The master of the Rebecca, having brought out a few articles for sale, chartered the Nautilus to take them to Norfolk island, thinking to find a better market for them there than at this place, where the late unsuccessful harvest had neither filled the granary of the public nor the pocket of the settler.  She sailed with this cargo in the course of a few days.

On the 9th, the Britannia whaler came in from sea, to repair some damages which she had sustained in bad weather.  She had been rather successful in her fishery, having procured twenty-five tons of spermaceti oil since her departure; and the master reported, that, had the weather been more moderate, he should have been enabled to have more than half filled his ship.

The criminal court was only once assembled during this month; when one man was condemned to death for a burglary, and another* transported for fourteen years to Norfolk Island.

[* This man, Isaac Nichols, an overseer, had been accused of receiving stolen goods; but from some circumstances which occurred on the trial, the sentence was respited until his Majesty’s pleasure could be taken.]

The civil court was also assembled for the decision of private causes, in which it was engaged during a week.

Among other public works in hand were, the raising the walls of the new gaol, laying the upper floor of the wind-mill, and erecting the churches at Sydney and Parramatta.  Most of these buildings did not advance so rapidly as the necessity for them required, owing to the weakness of the public gangs; and indeed scarcely had there ever been a thorough day’s labour, such as is performed by a labouring man in England, obtained from them.  They never felt themselves interested in the effect of their work, knowing that the ration from the store, whatever it might be, would be issued to them, whether they earned it or not; unlike the labouring man whose subsistence, and that of his family, depends upon his exertions.  For the individual who would pay them for their services with spirits, they would labour while they had strength to lift the hoe or the axe; but when government required the production of that strength, it was not forthcoming; and it was more to be wondered, that under such disadvantages so much, rather than that so little, had been done.  The convicts whose services belonged to the crown were for the most part a wretched, worthless, dissipated set, who never thought beyond the present moment; and they were for ever employed in rendering that moment as easy to themselves as their invention could enable them.

Of the settlers and their disposition much has been already said.  The assistance and encouragement which from time to time were given them, they were not found to deserve.  The greater part had originally been convicts; and it is not to be supposed, that while they continued in that state their habits were much improved.  With these habits, then, they became freemen and settlers; the effect of which was, to render them insolent and presuming; and most of them continued a dead weight upon the government, without reducing the expenses of the colony.