of peas.

The whole quantity of Indian corn purchased by the commissary on account
of Government from settlers and others amounted to six thousand one
hundred and sixty-three bushels and a quarter, which, taken at five
shillings per bushel, came to the sum of L1540 16s 3d.

Toward the latter end of this month, Wilkinson, the millwright, was
drowned in a pond in the neighbourhood of the Hawkesbury River. He had
been there on a Sunday with some of the settlers to shoot ducks, and
getting entangled with the weeds in the pond was drowned, though a good
swimmer; thus untimely perishing before he could reap any reward from his
industry and abilities.

Several people still continued to complain of sore eyes, but the disorder
was disappearing fast.

June.] The signal for a sail was made in the morning of the first of
June, and was conjectured to be for one of the ships expected to arrive
from England; but in a few hours word was brought that the _Britannia_ was
safe within the harbour. This arrival gave general satisfaction, as many
doubts about her return had been created by some accounts which the
master of the _Indispensable_ had heard at the Cape of Good Hope, of the
Bay of Bengal being full of French privateers.

On Mr. Raven's arrival at the settlement, we learned that he had been
forced to go to Batavia instead of Bengal, having been attacked in the
Straits of Malacca by a fleet of piratical Proas, which engaged him for
six hours, and from whom he might have found some difficulty to escape,
had he not fortunately killed the captain of the one which was nearest to
the _Britannia_ when in the act of making preparations for boarding him.
At Batavia he was informed that his passage to Bengal was very
precarious, from the number of French privateers which infested the bay,
as well as the west coast of Sumatra, several vessels having arrived at
Batavia which had been chased by them. Mr. Raven, therefore, determined
to load the _Britannia_ at Batavia, and, after some necessary
arrangements with the governor-general and council, purchased the
following cargo at the annexed prices for the settlements in New South
Wales, viz

Rix dollars Stivers

250 Casks of beef--111,2641/4 lbs. at 9 stivers* 20,862 2
250 Casks of pork--83,8651/2 lbs. at ditto 15,724 37
500 Pecols** of sugar, at 7 rix dollars
27 stivers per Pecol 3,781