who is charged by the Board of Longitude with observing the expected comet. The temporary buildings are marked in black; those intended to remain, in red. We now make very good bricks, and the stone is good, but do not find either limestone or chalk. … The principal streets are placed so as to admit a free circulation of air, and are two hundred feet wide. …' Then follows a detailed account of the progress made so far in building operations generally.
'Of the convicts,' he writes, '36 men and 4 women died on the passage, 20 men and 8 women since landing—11 men and 1 woman absconded; 4 have been executed, and 3 killed by the natives. The number of convicts now employed in erecting the necessary buildings and cultivating the lands only amounts to 320—and the whole number of people victualled amounts to 966—consequently we have only the labour of a part to provide for the whole. …
'I could have wished to have given your Lordship a more pleasing account of our present situation; and am persuaded I shall have that satisfaction hereafter; nor do I doubt but that this country will prove the most valuable acquisition Great Britain ever made; at the same time no country offers less assistance to the first settlers than this does; nor do I think any country could be more disadvantageously placed with respect to support from the mother country, on which for a few years we must entirely depend.'
