w
excepted, who had disorders which were contracted in England, and
only three persons died on the passage.

This vessel had passed through the Downs on the 25th of the
preceding February, and stopped eight days at St. Jago. By this
ship our colonists received some stores, and nine months
provisions for the women who came in her: they had also the
satisfaction of hearing that the Gorgon, whose arrival had been
expected for twelve months back, was safe, and was to sail for
the colony a week after the Mary Ann.

Two pounds of rice were now added to the weekly ratio of
provisions, the stores not admitting a greater addition; for
though an ample supply of provisions might reasonably be expected
by the middle of the ensuing month, yet their situation did not
admit their trusting to the various accidents, which had hitherto
been so very unfavourable to the colony: however, they were now
convinced, that from the plan proposed by government for
furnishing the settlement with provisions until it could support
itself, there was no reason to fear in future those
inconveniences which they had already laboured under.

In the night of the 16th of July, a serjeant, going the
rounds, found the door of the spirit cellar open, and the
centinel in the cellar, drawing off wine: this man, being ordered
for trial, offered himself as an evidence for the crown, and
charged two of his comrades with having frequently robbed the
store, of which there was not the least doubt: however, the only
evidence against these men being that of an accomplice, it was
not sufficient to convict them, and he saved his own life by
being admitted as an evidence for the crown. He was afterwards
tried by a batallion court-martial, (as being a marine, he could
not be tried by a general court-martial) and sentenced to receive
corporal punishment, and to be drummed out of the corps. The men
he had accused were the two who had been charged with robbing the
store at Rose-Hill, by one of those marines who suffered death
for robbing the store at Sydney in 1788, at which time, likewise,
they escaped, the only evidence against them being an accomplice
under sentence of death.

The rice which they received from Batavia was not of the best
kind, and was very full of dirt and wevil when landed; and the
wevil had now increased to such a degree that a very considerable
quantity of rice was destroyed: indeed, what remained had been
thought too bad to issue to the garrison,