Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/133

 PREPARATIONS FOR THE EXPEDITION. 35 were women, were not by any means adapted to the work 1787 of colonising. Instead of being selected for their probable usefulness on landing in a new country, as labourers and skilled workmen, they were mostly unfit for any ^iseful^^^^^ employment. Fifty-two of them were incapacitated for work of any kind by old age and incurable complaints, and consequently had to be kept on the sick list after their arrival, at a time when the infant colony was threatened with starvation. % 2. The convicts were put on board without sufficient clothing supplies of clothing, a neglect especially felt in the case of °** the women ; and the hardship was aggravated by the want of such simple necessaries as needles and thread, so that when their clothes fell to pieces they could not be repaired. 3. The supply of anti-scorbutics on board the fleet was scurvy. very insufficient. The outbreak of scurvy at sea was pre- vented by the supplies of fresh provisions obtained at Teneriffe, Eio, and the Cape ; but when it broke out after the arrival at Port Jackson, the medical staff found them- selves without the necessary means of treatment for the sick. 4. Although Governor Phillip was instructed to ''proceed no farmen. to the cultivation of the land^' immediately after his arrival, under the idea that the convicts would be able to provide the means of subsistence, and for that purpose supplies of seed, grain, and farming implements had been put on board the ships, no men were sent out who had any knowledge of farming or of the management of stock. 5. The number of carpenters among the convicts was so Mechanics small — there were only twelve, and several of them were ^° sick on their arrival — that ships' carpenters had to be hired from the fleet. A similar difficulty presented itself in the case of other mechanics required in the construction of houses and public buildings.* in 1803 to establish a colony at Port Phillip. '< *The people wherewith yon plant,' says Lord Bacon in his Essay on Plantations, 'ought to be aitized by Google
 * The same mistake was made when H.M.S. Calontta was sent ont