i? 95-1 OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 283 



ever)' ad of cruelty and brutal luft upon her, which their fpirit of 

 revenge fuggefted. 



The principal labour performed in January was, preparing the 

 ground for wheat. The Indian corn looked very well ; and the fettlers 

 on the banks of the Hawkefbury fuppofed that at lead thirty thou- 

 fand bufhels of that grain would be raifed among them. Several na- 

 tive boys, from eight to fourteen years of age, were at this time liv- 

 ing among the fettlers in the different diftri&s, and were found capa- 

 ble of being made extremely ufefui ; going cheerfully into the fields 

 to labour ; and the elder ones with eafe hoed in a few hours a greater 

 quantity of ground than that generally affigned to a convict for a day's 

 work. Some of thefe were allowed a ration of provifions from the 

 public (lore. 



In confequence of the heavy rains, the river at the Hawkefbury rofe 

 many feet higher than it had ever been known to do ; by which feve- 

 ral fettlers fuffered very much. At Toongabbe the wheat belonging to 

 Government was confiderably injured. At Parramatta the damage was 

 extenfive : the bridge over the creek, which had been well conftrucl:ed t 

 was entirely fwept away, and the boats with their moorings carried 

 down the river. 



A convitl: had died in this month, having fwallowed arfenic. It 

 was remarkable in his untimely end, that he himfelf placed thepoifon, 

 with a view of deftroying rats with which the houfe that he lived in 

 was infefted, and was particular in cautioning others againft it. What 

 could induce him to take that himfelf, of which he knew the ill efFedr. 

 upon thofe whom he had warned, no perfon feemed to have the power 

 of determining. 



Some officers who had made an excurlion to the Hawkefbury early 

 in February, with a view of feleding eligible fpots for farms, on their 

 return fpoke highly of the corn which they faw growing there, and 

 of the pi&ureique appearance of many of the fettlers' farms. Thofe 

 people told them, that in general their grounds which had been in 

 wheat had produced from thirty to thirty-fix bufhels an acre ; that 



0 0 2 they 



