he other people employed on the island, together with a
week's provisions belonging to them; and in a visit which he made them a
few nights after in his canoe, he took off an iron pot, a musket, and
some ammunition.

The working convicts at Sydney had lately been principally employed in
constructing two convenient kitchens and ovens for the use of the
detachment, adjoining to the quarters; building a house for the
judge-advocate; forming roads either in or leading to the town; and
removing the provisions from the old thatched storehouse to that in the
marine quarters, which, by being covered in with tiles, was not so liable
to an accident by fire, nor likely to prove so great an harbour for rats,
to guard against whom it had become necessary to take as many precautions
as against any other enemy. They, however, in defiance of every care
which was taken to shut them out, when the provisions were removed, found
means, by working under ground, to get in; and as it was now a matter of
much moment to preserve every ounce of provisions that belonged to us,
they were all taken out, and restowed with an attention suitable to their
important value.

At Rose Hill, where as yet there was not any night-watch established,
petty thefts and depredations were frequently committed, particularly on
the wheat as it ripened. The bakehouse also was robbed of a quantity of
flour by a person unknown. These offences were generally attributed to
the reduction which had taken place in the ration of provisions; and
every one dreaded how much the commission of them might be increased, if
accident or delay should render a still greater reduction necessary.

Mr. Dodd, the superintendant at that settlement, a few days before
Christmas, cut and sent down a cabbage which weighed twenty-six pounds.
The other vegetables productions of his garden, which was by no means a
rich mould, were plentiful and luxuriant.

Some people who had been out with a gun from Rose Hill brought in with
them, on their return, a tinder-box, to which chance conducted them in a
thick brush distinguished by the name of the New Brush, about six miles
from the settlement. This article was known to have belonged to the two
unfortunate soldiers who had been unaccounted for since last April, and
who, in great probability, found there a miserable period to their
existence. They also picked up in the same brush a piece of linen, said
to have formed part of a petticoat which belonged