them
the contents, which happened to be small shot for birds. These he
replaced with buckshot, and got rid of his troublesome and designing
followers by discharging his piece a second time. They all made off; but
some of them stumbling as they ran, he apprehended they had been wounded.
This account met with more credit than could usually be allowed to such
tales, as the person who gave it was held in great estimation by the
officers of his ship both as a man and as a seaman.

Mr. Palmer, the purser of the _Sirius_, having occasion to cut timber in
a cove down the harbour, was visited by some natives, who took an
opportunity of concealing two of his axes in the bushes. On his missing
the implements, the natives went off in some consternation, leaving two
children behind them, whom Mr. Palmer detained, and would have brought up
to the settlement, had not their friends ransomed them with the property
that had been stolen.

At Rose Hill, where the corn promised well, an Emu had been killed, which
stood seven feet high, was a female, and when opened was found to contain
exactly fifty eggs.

October.] The launch that was begun in May last by the carpenter of the
_Supply_, being completed, was put into the water the 5th of October.
From the quantity of wood used in her construction she appeared to be a
mere bed of timber, and, when launched, was named by the convicts, with
an happiness that is sometimes visible in the allusions of the lower
order of people, The Rose Hill Packet*. She was very soon employed in
transporting provisions to Rose Hill, and going up with the tide of
flood, at the top of high water, passed very well over the flats at the
upper part of the harbour.

[* She was afterwards generally known by the name of The Lump, a word
more strictly applying to her size and construction.]

Our enemies the rats, who worked unseen, and attacked us where we were
most vulnerable, being again observed in numbers about the provision
store, the commissary caused the provisions to be moved out of one store
into another; for, alas! at this period they could be all contained in
one. These pernicious vermin were found to be very numerous, and the
damage they had done much greater than the state of our stores would
admit. Eight casks of flour were at one time found wholly destroyed. From
the store, such as escaped the hunger of the different dogs that were
turned loose upon them flew to the gardens of individuals, where they