produced so abundantly, as to
insure him a sufficiency of that article for the next twelve months. The
inhabitants were healthy; and such had been the effects of some wholesome
regulations, and the attention of the magistrates to enforce them, that
for the last three months not any offence deserving of punishment had
been committed, nor a cob of corn purloined either of private or public
property.

At the departure of the _Kitty_, he was busied in erecting some necessary
buildings, as barracks, a granary, storehouses, etc. and had completed a
very excellent house for his own use. Lime-stone having been found in
great abundance on Norfolk Island, enabled him to build with some extent
and security than had hitherto been done even in New South Wales. Several
casks of this useful article were now imported in the _Kitty_, with a
quantity of plank.

Captain Johnston's company in the new corps received some addition by
this ship. Eight of the marine settlers, whose grounds, on extending the
lines of their allotments, were found to intersect each other, and who
had declined such accommodation as Governor King thought it proper to
offer them, had resigned their farms, and preferred returning to their
former profession.

Toward the latter end of the month information was received of some
nefarious practices which had been carrying on at the store at
Parramatta; the sum of which was, that the two convicts who had been
employed in issuing the provisions under the storekeeper had been for
some time in the habit of serving out on each issuing-day an extra
allowance of provisions to one, or occasionally to two messes. The messes
consisted of six people, and one of these six (taking any mess he chose)
used to be previously informed by one or other of the convicts who served
the provisions, that an extra allowance for the whole mess would be
served to him, which he was to receive and convey away, taking care to
return the allowance to them at night, then to be divided into three
shares. To accomplish this fraud, an opportunity was to be taken of the
storekeeper's absence, which might happen during the course of a long
serving, and for which they took care to watch. On his return the mess
for which one allowance had just been served was publicly called, and the
whole served a second time. With this practice they had trusted nine or
ten different people; and the wife of one man, who had assisted in the
crime, in a fit of drunkenness c