On these services the Supply sailed the 6th of this month; on which day the governor set off with a party on a second excursion to Broken Bay, in the hope of being able, from the head of that harbour, to reach the mountains inland.  His excellency returned to the settlement on the evening of the 16th, having discovered a capacious freshwater river, emptying itself into Broken Bay, and extending to the westward.  He was compelled to return without tracing it to its source, not having a sufficient quantity of provisions with him; but immediately made the necessary preparations for returning to finish his examination of it; and set off on that design with an increased party, and provisions for twenty-one days, on Monday the 29th.

Caesar, being closely attended to, was at length apprehended and secured.  This man was always reputed the hardest working convict in the country; his frame was muscular and well calculated for hard labour; but in his intellects he did not very widely differ from a brute; his appetite was ravenous, for he could in any one day devour the full ration for two days.  To gratify this appetite he was compelled to steal from others, and all his thefts were directed to that purpose.  He was such a wretch, and so indifferent about meeting death, that he declared while in confinement, that if he should be hanged, he would create a laugh before he was turned off, by playing off some trick upon the executioner.  Holding up such a mere animal as an example was not expected to have the proper or intended effect; the governor therefore, with the humanity that was always conspicuous in his exercise of the authority vested in him, directed that he should be sent to Garden Island, there to work in fetters; and in addition to his ration of provisions he was to be supplied with vegetables from the garden.

The Sirius had, in the gale of wind which she met with off Tasman’s Head, sustained much more damage, and was, upon inspection, found to have been weakened much more than was at first conjectured.  This was the more unfortunate, as, from the nature of our situation, many important services were yet to be rendered by her to the colony.  It became, therefore, a matter of public concern to have her damages repaired and the ship strengthened as expeditiously and as efficaciously as our abilities would admit.  A convenient retired cove on the north shore being fixed on for the purpose of a careening cove, she dropped down and took possession of it toward the latter end of the month.  She could have been refitted with much ease at Sydney; but there was no doubt that the work necessary to be done to her would meet with fewer interruptions, if the people who were engaged in it were removed from the connections which seamen generally form where there are women of a certain character and description.

The gang under the direction of the overseer employed at the brick fields had hitherto only made ten thousand bricks in a month.  A kiln was now constructed in which thirty thousand might be burnt off in the same time, which number the overseer engaged to deliver.