113
ask £14 for one of them. You should send pork from Ireland; it can never come at an unseasonable time.
We have had great discussions about the establishment of a bank; a prospectus has been submitted to the Governor, soliciting an advance of £5000 on security of twenty-five solvent and responsible individuals; but his Excellency has not the power of meeting our wants and wishes, and suggests the expediency of raising the required capital by subscription among the colonists. There is a good opening here for the application of capital by moneyed men, who would receive very high discount. If the Governor could advance money to settlers on discount of bills at 5 per cent., the colony would be served in an inconceivable degree, settlers being now obliged to borrow, sometimes at 25 per cent, interest!
12th.—Great excitement has prevailed among us this morning, a loud report having been heard at a very early hour, supposed to come from a ship hourly expected with supplies. Pshaw! it was only the accidental blowing up of a flask of gunpowder.
Some of the offices which Government had built at Perth are to be sold to settlers, and more commodious ones built at Perth, with a church, forming nearly one side of a handsome square. We are getting on.
15th.—The men have finished the wheat sowing, dibbling it in with forks, and I have shot a whole brood of teal on the river. The Cornwallis has arrived with wheat, flour, potatoes, and eighty-five sheep; the latter engaged by Mr. McDermot at 25s. a head. I have offered to give two bullocks.
18th. This has been a day of unintermitting rain, and the swelling of the river indicates a storm from the N.W. Probably the wind impels the sea into the river before we perceive its force; and thus the rising of the water, which appears to us as the prognostic of the N.W. wind, is in reality but the effect. Being prevented by the badness of the weather from going out, I have been engaged in building occupations
