Several thefts were committed at Sydney and at Parramatta, from which latter place three male convicts absconded, taking with them the provisions of their huts, intending, it was supposed, to get on board the Britannia.  Rewards being offered, some of them were taken in the woods.  It had been found, that the masters of ships would give passages to such people as could afford to pay them from ten to twenty pounds for the same, and the perpetrators of some of the thefts which were committed appeared to have had that circumstance in view, as one or two huts, whose proprietors were well known to have amassed large sums of money for people in their situations, were broken into; and in one instance they succeeded.  On the night of the 22nd the hut of Mary Burne, widow of a man who had been employed as a game-killer, was robbed of dollars to the amount of eleven pounds; with which the pillagers got off undiscovered.

On the 30th the Britannia left the cove, dropping down below Bradley’s Point, preparatory to sailing on her intended voyage to Dusky Bay in New Zealand; and while every one was remarking, that the cove (being left without a ship) again looked solitary and uncomfortable, the signal was made at the South Head, and at ten o’clock at night the Atlantic anchored in the cove from Norfolk Island, where, we had the satisfaction to learn, the large cargo which she had on board was landed in safety, although at one time the ship was in great danger of running ashore at Cascade Bay.  We now learned that the expectations which had been formed of the crops at Norfolk Island had been too sanguine; but their salt provisions lasted very well.  Governor King, however, wrote that the crops then in the ground promised favourably, although he would not venture to speak decidedly, as they were very much annoyed by the grub.  This was an enemy produced by the extreme richness of the soil; and it was remarked, that as the land was opened and cleared, it was found to be exposed to the blighting winds which infest the island.

The great havoc and destruction which the reduced ration had occasioned among the birds frequenting Mount Pitt had so thinned their numbers, that they were no longer to be depended upon as a resource.  The convicts, senseless and improvident, not only destroyed the bird, its young, and its egg, but the hole in which it burrowed; a circumstance that ought most cautiously to have been guarded against; as nothing appeared more likely to make them forsake the island.

The stock in the settlement was plentiful, but, from being fed chiefly on sow thistle during the general deficiency of hard food, the animals looked ill, and were as badly tasted.  The Pitt, however, took from the island a great quantity of stock; barrow pigs and fowls, pumpkins and other vegetables; for which Captain Manning and his officers paid the owners with many articles of comfort to which they had long been strangers.