m*±\ OF NEW SOUTH WALES. i 39 



end. The wiih to return to their friends appeared to be the prevail- 

 ing idea, a few only giving in their names as fettlers, and hone 

 engaging to work for a certain time. 



It being always defirable to go as near the eftablimed ration as the 

 ftate of the ftores would allow, the Governor directed two pounds of 

 rice to be added to the weekly proportion of that article ; but though 

 by this addition eight pounds of grain were iffued (viz. three pounds 

 of flour and five of rice), the ration was far from being brought up to 

 the ftandard eftablimed by the Treafury for the colony ; five pounds 

 of bad worm-eaten rice making a mod inadequate fubftitute for the 

 fame quantity of good flour. In the article of meat the labouring 

 man fuffered {till more ; for in a given quantity of fixty pounds, 

 which were iffued on one ferving-day to two meffes, there were no 

 lefs than forty pounds of bone, and the remainder, which was in- 

 tended to be eaten, was almoft too far advanced in putrefaction for 

 even hunger to get it down. It muft be obferved, that it came in the 

 fnow from Batavia. 



On Monday, the ift of Auguft, the Matilda, the firft of the ex* 

 pe&ed fleet of tranfports, arrived, after an extraordinary paffage of 

 four months and five days from Portfmouth ; having failed from 

 thence on the 27th of March, with four fail of tranfports, with whom 

 me parted company that night off Dunnoze. Another divifion of the 

 tranfports had failed a week before from Plymouth Sound. On board 

 the Matilda were two hundred and five male convi&s ; one enfign, 

 one ferjeant, one corporal, one drummer, and nineteen privates, of 

 the New South Wales corps ; and fome ftores and provifions cal- 

 culated as a fupply for the above number for nine-inonths after their 

 arrival. 



The matter of 4his fliip anchored for two days in a bay of one of 

 Schoeten's Iflands, diftant from the main land about twelve miles, in 

 the latitude of 42° 15 S. ; where, according to his report, five or fix 

 (hips might find inciter. Thofe who were on fhore law the footfteps 

 of different kinds of animals and traces of natives, fuch as huts, fires, 



t 2 broken 



