d for sheep-stealing
The _Hunter_ sails with Major Foveaux for Norfolk Island
The _Buffalo_ ordered for sea
Public gaol
July
Three men executed
General muster
Cattle purchased
The _Martha_ driven on shore
August
Survey of public stores
Spirits landed and seized
Death of Wilson
September
Rumours of Insurrection
Volunteer corps
Coal found
The _John Jay_ arrives
The governor quits the settlement
Live stock, etc
October
The _Buffalo_ sails for England
Touches at Norfolk Island

May.] The governor having received information from several of the
officers, that they had good grounds for suspecting that some of the
convicts lately arrived from Ireland had not left behind them the
principles which occasioned their being sent from that kingdom, but were
carrying on seditious correspondences, and holding unlawful meetings; in
order to discover whether there was any foundation for this conjecture,
he called in the assistance of Lieutenant-Governor King, Colonel
Paterson, Major Foveaux, and the several magistrates of the district;
when it was determined to make a sudden and general search among the
persons suspected in all parts of the colony at one and the same hour,
and to secure their papers and seal them up.

This was put in execution upon the 15th; but nothing was found in their
several dwellings which could furnish the smallest suspicion of the
conduct imputed to them.

On the following day, a convict, who had endeavoured with some
earnestness to propagate a report that many pikes had been fabricated,
and, to prevent discovery, had been sunk in a particular part of the
harbour, was examined before some of the magistrates; when he confessed
that he knew nothing of what he had asserted; saying, that he was
intoxicated at the time. He was severely punished for his design, which
perhaps he chose rather to endure, than impeach his confederates.

From the secrecy with which this business might be conducted, the
magistrates succeeded no better in an examination which was taken before
them, on an information that Harold, the Roman Catholic priest, had been
concerned in some seditious conversations; nothing appearing whereby he
could be criminated. The governor, however, judged it necessary, in
consequence of these conjectures, to extract the heads of the late acts
against seditious correspondence or unlawful assemblies of the people,
altering them to meet the situation of the settlement, and published them
in the