It was also ordered, that no boat or person whatsoever should attempt to board any ship arriving in the harbour, until she should be properly secured in the Cove, and the master had been with the governor and received the port orders. The pilot-boat, or such other as might be sent with an officer to bring up the public dispatches, were not included in this regulation, which certainly, with the preceding, seemed calculated more for general than private advantage.
Captain Hamilton, the commander of the _Sydney Cove_, survived the arrival of the _Hunter_ but a few days. He never recovered from the distresses and hardships which he suffered on the loss of his ship, and died exceedingly regretted by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance.
Many complaints having been made, that the people who were employed in bringing grain upon freight from the Hawkesbury to Sydney were in the habit of practising a variety of impositions upon the farmers, and among others by the use of false measures, the governor, desirous to put an early stop to such a species of robbery, directed the magistrates of Sydney and Parramatta to issue their orders for all measures to be forthwith brought to the public store at Sydney, there to be proved and marked; and to signify, that any measure which might be used without such mark would subject the owner to a prosecution.
How perpetually was invention at work on the one hand to impose, and on the other to provide a remedy against the evil! No one, from the picture of his arduous situation which these and the preceding pages have held up, will envy the office of the governor, or of those officers who supported his authority, or think that they cheaply earned the salaries that they were allowed.
The necessity of a vessel to keep up a more frequent intercourse with Norfolk Island, having been much felt by the want of various stores for the use of the inhabitants, occasioned Captain Townson, the commanding officer, to construct a small decked boat, sloop rigged, in which he sent his letters to this port, where she arrived on the 15th; but through the want of a harbour at that island, a want that must ever be felt, they were obliged to launch her from the shore, and proceed immediately to sea, whether she was sufficiently tight or not. The consequence was, that she proved very leaky; but with two pumps, which they fortunately had fitted on board her, they were able to keep the water under.
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