day previously given expres orders to Sergeant in charge of the Convict to prevent their working in the spot where the accident happened - and had even caused them to be removed to a safe distance from that place.
A fatal accident had previously recurred from a similar landslip to some Military prisoners in the same place, whilst two fatal accidents of the same nature had in the previous nine months occurred to Convict working under Superintendence of the Survey Department, and above all, as the attention of Mr. Bird, then in charge of that Department during your temporary absence, on the 16th ult., was called by the officer Commanding the Royal Engineers to the fact of the Convicts having even then undermined the Bank. It appeared to the Executive Council that Mr. Bird had been guilty of culpable apathy in not having, under such circumstances, visited the spot himself, or even sent the Clerk of Works to inspect it with a view to ascertaining the precise nature of the risk reported and of the orders required to avert it.
The Council, therefore, recommended that Mr. Bird should be reprimanded, and I have to request that you will