lthough the convicts were mustered in their huts at sun-set, and
three times more during the night, yet the theft was not
discovered until the next morning, when a very strict search was
made, in order to find out the offender, but to no purpose, as
the potatoes were (in the cant phrase) _all planted_; viz.
buried in the ground, so as to be taken out as they were
wanted.

This was one of the many acts of villainy that were daily
committed by these atrocious wretches.

Catherine Johnson, a female convict, was punished with fifty
lashes on the 7th, for abusing the store-keeper, and accusing him
of theft wrongfully.

Two acres were sown with Indian corn on the 16th, and the
ground being quite shaded from the sun, I employed a gang of
labourers to cut down the trees from three acres of land, in
order to let the sun in upon the corn. On the 28th, the produce
of 240 sets of potatoes, which had been planted on three roods of
ground the first of June, were dug up, and yielded five bushels
of very fine potatoes.

During the month of October, the weather was in general very
mild; the wind chiefly from the south-east. On the 1st, the
carpenters, with two men to assist them, began framing a barn,
which I proposed to erect in Arthur's Vale. The grub-worms were
still very numerous, notwithstanding the women convicts were
daily employed in picking them off the plants and out of the
ground: they totally destroyed one acre of Indian corn, and cut
off every cabbage and other plants as fast as they sprang up.

As it would be very convenient to have a path to the west side
of the island, I employed six men to cut a road from the
settlement to Mount Pitt, and from thence to Anson-Bay, which
business was completed on the 21st.

I went out in the morning of the 23d, to survey the west side
of Sydney-Bay, in the course of which, I found most of the bones
belonging to the body of one of the men who were drowned on the
6th of August, 1788: I brought them to the settlement, where they
were interred.

On the 27th, we had a strong gale of wind from the east,
attended with heavy rain, which was the first that had happened
since the 23d of September, and was much wanted. Fifteen acres of
wheat were now in ear, and had a good appearance; and the Indian
corn, of which we had seven acres, was in a thriving state,
although much thinned by the grub-worm: one acre of barley was
also in ear, and the garden vegetables were in great forwardness.