UNDER GBOSB/ 247 an attempt was made by a number of them to seize the ^*^ ship. Before they could put their design into execution the mutineers were secured, and one of them hanged ; the others were punished with the lash."*^ No other vessel arriyed from England until the 10th suppues by March, 1794, when the William anchored in Sydney Cove and Arthur, with a large supply of salt beef and pork, but no flour. On the same day a small vessel, the Arthur, a brig of ninety- five tons, arrived from Bengal with a cargo of salt beef, pork, sugar, and rum. The salt meat was purchased by Government, while the sugar and rum were sold to private persons. In the meantime the settlement had suffered con- siderably from the short supply of food, particularly flour. Grose, who does not appear to have written any despatch to the Home Department between the 12th October, 1793, and the 29th April, 1794, reported in a communication of the latter date the arrival of the William on the 8th An ^ — March, 1794, and remarked that all the provisions had been J issued from the stores a few hours before she was sighted. The stores having been replenished, Grose was anxious to represent matters in the best possible light ; he informed the Secretary of State that : — " As all our provisions were issued from the stores about six An empty hours before she [the William] appeared in sight, I am apprehen- store. give that from this circumstance our situation may be represented to be more desperate than it really was. It is, therefore, requisite that I should inform you that our Indian com was at that time ripe, and that the publick and private farms had yielded in such abundance as to secure us from auy other distress than that of being forced to live on bread only."t
- Collins attributes the mutiny to the fact that a small and nntrustworthj
guard (a sergeant's party) was expected to keep under control a peculiarly rebellious set of prisoners: — "As intentions of this kind [the seizure of Tefsels by conTiotsJ had been talked of in several ships, the military guard should neyer haye been less than an officer's command, and that guard (especially when tmbarked for the security of a ship full of wild lawless Irifih) ought nerer to have been composed either of young soldiers or of deserters from other corps." — Collins, vol. i, p. 811. t Historical Becords, vol. ii, p. 207.
