As it was impossible to hire any vessel there upon cheaper terms, Lieutenant Ball was compelled to engage for the Waaksamheyd (that being her name, which, englished, signified ‘Good look out’) upon the terms they proposed.  Of the provisions which he was instructed to procure, the whole quantity of flour, two hundred thousand pounds, was not to be had, he being able only to purchase twenty thousand and twenty-one pounds, for which they charged ten stivers per pound, and an addition of about one-third of a penny per pound was charged for grinding it*.  Instead of the flour Lieutenant Ball purchased two hundred thousand pounds of rice, at one rix dollar and forty-four stivers per hundred weight over and above the seventy thousand pounds he was directed to procure.  The salt provisions were paid for at the rate of seven stivers per pound, and the amount of the whole cargo, including the casks for the flour, wood for dunnage, hire of cooleys, and of craft for shipping the provisions, was thirty thousand four hundred and forty-one rix dollars and thirty-three stivers; which added to the freight (twenty-eight thousand rix dollars) made a total of fifty-eight thousand four hundred and forty-one rix dollars and thirty-three stivers, or L11,688 6s 9d sterling.

[* The flour, without the freight, including one hundred and ten rix dollars which were charged for twenty-two half leagers in which it was contained, amounted as nearly as possible to tenpence three farthings per pound.]

Mr. Ormsby, a midshipman from the Sirius, was left to come on with the snow, which it was hoped would sail in a few weeks after the Supply.

The criminal court was twice assembled during this month.  At the first a soldier was tried for a felony, but acquitted.  At the second William Harris and Edward Wildblood were tried for entering a hut at Parramatta, in which was only one man, and that a sick person, whom they knocked down, and then robbed the hut.  They were clearly convicted of the offence, and, being most daring and flagrant offenders, were executed at Rose Hill, near the hut which they had robbed.  These people had given a great deal of trouble before they committed the offence for which they suffered.  At the latter end of the last month they took to the woods, having more than once or twice robbed their companions at Rose Hill.  As they were well known, the watch soon brought them in to the settlement at Sydney.  They confessed, that the night before they were apprehended they killed a goat belonging to Mr. White.  The governor directed them immediately to be linked together by the leg, and sent them back to Rose Hill, there to labour upon bread and water.  It was in this situation that, taking advantage of their overseer’s absence for a few minutes, they went to the hut, of the situation of which they had previous knowledge, and robbed it of every thing they could carry away.