As most of the officers in the colony were allowed people to shoot for them, it became necessary to make some example of the man who bought, rather than of him who sold; for it was a maxim pretty generally adopted, that the receiver was more culpable than the thief.  The lieutenant-governor, therefore, ordered Lane to be punished with one hundred lashes, placed upon the commissary’s books for provisions, and sent up to labour at Toongabbie.

About the middle of the month one small cow and a Bengal steer, both private property, were killed, and issued to the non-commissioned officers and privates of two companies of the New South Wales corps.  This was but the third time that fresh beef had been tasted by the colonists of this country; once, it may be remembered, in the year 1788, and a second time when the lieutenant-governor and the officers of the settlement were entertained by the Spanish captains.  At that time however, had we not been informed that we were eating beef, we should never have discovered it by the flavour; and it certainly happened to more than one Englishman that day, to eat his favourite viand without recognising the taste.*

[* We understood that the Spanish mode of roasting beef, or mutton, was, first to boil and then to brown the joint before the fire.]

The beef that was killed at this time was deemed worth eighteen-pence per pound, and at that price was sold to the soldiers.  The two animals together weighed three hundred and seventy-two pounds.

About this time accounts were received from Parramatta of an uncommon storm of wind, accompanied with rain, having occurred there.  In its violence it bordered on a hurricane, running in a vein, and in a direction from east to west.  The west end of the governor’s hut was injured, the paling round some farms which lay in its passage were levelled, and a great deal of Indian corn was much damaged.  It was not however felt at Sydney, nor, fortunately, at Toongabbie; and was but of short duration; but the rain was represented as having been very heavy.  The climate was well known to be subject to sudden gusts of wind and changes of weather; but nothing of this violence had been before experienced within our knowledge.

It was found that the settlers, notwithstanding the plentiful crops which in general they might be said to have gathered, gave no assistance to government by sending any into store.  Some small quantity (about one hundred and sixty bushels) indeed had been received; but nothing equal either to the wants or expectations of government.  They appeared to be most sedulously endeavouring to get rid of their grain in any way they could; some by brewing and distilling it; some by baking it into bread, and indulging their own propensities in eating; others by paying debts contracted by gaming.  Even the farms themselves were pledged and lost in this way; those very farms which undoubtedly were capable of furnishing them with an honest comfortable maintenance for life.