provisions would have been subject to a daily inspection.  But overseers drawn from among themselves were found not to have that influence which was so absolutely necessary to carry any regulation into effect.  And although the convicts, previous to the birthday, were assembled, and their duty pointed out to them, as well as the certain consequence of a breach or neglect thereof, both by his excellency the governor and the lieutenant-governor, yet it soon appeared that there were some among them so inured to the habits of vice, and so callous to remonstrance, that they were only restrained until a favourable opportunity presented itself.

The convicts who had been sent to the rock, in the hope that lenity to them might operate also upon others, were, on the occasion of his Majesty’s birthday, liberated from their chains and confinement, and his excellency forgave the offences of which they had been respectively guilty, and which had occasioned their being sent thither.

By some strange and unpardonable neglect in the convict who had been entrusted with the care of the cattle, the two bulls and four cows were lost in the beginning of this month.  The man had been accustomed to drive them out daily to seek the freshest grass and best pasturage, and was ordered never on any pretence to leave them.  To this order, as it afterwards appeared, he very seldom attended, frequently coming in from the woods about noon to get his dinner, leaving them grazing at some little distance from the farm where they were kept; and in this manner they were lost.  They had strayed from the spot he expected to find them on, or perhaps had been driven from it by the natives, and he spent two days in searching for them before the governor was made acquainted with the accident.

Several parties were successively sent out to endeavour the recovery of stock so essential to the colony; but constantly returned without success.

On the 27th a party of the natives, supposed to be in number from twenty to thirty, landed at the point on the east side of the cove, between the hours of eleven and twelve at night, and proceeded along close by the sentinels, stopping for some time at the spot where the governor’s house was building, and in the rear of the tents inhabited by some of the women.  It was said that they appeared alarmed on hearing the sentinels call out ‘All is well,’ and, after standing there for some time, went off toward the run of water.  The sentinels were very positive that they saw them, and were minute in their relation of the above circumstances; notwithstanding which, it was conjectured by many to be only the effect of imagination.  It is true, the natives might have chosen that hour of the night to gratify a curiosity that would naturally be excited on finding that we still resided among them; and perhaps for the purpose of observing whether we all passed the night in sleep.

The cold weather which we had at this time of the year was observed to affect our fishing, and the natives themselves appeared to be in great want.  An old man belonging to them was found on the beach of one of the coves, almost starved to death.