Independent of the consideration that this man had long been a proper object of severe punishment, to have pardoned him (even on any condition) would only have tended to strengthen the supposition that the lieutenant-governor had not the power of life and death; and many daring burglaries and other enormities would have followed.  Crow pretended that he was in the secret respecting the watches which were stolen from the hospital in October last; but all that he knew amounted to nothing that could lead to a discovery either of them or of the thief.  He did not appear to be at all commiserated or regretted by any of his fellow prisoners; a certain proof of the absence of every good quality in his character.

In the night of the 6th, during a violent storm of rain and thunder, a long-boat, which had arrived in the evening from Parramatta with grain for the next day’s serving, and was then lying at the wharf on the west side under the care of a sentinel, filled with the quantity of water which ran from the wharf, and sunk.  By this accident two hundred and eighty bushels of Indian corn in cob, and a few bushels of wheaten meal, were totally lost.  The natives who could dive availed themselves of the circumstance, and recovered a great quantity of the corn, of which they were very fond.  The boats were not injured.

Sudden storms of this kind were frequent; and gusts of wind have been so sudden and violent, that ships, loosely moored, have driven at their anchors in the cove.

On Saturday the 7th a change took place in the ration; this was, the discontinuing of the three pints of peas which were served to the civil and military, and the three pints of gram which were served to the convicts, and giving them instead an equal quantity of wheat.

Notwithstanding every supply of flour which had been purchased, or received into the store from England, it was at length entirely exhausted; the civil and military receiving the last on Monday the 9th.  This total deprivation of so valuable, so essential an article in the food of man happened, fortunately, at a season when its place could in some measure be supplied immediately, the harvest having been all safely got in at Toongabbie by the beginning of this month.  About the middle of it, eight hundred bushels were threshed out, and on Monday the 16th the civil and military received each seven pounds of wheat coarsely ground at the mill at Parramatta.  This mill, from the brittleness of the timber with which it was constructed, was found to be unequal to the consumption of the settlements.  The cogs frequently broke, and hence it was not of any very great utility.  To remedy this inconvenience, a convict blacksmith undertook to produce one iron hand-mill each week, for which he was to be paid at the rate of two guineas; and by his means several mills were distributed in the settlements.

The salt meat being the next article which threatened a speedy expenditure, on Saturday the 28th one pound was taken from the weekly allowance of beef; and but a small quantity of Indian corn remaining in store, the male convicts received eight pounds of new wheat, whole; and only three pounds of Indian corn, or paddy, were served.