n the 7th; but the
wind failing, she anchored in the lower part of the harbour. While lying
here, some of her people became drunk, and insisted on taking the boat
ashore. This being resisted, one of the crew fired a pistol at a soldier
who was on board, which, it being dark at the time, missed him, but the
ball went through the leg of a seaman belonging to the _Supply_, who
had been lent to the schooner. He was brought up to the hospital, and the
man who fired the pistol was conducted to prison, to answer for his
rashness.

The _Britannia_ and the _Ganges_ sailed on their respective
voyages. The commander of the latter was permitted to take on board
several convicts who had become free, and some of the marine soldiers who
had been discharged from the New South Wales corps, having completed
their second engagement in that regiment. They had talked of becoming
settlers, and remaining some years longer in the country; but the
restless love of change prevailed, and they quitted the colony by this
opportunity.

Mr. Clark, the supercargo of the ship _Sydney Cove_, having
mentioned that, two days before he had been met by the people in the
fishing boat, he had fallen in with a great quantity of coal, with which
he and his companions made a large fire, and had slept by it during the
night, a whale-boat was sent off to the southward, with Mr. Bass, the
surgeon of the _Reliance_, to discover where an article so valuable
was to be met with. He proceeded about seven leagues to the southward of
Point Solander, where he found, in the face of a steep cliff, washed by
the sea a stratum of coal, in breadth about six feet, and extending eight
or nine miles to the southward. Upon the summit of the high land, and
lying on the surface, he observed many patches of coal, from some of
which it must have been that Mr. Clarke was so conveniently supplied with
fuel. He also found in the skeletons of the mate and carpenter of the
_Sydney Cove_, an unequivocal proof of their having unfortunately
perished, as was conjectured.

By the specimens of the coal which were brought in by Mr. Bass, the
quality appeared to be good; but, from its almost inaccessible situation,
no great advantage could ever be expected from it; and indeed, were it
even less difficult to be procured, unless some small harbour should be
near it, it could not be of much utility to the settlement.

No circumstance deserving of attention had occurred for some time among
the nat