The most respectable of these people, and apparently the best calculated for a bona fide settler, was Thomas Rose, a farmer from Dorsetshire, who came out with his family, consisting of his wife and four children.  An allotment of one hundred and twenty acres was marked out for him.  With him came also Frederic Meredith, who formerly belonged to the Sirius, Thomas Webb, who also belonged to the Sirius, with his nephew, and Edward Powell, who had formerly been here in the Lady Juliana transport.  Powell having since his arrival married a free woman, who came out with the farmer’s family, and Webb having brought a wife with him, had allotments of eighty acres marked out for each; the others had sixty each.  The conditions under which they engaged to settle were, ’To have their passages provided by government*; an assortment of tools and implements to be furnished them out of the public stores; to be supplied with two years’ provisions; their lands to be granted free of expense; the service of convicts also to be assigned them free of expense; and those convicts whose services might be assigned them to be supplied with two years’ rations and one year’s clothing.’  The convict who settled with them (Walter Rouse, an industrious quiet man) came out in the first fleet, and being a bricklayer by trade they thought he might be of some service to them in constructing their huts.  He had an allotment of thirty acres marked out for him.

[* Government paid for each person above ten years of age the sum of eight pounds eight shillings; and allowed one shilling per diem for victualling them; and sixpence per diem for every one under that age.]

Many more officers availed themselves of the assent given by government to their occupying land, and fixed, some at Parramatta and others in different parts of the harbour, where they thought the ground most likely to turn out to their convenience and advantage.  They began their settlements in high spirits; the necessary tools and implements of husbandry were furnished to them from the stores; and they were allowed each the use of ten convicts.  From their exertions the lieutenant-governor was sanguine in his hopes of being enabled to increase considerably the cultivation of the country; they appeared indeed to enter vigorously into these views, and not being restrained from paying for labour with spirits, they got a great deal of work done at their several farms (on those days when the convicts did not work for the public) by hiring the different gangs; the great labour of burning the timber after it was cut down requiring some such extra aid.