ot conceive this to be the moment for reducing it, much
as he wanted men. A wheat harvest was approaching; ground was planting
with Indian corn; not a man was unemployed; but he saw and explained that
a reduction must take place; that government could not be supposed much
longer to feed, maintain, and clothe the hands that wrought the ground,
and at the same time pay for the produce of their labour, particularly
when every public work was likely to stand still for want of labourers.
He was sensible that the assistance which had been given had not been
thrown away, and that the small number allowed by government could never
have produced such rapid approaches toward that independence which he
thought, from what he had already seen of the cultivation of the country,
was now much nearer than at his leaving it in 1791 he could have
conceived to be possible. To the settlers* who arrived in the _Surprise_
he allowed five male convicts; to the superintendants, constables, and
store-keepers, four; to settlers from free people**, two; to settlers
from prisoners, one; and to sergeants of the New South Wales corps, one.

[* Messrs. Boston, Pearce, and Ellis.]

[** Such as the marine settlers, those at Liberty Plains, and others who
never had been prisoners.]

As much inconvenience also was felt, and the end for which government
gave up the services of these convicts to individuals liable to be
defeated by their not residing at their respective farms, the settlers
were directed as much as possible to prevent their servants from having
any intercourse, particularly during the night, with the towns in their
neighbourhood; as most of the robberies which were committed were not
unjustly laid to their account.

It appeared likewise by this muster, that one hundred and seventy-nine
people subsisted themselves independent of the public stores, and resided
in this town. To many of these, as well as to the servants of settlers,
were to be attributed the offences that were daily heard of, they were
the greatest nuisances we had to complain of; and there was not a doubt
that they were concerned about this time in rolling two casks of meat
from a pile at the store in a very hard storm of wind and rain. Enough to
fill a cask was found concealed in different holes the following morning.

An indulgence had been allowed to some of the military and others, which
was now found to have produced an evil. Having been permitted to build
themselves h