The expediency also of putting the colony in a better posture to repel outward attack, is not less obvious; for although we are now at peace with the whole world, it would be absurd to overlook the possibility of future wars.  The only battery of any strength is called, “Dawe’s Battery;” and is, as I have already casually noticed, situated in the extremity of that neck of land, on which the western part of the town of Sydney is built.  This battery, if I remember right, mounts fourteen long eighteen-pounders, but the carriages of the guns are in a bad state of repair, and the embrasures are so low, that a single broadside of grape would sweep off all who had the courage or temerity to defend it.

Fort Philip stands on the highest part of the same neck of land, and nearly in the centre of that part of the town which goes by the name of “the Rocks.”  This fort was erected by Governor King, immediately after the insurrection, to which I have alluded.  It is a regular hexagon, but it never was quite finished, and there are no guns yet mounted on it.  The glacis, in fact, is not sufficiently levelled to allow a proper range for artillery, and the circumjacent ground is so irregular and rocky, that an enemy might at once erect batteries at fifty yards distance.  Besides, this fort is so completely hemmed in with houses, that a great part of the town would be inevitably destroyed by the fire from it.  Its situation, therefore, is in every point of view objectionable, and succeeding governors have evinced their good sense, in not perfecting a work which would be attended with a very considerable expense, and could never become of any utility.

A new battery has lately been commenced on Bennilong’s Point; but this and Dawe’s Battery are both too near the town to protect it from the most insignificant naval force.  It is indeed a matter of surprise, that during the last American war, not one of the numberless privateers of that nation, attempted to lay the town of Sydney under contribution, or to plunder it.  A vessel of ten guns might have effected this enterprise with the greatest ease and safety; and that the inhabitants were not subjected to such an insulting humiliation, could only have arisen from the enemy’s ignorance of the insufficiency of their means of defence.

The climate of the colony, particularly in the inland districts, is highly salubrious, although the heats in summer are sometimes excessive, the thermometer frequently rising in the shade to ninety, and even to a hundred degrees and upwards of Fahrenheit.  This, however, happens only during the hot winds; and these do not prevail upon an average, more than eight or ten days in the year.  The mean heat during the three summer months, December, January, and February, is about 80 degrees at noon.  This, it must be admitted, is a degree of heat that would be highly oppressive to Europeans, were it not that the sea breeze sets in regularly about nine o’clock in the morning,