Malacca 64,408 9 11 -------------Rs. 779,893 12 3 --------------- Total deficit at three settlements Rs. 351,236 14 6 =============== W. J. BUTTERWORTH, Governor. SINGAPORE, _6th February, 1847_. In the year 1848 we find that the Indian convicts were employed in blasting some considerable part of a mass of rock known to the Malays as Batu Belayer, or "Stone to sail to," and by Europeans as "Lot's wife." It was a dangerous obstruction to navigation, being situated on the Singapore side of the western entrance to the New Harbour.[6] It is reported as known to the old navigators of those seas, and was shown on old charts over two hundred years ago. [Footnote 6: This entrance to Singapore was called New Harbour after the construction there of Cloughton's Dock, now the much improved New Harbour Dock. Singapore can now boast of another fine dock at Tanjong Pagar, constructed some forty years ago, and an additional dock is reported to be in contemplation.] In following _The Anecdotal History_ it may be well to mention here, as showing the steady progress of Singapore, that a census was again taken in 1849, which gave the total population at 59,043--Europeans being given at 198, Eurasians at 304, Chinese at 24,790; and the remainder was made up of Malays and other nationalities of the Indian Archipelago, and from the Coromandel Coast. This was recorded as only a trifling increase on 1848 amongst the Chinese, and was attributed to the decrease in the Chinese coolies working in the interior of the island, owing to the exhaustion of much soil, and the low price of produce, which had caused many of the planters to open new plantations in Johore. As an evidence of the variety of the employments to which these Indian convicts were turned by the Government, it should be remarked that during the Chinese riots in 1851, when the Chinese Hwuys began to distrust their countrymen who had become converted to Christianity by a Roman Catholic mission in the interior of the island, these convicts were sent out in gangs to follow the rioters into the jungles and disperse them. These riots lasted for over a week, and it required the presence at last of the military to quell them. As it was, over 500 Chinese were killed, and among them many of the well-to-do Christian converts who had become planters.