ey witnessing his sufferings with the
most perfect indifference.

The weather was exceedingly hot during the whole of January.

February.] Deplorable was the catalogue of events that presented itself
in this month: executions, robberies, and accidents.

On the 8th a prisoner, who had been condemned to die by the last court,
suffered the sentence of the law. The recollection of his untimely end,
and his admonitions from the fatal tree, could not have departed from the
minds of those who saw and heard him, when another court sent another
offender to the same tree and for the same crime. Samuel Wright had been
once before respited at the gallows. On the morning of his execution, the
wretched man attempted to cut his throat; but as he only very slightly
wounded himself, it may be supposed that he merely hoped, by delaying the
execution, to gain time to effect an escape.

Before this court, was brought part of a nest of thieves, who had lately
stolen property to the amount of several hundred pounds; but none of them
were capitally convicted, being sentenced either to be transported to
Norfolk Island, or corporally punished.

It might be supposed, that these executions and punishments would have
operated as a check to the commission of offences; but they appeared to
be wholly disregarded, and enormity had not yet attained its full height.

On the night of the 11th, between the hours of eleven and twelve, the
public gaol at Sydney, which cost so much labour and expense to erect,
was set on fire, and soon completely consumed. The building was thatched,
and there was not any doubt of its having been done through design. But,
if this was the fact, it will be read with horror, that at the time there
were confined within its walls twenty prisoners, most of whom were loaded
with irons, and who with difficulty were snatched from the flames.
Feeling for each other was never imputed to these miscreants; and yet if
several were engaged in the commission of a crime they have seldom been
known to betray their companions in iniquity.

To complete this catalogue of offences, a few days after, some Irish
convicts, with their faces blackened, attacked the house of an
industrious man (one of the missionaries), whom they severely wounded in
several places and plundered of all his property.

Were it not evident that certain punishment awaited the conviction of
offenders, it might be supposed that a relaxation of the civil authority
had b