The information received from that settlement was, that the Shah Hormuzear and Chesterfield arrived there from this place, on the 2nd day of May last, when, every article of stores and provisions which had been put on board of them being safely landed, both ships sailed for India on the 27th day of the same month; Captain Bampton purposing to attempt making the passage between New Holland and New Guinea, that was expected to be found to the northward of Endeavor Straits.

While these ships were off Lord Howe Island, they experienced a heavy gale of wind, in which the Shah Hormuzear lost her topmasts, and the Chesterfield was in much danger from a leak which she sprung.  Captain Bampton having, in some bad weather off Norfolk Island, lost his long-boat, he, with the assistance given him by Lieutenant-governor King, built, in ten days, a very fine one of thirty-two feet keel, with which he sailed, and without which it would not have been quite safe for him to have proceeded on a voyage where much of the navigation lay among islands and shoals, and where part of it had certainly been unexplored.

Mr. King had the satisfaction of stating, that his crops had been abundant, plenty reigning among all descriptions of people in the island.  His wheat was cut, the first of it on the 25th of November last, and the harvest was well got in by Christmas Day.  About two thousand bushels were the calculated produce of this crop, which would have been greater had it not, during its growth, been hurt by the want of rain.  Of the maize, the first crop (having always two) was gathering while the schooner was there, and, notwithstanding the drought turned out well; from one acre and a quarter of ground, one hundred and six bushels had been gathered; but it was pretty generally established on the island, that thirty-six bushels of maize might be taken as the average produce of an acre of ground.

The superior fertility of the soil at Norfolk Island to that of New South Wales had never been doubted.  The following account of last year’s crop was transmitted to Lieutenant-governor King: 

From November 1792 to November 1793 the crop of maize amounted to 3247 bushels; wheat 1302 bushels; calavances 50 bushels.

Purchased in the above time from settlers and others, at five shillings per bushel 3600 bushels.  Reserved by them for seed 3000 bushels of maize; 300 bushels of wheat; 300 bushels of calavances; and 50 tons of potatoes.  Which, together with 305 bushels of maize brought from thence with the detachment of the New South Wales corps at the relief in March 1793, made a total of 10,152 bushels of maize, 1602 bushels of wheat, 350 bushels of calavances, 50 tons of potatoes, raised on Norfolk Island in one twelvemonth, on about two hundred and fifty-six acres of ground.