r. Joseph
Gerald, a prisoner, whose present situation afforded another melancholy
proof of how little profit and honor were the endowments of nature and
education to him who perverted them. In this gentleman we saw, that not
even elegant manners (evidently caught from good company), great
abilities, and a happy mode of placing them in the best point of view,
the gifts of nature matured by education, could (because he misapplied
them) save him from landing an exile, to call him by no worse a name, on
a barbarous shore, where the few who were civilized must pity, while they
admired him. He arrived in a very weak and impaired state of health. We
learned that two other ships with convicts, the _Marquis Cornwallis_ and
the _Maria_, might be expected to arrive in the course of this summer.

On the 7th, a criminal court was assembled, when the following persons
were tried; viz. Samuel Chinnery (a black) servant to Mr. Arndell*, the
assistant surgeon, for robbing that gentleman; but he was acquitted.
---- Smith and Abraham Whitehouse, for breaking into the dwelling-house
of William Potter, a settler at Prospect Hill, and after cruelly
treating the only person in the house, William Thorn, a servant)
stripping it of all the moveables they could find, and killing and taking
away some valuable stock; these were found guilty, and condemned to die:
and two settlers, and six convicts, for an assault on one Marianne
Wilkinson (attended with like circumstances of infamy as that on Mary
Hartley in April last) of which three were found guilty, and sentenced,
---- Merchant, alias Jones, the principal, to receive one thousand
lashes; the others, Ladley and Everitt, eight hundred each.

[* This gentleman had, on the arrival of Mr. Leeds, been permitted to
retire from the civil duties of the colony with a salary of fifty pounds
per annum.]

These unmanly attacks of several men on a single woman had frequently
happened, and had happened to some females who, through shame concealed
the circumstance. To such a height indeed was this dissolute and
abandoned practice carried, that it had obtained a cant name; and the
poor unfortunate objects of this brutality were distinguished by a title
expressive of the insults they had received.

On the 16th the two prisoners Smith and Whitehouse were led out to
execution. Smith suffered, after warning the crowd which attended him to
guard against breaking the Sabbath. Whitehouse, being evidently the tool