Some time after the arrival of the Sovereign the full allowance of salt meat was issued, and the hours of public labour regulated, more to the advantage of government than had for a considerable time, owing to the shortness of the ration, been the case.  Instead of completing in a few hours the whole labour which was required of a man for the day, the convicts were now to work the whole day, with the intermission of two hours and a half of rest.  Many advantages were gained by this regulation; among which not the least was, the diminution of idle time which the prisoners before had, and which, emphatically terming their own time, they applied as they chose, some industriously, but by far the greater part in improper pursuits, as gaming, drinking, and stealing.

The full ration of flour was issued to the Military, on account of the ‘hard duty which had lately fallen upon the regiment;’ but they were informed, that the quantity of flour in the public store would not admit of their receiving such allowance for any length of time.  Four pounds were issued to the prisoners, and some other grain given to them to make up the difference.

On the 20th his Majesty’s ship Supply returned from Norfolk Island, having been absent four weeks and four days.  She had a long passage back of seventeen days.  When Mr. Kent left the island, the lieutenant-governor was dangerously ill with the gout in his stomach.  We understood that cultivation was nearly at a stand there.  The grounds were so over-run with two great enemies to agriculture, rats, and a pernicious weed called cow-itch*, that the settlers despaired of ever being able to get rid of either.

[* The Pruriens, a species of the Dolichos.]

A circumstance happened this month not less extraordinary and unexpected than the discovery of the four convicts at Port Stephens.

The contests which had lately taken place very frequently in this town, and the neighbourhood of it, among the natives, had been attended by many of those people who inhabited the woods, and came from a great distance inland.  Some of the prisoners gathering from time to time rumours and imperfect accounts of the existence of the cattle lost in 1788, two of them, who were employed by some officers in shooting, resolved on ascertaining the truth of these reports, and trying by different excursions to discover the place of their retreat.  On their return from the first outset they made, which was subsequent to the governor’s arrival, they reported, that they had seen them.  Being, however, at that moment too much engaged in perfecting the civil regulations he had in view for the settlement, the governor could not himself go to that part of the country where they were said to have been found; but he detached Henry Hacking, a man on whom he could depend.  His report was so satisfactory, that on the 18th the governor set off from Parramatta, attended by a small party, when after travelling two