Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/87

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STARVATION AND ROBBERIES
59

tion to find that the convicts "behaved with much greater propriety."

Throughout the fatal month of May, when (Collins wrote) "very little labour could be enforced from people who had nothing to eat," neither Phillip nor any of his officers could have had any comfort in their minds except that which springs from a sense of duty performed; but they worked without ceasing. They procured salt from the water of the harbour, and more than two thousand pounds weight of fish were caught during the month. All this, however it might alleviate, could not remove their sufferings, and they looked upon the return of the Supply as "under God their dependence."

From England they seemed hopelessly barred[1]. They had left it with a calculated supply of food for two years, and when the time elapsed, not an ounce of food nor a word of encouragement had been received. Divisi toto orbe from their native land, they might almost feel that they were forgotten. Yet it is pleasant to read of these gallant men that (Collins) they "bad long conjectured that the non-arrival of supplies must be owing either to accident or delays in the voyage, and not to any backwardness on the part of the government in sending them out."

It is consoling also to know that they conjectured rightly. The Juliana had sailed from England in July, 1789, with stores and with despatches concerning grants of land and the new corps raised for service in the colony. H.M.S. Guardian followed in November, carrying nearly half-a-million of pounds of meat, and 300,000 lbs. of flour. The tardy Juliana, after calling at Teneriffe, at St. Jago, and at Rio Janeiro, found, at the Cape of Good Hope, the fleeter Guardian, which bad struck upon an iceberg, and losing her rudder was tossed hopelessly upon the waves, in spite of the exertions of Riou, until a French frigate met and towed her to the Cape of Good Hope. There, to avoid the expense of keeping afloat a shattered hulk, Riou ran her on shore, and some of the stores, which had not been cast

  1. ↑ Phillip's first despatches, written in May, 1788, were not received in England until the end of March, 1789. It was not until June, 1790, that any despatches from England arrived in Sydney.
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