17 DECEMBER 1842, Page 8

We have received papers from Van Diemen's Land to the

23d August, and from Port Phillip to the 16th; and they contain news from Sydney to the 6th. Some of the prisoners employed in loading a schooner at Norfolk Island. where Captain Maconochie's system of conciliatory discipline is under trial, had attempted to escape, and in a scuffle with the military, one soldier was killed and two wounded, one sailor was wounded, and five prisoners were killed and two wounded. Another party had escaped in a boat to Phillip Island. At Port Arthur, where a rigid discipline is enforced, there had been two attempts at murder,— one on the life of the surgeon.