would admit. A convenient retired cove on the north shore being
fixed on for the purpose of a careening cove, she dropped down and took
possession of it toward the latter end of the month. She could have been
refitted with much ease at Sydney; but there was no doubt that the work
necessary to be done to her would meet with fewer interruptions, if the
people who were engaged in it were removed from the connections which
seamen generally form where there are women of a certain character and
description.

The gang under the direction of the overseer employed at the brick fields
had hitherto only made ten thousand bricks in a month. A kiln was now
constructed in which thirty thousand might be burnt off in the same time,
which number the overseer engaged to deliver.

The carpenter of the _Supply_, who had undertaken the construction of the
hoy, being obliged to proceed with that vessel on her going to sea, the
direction of the few people employed upon her was left with the carpenter
of the _Sirius_ during his absence.

July 14.] The governor returned from his second visit to the river, which
he named the Hawkesbury, in honor of the noble lord at the head of the
committee of council of trade and plantations. He traced the river to a
considerable distance to the westward, and was impeded in his further
progress by a shallow which he met with a short distance above the hill
formerly seen, and then named by him Richmond Hill, to the foot of which
the course of the Hawkesbury conducted him and his party. They were
deterred from remaining any time in the narrow part of the river, as they
perceived evident traces of the freshes having risen to the height of
from twenty to forty feet above the level of the water. They represented
the windings of the river as beautiful and picturesque; and toward
Richmond Hill the face of the country appeared more level and open than
in any other part. The vast inundations which had left such tokens behind
them of the height to which they swell the river seemed rather
unfavourable for the purpose of settling near the banks, which otherwise
would have been convenient and desirable, the advantages attending the
occupation of an allotment of land on the margin of a fresh-water river
being superior to those of any other situation. The soil on the banks of
the river was judged to be light; what it was further inland could not be
determined with any certainty, as the travellers did not penetrate to any