nty
of them.

On the same day a civil court was held for the purpose of granting
probate of the will of Thomas Daveney, late a superintendant of convicts,
who died on the 3rd of the month. The cause of his death was
extraordinary. He had been appointed a superintendant of the convicts
employed in agriculture at Toongabbie by the late Governor Phillip, who,
considering him trust-worthy, placed great confidence in him. Some time
after Governor Phillip's departure, his conduct was represented to the
lieutenant-governor in such a light, that he dismissed him from his
situation, and he retired to a farm which he had at Toongabbie. He had
been always addicted to the use of spirituous liquors; but he now applied
himself more closely to them, to drown the recollection of his disgrace.
In this vice he continued until the 3rd of May last, on which day he came
to Sydney in a state of insanity. He went to the house of a friend in the
town, determined, as it seemed, to destroy himself, for he there drank,
unknown to the people of the house, as fast as he could swallow, nearly
half a gallon of Cape brandy. He fell directly upon the floor of the room
he was in (which happened to be of brick); where the people, thinking
nothing worse than intoxication ailed him, suffered him to lie for ten or
twelve hours; in consequence he was seized with a violent inflammation
which broke out on the arm, and that part of the body which lay next the
ground; to this, after suppuration had taken place, and several
operations had been performed to extract the pus, a mortification
succeeded, and at last carried him off on the 3rd of July. A few hours
before his death he requested to see the ludge-advocate, to whom he
declared, that it had been told him that he had been suspected of having
improperly and tyrannically abused the confidence which he had enjoyed
under Governor Phillip; but that he could safely declare as he was
shortly to appear before the last tribunal, that nothing lay on his
conscience which could make his last moments in this life painful. At his
own request he was interred in the burying ground at Parramatta. He had
been advancing his means pretty rapidly; for, after his decease, his
stock of goats, consisting of eighty-six males and females, sold by
public auction for three hundred and fifty-seven pounds fifteen
shillings. He left a widow (formerly Catharine Hounson) who had for
several years been deranged in her intellects.

In addit