Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/292

 248 VOOB SUPPLIES 17M It may be doubted whether Grose would have taken up his pen in the same cheerful state of mind if he had been BrMd and Q^iige^ ^q ]^yQ f^j. ^ few woeks or months on dry bread and dishes made from Indian corn ; and however he might have fared under such conditions^ the absence of animal food would have been severely felt by the convicts, who had to labour in the fields. Collins did not view the situation with any degree of complacency. Writing of the state of affairs at the beginning of March, shortly before the William arrived, he said : — time ; one serving of salt meat alone remained, and that was to be the food of only half a week. After that period, the prospect, unless we were speedily relieved, was miserable ; mere bread and water appeared to be the portion of by far the greater pai*t of the inhabitants of these settlements, of that part, too, whose bodily labour must be called forth to restore plenty."* Condition oi CoUins, at all events, appreciated the hardship which would have been caused by the absence of animal food, if Grose did not. But when the Lieutenant-Governor told Dundas that the only distress that would have been felt from the non- arrival of the William would have been the necessity of living on bread alone, he did not accurately describe Wheat and the situation. It is true that there was plenty of wheat and corn, but no, . . flour. maize in the fields, but there was no flour from which to make bread, and there were no adequate means for turning the com into flour. Hand-mills had been sent out, but the number was small, and they were only capable, with the expenditure of infinite labour, of grinding small quantities of grain. Efforts had been made to erect large mills at Sydney and Parramatta, but so far with indifferent success. To what extent the colony was in a position to supply itself with '^ bread " may be seen from Collinses narrative. In November, 1793, four months before the crisis had arrived, the convicts for the first time received a ration in which • Collins, Tol. i, p. 361.
 * ^ The provision-store was never in so reduced a state as at this