the settlement
near the Hawkesbury; the distance to which place had lately been
ascertained by an officer who walked thither from Sydney in two minutes
less than eight hours. He computed the distance to be thirty-two miles.

The weather during the whole of this month was very unpleasant and
turbulent. Much rain, and the wind strong at south, marked by far the
greatest part of it. On the 25th, the hot land-wind visited us for the
first time this season, blowing until evening with much violence, when it
was succeeded (as usually happened after so hot a day) by the wind at
south.

September.] On the 1st of September the _Britannia_ sailed for the Cape
of Good Hope, on a second voyage of speculation for some of the civil and
military officers of the settlement. In her went, with dispatches, Mr.
David Wake Bell, and Mr. Richard Kent (gentlemen who arrived here in the
_Boddingtons_ and _Sugar Cane_ transports, charged with the
superintendance and medical care of the convicts from Ireland). The
_Speedy_ also sailed on her fishing voyage, the master intending not to
consume any longer time in an unsuccessful trial of this coast. Several
persons were permitted to take their passage in these ships; among
others, Richard Blount, for whom a free pardon had some time since been
received from the secretary of state's office.

Soon after the departure of these ships, the lieutenant-governor, having
previously transmitted with his other dispatches an account of the
transaction to the secretary of state, thought it necessary to issue a
public order, calculated to impress on the minds of those settlers and
others at Norfolk Island who might think themselves aggrieved by his late
determination of not ordering payment to be made for the corn purchased
of them by Lieutenant-governor King, a conviction that although he should
on all occasions be ready to adopt any plan which the lieutenant-governor
might devise for the accommodation or advantage of the inhabitants
at Norfolk Island, yet in this business he made objections, because he
did not consider himself authorised to ratify the agreement.

He proposed to those who held the bills to take back their corn; or, if
they preferred leaving it in the public stores until such time as an
answer could be received from the secretary of state, he assured them
that they might depend on the earliest communication of whatever might be
his decision; and that if such decision should be to refuse the