r had committed the burglary and
theft, and that he intended to have employed Williams to dispose of the
property; which the latter had undertaken, and would have performed, had
the watch proved to have been a timepiece which the prisoner imagined he
had been lucky enough to secure. Williams, had he been put to prove where
he was at the very time the house was entered, had people ready to depose
that he was on his way by water to his farm near Parramatta. This man had
formerly been remarkable for propriety of conduct; but, after he became a
settler, gave himself up to idleness and dissipation, and went away from
the court in which he had been giving his testimony, much degraded in the
opinion of every man who heard him.

[* They cut each other on the cheek with their knives.]

The _Britannia_ sailed on the 24th for the Cape of Good Hope, Mr. Raven
taking with him Governor Phillip's dispatches for England, in which was
contained a specific demand for twelve months provisions for the colony,
and the wishes as well of those whom he considered as his employers, as
of those who were not, for the safe and speedy execution of his
commission; as his return to the colony would introduce many articles of
comfort which were not to be found in the public stores among the
articles issued by government.

At Sydney and at Parramatta shops were opened for the sale of the
articles of private trade brought out in the _Royal Admiral_. A licence
was given for the sale of porter; but, under the cover of this, spirits
found their way among the people, and much intoxication was the
consequence. Several of the settlers, breaking out from the restraint to
which they had been subject, conducted themselves with the greatest
impropriety, beating their wives, destroying their stock, trampling on
and injuring their crops in the ground, and destroying each other's
property. One woman, having claimed the protection of the magistrates,
the party complained of, a settler, was bound over to the good behaviour
for two years, himself in twenty pounds, and to find two sureties in ten
pounds each. Another settler was at the same time set an hour in the
stocks for drunkenness. The indulgence which was intended by the governor
for their benefit was most shamefully abused; and what he suffered them
to purchase with a view to their future comfort, was retailed among
themselves at a scandalous profit; several of the settlers houses being
at this time literally