Two people off the store were found guilty of stealing some geese, the property of Mr. Charles Grimes, the deputy-surveyor, and sentenced to receive corporal punishment.  Another of the same class was found guilty of cutting and wounding a servant of the commissary, who had prevented his committing a theft, and was sentenced to receive eight hundred lashes; and one man, George Hyson, for an attempt to commit the abominable crime of bestiality, was sentenced to stand three times in the pillory, an hour each time.

How unpleasing were the reflections that arose from this catalogue of criminals and their offences!  No punishment however exemplary, no reward however great, could operate on the minds of these unthinking people.  Equally indifferent to the pain which the former might occasion, and the gratification that the other might afford, they blindly pursued the dictates of their vicious inclinations, to whatever they prompted; and when stopped by the arm of justice, which sometimes reached them, they endured the consequences with an hardened obstinacy and indifference that effectually checked the sensations of pity which are naturally excited by the view of human sufferings.

A civil court also was assembled this month, by which some writs and some probates of wills were granted.

At the Hawkesbury, where the settlers were consuming their subsistence in drunkenness, a very excellent barrack was erecting for the use of the commandant, on a spot which had been selected sufficiently high to preclude any danger of the building being affected by a flood.

In this and the preceding month many people, adults as well as children, were again afflicted with inflammations in the eyes.  Having been visited by this disorder in the month of April 1794, about which time we had the same variable weather as was now experienced, we attributed its appearance among us at this time to the same cause.  The medical gentlemen could not account for it on any other principle.  One man, Sergeant-major Jones of the New South Wales corps, died.

May.] Sixty of the women received by the Indispensable were sent up to Parramatta, there to be employed in such labour as was suited to their sex and strength.  The remainder were landed at this place.

On the 4th the governor notified in public orders his appointment of Mr. D’Arcy Wentworth to the situation of assistant-surgeon to the settlement, in the room of Mr. Samuel Leeds, the gentleman who came out with Governor Hunter, he being permitted to return to England for the recovery of his health.

Daily experience proved, that those people whose sentences of transportation had expired were greater evils than the convicts themselves.  It was at this time impossible to spare the labour of a single man from the public work.  Of course, no man was allowed to remove himself from that situation without permission.  But, notwithstanding this had been declared in public orders, many were known to withdraw themselves from labour and the provision-store on the day of their servitude ceasing.  On their being apprehended, punished for a breach of the order, and ordered again to labour, they seized the first opportunity of running away, taking either to the woods to subsist by depredations, or to the shelter which the Hawkesbury settlers afforded to every vagabond that asked it.