March.] On the 2nd of March Lieutenant Thomas Edgar hoisted a pendant on board the snow, in quality of naval agent, on which occasion she fired five guns.  The preparations which were making on board that vessel were not completed until toward the latter end of the month, at which time the officers and seamen who were to go home in her were embarked.

Of the Sirius’s late ship’s company, ten seamen and two marines chose rather to settle here than return to their friends.  Two of the seamen made choice of their lands in this country, the others in Norfolk Island.  The majority of them had formed connections with women, for whose sake they consented to embrace a mode of life for which the natural restlessness of a sailor’s disposition was but ill calculated.  This motive, it is true, they disavowed; but one of the stipulations which they were desirous of making for themselves being the indulgence of having the women who had lived with them permitted still to do so, and it appearing not the least important article in their consideration, seemed to confirm the foregoing opinion.

The number of officers who were to embark was lessened by Mr. Jamison, the surgeon’s mate of the Sirius, receiving the governor’s warrant appointing him an assistant surgeon to the colony, in which capacity he was to be employed at Norfolk Island.  For that settlement the Supply was now ready to sail; and on the 21st, one captain, two subalterns, one serjeant, one corporal, one drummer, and eighteen privates of the New South Wales corps, embarked on board that vessel, to relieve a part of the marine detachment doing duty there.  Mr. Jamison and the ten settlers from the Sirius were also put on board, together with some stores that had been applied for.  Allotments of sixty acres each were to be marked out for the settlers, which they were to possess under the same conditions as were imposed on settlers in this country.

The Supply sailed the following morning, carrying an instrument under the hand and seal of the governor, restoring to the rights and privileges of a free man John Ascott, a convict at Norfolk Island, who had rendered himself very conspicuous by his exertions in preventing the Sirius from being burnt soon after she was wrecked.

On Monday the 28th the Waaksamheyd transport sailed for England, having on board Captain Hunter, with the officers and crew of his majesty’s late ship Sirius.  By Captain Hunter’s departure, which was regretted by every one who shared the pleasure of his society, the administration of the country would now devolve upon the lieutenant-governor, in case of the death or absence of the governor; a dormant commission having been signed by his majesty investing Captain Hunter with the chief situation in the colony in the event of either of the above circumstances taking place.