So Complete An Opportunity Of Forming A Judgment, Enables Me To Speak Decisively Of A Place, Which Has Often Engaged Conversation And Excited Reflection.

Variety of opinions here disappeared.

I shall, therefore, transcribe literally what I wrote in my journal, on my return from the expedition. "We were unanimously of opinion, that had not the nautical part of Mr. Cook's description, in which we include the latitude and longitude of the bay, been so accurately laid down, there would exist the utmost reason to believe, that those who have described the contiguous country, had never seen it. On the sides of the harbour, a line of sea coast more than thirty miles long, we did not find 200 acres which could be cultivated."

September, 1789. But all our attention was not directed to explore inlets, and toll for discovery. Our internal tranquillity was still more important. To repress the inroads of depredation; and to secure to honest industry the reward of its labour, had become matter of the most serious consideration; hardly a night passing without the commission of robbery. Many expedients were devised; and the governor at length determined to select from the convicts, a certain number of persons, who were meant to be of the fairest character, for the purpose of being formed into a nightly-watch, for the preservation of public and private property, under the following regulations, which, as the first system of police in a colony, so peculiarly constituted as ours, may perhaps prove not uninteresting.

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