payment
of the bills, he promised that grain should be returned equal in quantity
and quality to what had been received from them.*

[* Governor Hunter on his arrival ordered the bills to be paid, which was
afterwards confirmed by the secretary of state.]

How far the settlers (who in return for the produce of their grounds
looked for something more immediately beneficial to them and their
families, than the waiting eighteen months or two years for a refusal,
instead of payment of these bills) would be satisfied with this order,
was very questionable. It has been seen already, that they were
dissatisfied at the produce of their second crops not being purchased;
what then must be their ideas on finding even the first received indeed,
but not accounted for; purchased, but not paid for? it was fair to
conclude, that on thus finding themselves without a market for their
overplus grain, they would certainly give up the cultivation of their
farms and quit the island. Should this happen, Lieutenant-governor King
would have to lament the necessity of a measure having been adopted which
in effect promised to depopulate his government.

On the 10th and 11th of this month we had two very welcome arrivals from
England, the _Resolution_ and _Salamander_ storeships. They were both
freighted with stores and provisions for the colony; but immediately on
their anchoring we were given to understand, that from meeting with
uncommon bad weather between the Cape of Good Hope and Van Dieman's Land,
the masters apprehended that their cargoes had sustained much damage.

The _Resolution_ sailed in company with the _Salamander_ (from whom she
parted in a heavy gale of wind about the longitude of the islands
Amsterdam and St. Paul's) on the 20th of March last; anchored on the 16th
of April at the Isle of May, whence she sailed on the 20th; crossed the
equator on the 3rd of May; anchored on the 25th of the same month in the
harbour of Rio de Janeiro; left it on the 10th of June, and, after a very
boisterous passage, made the southern extremity of New Holland on the
30th of August, having been ninety-three days in her passage from the
Brazils, during which time she endured several hard gales of wind, three
of which the master, Mr. Matthew Lock, reported to have been as severe as
any man on board his ship had ever witnessed. He stated, in the protest
which he entered before the judge-advocate, that his ship was very much
strained, the main piece