About the middle of the month the weather was remarkably bad.  In the forenoon of the 15th a report was spread, in the midst of a most violent squall of wind and rain, that a ship was coming in.  The wind having blown from the southward for some days before favoured the story, and, every one who heard it believing it to be true, the town was soon in motion notwithstanding the storm; for, although it was not so rare as it had been to hear of a ship, yet there was always something cheering and grateful, and perhaps ever will be, in entertaining the idea that our society was perhaps about to be increased, and that we were on the point of receiving intelligence from our connections, or information of what was doing in that world from which we felt ourselves almost severed.  On this occasion, however, we were disappointed; for, on the return of a boat which had been sent to the South Head, we were informed that the signal had not been made, nor a ship seen to occasion it.  But we had been well trained in New South Wales to meet and endure disappointment!

On the night of this day, during the very heavy rain which fell, some person or persons found means to take off, undiscovered by the sentinel at the store on the east side, five hundred weight of sheet lead, which had been landed from the Daedalus, and rolled to the storehouse door, where, being an article not likely from its weight to become an easy object of depredation, it was supposed to be perfectly safe.  A very diligent search was made, but without success; and it remained undiscovered until the 27th, when a seaman belonging to the Kitty transport, on the ebbing of a spring tide, perceived it lying on the shore at low-water mark, opposite to the spot where the Daedalus lay at anchor.  From this circumstance suspicion fell upon the people belonging to that ship; but as any design they could have in stealing it was not very obvious it was more probable that some of the convicts had dropped it there for the purpose of secreting it till a future day, when it would have been got up, and cast into shot for those who are allowed to kill game.

About the end of the month the detachment of the New South Wales corps on duty at Parramatta was relieved.  The party that remained there was placed under the command of Lieutenant Macarthur, the officer charged with the direction of the civil duties of that settlement.  The relief took place by land, the party from Sydney marching up in about seven hours, and that from Parramatta arriving at their quarters in Sydney in something more than six.  The computed distance by land is between seventeen and eighteen miles.

On the 29th our colours were displayed at the fort, in grateful remembrance of the restoration of monarchy in England.