ars.

The conclusion of the harvest was productive of a slight disturbance
among the Irish convicts at Toongabbie. Having, each man and woman who
had been employed, received a small quantity of spirits and water, which
had been ordered them, it produced at first cheerfulness and play, but
terminated in riot and ill-humour; a circumstance not uncommon with that
class of people. They were, however, easily separated and sent to their
respective huts.

On the 19th, the _Francis_ schooner arrived from Norfolk Island,
where all were in good health. Lieutenant Shortland, who had received
directions to search for Sir Charles Middleton Island and shoal, on his
return produced his journal and a chart of the various traverses which he
had made in quest of the island, and compared them with those made
formerly by Lieutenant (now Captain) Ball in his Majesty's armed brig
_Supply_, who had been sent by Governor Phillip expressly on the
same pursuit. The extensive range taken by those two officers in the
search, and their not having met with even any indications of land near
that situation, left little reason to believe in the existence of the
island. That of the shoal was not so doubtful; and, although Mr.
Shortland did not fall in with it, yet, as a shoal had been seen by two
or three different persons near the spot in which that reef was laid
down, there was much reason to believe that a dangerous bank or shoal did
somewhere thereabout exist; but its exact situation in point of latitude
and longitude had not yet been correctly fixed, nor was its extent
supposed to be so great as was at first believed.

On the evening of the 25th, which had been duly observed as Christmas
Day, the _Nautilus_ arrived from the southward. She had been at
Preservation Island, where, and among the neighbouring islands, she had
been tolerably successful in seal-catching. The master left 14 of his
people on the island of Cape Barren, to provide as many skins and as much
oil as they could against his return. Those with which he now arrived
were in a few days sold by auction.

The two whalers, the _Indispensable_ and _Britannia_, which had
been fishing on the coast, returned on the 29th for a few days to repair
some defects and refresh their crews. They had cruised chiefly from the
latitude of 32 degrees 00 minutes to 35 degrees 00 minutes, and not
farther from the coast than from 20 to 30 leagues, and thought themselves
rather successful for the time (o