the ship, and had taken up his residence on shore under the care of the surgeon, with proper people who were left from the ship to attend him.  This was the second officer whose situation in the Sirius it became necessary to have filled.  Lieutenant King, the commandant of Norfolk Island, had for some time been discharged from the ship’s books; and Mr. Newton Fowell, a young gentleman of the Sirius’s quarter-deck, being deemed well qualified, was appointed by the governor (as the naval commanding officer) to succeed him.  To fill the vacancy occasioned by Mr. Maxwell’s unfortunate state of health, Mr. Henry Waterhouse, a young gentleman of promising abilities, was taken from the quarter-deck.  Both these appointments were to wait the confirmation of the lords commissioners of the admiralty.

Immediately after the departure of these ships, the governor directed his attention to the regulation of the people who were left at Sydney, and to the preservation of the stock in the colony.  For these purposes, he himself visited the different huts and gardens whose tenants had just quitted them, distributing them to such convicts as were either in miserable hovels, or without any shelter at all.  It was true, that by this arrangement the idle found themselves provided for by the labour of many who had been industrious; but they were at the same time assured, that unless they kept in good cultivation the gardens which they were allowed to possess, they would be turned out from the comforts of a good hut, to live under a rock or a tree.  That they might have time for this purpose, the afternoon of Wednesday and the whole of Saturday in each week were given to them.  Much room was made every where by the numbers who had embarked (in all two hundred and eighty-one persons); the military quarters had a deserted aspect; and the whole settlement appeared as if famine had already thinned it of half its numbers.  The little society that was in the place was broken up, and every man seemed left to brood in solitary silence over the dreary prospect before him.

With respect to the stock, his excellency directed, that no hogs under three months old should be killed, nor were any to be butchered without information being first given at headquarters.

Those who bred poultry were left at liberty to dispose of it in such manner as they thought proper; and the commissary was directed to purchase for the use of the hospital such live stock as the owners were desirous of selling, complying with the above regulations, and receiving one shilling a pound as the price.

Some provisions which yet remained in the old large thatched store were removed for greater security into the store in the marine quarters.  It was strongly suspected, that an attempt had been made to obtain some part of these provisions in the night; and some convicts were examined before the judge-advocate on suspicion of having taken some flour from the store; but nothing appeared that could materially affect them.  The provisions, when all collected together under one roof and into one view, afforded but a melancholy reflection; it was well that we had even them.