hundred pounds. The names of the
principal performers were, H. Green, J. Sparrow (the manager), William
Fowkes, G. H. Hughes, William Chapman, and Mrs. Davis. Of the men, Green
best deserved to be called an actor.]

At the licensing of this exhibition they were informed, that the
slightest impropriety would be noticed, and a repetition punished by the
banishment of their company to the other settlements; there was, however,
more danger of improprieties being committed by some of the audience than
by the players themselves. A seat in their gallery, which was by far the
largest place in the house, as likely to be the most resorted to, was to
be procured for one shilling. In the payment of this price for admission,
one evil was observable, which in fact could not well be prevented; in
lieu of a shilling, as much flour, or as much meat or spirits, as the
manager would take for that sum, was often paid at the gallery door. It
was feared that this, like gambling, would furnish another inducement to
rob; and some of the worst of the convicts, ever on the watch for
opportunities, looked on the playhouse as a certain harvest for them, not
by picking the pockets of the audience of their purses or their watches,
but by breaking into their houses while the whole family might be
enjoying themselves in the gallery. This actually happened on the second
night of their playing.

The 18th was observed as the day on which her Majesty's birth is
celebrated in England.* The troops fired three volleys at noon, and at
one o'clock the king's ships fired twenty-one guns each, in honour of the
day.

[* The anniversary of her Majesty's birth might with greater propriety be
kept in the colonies, particularly in New South Wales, on the 19th of
May, the day on which it happened, than at any other time; the same
reasons for observing it at a time distant from the king's not existing
there. This is attended to in India.]

Among other objects of civil regulation which required the governor's
attention was one to remedy an evil of great magnitude. Some individuals
formed the strange design of making application to the governor for his
licence to erect stills in different parts of the settlement. On inquiry
it appeared, that for a considerable time past they had been in the
practice of making and vending a spirit, the quality of which was of so
destructive a nature, that the health of the settlement in general was
much endangered.

A practice so in