Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/172

 lU PROGRESS OP THE SETTLEMENT Ck>mmeDd- able progress. Public. buildings. ^"^^ famine of 1789-90, and those ^^who arrived in Jnne, had not recovered from the severity of their passage to this country/** When the conditions nnder which the cultivation of the soil was commenced at Bose Hill are considered, surprise must be felt, not that so little progress was made in the first year, but that anythmg was done at all. The progress made in building during the year following the arrival of the Second Fleet was much greater than might have been expected. Phillip reported to Grenville on the 4th March, 1791 :— " Three stores, saffioient to contain two years' provisions for the settlement, are built heref [Sydney] and at Rose Hill ; they are of brick and tiled, so that we are no longer under any apprehensions of an accident from fire. A barrack is also finished at Rose Hill for an hundred men, and the officers' barracks will be finished by the end of May, immediately after which barracks for officers and men will be begun at this place [Sydney]." This was the first despatch which Phillip had sent to England since July, 1790; it contained, therefore, a report of his proceedings for nearly eight months. The buildings spoken of were commenced after the arrival of the Second Fleet — a storehouse and new barracks at Rose Hill were storehouses built, accordiug to Collins, during the months September- December. The storehouse at Rose Hill, one hundred feet long and twenty-four feet wide, was begun and finished in November, which was a rainless month. In December the foundations of a new storehouse at Sydney were laid. • Collins, Tol. i, p. 163. t Phillip was of opinion that the colony oould not he in a secure position unless enough provisions to last for two years were always in stock, and he provided store-room accordingly. The bmldings in his time, however, were never filled. With regard to the storehouse, Collins writes (vol. i, p. 137) : — " The Gk)vernor proposing [September, 1790] to erect a capacious storehouse and a range of barracks at Rose Hill, a convict who understood the business of brickmaking was sent up for the purpose of manufacturing a quantity sufficient for those buildings, a vein of clay having been found which it was supposed would burn into good bricks. A very convenient wharf and landing- place were made at that settlement, and twenty-seven huts were in great forwardness at the end of that month,"