clerk in the Home Office, and yet in the opinion of Grenville it was a better place than Port Jackson for the chief settlement!
But before this despatch arrived many things happened. First, Phillip, finding that no storeships came in, despatched the Sirius to the Cape of Good Hope for provisions. She returned in May 1789, and on the way back she encountered very heavy weather. Southwell, who was on board, writing to his uncle, says:—
'I will now say a word or two concerning our passage when coming from the Cape of Good Hope. When I last wrote to you, having taken in our cargo, the principal which was six months' full allowance of flour for the colony and twelve months' provisions for the ship, we sailed again for New Holland, and had a very narrow escape from shipwreck, being driven on that part of the coast called Tasman's Head, in thick weather and hard gales of wind, and embayed, being twelve hours before we got clear, the ship forced to be overpressed with sail and the hands kept continually at the pumps, and all this time in the most distressing anxiety, being uncertain of our exact situation and doubtful of our tackling holding, which has a very long time been bad: for had a mast gone or a top-sheet given way, there was nothing to be expected in such boisterous weather but certain death on a coast so inhospitable and unknown. And now to reflect if we had not have reached the port with
