The report of the general muster which was ordered in the last month having been laid before the governor, he thought proper to make some regulations in the assistance afforded by government to settlers and others holding grants of land.  To the officers who occupied grounds was continued the number of men allowed them by lieutenant-governor Grose; viz ten for agriculture, and three for domestic purposes.  Notwithstanding this far exceeded the number which had at home been thought necessary, the governor did not conceive this to be the moment for reducing it, much as he wanted men.  A wheat harvest was approaching; ground was planting with Indian corn; not a man was unemployed; but he saw and explained that a reduction must take place; that government could not be supposed much longer to feed, maintain, and clothe the hands that wrought the ground, and at the same time pay for the produce of their labour, particularly when every public work was likely to stand still for want of labourers.  He was sensible that the assistance which had been given had not been thrown away, and that the small number allowed by government could never have produced such rapid approaches toward that independence which he thought, from what he had already seen of the cultivation of the country, was now much nearer than at his leaving it in 1791 he could have conceived to be possible.  To the settlers* who arrived in the Surprise he allowed five male convicts; to the superintendants, constables, and store-keepers, four; to settlers from free people**, two; to settlers from prisoners, one; and to sergeants of the New South Wales corps, one.

[* Messrs. Boston, Pearce, and Ellis.]

[** Such as the marine settlers, those at Liberty Plains, and others who never had been prisoners.]

As much inconvenience also was felt, and the end for which government gave up the services of these convicts to individuals liable to be defeated by their not residing at their respective farms, the settlers were directed as much as possible to prevent their servants from having any intercourse, particularly during the night, with the towns in their neighbourhood; as most of the robberies which were committed were not unjustly laid to their account.

It appeared likewise by this muster, that one hundred and seventy-nine people subsisted themselves independent of the public stores, and resided in this town.  To many of these, as well as to the servants of settlers, were to be attributed the offences that were daily heard of, they were the greatest nuisances we had to complain of; and there was not a doubt that they were concerned about this time in rolling two casks of meat from a pile at the store in a very hard storm of wind and rain.  Enough to fill a cask was found concealed in different holes the following morning.