1788 by Watkin Tench

Author:Watkin Tench
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Australian history
ISBN: 9781921921919
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company

10

The arrival of the Supply from Batavia; the state of the colony in November 1790

JOY sparkled in every countenance to see our old friend the Supply (I hope no reader will be so captious as to quarrel with the phrase) enter the harbour from Batavia on the 19th of October. We had witnessed her departure with tears; we hailed her return with transport.

Captain Ball was rather more than six months in making this voyage, and is the first person who ever circumnavigated the continent of New Holland. On his passage to Batavia he had discovered several islands which he gave names to and, after fighting his way against adverse elements and through unexplored dangers, safely reached his destined port. He had well stored his little bark with every necessary and conveniency which he judged we should first want, leaving a cargo of rice and salt provisions to be brought on by a Dutch snow which he had hired and freighted for the use of the settlement.† While at Batavia, the Supply had lost many of her people by sickness, and left several others in the general hospital at that place.

As the arrival of the Supply naturally leads the attention from other subjects to the state of the colony, I shall here take a review of it by transcribing a statement drawn from actual observation soon after, exactly as I find it written in my journal.

November 1790. Cultivation, on a public scale, has for some time past been given up here (Sydney), the crop of last year being so miserable as to deter from farther experiment, in consequence of which the government farm is abandoned, and the people who were fixed on it have been removed. Necessary public buildings advance fast; an excellent storehouse of large dimensions, built of bricks and covered with tiles, is just completed; and another planned which will shortly be begun. Other buildings, among which I heard the governor mention an hospital and permanent barracks for the troops, may also be expected to arise soon. Works of this nature are more expeditiously performed than heretofore, owing, I apprehend, to the superintendents lately arrived, who are placed over the convicts and compel them to labour. The first difficulties of a new country being subdued may also contribute to this comparative facility.

Vegetables are scarce, although the summer is so far advanced, owing to want of rain. I do not think that all the showers of the last four months, put together, would make twenty-four hours rain. Our farms, what with this and a poor soil, are in wretched condition. My winter crop of potatoes, which I planted in days of despair (March and April last), turned out very badly when I dug them about two months back. Wheat returned so poorly last harvest that very little, besides Indian corn, has been sown this year. The governor’s wound is quite healed, and he feels no inconveniency whatever from it. With the natives we are hand and glove. They throng the

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