fficer, who had been collecting rushes in a cove up the
harbour, found and brought to the hospital the bodies of two convicts who
had been employed for some time in cutting rushes there, pierced through
in many places with spears, and the head of one beaten to a jelly. As it
was improbable that these murders should be committed without
provocation, inquiry was made, and it appeared that these unfortunate men
had, a few days previous to their being found, taken away and detained a
canoe belonging to the natives, for which act of violence and injustice
they paid with their lives.

Notwithstanding these circumstances, a party of natives in their canoes
went alongside the _Sirius_, and some submitted to the operation of
shaving: after which they landed on the western point of the cove, where
they examined every thing they saw with the greatest attention, and went
away peaceably, and apparently were not under any apprehension of
resentment on our parts for the murders above-mentioned.

June.] The governor, however, on hearing that the two rushcutters had
been killed, thought it absolutely necessary to endeavour to find out,
and, if possible, secure the people who killed them; for which purpose he
set off with a strong party well armed, and landed in the cove where
their bodies had been found; whence he struck across the country to
Botany Bay, where on the beach he saw about fifty canoes, but none of
their owners. In a cove on the sea-side, between Botany Bay and Port
Jackson, he suddenly fell in with an armed party of natives, in number
between two and three hundred, men, women, and children. With these a
friendly intercourse directly took place, and some spears, etc. were
exchanged for hatchets; but the murderers of the rush-cutters, if they
were amongst them, could not be discovered in the crowd. The governor
hoped to have found the people still at the place where the men had been
killed, in which case he would have endeavoured to secure some of them;
but, not having any fixed residence, they had, perhaps, left the spot
immediately after glutting their sanguinary resentment.

His Majesty's birthday was kept with every attention that it was possible
to distinguish it by in this country; the morning was ushered in by the
discharge of twenty-one guns from the _Sirius_ and _Supply_; on shore the
colours were hoisted at the flag-staff, and at noon the detachment of
marines fired three volleys; after which the officers of the c