The town which had been marked out at Rose Hill, and which now wore something of a regular appearance, on this occasion received its name.  The governor called it Parramatta, being the name by which the natives distinguished the part of the country on which the town stood.

Notwithstanding the lenity and indulgence which had been shown on his Majesty’s birthday, in pardoning the plunderers of gardens and the public grounds, and by issuing an extra allowance of provisions to every one, the governor’s garden at Parramatta was that very night entered and robbed by six men, who assaulted the watchman, Thomas Ocraft, and would have escaped all together, had he not, with much resolution, secured three of them for punishment.

Indulgences of this nature were certainly thrown away upon many who partook of them; but as it was impossible to discriminate so nicely between the good and the bad as wholly to exclude the undeserving, no distinction could be made.

The people who had assaulted the watchman were severely punished, as his authority could never have been supported without such an example; but either his vigilance, or the countenance which was shown to him on account of his strict performance of his duty, created him many enemies; and it became necessary to give him arms, as well for his own defence, as for the more effectual protection of the district he watched over.  Some nights after, in a turnip ground at Parramatta, he was obliged to fire at a convict, whom he wounded, but not dangerously, and secured.  He was sent down to the hospital at Sydney.

Since the establishment of that familiar intercourse which now subsisted between us and the natives, several of them had found it their interest to sell or exchange fish among the people at Parramatta; they being contented to receive a small quantity of either bread or salt meat in barter for mullet, bream, and other fish.  To the officers who resided there this proved a great convenience, and they encouraged the natives to visit them as often as they could bring them fish.  There were, however, among the convicts some who were so unthinking, or so depraved, as wantonly to destroy a canoe belonging to a fine young man, a native, who had left it at some little distance from the settlement, and as he hoped out of the way of observation, while he went with some fish to the huts.  His rage at finding his canoe destroyed was inconceivable; and he threatened to take his own revenge, and in his own way, upon all white people.  Three of the six people who had done him the injury, however, were so well described by some one who had seen them, that, being closely followed, they were taken and punished, as were the remainder in a few days after.