Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/173

 APTEK THE ABBIVAL OF THE SECOND FLEET. 145 Although water was badly wanted for the crops, the drought ^^^ was conyenient for building operations. Good clay had been found from which bricks were made, b'lt so great was the Primitivo hurry that the bricks were used without being burnt — before, in fact, the clay had become dry. Properly-burnt bricks, howeyer, could not have been used, because there was no lime at hand with which to make mortar. Under these circumstances, undried bricks, although not very durable, served the purpose better than anything else. Phillip thus explained his building dijficulties to Grenville : — "The want of limestone still obliges us to confine our buildings Want of lime to a certain height, for although the clay is of a strong binding of walls, nature, we cannot with safety carry the walls of those buildings [the storehouses and the barracks] more than twelve feet above the ground, as the rains are at times very heavy, and should they come on before the clay is thoroughly dry, the walls would be in danger from the great weight of the roof." While Phillip was devoting himself to the development of the new settlement at Parramatta,*^ he had to look sharply after affairs in Sydney ; for there were many things upon* which it was necessary to keep a watchful eye. One of them was the practices of the masters and sailors of transports, who were only too ready to help the convicts to get away Abscondin? •^ J f o ,/ convicts. from the settlement.t The sailors belonging to the trans- ports were, according to Collins, guilty of "much irregu- larity'' when they went on shore. Phillip was greatly concerned at the thought of losing capable workmen, the bone and sinew upon which the progress of the settlement depended; and he accordingly took vigorous measures to prevent it. This practice had begun soon after the arrival of the First Fleet. The Charlotte, which sailed in May, 1788,. by FhiUip in direeting "in person" every undertaking of importance, whether at Sydney or Pammatta. t " The masters of ships would give passages to such people as could afford to pay them from ten to twenty pounds for the same."—- lb., p. 282. VOL. II. — K
 * Gollinfl (toI. i, pp. 132, 138) makes special allusion to the energy displayed