Being convicted on the 4th, they were executed on the 6th, upon the spot where the murder had been committed. The house was pulled down and burnt, and the bodies of the two men were hung in chains near the place. That of the woman was delivered to the surgeons for dissection.
The abandoned state in which the settlement was at this time cannot be better understood than by a perusal of the following orders, which were issued.
"From the late increased number of nocturnal robberies, there is much reason to suspect that the petty constables and divisional watchmen are either extremely negligent in the performance of their duty, or that they suffer themselves to be prevailed on by the housebreakers to be less vigilant than that duty requires, and to connive at their depredations on the inhabitants. A continuance of this unpardonable remissness upon their part must dispose the more respectable inhabitants to believe them partakers with the thieves. It is, therefore, hereby particularly recommended by the governor to every officer in the colony, as they value the security of their property, to give their utmost assistance to those immediately concerned in the executive part of the civil police, in putting, as speedily as possible, a stop to so very great an evil. It is also particularly recommended to the principal inhabitants of the towns of Sydney and Parramatta, that they select a few of the most respectable of their number, in each division of these towns, whom they may authorise to consider of the most effectual means of detecting the robbers, and bringing them to trial; whether by such rewards as they may be enabled to offer, or by small divisional patrols for the night service, and who shall take that duty by turns, and be under the immediate direction of a reputable inhabitant, of their own choice, or an officiating constable selected from among the most sober and vigilant of that description of persons.
Proposals for this purpose were to be sent in writing to the judge-advocate's office, and a bench of magistrates were to approve or alter them, as they should think proper.
This order was published on the 2nd, and on the 3rd the following appeared:
"The continual complaints which are made of the conduct of the female convicts require the most rigid and determined discipline with such characters, who, to the disgrace of their sex, are far worse than the men, and are generally found at the bottom of every infamous transaction that is committed in the colony. It is hereby most strenuously recommended to the magistrates in general, that on proof being brought before them of any improper conduct in those dangerous and mischievous characters, or of any disobedience of orders, or neglect of such duty as they may be directed to perform, they may be ordered such exemplary punishment, either corporal or otherwise, as the nature of their crime may call for. This measure will appear the more necessary, when it is recollected, that formerly, when such punishments were had recourse to, these women gave much less trouble, and were far more orderly in their conduct."
The superintendants were directed not to allow them to leave their work at their own pleasure, but to attend them, and see that they were employed during those hours which were allotted for their labour. The former of these orders seemed to have been attended with some effect; for in a few days several idle people, who, being out of their time, were employed only in wandering from one district to another, without any visible means of getting their bread, were apprehended, and, being examined before the sitting magistrate, were ordered to labour in the gaol gang.
Still alarming depredations were nightly committed upon the live stock of individuals, and were doubtless effected by those wandering pests to society; the regulations which had long since been established as a check to such an evil being wholly disregarded. It was discovered, that hogs were stolen, and delivered on the victualling days at the public store, without any enquiry being made, as to whose property they were, or by whom delivered, any person's name which they chose to give in being considered by the store-keeper as sufficient to authorise him to receive it, although printed vouchers for the delivery of such pork (and grain likewise) were left at the store, for the purpose of being signed by the party offering it. This certainly operated as an encouragement to the commission of these thefts; and it became necessary to order, that such persons as attended the receipt of any of these articles at the store should direct whoever delivered them to sign the voucher of the quantity received by him, the governor being determined never to approve of any bill laid before him for that purpose, unless the commissary should produce the voucher, properly signed, by the person in whose name such bill was made out.
About the middle of this month a general muster was made of all the inhabitants in the different districts of the settlement; and the governor, attending in person, collected from the settlers an accurate state of their farms and grounds in cultivation. This he did with a view of transmitting, in his next dispatches to Government, such an account of these people as, from being taken under his immediate inspection, might be depended upon. From the 14th to the 24th were taken up in this enquiry, from the result of which it appeared that there were in the district of the River Hawkesbury: 2544 and a half acres in wheat, 907 acres for maize; in the district of Parramatta: 1259 and a half acres in wheat, 663 and a half acres for maize; in the Sydney districts: 538 and a half acres in wheat, 365 and a half acres for maize; making a total of 4392 acres and a half in wheat, and 1436 acres for maize, in the three principal districts of the settlements.
At the Hawkesbury, the greatest quantity of ground in cultivation by any individual, who had from a convict become a settler, was fifty-one acres, forty-six of which were in wheat. Two others had fifty each, forty of which were in wheat. A man of the name of Flood (who, had been left by Mr. Hogan, when here in the ship Marquis Cornwallis in 1796, in the care of some ground which that gentleman had purchased) had at this time two hundred, and an agent of Mr. Palmer the commissary, had within seven of three hundred, acres in wheat. There were but few sheep in the possession of the settlers of this district, and about two hundred and forty goats. Hogs were more numerous, there being, after all the slaughter which had lately taken place among these animals, nearly two thousand remaining. The fertility of this spot had invited about one hundred and eighty persons to become holders of land thereon; and when they shall have erected their dwelling-houses and barns on ground inaccessible to the overflowings of the river (which, from its vicinity to the immense body of mountains to the westward, and its own irregularly winding form, must often occur), they will not find their time or exertions to have been misapplied.