[* The Loyalty Islands are situated between New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, and extend from about 21 degrees 30 minutes to 20 degrees 50 minutes S and from the longitude of 168 degrees to 167 degrees E. Mr. Raven supposed them to be a large group of islands, which, being pressed for time, he could not stop to survey. All that he had opportunity to determine was, the longitude and latitude of some of the head-lands. Many fires were seen on them in the night; the whole appeared to be full of wood, and in some places in high cultivation. These islands, certainly a discovery belonging to Mr. Raven, may be thought worthy of being explored at some future day, and become an object of consequence to the settlement in New South Wales.]

If leaving Port Jackson any time between the beginning of March and the 1st of September, Mr. Raven would prefer passing through a strait in the longitude of 156 degrees 10 minutes E or thereabout; and from the latitude of 7 degrees 06 minutes E to 6 degrees 42 minutes S which divides some part of the islands of the New Georgia of Captain Shortland; thence through St. George's Channel to the northward of New Guinea, through Dampier's Strait, down Pitt's Passage, to the southward of Boutton, and through the Straits of Salayer, into the Banda or Amboyna Sea. This passage the Britannia performed in sixty-five days from Port Jackson to Batavia; which, had it not been for calms she met with off the coast of New Guinea, would in all probability have been performed in six weeks, or thereabout.

Mr. Raven furnished these observations in the hope that they might benefit the settlement, by proving useful to the commanders of any ships which the governor might have occasion to send into those seas on the service of the colony.

The governor, convinced that an example was necessary to check the present practice of villainy, had ordered James McCarthy, the prisoner under sentence of death for forgery, to be executed on Saturday the 14th of this present month; but yielded to the request of Mr. Johnson (the clergyman who attended the prisoner) to spare his life, it appearing evidently on the trial, that, guilty though he certainly was, he had in the present instance been rather the victim of the vice of others, than of his own. He was accordingly pardoned, on condition of his serving for seven years at hard labour at Norfolk Island.

About this time the Marquis Cornwallis and Experiment sailed for India. Previous to their departure, Mr. Hogan, the commander of the former, had requested an examination might be taken as to the circumstances of his conduct toward the convicts and others on board his ship during their passage from Ireland to this country. The examination upon oath was made by the judge-advocate, assisted by two other magistrates, to whom it appeared, that Mr. Hogan, but for the fortunate and timely discovery of it, would with his ship have fallen a sacrifice to as daring and alarming a conspiracy as, perhaps, ever had been entered into by a set of desperate wretches on board of any ship; and that nothing was left for him, to save himself from the danger of a similar circumstance occurring during the voyage, but to inflict immediate punishment, on the persons who were concerned in it.

A civil court was assembled nearly about the same time, to try an assault, the action for which was brought by Mr. Matthew Austin (a gentleman who came out in the Marquis Cornwallis, as a superintending surgeon of the convicts in that ship, on the part of government) against Mr. Michael Hogan the commander, Mr. John Hogan the surgeon, and Henry Hacking the pilot. The circumstances of the assault being proved, the court adjudged Mr. M. Hogan to pay damages to the amount of fifty pounds; the others were acquitted.

On Mr. McClellan's arrival from Bengal, he reminded us, that some property had been found concealed in the bed of one of our people, which property had been shown to him at the time, under a supposition that it might have been stolen from his ship. On his return to India, he found that a small bale, containing the very articles which had been shown him here, had been put on board him at Bengal, to be delivered as a present to a gentleman at Batavia, the initials of whose name were marked on the bale. On his stating these circumstances to the judge-advocate, that part of the property which had been found, and placed in the custody of the provost-marshal, was given up to Mr. McClellan. Rogers, who had been either the principal or the receiver, perhaps foreseeing that the offence might sooner or later be brought home to him, had taken himself off in the Endeavour, and was one of those persons who had been unavoidably left behind at Dusky Bay by Mr. Waine when he quitted that place in the Assistance.

From the address with which this business must have been managed, masters of ships might see the necessity that existed for their keeping a vigilant eye over the people whom they admitted on their decks, and be perfectly assured, that many visited them for the express purpose of discovering what vigilance was observed by the master, his mates, and people. Many instances of this kind had occurred, although it might have been readily supposed, that a stranger would have been on his guard, and never have lost the idea of the description of people by whom he was likely to be visited. A large quantity of tobacco had been stolen out of the Bellona storeship shortly after she arrived here; half a cask of gunpowder had been stolen out of the Britannia, at the very time that the master was entertaming some of the gentlemen of the settlement in the cabin; Mr. Page, the master of the American ship Hope, was robbed of several articles, and the buckles out of his shoes, which stood in the cabin wherein he lay asleep; and this theft of the bale from on board the Experiment was an additional instance of the management and ability displayed by our people in conducting an affair of that kind.

From this recapitulation of some of the offences which had been committed on board of ships while riding in this cove (to which many others might have been added), let the masters of those which may hereafter be sent out, and who may have perused this account, be cautious who they receive on board during the day, let their pretext of business, or coming from an officer, be what it may; never should they be suffered to mix with their seamen, nor to see where the stores of the ship are placed; nor should a boat be ever permitted to come alongside during the night, and in that case the people should not be allowed to come into the ship. The masters of ships were long since forbidden to receive any convict on board without a pass signed by the judge-advocate, who, from his official situation, was the best qualified to know the character of those who might apply; but the decks of ships were often filled with convicts, who went off with merely the sanction of the masters they lived with, although known perhaps at the time to be as suspicious characters as any in the settlement.

Among the Irish prisoners who arrived in the Marquis Cornwallis was one who professed to understand the business of a millwright, and who undertook with very little assistance to construct a mill at this place. He appeared rough and uncouth in his manners; but our want of a mill was so great, that it was determined to try what his abilities were, and place some hired artificers under his direction. A spot was chosen on the summit of the ground which forms the western side of the cove, and, saw-pits being dug for him, he began the work.