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nder essential aid to the civil department of the colony. It was farther intended, at a future period, to place some people under his direction, to give him an opportunity of exercising the abilities he was said to possess as a practical farmer. 14th.] The magazine at the Point being now completed, the powder belonging to the settlement was lodged safely within its walls. It being of importance to the colony to ascertain the precise situation and extent of the reefs seen by Mr. Blackburn, in the _Golden Grove_ storeship, in November last, Leiutenant Ball (who was proceeding to Norfolk Island with provisions and convicts) was directed to perform that duty on his return. He sailed with the vessel under his command on the 17th, having on board twenty-one male and six female convicts, and three children; of the latter two were to be placed under Mr. King's care as children of the public. They were of different sexes; the boy, Edward Parkinson, who was about three years of age, had lost his mother on the passage to this country, the girl, who was a year older, had a mother in the colony; but as she was a woman of abandoned character*, the child was taken from her to save it from the ruin which would otherwise have been its inevitable lot. These children were to be instructed in reading and writing, and in husbandry. The commandant of the island was directed to cause five acres of ground to be allotted and cultivated for their benefit, by such person as he should think fit to entrust with the charge of bringing them up according to the spirit of this intention, in promoting the success of which every friend of humanity seemed to feel an interest. [* The same who was wounded by Ruglass, earlier this chapter] The cove was now, for the first time, left without a ship; a circumstance not only striking by its novelty, but which forcibly drew our attention to the peculiarity of our situation. The _Sirius_ was gone upon a long voyage to a distant country for supplies, the arrival of which were assuredly precarious. The _Supply_ had left us, to look after a dangerous reef; which service, in an unknown sea, might draw upon herself the calamity which she was seeking to instruct others to avoid. Should it have been decreed, that the arm of misfortune was to fall with such weight upon us, as to render at any time the salvation of this little vessel necessary to the salvation of the colony, how deeply was every one concerned in he
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