provide for them. We are now eight in number. … Our allowance … is scanty, and is likely to be still less. 'Tis seldom we get a fresh meal, and then in general it is at a dear rate. Fresh pork, one shilling per pound; a moderate size fowl, three, four or five shillings, and sometimes more. Indian corn, ten shillings per bushel. Everything else, whether from on ship or on shore, in the same proportion. Have frequently asked to have the privilege of a man to shoot for me now and then; this favour I never have been granted.'
Phillip did his best to help him, but that best was not much. When the Lady Juliana storeship arrived in June 1790, the Governor told Johnson that 400 acres were to be surveyed as Church ground, and this promise was fulfilled, but he could spare no labour even to clear the ground. Surely, writes the unfortunate Methodist, the Government did not mean him to use axe and spade himself? Nevertheless, being a man of energy he did make the attempt, and by continuous toil managed to better his position somewhat. 'The sound of four hundred acres,' he says plaintively, 'will appear great. But what. Sir, are four hundred or four thousand acres full of large green trees, unless some convicts be allowed to cultivate it?
'I did not come out here as an overseer or as a farmer. I have other things more, much more important, to attend to. My duty as a clergyman fully takes up all my time. Neither will my constitution
