through the seven days they were intended to serve them, but were known
to have consumed the whole at the end of the third or fourth day. One of
this description made his week's allowance of flour (eight pounds) into
eighteen cakes, which he devoured at one meal; he was soon after taken
speechless and senseless, and died the following day at the hospital, a
loathsome putrid object.

The obvious consequence of this want of economy was, that he who had
three days to live, and nothing to live on, before the store would be
again open to supply his wants, must steal from those who had been more
provident. Had a few persons been sent out who were not of the
description of convicts, to have acted as overseers, or superintendants,
regulations for their internal economy, as well in the articles of
clothing as provisions, might have been formed which would have prevented
these evils: it would then too have been more practicable to detect them
in selling or exchanging the slops which they received, and their
provisions would have been subject to a daily inspection. But overseers
drawn from among themselves were found not to have that influence which
was so absolutely necessary to carry any regulation into effect. And
although the convicts, previous to the birthday, were assembled, and
their duty pointed out to them, as well as the certain consequence of a
breach or neglect thereof, both by his excellency the governor and the
lieutenant-governor, yet it soon appeared that there were some among them
so inured to the habits of vice, and so callous to remonstrance, that
they were only restrained until a favourable opportunity presented
itself.

The convicts who had been sent to the rock, in the hope that lenity to
them might operate also upon others, were, on the occasion of his
Majesty's birthday, liberated from their chains and confinement, and his
excellency forgave the offences of which they had been respectively
guilty, and which had occasioned their being sent thither.

By some strange and unpardonable neglect in the convict who had been
entrusted with the care of the cattle, the two bulls and four cows were
lost in the beginning of this month. The man had been accustomed to drive
them out daily to seek the freshest grass and best pasturage, and was
ordered never on any pretence to leave them. To this order, as it
afterwards appeared, he very seldom attended, frequently coming in from
the woods about noon to get his dinner, le