These reduced rations were issued, Collins adds, to the convicts on Saturdays; by the following Tuesday night the greater number of the recipients had nothing left to allay the pangs of hunger. Their only resource was persistent thieving from their fellows or the other members of the settlement. The Governor therefore gave instructions to issue provisions on Wednesdays as well as Saturdays. The allowance being thus divided caused even the improvident to be more able to perform the labour required from them; and that Phillip, in view of their condition, made that labour as light as possible, we can have no doubt.
Tench gives us a picture of the settlement at this time:—
'Our impatience of news from Europe strongly marked the commencement of the year. We had now been two years in the country, and thirty-two months from England, in which long period no supplies, except what had been procured at the Cape of Good Hope by the Sirius, had reached us. From intelligence of our friends and connections we had entirely been cut off, no communication whatever having passed with our native country since the 13th of May 1787, the day of our departure from Portsmouth. Famine, beside, was approaching with gigantic strides, and gloom and dejection overspread every countenance. Men abandoned themselves to the most desponding
