HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



53 



fifty tons. Lastly, two more transports, clumsy vessels and heavy sailers, the Charlotte, 

 of three hundred and thirty-five, and the Lady Pcnrhyn, of three hundred and thirty- 

 three tons ; and these always lagged behind forcing the others to shorten sail from time 

 to time in order to avoid division of the fleet. 



These transports carried into exile five hundred and sixty-four males and one 

 hundred and ninety-two females ; also one hundred and sixty-eight soldiers and forty 

 officers holding various ranks 

 to guard or superintend them, 

 five surgeons, and a staff of 

 artificers, together with the 

 wives of forty of the soldiers 

 and a few of their children, 

 as also thirteen unfortunate 

 little creatures, the offspring 

 of convict mothers. Thus 

 there were despatched in all 

 one thousand and seventeen 

 persons to found the new 

 settlement at Botany Bay. 



Among the minor details 

 which caused Phillip much 

 annoyance up to the hour of 

 sailing, was the fact that a 

 supply of clothing for the 

 women convicts had not been 

 sent on board ; but it was not 

 until the Fleet reached Tene- 

 riffe that it was discovered 

 that they had been sent to 

 sea without cartridges for the 

 marines' muskets, or musket 



balls, or armourers' tools with which to keep their weapons in order. Everything was 

 done that humanity could do to secure the health, and even the comfort of the 

 prisoners ; and yet if we could but descend one of those companion-ladders into the 

 hold of the Alexander, and see its dingy space lighted only by the hatchways, filled 

 with two long lines of hammocks swinging less than a foot and a half apart, with two 

 hundred and thirty human creatures packed in suffocating rows, we should, perhaps, have 

 sympathized to some extent with those who in after years descanted on the horrors of 

 the passage. As for the convicts themselves, many were utterly broken down by the 

 nameless mystery of the voyage. They had no knowledge whither they were going ; 

 but had vaguely heard that it was to the opposite side of the world, to a land only 

 once seen by civilized men, and inhabited by hostile savages. Others took the future 

 with the callous indifference of low natures, and sought only to gather as much ease 

 for the time being as they could bully or cozen out of their neighbours. 



CAPTAIN ARTHUR PHILLIP. 



THE FIRST GOVERNOR OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



