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It appeared that they had both been intoxicated,
and had quarrelled on the night preceding and in the morning of the murder.
This made the fifth circumstance of the kind which had occurred within
the last twelve months; and so excessively abandoned were the people,
that it was scarcely possible to obtain sufficient proof to convict the
offenders. Strong presumptive proof, indeed, was frequently adduced; but
the kind of evidence necessary to establish the offence was almost
constantly withheld.
About this time, some dissatisfaction appearing among the Irish convicts
who were ordered to labour, and some threats having been made use of by
them, the governor thought it necessary to inform the inhabitants of the
colony in general, that, after having pointed out a number of people who
had, by false pretences, and various impositions, obtained certificates
of discharge from the commissary's books, he did not expect so soon to
have occasion to enter again upon the same subject.


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