One of these people, a quiet well-disposed young man, fell a victim to an attachment which he had formed with an infamous woman; who, after plundering him of every thing valuable that he possessed, turned him out of the house, to make room for another. This treatment he could not live under; and, placing the muzzle of his gun beneath his chin, he drew the trigger with his foot, and, the contents going through his neck, instantly expired.
On the 13th, the _Betsey_ whaler arrived from the west coast of America with 350 barrels of oil. She was extremely leaky, and much in want of repair. At the same time came in the _Hunter_ bark from Calcutta, with a cargo on speculation; and on the day following, a Spanish brig which had been captured by the whaler.
Early in the morning of the 16th, the _Friendship_ transport arrived from Ireland with convicts. She had been fifty days in her passage from the Cape of Good Hope, where she left his Majesty's ship _Buffalo_ taking on board cattle for the settlement. The convicts arrived in very good health, though the ship had been sickly previous to her reaching the Cape.
Many of the prisoners received by this ship and the _Minerva_ were not calculated to be of much advantage to the settlement; and but little addition was made by their arrival to the public strength. Several of them had been bred up in the habits of genteel life, or to professions in which they were unaccustomed to hard labour. Such must become a dead weight upon the provision store; for, notwithstanding the abhorrence which must have been felt for the crimes for which many of them were transported, yet it was impossible to divest the mind of the common feelings of humanity, so far as to send a physician, the once respectable sheriff of a county, a Roman Catholic priest, or a Protestant clergyman and family, to the grubbing hoe, or the timber carriage. Among the lower classes were many old men, unfit for any thing but to be hut-keepers, who were to remain at home to prevent robbery, while the other inhabitants of the hut were at labour.
Some clothing had been received by these ships and the _Walker_, but, unfortunately, not any bedding. The governor therefore purchased a thousand bad rugs, which had been manufactured in some of the Spanish settlements on the west coast of America, and were in the prize which last arrived. These, with a complete suit of the clothing to each, were now issued to the convicts.