met the entire approbation of their officers.

On the departure of the governor, the house that he had lived in was
taken possession of by the oldest captain of the corps, his apartments in
the officers quarters being confined, and tumbling to pieces.

Divine service was now performed at six o'clock in the morning. For want
of a building dedicated to that purpose, many inconveniences were
suffered, as well by the clergyman as by those who attended him. The
lieutenant-governor therefore did not require the ceremony to be performed
more than once a day; and that the health of the convicts might not be
injured from the heat of the sun, which at this season of the year was
excessive, he directed the church call to be beat at a quarter before six
in the morning. The overseers were enjoined to be particularly careful to
collect as many of their gangs to attend Mr. Johnson as could
conveniently be brought together; for, although it was not wished that
the huts should be left without proper persons to look after them, it was
nevertheless expected, that no idle excuses should keep the convicts from
attending divine service.

On the 10th the _Hope_ sailed for Canton, the master having been allowed
to ship three convicts, whose sentences of transportation had expired;
viz Murphy, a sail-maker; Sheppard, a joiner; and Bateman, a lad who had
been employed as an attendant on an officer.

At six o'clock in the evening of Tuesday the 15th, the signal which
always gave satisfaction in the colony was made at the South Head;
several boats went down, but when night closed it was only known that a
ship was off. A large fire for the information of the stranger was made
at the South Head; and at about ten o'clock the following morning, the
_Bellona_ transport, Mr. Mathew Boyd commander, anchored in the cove from
England; from which place she sailed on the 8th day of August last,
having on board a cargo of stores and provisions for the colony;
seventeen female convicts; five settlers, and their families; Thorpe, a
person engaged as a master millwright at a salary of L100 per annum; and
Walter Broady, who returned to New South Wales to be employed in his
former capacity of master blacksmith. The quaker families which had been
expected for some time past had engaged to take their passage in the
_Bellona_; but it was said, that they had been diverted from their
purpose by some misrepresentations which had been made to them respecting
this coun