e there were one hundred and fifty acres cleared to be sown with
turnips, ninety-one acres were in cultivation by settlers, twenty-eight
by officers civil and military at and about Sydney; and at Parramatta one
hundred and forty acres were inclosed and the timber thinned for cattle;
making a total of nine hundred and twenty acres of land thinned, cleared,
and cultivated.

The platform at the west point of the cove was completed during this
month. The flag-staff had been for some time erected, and the cannon
placed on the platform. A corporal's guard was also mounted daily in the
building which had been used as an observatory by Lieutenant Dawes.

The mortality during this month had been great, fifty male and four
female convicts dying within the thirty days. Five hundred sick persons
received medicines at the end of the month. That list however was
decreasing. The extreme heat of the weather during the month had not only
increased the sick list, but had added one to the number of deaths. On
the 4th, a convict attending upon Mr. White, in passing from his house to
his kitchen, without any covering upon his head, received a stroke from a
ray of the sun which at the time deprived him of speech and motion, and,
in less than four-and-twenty hours, of his life. The thermometer on that
day stood at twelve o'clock at 943/4 degrees and the wind was at NW.

By the dry weather which prevailed our water had been so much affected,
beside being lessened by the watering of some of the transports, that a
prohibition was laid by the governor on the watering of the remainder at
Sydney, and their boats were directed to go to a convenient place upon
the north shore. To remedy this evil the governor had employed the
stone-mason's gang to cut tanks out of the rock, which would be
reservoirs for the water large enough to supply the settlement for some
time.

December.] On the 3rd of this month the ships _Albemarle_ and _Active_
sailed for India. After their departure several people were missing from
the settlement; some whose sentences of transportation had expired, and
others who were yet convicts. Previous to their sailing (it having been
reported that the seamen intended to conceal such as had made interest
among them to get off) the governor instructed the master to deliver any
persons whom he might discover to be on board without permission to quit
the colony, as prisoners to the commanding officer of the first British
settlement they