deck depended on the agent and on the masters of the ships; the agent died on the passage, and the masters say it was granted so far as was consistent with their own safety, and that many of the convicts were sick when sent from the hulks. I believe, Sir, while the masters of the transports think their own safety depends on admitting few convicts on deck at a time, and most of them with irons on, which prevent any kind of exercise, numbers must always perish on so long a voyage, and many of those now received are in such a situation from old complaints, and so emaciated from what they have suffered on the voyage, that they will never be capable of any labour. … By the surgeon's returns of this day there are 488 under medical treatment; when the ships arrived we had not fifty people sick in the colony.'
The crisis was now over, and the outlook for the little colony brighter. We can imagine Phillip sleeping sounder o' nights, forgetting for a time what for many years to come was to be the most anxious care of the Governor—the food supply—and turning his attention to the progress of 'our public buildings.' But, alas I the despatches sent by the Second Fleet brought news that ten more vessels were on their way with convicts. They arrived between the months of July and December 1791, and out of their complement of 2061 prisoners, 1863 were landed, the rest having died on the voyage, and 576 of those landed were ill and incapable of work for
