This was one of the many acts of villainy that were daily committed by these atrocious wretches.

Catherine Johnson, a female convict, was punished with fifty lashes on the 7th, for abusing the store-keeper, and accusing him of theft wrongfully.

Two acres were sown with Indian corn on the 16th, and the ground being quite shaded from the sun, I employed a gang of labourers to cut down the trees from three acres of land, in order to let the sun in upon the corn.  On the 28th, the produce of 240 sets of potatoes, which had been planted on three roods of ground the first of June, were dug up, and yielded five bushels of very fine potatoes.

During the month of October, the weather was in general very mild; the wind chiefly from the south-east.  On the 1st, the carpenters, with two men to assist them, began framing a barn, which I proposed to erect in Arthur’s Vale.  The grub-worms were still very numerous, notwithstanding the women convicts were daily employed in picking them off the plants and out of the ground:  they totally destroyed one acre of Indian corn, and cut off every cabbage and other plants as fast as they sprang up.

As it would be very convenient to have a path to the west side of the island, I employed six men to cut a road from the settlement to Mount Pitt, and from thence to Anson-Bay, which business was completed on the 21st.

I went out in the morning of the 23d, to survey the west side of Sydney-Bay, in the course of which, I found most of the bones belonging to the body of one of the men who were drowned on the 6th of August, 1788:  I brought them to the settlement, where they were interred.

On the 27th, we had a strong gale of wind from the east, attended with heavy rain, which was the first that had happened since the 23d of September, and was much wanted.  Fifteen acres of wheat were now in ear, and had a good appearance; and the Indian corn, of which we had seven acres, was in a thriving state, although much thinned by the grub-worm:  one acre of barley was also in ear, and the garden vegetables were in great forwardness.  The grub-worm had totally disappeared, but still our calamities were not at an end; for the parroquets (of which we had myriads) were constantly destroying the wheat, and the garden productions; insomuch that we were obliged to keep a number of persons employed in beating them away with long poles.

During the month of November, the weather was hot and sultry, with only one shower of rain; the wind from the east-south-east.  The carpenters finished the barn on the 9th:  its dimensions were 30 feet long by 16 feet wide, and 17 feet under the eaves, with a loft over it.  The roof was well shingled, and the sides weather-boarded:  in short, it was a complete building, and conveniently situated, being in the center of the cultivated grounds in Arthur’s Vale.

On the 13th, Lieutenant Cresswell turned a turtle in a small bay, to the westward of the settlement, which he distributed amongst the free persons and others, as far as it would go.