At this place and at Toongabbie additional stock-yards were preparing for the cattle lately arrived; and materials were collecting for building a church and water-mill at Parramatta.
At Sydney the ship's company of the Supply were actively and usefully employed in constructing a half-moon battery on the east point of the cove, where stood the house built by Governor Phillip for Bennillong, in those days when it was thought an object of some moment to soothe and conciliate the friendship of that savage.
There was but little variation in the weather, except that on the 25th there was a violent burst of thunder, attended with partial whirlwinds, by which several buildings were much damaged.
December.] At the departure of the ship Marquis Cornwallis for Bengal, which was on the 3rd of this month, several convicts were taken from the settlement without permission. This evil could alone be checked by severe prosecutions and penalties.
The harvest which was begun in the last, was completed in this month. In the abundance that was expected, every one was disappointed; for, owing to a most tedious and unfortunate drought during ten months, the wheat did not turn out more than one-third of what, from the quantity of ground sown with that grain, there was a reasonable expectation of its producing, had the season been moderately favourable. This was the more seriously felt, as at one time a hope was entertained of reaping grain sufficient to supply the colony with bread for two years.
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 (only two months), the one having got 54, and the other 60 tons of spermaceti oil.
The Eliza (more wisely) put into Botany Bay, to wood and water. She, although much longer at seal had not been so successful, having got only 45 tons of oil. The master of this ship stated, that he saw off the NE part of New Caledonia a ship on shore upon a reef, the lower masts of which were above water, and one of the tops was on the mast. The weather was thick and hazy, and blew too fresh to allow him to send to examine her; but a piece of a boat, which he took to be part of a whale boat, floating near him, he judged the wreck to be that of a whaler. He also fell in with a very dangerous and extensive shoal, lying NNW about 40 leagues from Sandy Cape, upon the coast of New South Wales. It was so large, that, finding himself entered upon it, and unable to get back, it took him from nine in the morning until six in the evening, going at the rate of six knots (or miles) an hour, before he ran through it.