May) that it was "not thought advisable that the marines
should be constantly supplied with wine or spirits," but
that as on special occasions such addition to rations might
be required, Phillip might at Rio Janeiro or the Cape of
Good Hope obtain, through the commissary, bills for £200
to purchase wine or spirits, but "no further quantity will
hereafter be allowed for that purpose." This unwise
relegation, to a distant officer in time of difficulty, of a
question which ought to have been decided at headquarters, where there was a possibility of supplying the
places of insubordinate marines, was rendered less immediately harmful by the marines themselves. Some of them
had petitioned in April against being "cut off from having
any allowance of grog at their destined port, Botany Bay,
contrary to the promise made to them at head-quarters,"
&c., and on the 4th and 7th May others in several of the
ships, then at the Mother Bank, reiterated the complaint,
which Lord Sydney set at rest, for a time, on the 10th May,
by writing that, "wishing to remove any possible cause of
dissatisfaction," he extended the permission to the three
years contemplated, but "no further supplies of that sort
will be allowed." Thus, unpresciently, did he write on a
question which was to rack and disgrace the new settlement for years.
The "first fleet," under which designation Phillip's squadron became a household word for generations in Australia, began to assemble at its appointed rendezvous, the Mother Bank, about the 16th March, 1787.[1] The man-of-war Sirius conveyed the Governor, and the armed tender Supply accompanied him. Three storeships, the Golden Grove, Fishburn, and Borrowdale were freighted with provisions, implements of husbandry, and clothing for the convicts. Six transports carried the convicts, and a guard of marines accompanied each transport. It appears from a return dated 15th April, 1787,[2] that the total number of souls in the fleet was—of officers, marines (with
