SUPPLIES FROM E^JgLAND. 297 employed assisting in this business, it will not, I apprehend, be 1788 finished before the end of July ; and every day proves the necessity 9 July. of proper persons being sent out to superintend the convicts. If Supennton- a small number of carpenters and bricklayers are sent out with mechanics proper people who are capable of superintending the convicts, they will soon be rendered serviceable to the State, and without which they will remain for years a burden to Government Numbers of them have been brought ^p from their infancy in such indolence over fifty that they would starve if left to themselves, and many (their worf* numbers now exceed fifty), from old age and disordera which are incurable, and with which they were sent from England, are incapable of every kind of work. The necessity for keeping Tip a regular supply of pro- visions for four or five years at least is again referred to : — Thus situated, your lordship will excuse my observing a second Regular time that a regular supply of provisions from England will be abso- S^e^ lutely necessary for four or five years, as the crops for two years to come cannot be depended on for more than what will be necessary for seed, and what the Sirius may procure can only be to breed from. Should necessity pblige us to make use of what that ship may be able to procure, I do not apprehend that the live stock she will bring in twelve months will be tnore than a month's provision for the colony, and the Supply is totally unfit for a service of this kind. Lieutenant Ball returned the 25th from Lord Howe Island, No turtle at where I had sent him in hopes he would have been able to procure island, some turtle for the sick ; but the weather was bad, and that island not having any good water will not be of any service to us, for Lieutenant Ball did not see any turtle, nor does he suppose they were bred there. 'The transports that sailed for China had my directions not to go to that island, but they all appeared there before the Supply left it, and one was near being lost.* The store-ships and transports, as cleared, are ordered to prepare shipe hove to return to England immediately, but some of their sheathing being much destroyed by the worms, it is necessary to permit several of those ships to heave down. One of the convicts who, in searching for vegetables, had gone Attacks by a considerable distance from the camp, returned very dangerously ^^ ^^
- The Scarborough, Charlotte, and Lady Penrhyn sailed for China on the
5th, 6th, and 8th May ; ante, p. 291. Digitized by Google
