ldings did not advance so
rapidly as the necessity for them required, owing to the weakness of the
public gangs; and indeed scarcely had there ever been a thorough day's
labour, such as is performed by a labouring man in England, obtained from
them. They never felt themselves interested in the effect of their work,
knowing that the ration from the store, whatever it might be, would be
issued to them, whether they earned it or not; unlike the labouring man
whose subsistence, and that of his family, depends upon his exertions.
For the individual who would pay them for their services with spirits,
they would labour while they had strength to lift the hoe or the axe; but
when government required the production of that strength, it was not
forthcoming; and it was more to be wondered, that under such
disadvantages so much, rather than that so little, had been done. The
convicts whose services belonged to the crown were for the most part a
wretched, worthless, dissipated set, who never thought beyond the present
moment; and they were for ever employed in rendering that moment as easy
to themselves as their invention could enable them.

Of the settlers and their disposition much has been already said. The
assistance and encouragement which from time to time were given them,
they were not found to deserve. The greater part had originally been
convicts; and it is not to be supposed, that while they continued in that
state their habits were much improved. With these habits, then, they
became freemen and settlers; the effect of which was, to render them
insolent and presuming; and most of them continued a dead weight upon the
government, without reducing the expenses of the colony.

These expenses were certainly great, and had been considerably increased.
The settlement was at this time much in want of many necessary articles
of life; and when these were brought by speculators and traders who
occasionally touched there, they demanded more than five hundred per cent
above what the same articles could have been sent out for from England,
with every addition of freight, insurance, etc. They saw the wants of the
colony, and availed themselves of its necessities.

April.] On the first of this month the criminal court sat for the trial
of a soldier belonging to the regiment, who had a few days before stabbed
a seaman of the _Reliance_, who insulted him when sentinel at one of
the wharfs at Sydney. The man died of the wound; the soldier,