The natives of the coast, whenever speaking of those of the interior, constantly expressed themselves with contempt and marks of disapprobation.  Their language was unknown to each other, and there was not any doubt of their living in a state of mutual distrust and enmity.  Those natives, indeed, who frequented the town of Sydney, spoke to and of those who were not so fortunate, in a very superior tone, valuing themselves upon their friendship with the white people, and erecting in themselves an exclusive right to the enjoyment of all the benefits which were to result from that friendship.  That they should prefer the shelter which they found in the houses of the inhabitants to the miserable protection from weather which their ill-constructed huts afforded, or even to that which they could meet with under a rock, will be allowed to have been natural enough, when we present the reader with a view of a man, his wife, and child, actually sketched on the spot, by a person who met with them thus endeavouring to obtain shelter under a projection of a rock, during a heavy storm of rain and wind.

September.] In the beginning of this month, rumours being circulated, that the prisoners lately sent from Ireland for the crime of sedition, and for being concerned in the late rebellion in that country, had formed a plan for possessing themselves of the colony, that their arms (pikes manufactured since their arrival) were in great forwardness, and their manner of attack nearly arranged; a committee of officers was appointed by the governor to examine all suspected persons, and ascertain whether any such murderous design existed.

In the course of their inquiries, the committee saw occasion to imprison Harold, the Roman Catholic priest, who from his language and behaviour was suspected of being concerned in the intended insurrection.  He then confessed, that the reports of it were founded in truth, and engaged to discover where the weapons were concealed, of which it was said many hundreds had been fabricated.  In his confession he implicated several of his countrymen, who, on being questioned, in their turn accused several others; and the committee adjudged them all to be deserving of punishment; but Harold was never able to fulfil his engagement of producing the weapons.  These he first said were buried in the ground belonging to a settler, which he pointed out; but on minutely searching every part of it, nothing like a pike could be found.  Failing in this, he then said they were sunk in the lower part of the harbour; but even here they could not be discovered.  He tampered with an Irishman, to make a few that he could produce in support of his assertion; but the man had, unfortunately for him, been transported for having been a dealer in pikes, and declared that he would not involve himself a second time for them.  He at last found a man to fabricate one out of an old hinge of a barn door, but this bore too evidently the marks of imposition to go down with