By these people we were well convinced every theft was committed.  Their information was good; they never attempted a house that was not an object of plunder; and wherever there was any property they were sure to pay a visit.  The late robberies at the clergyman’s and at Captain Townson’s were among the most striking instances.

It was on these occasions generally conjectured, that the domestics of the house must aid and assist in the theft; for the perpetrator of it always seemed to know where to lay his hand on the article for which he thus risked his neck; and we never found them make an attempt on the house of a poor individual.

On Wednesday the 11th, to the great satisfaction of the settlement at large, the Britannia storeship arrived safe from Calcutta and Madras, entering this port for the fifth time with a valuable cargo on board.

She was now freighted with salted provisions, and a small quantity of rice on account of government, procured by order of the presidencies of Calcutta and Madras.  On private account, the different officers of the civil and military departments received the various commissions which they had been allowed to put into the ship; and one young mare, five cows, and one cow-calf, of the Bengal breed, were brought for sale.

On board of this ship arrived two officers of the Bengal army, Lieutenant Campbell and Mr. Phillips, a surgeon of the military establishment for the purpose of raising two hundred recruits from among those people who had served their respective terms of transportation.  They were to be regularly enlisted and attested, and were to receive bounty-money; and a provisional engagement was made with Mr. Raven, to convey them to India, if no other service should offer for his ship.

On the first view of this scheme it appeared very plausible, and we imagined that the execution of it would be attended with much good to the settlement, by ridding it of many of those wretches whom we had too much reason to deem our greatest nuisances:  but when we found that the recruiting officer was instructed to be nice as to the characters of those he should enlist, and to entertain none that were of known bad morals, we perceived that the settlement would derive less benefit from it than was at first expected.  There was also some reason to suppose, that several settlers would abandon their farms, and, leaving their families a burden to the store, embrace the change which was offered them by enlisting as East India soldiers.  It was far better for us, if any were capable of bearing arms and becoming soldiers, to arm them in defence of their own lives and possessions, and, by embodying them from time to time as a militia, save to the public the expense of a regiment or corps raised for the mere purpose of protecting the public stores and the civil establishment of the colony.