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twenty shillings damages from each. One of these defendants, a soldier,
was advised to appeal from the decision of the court to the governor,
who, after hearing the appeal, confirmed the verdict of the civil court.

On the 6th the _Francis_ schooner sailed for Norfolk Island. The
governor, being anxious to learn the situation of the lieutenant-governor,
sent her merely with a letter, that if unhappily any accident should have
happened to him, a proper person might be sent in the _Reliance_ to
command the settlement, until a successor could arrive from England.
Having nothing to deliver or receive that could detain him, the master
determined to try in what time his vessel could run thither and back again.

The harvest was begun in this month. The Cape wheat (a bearded grain
differing much from the English) was found universally to have failed. An
officer who had sown seven acres with this seed at a farm in the district
of Petersham Hill, on cutting it down, found it was not worth the
reaping. This was owing to a blight; but every where the Cape wheat was
pronounced not worth the labour of sowing.

A quantity of useful timber having been for some time past indiscriminately
cut down upon the banks of the River Hawkesbury, and the creeks
running from it, which had been wasted or applied to purposes for
which timber of less value might have answered, the governor, among other
colonial regulations, thought it necessary to direct, that no timber
whatever should be cut down on any ground which was not marked out on
either the banks or creeks of that river: and, in order to preserve as
much as possible such timber as might be of use either for building or
for naval purposes, he ordered the king's mark to be immediately put on
all such timber, after which any persons offending against the order were
to be prosecuted. This order extended only to _grounds not granted to
individuals_, there being a clause in all grants from the crown,
expressly reserving, under pain of forfeiture, for the use thereof, 'such
timber as might be growing or to grow hereafter upon the land so granted,
which should be deemed fit for naval purposes.'

It was feared, that the certainty of the existence of our cattle to the
southward being incontrovertibly established, some of our vagabonds might
be tempted to find them out, and satisfy their hunger on them from time
to time, as they might find opportunity. We were therefore not surprised
to hear that t