nder essential aid to the
civil department of the colony. It was farther intended, at a future
period, to place some people under his direction, to give him an
opportunity of exercising the abilities he was said to possess as a
practical farmer.

14th.] The magazine at the Point being now completed, the powder
belonging to the settlement was lodged safely within its walls.

It being of importance to the colony to ascertain the precise situation
and extent of the reefs seen by Mr. Blackburn, in the _Golden Grove_
storeship, in November last, Leiutenant Ball (who was proceeding to
Norfolk Island with provisions and convicts) was directed to perform that
duty on his return. He sailed with the vessel under his command on the
17th, having on board twenty-one male and six female convicts, and three
children; of the latter two were to be placed under Mr. King's care as
children of the public. They were of different sexes; the boy, Edward
Parkinson, who was about three years of age, had lost his mother on the
passage to this country, the girl, who was a year older, had a mother in
the colony; but as she was a woman of abandoned character*, the child was
taken from her to save it from the ruin which would otherwise have been
its inevitable lot. These children were to be instructed in reading and
writing, and in husbandry. The commandant of the island was directed to
cause five acres of ground to be allotted and cultivated for their
benefit, by such person as he should think fit to entrust with the charge
of bringing them up according to the spirit of this intention, in
promoting the success of which every friend of humanity seemed to feel an
interest.

[* The same who was wounded by Ruglass, earlier this chapter]

The cove was now, for the first time, left without a ship; a circumstance
not only striking by its novelty, but which forcibly drew our attention
to the peculiarity of our situation. The _Sirius_ was gone upon a long
voyage to a distant country for supplies, the arrival of which were
assuredly precarious. The _Supply_ had left us, to look after a dangerous
reef; which service, in an unknown sea, might draw upon herself the
calamity which she was seeking to instruct others to avoid. Should it
have been decreed, that the arm of misfortune was to fall with such
weight upon us, as to render at any time the salvation of this little
vessel necessary to the salvation of the colony, how deeply was every one
concerned in he