Many of the inferior farmers were nearly
ruined by the high price they were obliged to give for such necessaries
as they required from those who had been long in the habit of
monopolising every article brought to the settlement for sale; a habit of
which it was found impossible to get the better, without the positive and
immediate interference of the government at home.
Many representations had been made on this distressing subject; and they
seemed in some degree to have been attended to, as in several of the last
arrivals from England, certain articles, consisting of implements of
husbandry, clothing, and stores, had been consigned to the governor, to
be retailed for the use of the colonists: and it was understood that this
system, so beneficial to the settlement, was to be pursued in all the
ships which were in future to carry out convicts or stores to that
country.
October.] The _Buffalo_ sailed for England on the 21st of October*,
and as the governor had intended to touch and land at Norfolk Island, for
the purpose of learning, from his own observation, something of the state
of that settlement, some few of the Irish prisoners, who were suspected
of laying plans of insurrection and massacre, were taken in the
_Buffalo_, and landed there.
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