Having made some considerable
profits in the exercise of his trade as a baker, he preferred paying the
penalty.
It being always desirable to go as near the established ration as the
state of the stores would allow, and the governor never wishing to keep
the labouring man one moment longer than was absolutely necessary upon a
reduced allowance of provisions, he directed two pounds of rice to be
added to the weekly proportion of that article; but, although by this
addition eight pounds of grain were issued, viz three pounds of flour and
five pounds of rice, the ration was far from being brought up to the
standard established by the Treasury for the colony; five pounds of bad
worm-eaten rice making a most inadequate substitute for the same quantity
of good flour. In the article of meat the labouring man suffered still
more; for in a given quantity of sixty pounds, which were issued on one
serving day to two messes, there were no less than forty pounds of bone,
and the remainder, which was intended to be eaten, was almost too far
advanced in putrefaction for even hunger to get down. It must be observed
that it came in the snow from Batavia.
Patrick Burn, a person employed to shoot for the commanding officer of
the marine detachment, died this month: and the hut that he had lived in
was burnt down in the night a few hours after his decease, by the
carelessness of the people, who were Irish and were sitting up with the
corpse, which was with much difficulty saved from the flames, and not
until it was much scorched.
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