i 5 4 ACCOUNT OF THE ENGLISH COLONY [November, 



in oats ; two in potatoes, four in vines, eighty- fix in garden-ground, 

 and feventeen in cultivation by the New South Wales corps. In ad- 

 dition to thefe, there were one hundred and fifty acres cleared to be 

 fown with turnips ; ninety acres were in cultivation by fettlers, 

 twenty-eight by officers, civil and military, at and about Sydney ; 

 and at Parramatta one hundred and forty acres were inclofed, and the 

 timber thinned for cattle ; making a total of nine hundred and twenty 

 acres of land, thinned, cleared, and cultivated. 



The mortality during the month of November had been great, 

 fifty male and four female convicts dying within it. Five hundred 

 fick perfons received medicine at the end of that time. The extreme 

 heat of the weather had not only increafed the fick lift, but had added 

 one to the number of deaths. On the 4th, a convict attending upon 

 one of the gentlemen, in paffing from his houfe to his kitchen, with- 

 out any covering upon his head, received a coup dc foleil^ which at the 

 time deprived him of Speech and motion, and, in lefs than four-and- 

 twenty hours, of his life. The thermometer on that day flood at 

 twelve o'clock at 94I 0 , and the wind was N. W. 



By the dry weather which prevailed the water had been fo much 

 affected, befides being leffened by the watering of fome tranfports, 

 that a prohibition was laid by the Governor on the watering of the 

 remainder at Sydney, and their boats were directed to go to a con- 

 venient place upon the North more. To remedy this evil, the Go- 

 vernor had employed the ftone-mafon's gang to cut tanks out of the 

 rock, which w r ould be refervoirs for the water large enough to fupply 

 the fettlement for fome time. 



On the 3d of December, two of the wmalers, the Matilda and Mary 

 Ann, came in from fea. The former had landed a boat in a bay on 

 the coafl about fix miles fouthward of Port Stephens, where the feine 

 was hauled, and a large quantity of fi£h taken ; but of the fifli that they 

 went in fearch of they faw none. The Mary Ann was rather more 

 fortunate. By going to the fouthward, fhe killed nine fifh ; of five of 

 them fhe fecured enough to procure about thirty barrels of oil ; but 



was 



