re diet, but to the fatigue
consequent on their traversing the woods to Mount Pitt, by night, for the
purpose of procuring some slender addition to their ration, instead of
reposing after the labours of the day. They had committed many
depredations on the settlers, and one was shot by a person of that
description in the act of robbing his farm.
Governor King, having discovered that the island abounded with that
valuable article lime-stone, was building a convenient house for his own
residence, and turning his attention to the construction of permanent
storehouses, barracks for the military, and other necessary buildings.
The weather had been for some time past very bad, much rain having fallen
accompanied with storms of wind, thunder, and lightning. In some of these
storms the wreck of his Majesty's ship _Sirius_ went to pieces and
disappeared, no part of that unfortunate ship being left together, except
what was confined by the iron ballast in her bottom.
On board of the _Atlantic_ came sixty-two persons from Norfolk Island,
among whom were several whose terms of transportation had expired;
thirteen offenders; and nine of the marine settlers, who had given up the
hoe and the spade, returned to this place to embrace once more a life to
which they certainly were, from long habit, better adapted than to that
of independent settlers. They gave up their estates, and came here to
enter as soldiers in the New South Wales corps.'
Mr. Charles Grimes, the deputy-surveyor, arrived in the _Atlantic_, being
sent by Mr. King to state to the governor the situation of the settlers
late belonging to the _Sirius_, whose grounds had, on a careful survey by
Mr. Grimes, been found to intersect each other. They had been originally
laid down without the assistance of proper instruments, and being
situated on the side of the Cascade Stream, which takes several windings
in its course, the different allotments, being close together, naturally
interfered with each other when they came to be carried back. The
settlers themselves saw how disadvantageously they were situated, and how
utterly impossible it was for every one to possess a distinct allotment
of sixty acres, unless they came to some agreement which had their mutual
accommodation in view; but this, with an obstinacy proportioned to their
ignorance, they all declined: as their grounds were marked out so would
they keep them, not giving an inch in one place, though certain of
posses
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