This certainly operated as an encouragement to the
commission of these thefts; and it became necessary to order, that such
persons as attended the receipt of any of these articles at the store
should direct whoever delivered them to sign the voucher of the quantity
received by him, the governor being determined never to approve of any
bill laid before him for that purpose, unless the commissary should
produce the voucher, properly signed, by the person in whose name such
bill was made out.
About the middle of this month a general muster was made of all the
inhabitants in the different districts of the settlement; and the
governor, attending in person, collected from the settlers an accurate
state of their farms and grounds in cultivation. This he did with a view
of transmitting, in his next dispatches to Government, such an account of
these people as, from being taken under his immediate inspection, might
be depended upon. From the 14th to the 24th were taken up in this
enquiry, from the result of which it appeared that there were in the
district of the River Hawkesbury: 2544 and a half acres in wheat, 907
acres for maize; in the district of Parramatta: 1259 and a half acres in
wheat, 663 and a half acres for maize; in the Sydney districts: 538 and
a half acres in wheat, 365 and a half acres for maize; making a total of
4392 acres and a half in wheat, and 1436 acres for maize, in the three
principal districts of the settlements.
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