all suspicious characters were to be secured and locked up during the night.  People were to be employed to kill, for the public, the animals that the country afforded; and every step was to be taken that could save a pound of the salt provisions in store, It was proposed to take all the hogs in the settlement as public property; but as it was absolutely necessary to keep some breeding sows, and the stock being small and very poor, that idea was abandoned.

In pursuance of these resolutions, the few convicts who had been employed to shoot for individuals were given up for the public benefit; and a fishery was established at Botany Bay, under the inspection of one of the midshipmen of the Sirius.  But this plan, not being found to answer, was soon relinquished.  The quantity of fish that was from time to time taken was very inconsiderable, and the labour of transporting it by land from thence was greater than the advantage which was expected to be derived from it.  The boats were therefore recalled, and employed with rather more success at Sydney.

It was well known, that the integrity of the people employed in fishing could not be depended upon; the officers of the settlement therefore voluntarily took upon themselves the unpleasant task of superintending them; and it became a general duty, which every one cheerfully performed.  The fishing-boat never went out without an officer, either by night or by day.

On the 7th, about four hundred weight of fish being brought up, it was issued agreeable to the order; and could the like quantity have been brought in daily, some saving might have been made at the store, which would have repaid the labour that was employed to obtain it.  But the quantity taken during this month, after the 7th, was not often much more than equal to supplying the people employed in the boats with one pound of fish per man, which was allowed them in addition to their ration.  The small boats, the property of individuals, were therefore returned to their owners, and the people who had been employed in them, together with the seamen of the Sirius now here, were placed in the large boats belonging to the settlement.

Neither was much advantage obtained by employing people to shoot for the public.  At the end of the month only three small kangaroos had been brought in.  The convicts who were employed on this service, three in number, were considered as good marksmen, and were allowed a ration of flour instead of their salt provisions, the better to enable them to sustain the labour and fatigue of traversing the woods of this country.