e about Red Point. The native returned with the soldiers as
cheerfully and as well pleased as if he had led them to the banks of the
first river in the world.

An excursion of another nature was at this time framing among some
discontented Irish convicts, and was on the point of being carried into
execution when discovered. Among those who came out in the last ships
from Ireland was a convict who had been an attorney in that kingdom, and
who was weak enough to form the hazardous scheme with several others of
seizing a long-boat, in which they were to endeavour to reach Batavia. A
quantity of provisions, water-casks, sails, and other necessary articles,
were provided, and were found, at the time of making the discovery, in
the house of the principal. These people had much greater reason to
rejoice at, than to regret, the discovery of their plot; for the wind, on
the day succeeding the night in which they were to have gone off, blew a
heavy gale; and, as there were no professed seamen in the party, it was
more than probable that the boat would have been lost. The greatest evil
that attended these desertions was the loss of the boats which were taken
off, for the colony could not sustain much injury by the absence of a few
wretches who were too idle to labour, and who must be constantly whispering
their own discontents among the other convicts.

On the 24th of this month we had the satisfaction of seeing the
_Indispensable_, a storeship, anchor in the cove from England, with a
cargo consisting principally of provisions for the colony. We understood
that she was the first of six or seven ships which were all to bring out
stores and provisions, and which, if no accident happened in the passage,
might be expected to arrive in the course of two months. The supply of
clothing and provisions intended to be conveyed by them, together with
what had been received by the _William_, was calculated for the
consumption of a twelvemonth. The quantity which now arrived in the
_Indispensable_ formed a supply of flour for twelve weeks, beef for four
ditto, pork for four ditto, and of peas for fourteen ditto. She sailed
from Spithead the 26th of last December, touched at Teneriffe and at the
Cape of Good Hope, from which place she sailed on the 30th of March last,
and made the South Cape of this country the 17th of this month. Between
the Cape of Good Hope and this port, the master stated that he found the
weather in general very rough, and