who
were concerned in the commission of them were in general too weak to
receive a punishment adequate to their crimes. Their universal plea was
hunger; but it was a plea that in the then situation of the colony could
not be so much attended to as it certainly would have been in a country
of greater plenty.

The quantity of Indian corn stolen and destroyed this season was not
ascertained, but was supposed to have been at least one sixth of what was
raised. The people employed in bringing it in daily reported that they
found immense piles of the husks and stalks concealed in the midst of
what was standing, having been there shelled and taken off at different
times. This was a very serious loss, and became an object of immediate
consideration in such a scarcity as the colony then experienced; most
anxiously it expected supplies from England, which did not arrive, though
the time had elapsed in which they should have appeared had their
departure taken place at the period mentioned by the secretary of state
(the autumn of last year). His excellency therefore thought it prudent
still farther to abridge the ration of flour which was then issued; and
on the 9th of the month directed the commissary to serve weekly, until
further orders, one pound and an half of flour with four pounds of maize
to each man; and one pound and an half of flour with three pounds of
maize to each woman, and to every child ten years of age; but made no
alteration in the ration of salt provisions.

This ration was to take place on Saturday the 12th; and as maize or
Indian corn was now necessarily become the principal part of each
person's subsistence, hand-mills and querns were set to work to grind it
coarse for every person both at Sydney and at Parramatta; and at this
latter place, wooden mortars, with a lever and a pestle, were also used
to break the corn, and these pounded it much finer than it could be
ground by the hand-mills; but it was effected with great labour.

On comparing this ration with that issued in the month of April 1790, it
will appear that the allowance then received from the public store was in
most respects better than that now ordered. We then received, in addition
to two pounds and a half of flour, two pounds of rice, which taken
together yielded more nutritive substance than the four pounds of maize
and one pound and a half of flour; for the maize when perfectly ground,
sifted, and divested of the unwholesome and unprofitab