The last source of expense to the government which I shall mention, and which, although now also done away, has been the means of an astonishing increase in the expenditure of the colony.  From the fertility of its soil, Norfolk Island was for some time considered a great acquisition to the principal settlement; but subsequent experience has proved the futility of this idea, since the price of grain, instead of lowering in proportion to the additional trouble bestowed on the cultivation of the soil, remained the same just before its evacuation as it had been eight years before.  As a place for raising swine this island, indeed, might have proved of much utility, if the establishment there had been almost entirely reduced, and the attention of the colony had been confined to this subject, and to the curing of pork for the consumption of all the other settlements; but as this method was not adopted, it proved, from the time of its establishment, a continual check upon the prosperity of the principal colony, draining those resources which ought to have been applied to different purposes, where the hope and probability of some recompense, adequate to the expense, might have been more sanguine, and less unlikely.  Norfolk Island, so far from returning any proportionate recompense for those supplies, had not, in the course of thirteen years, sent to New South Wales property of any description exceeding in value 2000L.; during which period all the expenses of that island were included in the general account of the whole country with the Lords Commissioners of his Majesty’s Treasury.  So far from being in itself a flourishing colony.  Governor Hunter, who called there in his way to England in 1800, found that the whole of the public, and numbers of private erections, were in a most miserable condition; and his excellency declared that he had scarcely seen a negro town in the West Indies with half such a wretched appearance.  The grain here and there displayed a promising appearance, and swine were in some considerable numbers; but the coast was dangerous, Governor Hunter being himself once wrecked upon it in the Sirius, and nearly lost with all his ship’s crew; and this circumstance is calculated to deter vessels from touching at the island in quest of wood and water, which are both plentiful, but which may be procured in equal abundance in any of the other islands of the Pacific ocean where there are fewer rocks and breakers to contend with, and where the acquiescence of the natives might easily be purchased.  In addition to the above obstacles and inauspicious appearances, vessels at this place have no anchorage, but are obliged always to keep under sail; and I have known them to be blown off the island for several weeks together, with very little provision on board, whilst a part of the crew have been on shore; and by those means not only a considerable loss has accrued to the merchants or owners, but the lives of a number of fellow-creatures have been exposed to the most imminent danger.