However unpleasant it was to the governor, that the lives of so many of these people should have been taken, no other course could possibly be pursued; for it was their custom, when they found themselves more numerous and better armed than the white people, to demand with insolence whatever they wanted; and, if refused, to have recourse to murder.  This check, it was hoped, would have a good effect; and Pe-mul-wy, who had received seven buck shot in his head and different parts of his body, was taken extremely ill to the hospital.  This man was first known in the settlement by the murder of* John McIntire in the year 1790; since which he had been a most active enemy to the settlers, plundering them of their property, and endangering their personal safety.

[* Vide Vol I Ch.  XI viz:  ’On the 10th, John McIntire, a convict who was employed by the governor to shoot for him, was dangerously wounded by a native named Pe-mul-wy, while in quest of game in the woods at some considerable distance from the settlement.  When brought in he declared, and at a time when he thought himself dying, that he did not give any offence to the man who wounded him; that he had even quitted his arms, to induce him to look upon him as a friend, when the savage threw his spear at about the distance of ten yards with a skill that was fatally unerring.  When the spear was extracted, which was not until suppuration took place, it was found to have entered his body under the left arm, to the depth of seven inches and a half.  It was armed for five or six inches from the point with ragged pieces of shells fastened in gum.  His recovery was immediately pronounced by Mr. White to be very doubtful’.]

The people belonging to the crown were employed during this month in the following several works:  At Toongabbie, upwards of 100 men were occupied in agriculture—­a wind-mill was to be erected at Parramatta, where stone-masons and carpenters were preparing the materials.  At Sydney, a gang was employed in making bricks, where also were completing a large granary and a strong log-prison.  All the public brick buildings were likewise undergoing a repair, being crumbling into ruins; such as the barracks for the military, storehouses, officers’ dwellings and others.  Some people were also repairing the boats belonging to government; and bricks were bringing in for the barracks of the assistant surgeons (this part of the public labour was performed by a team of oxen).  A new flag-staff was prepared and erected at the South Head during this month, the weather of which had for the greater part been very wet.

CHAPTER IV

Report revived of a white woman being with the natives
A shoal seen
Some civil regulations
Natives troublesome
The governor goes on an excursion
Particulars thereof
A valuable tree discovered
Weather
May
The natives burn a house
Consequences