The American, either finding the market overstocked, or having had some other motive for touching here, declared he had nothing for sale; but that he could, as a favour, spare two hogsheads of Jamaica rum, three pipes of Madeira, sixty-eight quarter casks of Lisbon wine, four chests and a half of Bohea tea, and two hogsheads of molasses. He had touched at the late residence of M. Perron, the island of Amsterdam, and brought off as many of the sealskins (his vessel being bound to China after visiting the north-west coast of America) as he could take on board. He had been five months and three days from Boston, touching no where but at the abovementioned island.
We had the satisfaction of hearing, through Mr. McClellan, from the master of the Britannia. He had, according to his instructions, proceeded to Batavia, where judging from his own observation, and by what he heard, that it was unsafe to make any stay, he after four or five days left the port, and by that means fortunately escaped being detained, which, from information that he afterwards received at Bengal, he found would have happened to him. He was to leave Calcutta about the end of December.
The report of the Cape of Good Hope being in our possession had reached that place before the Experiment sailed. On this subject we were rather anxious, as the armed ships which had lately arrived, the Reliance and Supply, were intended to proceed to that port as soon as the season would admit, for cattle for the colony.
Bennillong's influence over his countrymen not extending to the natives at the river, we this month again heard of their violence. They attacked a man who had been allowed to ply with a passage-boat between the port of Sydney and the river, and wounded him, (it was feared mortally,) as he was going with his companion to the settlement; and they were beginning again to annoy the settlers there.
Notwithstanding the reward that had been offered for apprehending black Caesar, he remained at large, and scarcely a morning arrived without a complaint being made to the magistrates of a loss of property supposed to have been occasioned by this man. In fact, every theft that was committed was ascribed to him; a cask of pork was stolen from the millhouse, the upper part of which was accessible, and, the sentinels who had the charge of that building being tried and acquitted, the theft was fixed upon Caesar, or some of the vagabonds who were in the woods, the number of whom at this time amounted to six or eight.
The harvest was all well got in during this month. At Sydney, the labouring hands were employed in unloading the store-ship; for which purpose three men from each farm having ten were ordered in to public work.
On the 21st of this month his Majesty's ship the Reliance sailed for Norfolk Island. In her went Mr. Hibbins, the judge-advocate of that settlement who arrived from England in the Sovereign; and a captain of the New South Wales corps, to take the command of the troops there.
On the 7th the surgeon's mate of the Supply died of a dysenteric complaint. He had attended Mr. Barrow to his grave, who died in December last. On the evening of the 23rd a soldier of the name of Eades, having gone over to the north shore to collect thatch to cover a hut which he had built for the comfort of his family, fell from a rock and was drowned. He left a widow and five small children, mostly females, to lament his loss. He was a quiet man and a good soldier.
February.] The players, with a politic generosity, on the 4th of this month performed the play of The Fair Penitent with a farce, for the benefit of the widow Eades and her family. The house was full, and it was said that she got upwards of twelve pounds by the night.
A circumstance of a disagreeable nature occurred in the beginning of this month. John Baughan*, the master carpenter at this place, being at work in the shed allotted for the carpenters in one of the mill-houses, overheard himself grossly abused by the sentinel who was planted there, and who for that purpose had quitted his post, and placed himself within hearing of Baughan. This sentinel had formerly been a convict, and, while working as such under Baughan in the line of his business, thought himself in some circumstance or other ill-treated by him, for which he 'owed him a grudge', and took this way to satisfy his resentment. Baughan, a man of a sullen and vindictive disposition, perceiving that the sentinel was without his arms, took them, unobserved by him, from the post where he had left them, and delivered them to the sergeant of the guard.