10 



SETTLEMENT OF NORFOLK ISLAN1J. 



at Port Jackson of the Second Fleet in June, 1790, that the 

 people felt the clanger of starvation to be past. 



The relief at last sent to the islanders had with unacccount- 

 able want of consideration been delayed two months after the 

 arrival of the fleet, and it arrived only just in time. The mutton 

 birds had deserted the island, the fish also had failed them 

 entirely, and a delay of another six weeks would have meant 

 death by starvation for the greater part of the inhabitants. 



Captain Hunter did not get away from the island, which was 

 associated with so much suffering and anxiety to him, until 

 February, 1791. He considered its capabilities much over- 

 rated, for — while he admits the richness of the soil — the crops 

 were liable to destruction by blight, grub, caterpillar, and other 

 plagues. The timber of which so much had been expected was 

 very inferior. Instead of being able to support 2000 people 

 as Governor Phillip expected, he thought 500 too many, and 

 these should be such as had forfeited all hope of seeing their 

 native country again, and would know that their existence 

 depended on their industry. He recommended the Govern- 

 ment to remove the establishment to Port Dalrymple, as its 

 only use could be to supply South Sea whalers with fresh meat 

 and vegetables ; though he admitted that as a place for 

 incorrigible criminals the colony had this advantage — that 

 escape was impossible. Of the island he says, " It is a dread- 

 ful place, almost inaccessible with any wind." 



Notwithstanding the unfavourable opinion of Captain 

 Hunter and others, Governor Phillip continued to send fresh 

 batches of convicts and small settlers, and when Lieut.- 

 Governor Ross gave up the command to King, on the return 

 of the latter from England in September, 1791, the population 

 had increased to over 800 souls. 



King had now the rank of Lieut. -Governor of Norfolk 

 Island. He had founded the colony, and took the most 

 sanguine view of its capabilities, and of the practicability of 

 making it prosperous and self-supporting. Besides getting a 

 large area of land under cultivation by the labour of the 

 prisoners, he encouraged these whose time had expired to take 

 up small allotments for growing vegetables and grain. A 

 number of soldiers and sailors were also induced by the offer of 

 grants of land up to 60 acres to become agricultural settlers. 



The greatest obstacle to the progress of the settlement lay in 

 the character of the people. King says of the prisoners that 

 while some were well behaved the bulk of them were miserable 

 wretches. Collins, in his account of New South Wales, gives 

 a deplorable picture of the disorder and crime which were 

 rampant at Port Jackson, and as the selection for Norfolk 

 Island consisted of the worst and the doubly-convicted, the 

 condition of affairs in the island was not likely to be better 



