Attempts of this sort were always likely to be made, at least as long as
any difficulty occurred in their quitting the colony after the term had
expired for which by law they were sentenced to remain abroad. There must
be many among them who would be anxious to return to their wives or
children, or other relations, and who, perhaps, might not resort again to
the companions of their idle hours. If these people found any obstacles
in their way, they would naturally be driven to attempt the attainment of
their wishes in some other mode; and it would then become an object of
bad policy, as well as cruelty, to detain them.

The weather about this period was evidently becoming warmer every day;
and although the trees never wholly lost their foliage, yet they gave
manifest signs of the return of spring.

November.] James Williams, who was missing on the sailing of the _Supply_
for Batavia, was found by Lieutenant Ball to have secreted himself on
board that vessel, and on her return he delivered him up as a prisoner to
the provost-marshal. Williams owned that his flight was to avoid a
punishment which he knew awaited him; and Lieutenant Ball spoke so
favourably of his conduct while he was under his observation, that the
governor would have forgiven him, had he not feared that others might,
from such an example, think to meet the same indulgence: he therefore
directed him to receive two hundred and fifty lashes, half of the
punishment which by the court that tried him he was sentenced to receive,
and remitted the remainder.

A small boat belonging to Mr. White, which had been sent out with a
seine, was lost this month somewhere about Middle Head. She had five
convicts in her; and, from the reports of the natives who were witnesses
of the accident, it was supposed they had crossed the harbour's mouth,