An
enquiry was set on foot to discover, if possible, the perpetrators of
this mischief, but nothing could be made of it.
Several people who had been hired to saw timber on the public account
having been detected in giving a false statement, and receiving payment
for what they had not cut, were examined before two justices of the
peace; when, the fraud being proved, they were sentenced to make up the
deficiency, and to work for government, without being paid, for six
months. One, the man who measured the work, and who of course had a
confidence reposed in him, received the additional punishment of 200
lashes, which he amply merited.
Some representations having been made to the governor from the settlers
in different parts of the colony, purporting that the wages demanded by
the free labouring people, whom they had occasion to hire, was so
exorbitant as to run away with the greatest part of the profit of their
farms, it was recommended to them to appoint quarterly meetings among
themselves, to be held in each district, for the purpose of settling the
rate of wages to labourers in every different kind of work; that, to this
end, a written agreement should be entered into and subscribed by each
settler, a breach of which should be punished by a penalty, to be fixed
by the general opinion, and made recoverable in a court of civil
judicature.
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