A Voyage to Botany Bay by George Barrington

WE had now upwards of a thousand acres of cleared land at Paramatta, three hundred and fifty of which were in wheat and maize; but though we had frequent showers of rain, yet not in sufficient quantities to compensate for the excessive drought which had been experienced in the preceding months; and from the ground being new, and requiring more work than was in the power of the settlers to bestow on it, the grain in general had a very unpromising appearance. There are about two hundred acres laid out in gardens, as much more prepared for turnips and potatoes, and the remainder closed in for feeding cattle. We are very badly off for manure, and ere the colony can properly flourish it must be stocked with cattle, the ground being infinitely too poor of itself ever to produce crops sufficient for us to depend on it solely for subsistence. The sudden vicissitudes of the weather must also render our harvests very precarious, as well as prove injurious to the health of the new comers; it often happens that there is a change of from forty to fifty degrees twice in one day. It is no unfrequent circumstance to see the country strewed with numbers of birds, fallen from the trees, unable to support the intense heat of the meridian sun. Numbers of convicts fall victims, but it must not be wholly ascribed to the weather, as the debilitated state in which they are for the most part landed, would, were it a more favourable climate, be attended with a considerable mortality; and they are generally so weak that they cannot be put to any kind of labour, but are employed in weeding and pulling grass for the purpose of thatching: we have frequently four or five hundred on the doctor's list, who are individually visited daily by the surgeon; upwards of fifty have died in a month, in the generality of whom nature appears entirely exhausted, and many of them were so fairly worn out, that they expired without a groan, and, to all appearance, did not experience the smallest degree of pain.

From a most humane suggestion of Captain Parker, of the Gorgon, the governor issued orders for a regular survey to be taken of the condition of the convicts on their landing from the different transports; and a strict investigation taking place, it appeared that some of the captains had very much abridged their unfortunate passengers of the allowance stipulated by government for their subsistence; and this inhuman practice had been carried to such an extent in some of the ships, that it appeared many had been literally starved to death. A strong and pointed representation of the circumstance was sent home to government, which will, I hope, put an effectual stop to such nefarious proceedings.