Page:Admiral Phillip.djvu/45

. For example, in December he writes a letter containing fourteen questions relating to what, to officialdom, no doubt appeared most trivial matters, but which the questioner's instinct told him it would be wise to have settled before he left England. The contractors, dockyard officials and others charged with the task of preparing the expedition seem to have neglected their duties, and their superiors to have exercised no supervision over them. Yet, owing to his wonderful foresight and his steady 'pegging away' at the officials, Phillip did succeed in getting many things that he wanted. Just before leaving England, he wrote a memorandum on the general conduct of the expedition and the treatment of the convicts. Some paragraphs of this document are worth printing, for they depict him in another character than that of an excellent man of business:—

'During the passage, when light airs or calms permit it, I shall visit the transports to see that they (the convicts) are kept clean and receive the allowance ordered by Government; and at these times I shall endeavour to make them sensible of their situation, and that their happiness or misery is in their own hands,—that those who behave well will be rewarded by being allow'd to work occasionally on the small lotts of land set apart for them, and which they will be put in possession of at the expiration of the time for which they are transported. &hellip;

'As I would not wish convicts to lay the