Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/221

 THE TSLBD PLEET* 183 wiihont a single head of stocky and as it is, I tliink she ^"^^ should have stowed more, but I have gone far enough to risque a censure/'* The responsibility continued to weigh on his mind, for in a letter written towards the end of the month he expressed a fear that he might be ^' greatly cen- sured *' for the part he had taken, and begged Nepean to tell him by the first opportunity whether he had done right or wrong. The stock which caused King so much anxiety fared rather badly at sea, but nevertheless the shipment was far more successful than others had been. According to a Live stock memorandum which appears at the foot of King's letter to Cape. Nepean of the 27th October, 1791, t 28 head of cattle, 66 sheep, 11 pigs, 16 rabbits, and 20 pigeons were shipped on board the Gorgon at the Cape of Good Hope. The passage was marked by cold and rough weather, and only 19 cattle, 59 sheep, and 5 pigs (including births on the passage) were landed at Sydney. The fate of the rabbits and pigeons is left to conjecture. Phillip was not placed in such a bad plight by the arrival Landing of of the Third Fleet as he had been the year before, when ^o Third the Neptune, Scarborough, and Surprize came into port loaded with sick and dying men, although the number of convicts he had to provide for was twice as many. One reason was that the sick were not landed in such a deplorable stat« as those brought by the vessels of the Second Fleet; another was that they were not all thrown upon the colony at once, but were distributed over a period of three months. Phillip had also received longer notice, and he had learnt by experience how to meet these calls on his resources. One feature of the case that cannot fail to arrest attention is the implicit confidence which the English authorities Policy of the seem to have placed in the ability of the Governor to pro- authoriues. vide accommodation at short notice for any number of .•HiBtoDOiI Beo(»d8| toL i, port 2, p. 196. f Ib.» p. SaO.