with other dismal accounts, were published in the London papers. White, the principal surgeon, wrote[1]:—
'Much cannot now be done, limited in food and reduced as the people are, who have not had one ounce of fresh animal food since first in the country; a country and place so forbidding and so hateful as only to merit execration and curses, for it has been a source of expence to the mother country and of evil and misfortune to us, without there ever being the smallest likelihood of its repaying or recompencing either. From what we have already seen we may conclude that there is not a single article in the whole country that in the nature of things could prove of the smallest use or advantage to the mother country or the commercial world. In the name of heaven, what has the Ministry been about? Surely they have quite forgotten or neglected us, otherwise they would have sent to see what had become of us, and to know how we were likely to succeed. However, they must soon know from the heavy bills which will be presented to them, and the misfortunes and losses which have already happened to us, how necessary it becomes to relinquish a scheme that in the nature of things can never answer. It would be wise by the first
- ↑ This letter was published in the Public Advertiser on the 31st December 1790, appropriately addressed to 'Mr Skill, dealer in hams, tongues, salt salmon, etc., in the Strand.'
