March.] It being necessary to send to Norfolk Island a proportion of what provisions were in store, the Pitt was engaged for that purpose; and for performing this service her owners were to receive L651, a sum equal to six weeks demurrage for that ship.  From Norfolk Island she was to proceed, upon her owners account, to Bengal; and her commander was charged with duplicates of the letters and instructions given to Lieutenant Bowen.  In the event of any accident having prevented the arrival of that officer at Calcutta, Captain Manning was to cause the service with which he was entrusted to be executed, by applying to the governor-general, and the house of Messrs. Lambert, Ross, and company, for the supply of provisions, which the Atlantic was to have brought, to be forwarded to this country either by the Pitt, or by vessels to be hired by that house at Calcutta.

This precaution was taken rather to guard against the worst that might happen, than from any probability that the Atlantic would not have reached Calcutta, that ship being well fitted for such a voyage, strong, well manned, and under the direction of an able and an active officer.  To her arrival, however, we looked forward at this period with some anxiety, as the flour and salt provisions in the settlement already occupied but a small portion of the stores which contained them, there being only fifty-two days flour, and twenty-one weeks salt meat in store at the ration now issued.

On the morning of Saturday the 17th the marines and New South Wales corps formed under arms on the parade in front of the quarters, when his Majesty’s commission appointing Francis Grose, Esquire, to be lieutenant-governor of this territory, and the letters patent under the great seal for establishing the civil and criminal courts of judicature, were publicly read by the judge-advocate.  The governor and the principal officers of the settlement attended, and his excellency received from the corps under arms the honours due to his rank in the colony.  At the conclusion of the ceremony, the Pitt, by a well-concerted signal, saluted with fifteen guns, as a compliment to the lieutenant-governor.

A person who came out to this country in the capacity of a carpenter’s mate on board the Sirius, and who had been discharged from that ship’s books into the Supply, having been left behind when that vessel sailed for England, offered his services to put together the vessel that arrived in frame in the Pitt; and being deemed sufficiently qualified as a shipwright, he was engaged at two shillings per diem and his provisions to set her up.  Her keel was accordingly laid down on blocks placed for the purpose near the landing-place on the east side.  As this person was the only shipwright in the colony, the vessel would much sooner have rendered the services which were required of her, had she been put together, coppered, and sent out manned and officered from England; by these means too the colony would have received many articles which were of necessity shut out of the Pitt to make room for her stowage.