A light on board the ship being observed from the
shore, several shot were fired at it, but the wretches would neither put
it out, nor come on shore; when a young man of the name of Ascott, a
convict, with great intrepidity went off through the surf, extinguished
the fire, and forced them out of the ship.
The lieutenant-governor, immediately after the loss of the Sirius, called
a council of all the naval and marine officers in the settlement, when it
was unanimously determined that martial law should be proclaimed; that
all private stock, poultry excepted, should be considered as the property
of the state; that justice should be administered by a court-martial to
be composed of seven officers, five of whom were to concur in a sentence
of death; and that there should be two locks upon the door of the public
store, whereof one key was to be in the keeping of a person to be
appointed by Captain Hunter in behalf of the seamen; the other to be kept
by a person to be appointed in behalf of the military. The day following,
the troops, seamen, and convicts, being assembled, these resolutions were
publicly read, and the whole confirmed their engagement of abiding by
them by passing under the king's colour, which was displayed on the
occasion.
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