Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/393

Bakers were to find due security, to deliver no more "to their customers, who are off the store only, than the government ration allows to those on the store weekly;" to deliver weekly lists of such customers; to supply no bread to any one not a regular customer without an order signed by a person appointed for that purpose; to bake "no cakes, biscuit, nor any kind of pastry whatever," nor to expose them for sale, "on penalty of £5 for each offence, and to have their ovens taken down, their license and securities forfeited."

Permits were required for the moving of grain. The Governor issued them at Parramatta. "This order is meant to counteract the infamous attempts of a few monopolizing re-graters, against whom the law is open, and will, on complaint, be rigidly enforced." The price given by the government was raised to fifteen shillings for a bushel of wheat.

The war raging in Europe found distant echoes in New South Wales. The solitary and daring cruisers which naval wars produce scudded over the southern seas. In 1803, when the short-lived peace of Amiens crumbled at the will of Bonaparte, Lord Hobart wrote (16th May), in consequence of the unfavourable "termination of discussions lately depending between His Majesty and the French Government (of the probability of which result I gave you notice in my secret despatch of the 7th instant), His Majesty's ambassador left Paris on the 13th instant." Letters of marque were to be issued. King was to promulgate the fact so as to guard against injury to His Majesty's subjects, "and that they may likewise be prepared to do the utmost within their several stations to distress and annoy the French by making captures of their ships and destroying their commerce. Under these circumstances it will be advisable that homeward-bound merchant ships should wait until such a time as they may have an opportunity of being convoyed home." King called upon all who wished "to contribute to the defence of the colony to give in their names," and announced that all foreigners residing in the colony without his permission were "subject to be put to public labour until an opportunity offers for their leaving the colony or being sent away." A proclamation