impossible he showed the remains of the guinea and buckle and confessed that he bad resorted to this sham discovery in order to extort vahuibles from the officers of two ships then in the harboor. He was punis=>hed with 100 lashes ji and sentenced *'to wear a canvas frock with the letter *E' ^■cut and sewn upon it, to distinguish him more particularly Pfrom others as a rogue/' Four montlis afterwards the poor wretch was executed for housebreaking; and one of the receivers of the stolen goods, a woman, was sentenced to have her hair cut and to wear a canvas frock on which the letters **R,S,G/' (receiver of stolen *:,^oods) were painted in large characters. So quaint were the devices with which Phillip fought his battle among his curious sulrjects. The stnigf^le to extort food from the soil has already l)een adverted to as one of Phillip's principal cares. One James Base, the first freed settter, declared in March 171^1 that he would reUnquish all claim on the Government provisions and support himself on his own farm, Phillip granted him j^** thirty acres in the situation which he then occupied." ^■Two months afterwards it was rumoured that Kuse was "starving, and the Governor offered him some salt provisions, hut Euse declined them and proved that he was setting not only a good but a successful example; though it is painful Ko iind that bis farm (Experiment Farm, as it was called)
- as sold in 1793 in consequence of the failm^e of a crop. In
794 he settled at the Hawkesbury. Phillip impressed upon every Secretary of State the .jrgent necessity of procuring free settlers. He did not^ like one of his successors, Macquarie, contemplate the formation of a virtuous community by emancipating con- victs, by making them magistrates to administer the laws they had been condemned for breaking, and by inviting them to his table. During Pliilliii^s sojourn there were several Secretaries of State — Lord Sydney : W. W. (after- w^ards Lord) Grenville; iind Henrv Dundas, afterwards J.ord Melville.^^ It may be cctnvenieDt to record some of the changes. In 1 782 the coloniea were under the control of '* the Office of Plantations/' a bmnch of [the Hom« Department. In 1793, at the conmien€etnent of the f'Vencb war» Ltbe Home Department managed war affairH, In a Print'iipal Secretary Jbr War was appointed, and the bualnesa of the culoniea wa.a Itw&fei^iTTfcC^ a> liim, as Secretary for the Colonml and War Depart metit, Tv& a,Ttasv^^
