, more worthless and thoughtless than before, as, to use their
own expression, they had now 'to work for a dead horse.'

On the 23rd (the signal for a sail having been made at the South Head,
the day before), there anchored in the stream, just without the two
points of Sydney Cove, the ship _Grand Turk_, from Boston, after a
passage of five months from that port. She had been twenty-three days
from Van Dieman's Land, meeting with a current, during several days, that
set her each day twenty-one miles either to the SE or NE. We found on
board as supercargo, Mr. McGee, who was here before in the _Halcyon_ with
Mr. Benjamin Page. He brought news from Europe as late as January last,
by which we learned that the war still raged. Mr. McGee had on board for
sale, spirits, tobacco, wine, soap, iron, linseed oil, broadcloth, etc.,
etc., for this market, Manilla, and Canton. The tobacco (eighteen
hogsheads) were immediately bought for one shilling and three half-pence
per pound, and government purchased some of his spirits at seven
shillings per gallon.

During this month a long-boat belonging to his Majesty's ship _Reliance_,
which had been sent to Botany Bay in July to procure fish, was given up
for lost, with five or six seamen. They were known to have quitted Botany
Bay, and, not having been heard of for some weeks, were conjectured to
have taken the boat away to the northward, where, being without compass
or provisions, except the few fish they had caught, it was more than
probable they had perished.

The jail-gang at this time, notwithstanding the examples which had been
made, consisted of upwards of twenty-five persons; and many of the female
prisoners were found to be every whit as infamous as the men.

One settler was executed this month, and one soldier lost his life by a
tree falling on him at the Hawkesbury.

The first and middle parts of the month were wet. The branch of the
harbour named Duck River was so swollen as to overflow its banks, which
were very steep.

September.] A temporary church, formed out of the materials of two old
huts, was opened at Parramatta by the Rev. Mr. Marsden on the first
Sunday in this month. Decent places of worship were now to be seen at the
two principal settlements. At the time when we were visited by the
Spanish ships Mr. Johnson preached wherever he could find a shady spot.
The priest belonging to the commodore's ship, observing that we had not
any church built, lifted up his e