ves all night at the edge of a brush which they
perceived him enter at dusk. In the morning he came out, when, looking
round him and seeing his danger, he presented his musket; but before
he could pull the trigger Wimbow fired and shot him. He was taken
to the hut of Rose, a settler at Liberty Plains, where he died in
a few hours. Thus ended a man, who certainly, during his life,
could never have been estimated at more than one remove above the brute,
and who had given more trouble than any other convict in the settlement.

On the morning of the 18th the _Otter_ sailed for the north-west coast of
America. In her went Mr. Thomas Muir (one of the persons sent out in the
_Surprise_ for sedition) and several other convicts whose sentences of
transportation were not expired. Mr. Muir conceived that in withdrawing
(though clandestinely) from this country, he was only asserting his
freedom; and meant, if he should arrive in safety, to enjoy what he
deemed himself to have regained of it in America, until the time should
come when he might return to his own country with credit and comfort. He
purposed practising at the American bar as an advocate; a point of
information which he left behind him in a letter. In this country he
chiefly passed his time in literary ease and retirement, living out of
the town at a little spot of ground which he had purchased for the
purpose of seclusion.

A few days after the departure of this ship, the _Abigail_, another
American, arrived. As several prisoners had found a conveyance from this
place in the _Otter_, the governor directed the _Abigail_ to be anchored
in Neutral Bay (a bay on the north shore, a little below Rock Island),
where he imagined the communication would not be so easy as the ships of
that nation had found it in Sydney Cove. Her master, Christopher
Thornton, gave out that he was bound to Manilla and Canton, having on
board a cargo for those places. For part of that cargo, however, he met
with purchasers at this place, notwithstanding the glut of articles which
the late frequent arrivals must have thrown in. He expected to have found
here a snow, named the _Susan_, which he knew had sailed from Rhode
Island with a cargo expressly laid in for this market. He came direct
from that port without touching any where.

The frequent attacks and depredations to which the settlers situated on
the banks of the Hawkesbury, and other places, were exposed from the
natives, called upon them,