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 entrance of the cove." A third, sentenced to receive fifty lashes, was pardoned by the Governor. Before the end of the month a plot for robbing the provision store was detected, although at the time the quantity of provisions supplied was the same for soldier, officer, and convict. With but scant stores of food, and far from any port of supply, the Governor was bound at all risks, and for the sake of the convicts themselves, to guard with care the little he had. One man at once suffered death, and others were sentenced to banishment from the settlement. On the following day the Governor, having made an example, pardoned some offenders, one of them on condition of his becoming the public executioner.

To conform to his special instructions, Phillip, within a few weeks of his arrival, deputed Philip Gidley King, second lieutenant of the Sirius, to establish a settlement at Norfolk Island. Phillip sent to Lord Sydney a copy of the instructions given to King, adding "and I beg leave to recommend him as an officer of merit, and whose perseverance in that or any other service may be depended on. King was instructed by Phillip to take measures

"for securing yourself and people, and for the preservation of stores and provisions, and immediately to proceed to the cultivation of the flax plant, growing spontaneously on the island, as also of cotton, corn, and other plants, with the seeds of which you are furnished, and which you are to regard as public stock, and of the increase of which you are to send me an account, that I may know what quantity may be drawn from the island for public use, or what supplies it may be necessary to send hereafter."