any encroachment on that liberty which it had preserved above
seven years.

In the commencement of the year 1796, a play-house was opened
at Sydney, under the sanction of the governor, who, while he
laboured to promote the public weal, was not less anxious to
extend to individuals the enjoyments and privileges which were
compatible with the good of the colony. Towards the close of the
same year, the houses in Sydney and Parramatta were numbered, and
divided into portions, each of which was placed under the
superintendance of a principal inhabitant. The county of
Cumberland was assessed, a few months afterwards, for the
erection of a country gaol; and the peaceable inhabitants of the
colony had the speedy satisfaction to perceive a building of such
utility put into hand; for such had been the recent increase of
crimes, and so greatly had the settlement been annoyed by the
desperate and atrocious conduct of the disorderly part of the
community, that it became an object of necessity to adopt some
stronger measures than those which had hitherto been put in
force, to secure the prosperity and tranquillity of a community
which was now so rapidly growing in extent and importance. A
town-clock was also erected in Sydney, a luxury which had been
hitherto unknown, and affords evidence of the gradual maturation
of the settlement; and, indeed, the whole of this enumeration is
calculated to impress the reader with an idea of the rapid
strides which the few last years had enabled the colonists to
make in the path of respectability. The natives had been, of late
years, perfectly reconciled to their new countrymen; and,
although their attachment to their accustomed habits and
situations induced them to abstain from taking up new residences,