ony, supposed to be secreted
on board a transport; making a total decrease of one hundred and
fifty-nine persons.

CHAPTER XII

New Year's Day
A convict drowned
A native killed
Signal colours stolen
_Supply_ sails for Norfolk Island
H. E. Dodd, Superintendant at Rose Hill, dies
Public works
Terms offered for the hire of the Dutch snow to England
The _Supply_ returns
State of Norfolk Island
Fishing-boat overset
Excessive heats
Officers and seamen of the _Sirius_ embark in the snow
_Supply_ sails for Norfolk Island, and the _Waaksamheyd_ for England
William Bryant and other convicts escape from New South Wales
Ruse, a settler, declares that he can maintain himself without assistance
from the public stores
Ration reduced
Orders respecting marriage
Port regulations
Settlers
Public works

1791.]

January.] On the first day of the new year the convicts were excused from
all kind of labour. At Rose Hill, however, this holiday proved fatal to a
young man, a convict, who, going to a pond to wash his shirt, slipped
from the side, and was unfortunately drowned.

The Indian corn beginning to ripen at that settlement, the convicts
commenced their depredations, and several of them, being taken with corn
in their possession, were punished; but nothing seemed to deter them, and
they now committed thefts as if they stole from principle; for at this
time they received the full ration, in which no difference was made
between them and the governor, or any other free person in the colony.
When all the provisions brought by the Dutch snow were received into the
public stores, the governor altered the ration, and caused five pounds of
rice to be issued in lieu of four pounds of flour, which were taken off.

Information having been received toward the close of the last month, that
some natives had thrown a spear or fiz-gig at a convict in a garden on
the west side, where they had met together to steal potatoes, the
governor sent an armed party to disperse them, when a club being thrown
by one of the natives at the party, the latter fired, and one man was
wounded. This circumstance was at first only surmised, from tracing a
quantity of blood from the spot to the water; but in a few days afterward
the natives in the town told us the name of the wounded man, and added,
that he was then dead, and to be found in a cove which they mentioned. On
going to the place, a man well known in the town since the intercourse
betw