osed in them.

This perhaps was owing to the uncertainty of reward for any services that
they might render while in the class of convicts. As an exception to this
rule, however, must be mentioned those people to whom unconditional
emancipation had been held out at the expiration of a certain period, if
then considered as deserving of his Majesty's mercy as at the time of
making the promise. In the hope of this reward they continued to conduct
themselves without incurring the slightest censure; and one of them,
Samuel Burt, was deemed, through a conscientious and rigid discharge of
his duty, to have merited the pardon he looked up to. Accordingly, on the
last day of the month he was declared absolutely free. In the instrument
of his emancipation it was stated, 'that the remainder of his term of
transportation was remitted in consideration of his good conduct in
discovering and thereby preventing the intended mutiny on board the
_Scarborough_ in her voyage to this country in the year 1790, and his
faithful services in the public stores under the commissary since his
arrival.' Independent of his integrity as a storekeeper, he was certainly
deserving of some distinguishing mark of favour for having been the means
of saving the transport in which he came out at the risk of his own life.

At the end of this month nearly four hundred acres were got ready for
wheat at Sydney, and every exertion was making to increase that quantity.

A large number of slops having been prepared, a frock, shirt, and
trousers, were served out to each male convict at Sydney and the interior
settlements. Shoes were become an article of exceeding scarcity; and the
country had hitherto afforded nothing that could be substituted for them.
A convict who understood the business of a tanner had shown that the skin
of the kangaroo might be tanned; but the animal was not found in
sufficient abundance to answer this purpose for any number of people; and
the skin itself was not of a substance to be applied to the soling of
shoes.

Among the number of deaths this month was that of William Crozier Cook,
who expired in consequence of eating two pounds of unground wheat, which
was forced, by his immediately drinking a quantity of water, into the
intestines, whence it could not pass; and though the most active
medicines were administered a mortification took place in the lower part
of his intestines, which put an end to his life. Cook had, for a length
of time