iving
some gratuity for employing their future time and labour for the benefit
of the settlement. One of these people having, in the presence of his
excellency, expressed himself disrespectfully of the lieutenant-governor,
he was brought before a criminal court and tried for the same, of which
offence being found guilty, he was sentenced to receive six hundred
lashes, and to wear irons for the space of six months.

It must be acknowledged, that these people were most peculiarly and
unpleasantly situated. Conscious in their own minds that the sentence of
the law had been fulfilled upon them, it must have been truly distressing
to their feelings to find that they could not be considered in any other
light, or received into any other situation, than that in which alone
they had been hitherto known in the settlement.

In the infancy of the colony, however, but little was to be gained by
their being restored to the rights and privileges of free people, as no
one was in possession of such abundance as to afford to support another
independent of the public store. Every man, therefore, must have wrought
for his provisions; and if they had been gratified in their expectation
of being paid for their labour, the price of provisions in this country
would certainly have been found equal, if not superior, to any value they
could have set upon their time and labour for the public. As these
considerations must have offered themselves to the notice of many good
understandings which were among them, it was rather conjectured, that the
dissatisfaction which evidently prevailed on this subject was set on foot
and fomented by some evil-designing spirits and associates in former
iniquities. The governor, however, terminated this business for the
present, by directing the judge-advocate to take the affidavits of such
persons as would make oath that they had served the term prescribed by
the law, and by recommending them to work for the public until some
information was received from government on that head.

The observatory which was erected on our first landing being found small
and inconvenient, as well for the purpose of observing as for the
residence of Lieutenant Dawes and the reception of the astronomical
instruments, the stone-cutters began preparing stone to construct
another, the materials for which were found in abundance upon the spot,
the west point of the cove.

CHAPTER VIII

Barracks
Stock
Intelligence from Norf