On the 21st died an industrious good young man, Joseph Webb, a settler at the district named Liberty Plains.  He had been working in his ground, and suddenly fell down in an apoplectic fit.  We have seen that another settler was murdered, and two male convicts were executed.  Burn had been an unfortunate man; he had lost one of his eyes, when, as a convict, he was employed in splitting paling for government; his farm had never succeeded; himself and his wife were too fond of spirituous liquors to be very industrious; and he was at last forced out of the world in a state and in a manner shocking to human nature.

November.] Since our establishment in this harbour but few accidents had happened to boats.  On the 1st of this month, however, the longboat of the Surprise, though steered by one of the people belonging to the settlement, was overset on her passage from the cove to Parramatta, in a squall of wind she met with off Goat Island, with a number of convicts and stores on board.  Fortunately, no other loss followed than that occasioned by the drowning of one very fine female goat, the property of Baker the superintendant.

On the following day died Mr. Thomas Freeman, the deputy-commissary of stores and provisions employed at Parramatta.  He was in his fifty-third year, and in this country ended a life the greater part of which had been actively and usefully employed in the king’s service.  His remains were interred in the burial-ground at Parramatta, and were attended by the gentlemen of the civil department residing in that township.

On the morning of the 9th the ships Resolution and Salamander left the cove, purposing to sail on their fishing voyage; soon after which, it being discovered that three convicts, Mary Morgan and John Randall and his wife, were missing, a boat was sent down the harbour to search the Resolution, on board of which ship it was said they were concealed.  No person being found, the boat returned for further orders, leaving a sergeant and four men on board; but before she could return, Mr. Locke the master, after forcing the party out of his ship, got under way and stood out to sea.  Mr. Irish, the master of the Salamander, did not accompany him; but came up to the town, to testify to the lieutenant-governor his uneasiness at its being supposed that he could be capable of taking any person improperly from the colony.

On the day following it appeared that several persons were missing, and two convicts in the night swam off to the Salamander, one of whom was supposed to have been drowned, but was afterwards found concealed in her hold and sent on shore.  The Resolution during this time was seen hovering about the coast, either waiting for her companion, or to pick up a boat with the runaways.  On the 13th, the Salamander got under way, with a southerly wind; but it falling calm when the ship was between the Heads, she drifted,