Towards the end of the year 1792 the harvest was gathered in from the 1540 acres of cleared ground, which were sown in the preceding seed-time. The produce was tolerably good, and since no less than 3470 acres of land had already been granted to settlers, it was hoped that before very long the colony might cease to be almost entirely dependent for its support upon the precarious supply which it received from ships. The colonists then learned by sad experience what many Englishmen in the present day seem unwilling to believe, that _it is one of the worst evils to be dependent upon other countries for daily bread_. In December, the governor, Captain Phillip, left the colony from ill health, having acted with much prudence and vigour during his administration, and leaving behind him a respectable character; he returned to England, where his services were rewarded by a pension of 400_l._ a-year, and he retired to Bath, at which city he died. His activity in exploring the neighbouring country and discovering its capabilities, his courage and firmness on many very trying occasions, his steady opposition to every proposal of abandoning the settlement, together with his general character, sufficiently entitle his memory to regard and respect from those who are now living in New South Wales, and reaping in comparative ease the fruit of that harvest which it cost him and others great pains and many trials to sow. Before the first Governor of New South Wales left that country, he had the satisfaction of seeing its prospects of a future sufficiency of provisions very greatly improved; and a work of charity, the hospital at Paramatta, was completed in the month before that in which he sailed. With the year 1793 began a new government, for as no successor had been appointed at home to Captain Phillip, the chief power now came, according to what had been previously provided, into the hands of Major Grose, of the New South Wales Corps, who assumed the style of Lieutenant-Governor. During nearly three years things continued in this state; only Major Grose left the settlement, and was succeeded by Captain Paterson; nor was it until 1795 that a regular successor to the first governor arrived in the colony. In this period many things occurred which were, no doubt, of the highest interest to the settlers at the time, but few events which deserve our particular notice now. A fire, which destroyed a house worth 15_l._, and thirty bushels of new wheat;--the alternate scarcity and comparative abundance of provisions;--the arrival or departure of ships from the harbour;--the commission of the first murder in the colony, and other sad accounts of human depravity and its punishment;--the gradual improvement and extension of the colony;--the first sale by auction of a farm of twenty-five acres for the sum of 13_l._:--these and similar subjects occupy the history of New South Wales, not merely during the three years