This mode of recruiting the regiment must have proved as disgusting to the officers as it was detrimental to the interests of the settlement.  If the corps was raised for the purpose of protecting the civil establishment, and of bringing a counterpoise to the vices and crimes which might naturally be expected to exist among the convicts, it ought to have been carefully formed from the best characters; instead of which we now found a mutineer (a wretch who could deliberate with others, and consent himself to be the chosen instrument of the destruction of his sovereign’s son) sent among us, to remain for life, perhaps, as a check upon sedition, now added to the catalogue of our other imported vices.

This ship touched only at Rio de Janeiro, between which port and the south-west cape of this country the winds which they met with very much favoured, in the idea of Mr. Campbell the master, the opinion of a passage being readily made to the Cape of Good Hope, or to India, round by Van Dieman’s Land.

Among other articles of information now received, we learned that Governor Hunter, with the Reliance and Supply, two ships intended to be employed in procuring cattle for the colony, might be expected to arrive in about three months.  The governor was to bring out with him a patent for establishing a court of criminal judicature at Norfolk Island.

The two natives in England were said to be in health, and anxious for the governor’s departure, as they were to accompany him.  They had made but little improvement in our language.

The Surprise anchoring in the cove after dark, she saluted at sunrise the following morning with fifteen guns.

A theft was committed in the course of the month in one of the out-houses belonging to Government House, used as a regimental storeroom; the articles stolen were fifteen shirts and seventeen pair of shoes.  In searching among the rocks and bushes for this property, three white and two check shirts, one pair of trousers, and one pair of stockings, were found; but so damaged by the weather as to be entirely useless.  These must have been planted (to use the thiefs phrase) a considerable time; for every mark or trace which could lead to a discovery of the owner was entirely effaced.

The storeships being cleared of their cargoes, a survey was made upon such part of them as was damaged, which was found to be very considerable.  A serving of slops was immediately issued to the male and female convicts; the men receiving each one jacket, one waistcoat, one shirt, one hat, and one pair of breeches; the women one petticoat, one shift, one pair of stockings, one cap, one neck-handkerchief, one hat, and one jacket made of raven duck.  A distinction was made in the articles of the slops served to watchmen and overseers, each receiving one coat instead of a jacket, one pair of duck trousers instead of a pair of breeches, and one pair of shoes.