known as the Government Cottage) was under construction in 1796. David Collins described how in April of that year "a very excellent barrack was erecting for the use of the commandant, on a spot which had been selected sufficiently high to preclude any danger of the building being affected by a flood". Collins' use of "barrack" to describe the Commandant's House has encouraged confusion with the separate barracks for the soldiers, already in existence by 1796, described as a "miserable building" which was replaced after October 1796 with more substantial accommodation for the troops. The Commandant's House was completed after October 1796 and was described in 1800 in Governor Hunter's list of buildings constructed since 1796 as "a framed and weatherboard house on the Green Hills...for the residence of the commanding officer of that district". The roof was shingled and the building furnished with a cellar, skilling kitchen and other accommodation with a paling fence. The new Commandant's House sat high on a grassy hill facing the principal street to the east. The south side of the house had an extensive view over the river and the valley and beyond to the Blue Mountains. To the west Richmond was visible until . The new building was on a plot of crown land which was by 1795 surrounded by settlers' grants. From June 1795 military commandants were in charge of the Hawkesbury settlement. Commandant Edward Abbott moved in to the cottage when it was completed late in 1796 and subsequent Commandants, Neil McKellar, Anthony Fenn Kemp and Thomas Hobby also lived there. Two significant lawsuits were associated with the Commandant's House. One case brought by the ex-convict John Harris against Fenn Kemp, when the Revd Samuel Marsden brought the two parties together at the House in an unsuccessful attempt at conciliation in 1798: this was the first lawsuit brought by an ex-convict against the military and was a critical stage in the victory of civil law. The other case, in 1799, concerned the murder of two Aboriginal youths, where the accused, Constable Edward Powell, claimed as part of his alibi that he was too tired to be involved, having that day come from Sydney and then spent some time at the Commandant's House. The land on which the new building now stood marked the end of a row of a series of promises of grants made by 1794. The land was