r a new settlement, or endeavouring to find their way to
China! An execution for theft took place in January, and the unhappy man
declared that hunger had tempted him to commit the crime for which he
suffered. Many instances of profligacy among the convicts occurred, but
one stands forth distinguished by especial wickedness. A woman had been
trusted to carry to the bakehouse the allowance of flour belonging to
two others; and after having run in debt for flour taken up on their
account, she mixed a quantity of pounded stone, in the proportion of
two-thirds of grit to one of flour, with the meal belonging to the other
women.[101] Fortunately, the deceit was found out before the flour was
mixed with other meal at the bakehouse, and the culprit was sentenced to
wear an iron collar for six months. In April, a convict was killed by a
blow from the limb of a tree, which fell on his head as he passed under
it, and fractured his skull. He died on the spot, having earned from
those who knew him the character of being so great a reprobate, that he
was scarcely ever known to speak without an oath, or without calling on
his Maker to witness the truth of the lie he was about to utter. Are
these poor creatures, if may be again asked, to be cast out from their
own country, and left (as they too often have been,) to their own evil
devices and to Satan's temptations, without involving the nation that
has thus treated them in a load of guilt too fearful to contemplate?

[101] A similar scheme was to have been practised by some Irish
convict women, who were to have taken their part in a proposed mutiny
on board the _Marquis Cornwallis_ during the passage out, by mixing
pulverized glass with the flour of which the seamen made their puddings!
See Collins, p. 324.

Towards the end of the year 1792 the harvest was gathered in from
the 1540 acres of cleared ground, which were sown in the preceding
seed-time. The produce was tolerably good, and since no less than 3470
acres of land had already been granted to settlers, it was hoped that
before very long the colony might cease to be almost entirely dependent
for its support upon the precarious supply which it received from ships.
The colonists then learned by sad experience what many Englishmen in the
present day seem unwilling to believe, that _it is one of the worst
evils to be dependent upon other countries for daily bread_. In
December, the governor, Captain Phillip, left the colon