On the 23rd the Experiment sailed for India.  Mr. McClellan had been with his vessel to the Hawkesbury, where he had taken in sixty large logs of the tree which we had named the cedar.  He had also purchased some of the mahogany of this country.  Whether cedar and mahogany were or were not to be readily procured at Bengal, ought to have been well known to this gentleman before he put himself to the trouble, delay, and expence of procuring such a quantity*; but it was here generally looked upon as a speculation that would not produce him much profit.

[* He was to allow one hundred pounds for as many trees; but we understood that it was to be in the way of barter with articles, sugar, spirits, etc.]

On the day of his sailing, suspecting (as was reported) some design to seize his vessel, he sent on shore three people whom he had shipped here.  They rendezvoused at a hut in the town occupied by one John Chapman Morris; and, on searching it, in the bed of one of them were found a dozen of new Indian shirts marked D. W.; twenty-two new pulicate handkerchiefs; and three pieces of striped gingham.  On the possessor being questioned, he said, that they were sold to him while he was at Norfolk Island by the steward of Captain Manning’s ship, the Pitt.  As this was a very improbable story, the house they were in was ordered by the commanding officer to be pulled down.  The property, having been disclaimed by Mr. McClennan, was lodged with the provost-marshal; and the parties given to understand, that a reference would be made to Norfolk Island by the first opportunity.

On the 26th, some of our people witnessed an extraordinary transaction which took place among the natives at the brick-fields.  A young man of the name of Bing-yi-wan-ne, well known in the settlement, being detected in the crisis of an amour with Maw-ber-ry, the companion of another native, Ye-ra-ni-be Go-ru-ey, the latter fell upon him with a club, and being a powerful man, and of superior strength, absolutely beat him to death.  Bing-yi-wan-ne had some friends, who on the following day called Ye-ra-ni-be to an account for the murder; when, the affair being conducted with more regard to honour than justice, he came off with only a spear-wound in his thigh.

The farmers began gathering their Indian corn about the latter end of this month.  The weather during the former and latter part of it was wet.  About the time of the equinox, the tides in the cove were observed to be very high.

On the 28th Thomas Webb, a settler, who had removed from his farm at Liberty Plains to another on the banks of the Hawkesbury, was dangerously wounded there, while working on his grounds by some of the wood natives, who had previously plundered his but.  About the same time a party of these people threw a spear at some soldiers who were going up the river in a small boat.  All these unpleasant circumstances were to be attributed to the ill treatment the natives had received from the settlers.