g Prison, were much advanced.

October.] The governor, still turning his thoughts toward rectifying the
abuses which had imperceptibly crept into the colony, arranged in the
beginning of the following month (October) the muster lists which had
lately been taken; and, many more impositions being detected, he ordered
the delinquents to labour, after inflicting on them such punishments as
their respective offences seemed to demand; by which means he was enabled
considerably to increase the number of labouring people in the public
gangs. On his going up to Parramatta, whither he was attended by Captain
Johnston as his aid-de-camp, and Mr. Balmain (the surgeon) as a
magistrate, he recovered at least one hundred men for government work.

Exclusive of the advantage which attended the recruiting of the public
gangs in this way, another point was established by this examination, the
discovering of several who had been victualled from the stores beyond the
period (eighteen months) which had been fixed and considered by
government as a sufficient time to enable an industrious man to provide
for himself.

Directing his attention also toward the morality of the settlement, a
point which he could not venture to promise himself that he should ever
attain, he issued some necessary orders for enforcing attendance on
divine service, and had the satisfaction of seeing the Sabbath better
observed than it had been for some time past. But there were some who
were refractory. A fellow named Carroll, an Irishman, abused and ill
treated a constable who was on his duty, ordering the people to church;
saying, that he would neither obey the clergyman nor the governor; for
which, the next day, he was properly punished.

On the morning of the 16th, the people of a boat which had been sent to
the north shore for wood found a man's hat, and a large hammer lying by
it. One side of the hat had apparently been beaten in with the hammer,
which was bloody; and much blood was also found in the hat, as well as
about the spot where it was discovered. It was immediately conjectured,
that a man who had been working there with some carpenter's tools had
been murdered; and upon its being made known to the governor, he sent
several persons to search for the body, which was found thrown over the
cliff, and near the water side. On its being examined by the surgeons,
the skull was found beaten in, which must have been effected with the
hammer, and occasioned his d