On Monday the 15th a criminal court was held for the trial of two prisoners, William Britton a soldier, and John Reid a convict, for a burglary in the house of the Rev. Mr. Johnson, committed in the night of Sunday the 7th of this month.  The evidence, though strong, was not sufficient to convict them, and they were acquitted.  While this court was sitting, however, information was received, that black Caesar had that morning been shot by one Wimbow.  This man and another, allured by the reward, had been for some days in quest of him.  Finding his haunt, they concealed themselves all night at the edge of a brush which they perceived him enter at dusk.  In the morning he came out, when, looking round him and seeing his danger, he presented his musket; but before he could pull the trigger Wimbow fired and shot him.  He was taken to the hut of Rose, a settler at Liberty Plains, where he died in a few hours.  Thus ended a man, who certainly, during his life, could never have been estimated at more than one remove above the brute, and who had given more trouble than any other convict in the settlement.

On the morning of the 18th the Otter sailed for the north-west coast of America.  In her went Mr. Thomas Muir (one of the persons sent out in the Surprise for sedition) and several other convicts whose sentences of transportation were not expired.  Mr. Muir conceived that in withdrawing (though clandestinely) from this country, he was only asserting his freedom; and meant, if he should arrive in safety, to enjoy what he deemed himself to have regained of it in America, until the time should come when he might return to his own country with credit and comfort.  He purposed practising at the American bar as an advocate; a point of information which he left behind him in a letter.  In this country he chiefly passed his time in literary ease and retirement, living out of the town at a little spot of ground which he had purchased for the purpose of seclusion.

A few days after the departure of this ship, the Abigail, another American, arrived.  As several prisoners had found a conveyance from this place in the Otter, the governor directed the Abigail to be anchored in Neutral Bay (a bay on the north shore, a little below Rock Island), where he imagined the communication would not be so easy as the ships of that nation had found it in Sydney Cove.  Her master, Christopher Thornton, gave out that he was bound to Manilla and Canton, having on board a cargo for those places.  For part of that cargo, however, he met with purchasers at this place, notwithstanding the glut of articles which the late frequent arrivals must have thrown in.  He expected to have found here a snow, named the Susan, which he knew had sailed from Rhode Island with a cargo expressly laid in for this market.  He came direct from that port without touching any where.