Of public buildings,besides the old wooden barrack and store,there is a house of lath and plaster,forty-four feet long by sixteen wide,for the governor,on a ground floor only,with excellent out-houses and appurtenances attached to it.A new brick store house,covered with tiles,100feet long by twenty-four wide,is nearly completed,and a house for the store-keeper.The first stone of a barrack,100feet long by twenty-four wide,to which are intended to be added wings for the officers,was laid to-day.The situation of the barrack is judicious,being close to the store-house,and within a hundred and fifty yards of the wharf,where all boats from Sydney unload.To what I have already enumerated,must be added an excellent barn,a granary,an inclosed yard to rear stock in,a commodious blacksmith's shop,and a most wretched hospital,totally destitute of every conveniency.Luckily for the gentleman who superintends this hospital,and still more luckily for those who are doomed in case of sickness to enter it,the air of Rose Hill has hitherto been generally healthy.A tendency to produce slight inflammatory disorders,from the rapid changes of the temperature of the air,is most to be dreaded.
[In the close of the year 1788,when this settlement was established,the thermometer has been known to stand at 50degrees a little before sunrise,and between one and two o'clock in the afternoon at above 100degrees.]
'The hours of labour for the convicts are the same here as at Sydney.
On Saturdays after ten o'clock in the morning they are allowed to work in their own gardens.These gardens are at present,from the long drought and other causes,in a most deplorable state.Potatoes,I think,thrive better than any other vegetable in them.For the public conveniency a baker is established here in a good bakehouse,who exchanges with every person bread for flour,on stipulated terms;but no compulsion exists for any one to take his bread;it is left entirely to every body's own option to consume his flour as he pleases.Divine service is performed here,morning and afternoon,one Sunday in every month,when all the convicts are obliged to attend church,under penalty of having a part of their allowance of provisions stopped,which is done by the chaplain,who is a justice of the peace.
'For the punishment of offenders,where a criminal court is not judged necessary,two or more justices,occasionally assemble,and order the infliction of slight corporal punishment,or short confinement in a strong room built for this purpose.The military present here consists of two subalterns,two sergeants,three corporals,a drummer,and twenty-one privates.These have been occasionally augmented and reduced,as circumstances have been thought to render it necessary.
Brick-kilns are now erected here,and bricks manufactured by a convict of the name of Becket,who came out in the last fleet,and has fifty-two people to work under him.He makes 25,000bricks weekly.He says that they are very good,and would sell at Birmingham,where he worked about eighteen months ago,at more than 30shillings per thousand.
