May.] The days being considerably shortened, and the weather having lately been bad, it became necessary to alter the hours of labour. On the first of May, therefore, the lieutenant-governor directed that the convicts employed in cultivation, those employed under the master bricklayer, and those who worked at the brick carts and timber carriages, should labour from seven in the morning until ten, rest from that time until three in the afternoon, and continue at their work till sunset. The carpenters, whose business mostly lay within doors, and who were therefore not exposed to the weather, were directed to work one hour more in the afternoon, beginning at one instead of two o'clock.
On the 4th the weekly ration was altered, the male convicts receiving (instead of seven) four pounds of flour, to which were added four pounds of wheat and four pounds of maize; the allowance of salt provisions continued the same; but, the oil being expended, six ounces of sugar were issued in lieu of that article. The wheat was that received from Bengal, and the maize was issued the first week shelled, but unground; on the second the people received it in the cob, getting six pounds in that state in lieu of four shelled. This was unquestionably a good ration, and when a sufficient number of mills were put up to grind the maize and the wheat, the people themselves allowed it to be so.
With a ration that they admitted to be a good one, with about six hours labour during five days of the week, and with the advantages of gardens and good huts, the situation of the convicts might at this period be deemed comfortable, and such as precluded all excuse for misconduct. Garden robberies were, notwithstanding, often committed at Sydney; and at the other settlements the maize which was still in the field suffered considerable depredation.
A distinction was made in the ration served to the civil and military, they receiving weekly six instead of eight pounds of flour, two pounds of wheat, and four pounds of maize per man.
About the middle of the month the weather was remarkably bad. In the forenoon of the 15th a report was spread, in the midst of a most violent squall of wind and rain, that a ship was coming in. The wind having blown from the southward for some days before favoured the story, and, every one who heard it believing it to be true, the town was soon in motion notwithstanding the storm; for, although it was not so rare as it had been to hear of a ship, yet there was always something cheering and grateful, and perhaps ever will be, in entertaining the idea that our society was perhaps about to be increased, and that we were on the point of receiving intelligence from our connections, or information of what was doing in that world from which we felt themselves almost severed. On this occasion, however, we were disappointed; for, on the return of a boat which had been sent to the South Head, we were informed that the signal had not been made, nor a ship seen to occasion it. But we had been well trained in New South Wales to meet and endure disappointment!
On the night of this day, during the very heavy rain which fell, some person or persons found means to take off, undiscovered by the sentinel at the store on the east side, five hundred weight of sheet lead, which had been landed from the Daedalus, and rolled to the storehouse door, where, being an article not likely from its weight to become an easy object of depredation, it was supposed to be perfectly safe. A very diligent search was made, but without success; and it remained undiscovered until the 27th, when a seaman belonging to the Kitty transport, on the ebbing of a spring tide, perceived it lying on the shore at low-water mark, opposite to the spot where the Daedalus lay at anchor. From this circumstance suspicion fell upon the people belonging to that ship; but as any design they could have in stealing it was not very obvious, it was more probable that some of the convicts had dropped it there for the purpose of secreting it till a future day, when it would have been got up, and cast into shot for those who are allowed to kill game.
About the end of the month the detachment of the New South Wales corps on duty at Parramatta was relieved. The party that remained there was placed under the command of Lieutenant Macarthur, the officer charged with the direction of the civil duties of that settlement. The relief took place by land, the party from Sydney marching up in about seven hours, and that from Parramatta arriving at their quarters in Sydney in something more than six. The computed distance by land is between seventeen and eighteen miles.
On the 29th our colours were displayed at the fort, in grateful remembrance of the restoration of monarchy in England.
Information was the same day received from Parramatta, that on the evening of Saturday the 24th a settler of the name of Lisk, having been drinking at the house of Charles Williams with Rose Burk (a woman with whom he cohabited) until they were very much intoxicated, as he was returning to his farm through the town of Parramatta, a dispute arose between him and the woman, during which a gun that he had went off, and the contents lodged in the woman's arm below the elbow, shattering the bones in so dreadful a manner as to require immediate amputation; which Mr. Arndell, being fortunately at home, directly performed. The unhappy woman acquitted her companion of any intention to do her so shocking an injury, and when the account reached Sydney she was in a favourable way.
In this accident Williams, it is true, had no further share than what he might claim from their having intoxicated themselves at his house; but that, however, established him more firmly in the opinion of those who could judge of his conduct as a public nuisance.