from you regularly—were I thus made sure of your remembrance and your sympathies, my mind would be more at ease, or at least sustained by hope; but now nearly a year[1] has gone by without any intelligence from home. I had hoped it would have been otherwise; and I had reason to hope; and I will still cling to hope, "even against hope."
Crash! crash! a tree fallen! I have burned down three to-day, and expect to have two more consumed to-night.
12th.—On referring to the date of my last letter, you will find that we were uneasy about the scarcity of provisions; but I have this day heard of the arrival of the Merope from Van Diemen's Land, with flour and twenty barrels of pork; and with, what is still more cheering to me, a settler of some importance—Major Nairn. The circumstance of his coming here is powerfully in favour of the superiority of this colony to that in Van Diemen's Land; for he had been a long time there, had come here, liked the place, and bought a lot of land, and then gone back to Van Diemen's Land for stock—and here he is to live among us.
It is now approaching to our winter; yet the weather is so mild that I am sitting without a coat, and in my undress; have been out all day
- ↑ Accidents had detained letters from his affectionate family.
