of a free man.  John Irving had since our landing in the country been employed as an assistant at the hospital.  He was bred a surgeon, and in no instance whatever, since the commission of the offence for which he was transported, had he given cause of complaint.  He was now sent to Norfolk Island, to act as an assistant to the medical gentlemen there.

On the 5th the Sirius and the Supply left the cove, but did not get to sea until the following day, when at the close of the evening they were scarcely to be discerned from the South Head.  At the little post at this place Captain Hunter left the gunner, a midshipman, and six of the Sirius’s people.  Mr. Maxwell, one of her lieutenants, having been for a considerable time past in a melancholy and declining way, and his disorder pronounced by the surgeons to be insanity, he was discharged from