130 HISTORY OF 



they dispersed. On the following morning, 

 when the Lieutenant-Governor was made 

 acquainted with the circumstances, he con- 

 vened all the officers in the settlement, and 

 laid before them what he had heard, together 

 with an account of a determination among the 

 soldiers, to release from the halberts any of 

 their comrades who should be ordered punish- 

 ment, for any offence or injury done to a settler; 

 all of which he caused to be authenticated upon 

 oath. The result of the officers was, that the 

 detachment should be disarmed, and all those 

 settlers from the marines and Sirius's ship's 

 company, should be embodied and armed as 

 a militia to do their duty. This was put in 

 execution on the 21st, by sending the de- 

 tachment from their quarters unarmed, upon 

 different duties; while the new-raised militia 

 took possession of their arms. On their return, 

 twenty were selected as mutineers to be sent to 

 Sydney, the remainder returning to their duty 

 immediately ; (but of that number ten were, 

 after a few days confinement, pardoned and 

 liberated;) and two days after the Francis 

 appeared. At the conclusion of February, the 

 natives again caused great trouble, robbing and 

 doing every kind of mischief, and though they 

 kept in the woods near the settlements, and ge- 

 nerally murdered all the white people they 

 could, yet so great was the dread of labour to 

 many of the convicts, that they absconded con- 

 tinually to the woods, thus shewing that they 





