e dishonest or idle may not only assure themselves of being
totally excluded from any present or future indulgences, but also
that they will be chastised, either by corporal punishment on the
island, or be sent to Port Jackson, to be tried by a criminal
court there.

Chapter XII

TRANSACTIONS AT NORFOLK ISLAND

April 1788 to October 1788

-Regular employment of the convicts.--Meet with
an unlucky accident.--Thefts detected.--The robbers
punished.--Pestered with rats.--Method of destroying them.--Live
stock on the settlement.--Trees discovered which afford food for
hogs.--Some of the settlers poisoned.--Cured with sweet oil.--A
convict punished for using seditious language.--Birds on the
island. Description of Arthur's Vale.--His Majesty's birth-day
kept.--Flourishing state of the gardens.--Arrival of the
Supply.--Four persons drowned.--Provisions and stores
received.--Queries from Governor Phillip, and the
answers.--Ball-Bay described.--The landing-place
cleared.--Arrival of the Golden Grove transport.--Marines and
convicts brought in the Golden Grove.--Provisions and
stores.-

The settlement being now brought to some degree of order, I
distributed the people into regular working parties, in order to
facilitate the different operations which I was anxious to get
forward as fast possible. Five men were sent to clear away ground
on the north-east side of Mount George; two were employed in
clearing a road from the ground where we had pitched the tents,
to the fresh-water rivulet; two sawyers were sawing timber to
build me a house; two men were employed in building huts; and I
sent Mr. Altree, (the surgeon's assistant) to the valley which
has already been mentioned, in order to make a commencement
there, but as he had only a boy to assist him, his progress was
of course very flow.

For some time, the people were thus invariably employed; but
the work was often retarded by colds, which was the only sickness
we had as yet experienced: the workmen, indeed, had been often
blinded for four or five days together, by the white sap of a
tree, which getting into their eyes, occasioned a most
excruciating pain for several days. The best remedy we could
apply, was Florence oil; which, dropped into the eye, destroyed
the acrimony of the sap. One man was totally blinded with it, for
want of making timely application to the surgeon.

On the 17th, I detected John Batchelor, one of the marines, in
my tent, stealing rum out