Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/92

 destroyed, or the breeding season come to an end. Devoutly Hunter records that he might truly call them "birds of Providence," but adds that, "we reflected with pain that they must have an end, and that in all probability this would be the case before we got a relief."

Thus the weary time passed, when on the 4th of Aug. one of the seamen descried a sail. Rushing to his fellows, and crying as he ran, "A ship! A ship!" he stirred the whole community into a paroxysm of hope. The ship had an English ensign flying, but she made no sign of staying, nor even of making signals. The disappointment was crushing. "Every one (says Hunter) agreed in opinion that it would have been much better if no ship had been seen." By this time, too, to add to their anxiety, the "birds of Providence" were very scarce."

On the 7th of Aug. relief came to them. The Justinian and Surprise arrived from Sydney with provisions and more convicts, and poured into the ears of the islanders the same news from England which had been so welcome to the exiles in Sydney. Martial law was abrogated. The ships discharged their cargoes in about three weeks and proceeded to China, and the islanders were again uninterupted in their waterbound speck, until, in Jan. 1791, the Supply arrived to take back to Sydney the officers and crew of the Sirius.

The ships which arrived with succour from England in 1790 were long remembered as "the second fleet." They carried the first instalment of the New South Wales Corps, afterwards to become the 102nd Regiment; and their arrival enabled Phillip to dispense with the doubtful services of Major Ross of the marines. The barren rocks which had been so niggardly in yielding food were to echo to the tramp of the soldier of the line, and it could not be