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[Page 11]
was given in a very hasty manner as soon as the Fortune arrived, a ship which sailed in company with us from England and announced my near approach. I was led to this determination from a conviction of the great inconvenience which would arise to the public by encroaching on the little ground that belonged to the church for use applicable to it; while he maliciously circulated a report that he was to be deprived of the benefit of his lease, and what rendered it probable was, that by his beginning to inclose [enclose] the ground, I was under the necessity of publickly [publicly] putting a stop to this work, which he had secured to accomplish suddenly by hiring a number of men of the New South Wales Corps. I had offered him a compensation for this ground to its full amount, in or about Sydney which was not already reserved for Government, or occupied by an individual, and it should not be forgotten that during this opposition of McArthur he was under an arrest to be tried by a criminal court.
20th Major Johnston came on the 22nd and informed me that his officers had agreed to institute a mess where they should dine together every twenty fourth day of the month (the day of paying the troops) and requested a permit for a Pipe of Wine from the City of Edinurgh, which had been made a present of to that ship; which request I granted.
They
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