e during the night, and in that
case the people should not be allowed to come into the ship. The masters
of ships were long since forbidden to receive any convict on board
without a pass signed by the judge-advocate, who, from his official
situation, was the best qualified to know the character of those who
might apply; but the decks of ships were often filled with convicts, who
went off with merely the sanction of the masters they lived with,
although known perhaps at the time to be as suspicious characters as any
in the settlement.

Among the Irish prisoners who arrived in the _Marquis Cornwallis_ was one
who professed to understand the business of a millwright, and who
undertook with very little assistance to construct a mill at this place.
He appeared rough and uncouth in his manners; but our want of a mill was
so great, that it was determined to try what his abilities were, and
place some hired artificers under his direction. A spot was chosen on the
summit of the ground which forms the western side of the cove, and,
saw-pits being dug for him, he began the work.

With a mill once erected competent to the grinding of all our wheat, a
reduction in the ration of flour would not be felt. So sensible of this
advantage had the governor been, that he brought out with him the most
material parts of a windmill, with a model, by which any millwright he
might find here would be enabled to set up the different parts; and Thorp
the millwright was employed in collecting and preparing the timber
necessary for putting up this mill at Parramatta.

The weather was very variable during the month. The cattle brought by
Mr. Raven, though in Smithfield they would not all together have been worth
fifty pounds, were sold by auction at enormous prices. The mares went at
one hundred pounds, one of the cows at eighty-four pounds, and the others
at prices something inferior.

June.] His Majesty's birthday was observed by the settlement with that
attention which, as English subjects, we were proud to pay to it. The
_Susan_ (with American colours flying), though provided with only six or
eight guns, contrived to fire at one o'clock with the king's ships, a
well-timed salute of twenty-one guns in honour of the day.

On this occasion the governor pardoned all culprits, except James
McCarthy, who was under orders for Norfolk Island. It might be looked
upon as a sort of encouragement to the commission of crimes, thus by a
periodical pardon to