Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/344

 290 CHANGES EFFECTEB PhUUp's difficulties. l79»-4 Other officers had similar opportaniiieB^ though not per- ^ifjoyed?y ^^-P* ^^ g^od, foF Macarthur, as inspector of works, was Macarthur expressed astonishment at the marvellons change which had taken place since the departure of Grovemor Phillip a year and a half before ; but great as the change was, it need have excited no surprise. Phillip struggled against exceptionally adverse circumstances. He had been called upon to provide for batch after batch of sick convicts, who were a heavy burden ; and after the first year or two, when the strength of the settlement had to be employed chiefly in the erection of buildings, the supply of provisions was so short and so precarious that the convicts were too weak to cultivate the land with any chance of success. Grose occasionally experienced difficulties of a similar nature, but during the greater part of his term the supply of. food from England was plentiful. The correspondence which took place between Governor Hunter and the Home Department shows in what manner Grose's system, adopted entirely on. his own responsibility, worked. In a letter to Under Secretary King, 1st June, 1797, two years after his return to the colony as Governor, Hunter had no difficulty in explaining why the settlement up to that time had been a disappointment to the British Government. The letter was a private one, but it does not lose importance on that account ; on the contrary, its value is enhanced by the circumstance that it was written with a freedom that could not be looked for in the official despatches. Hunter said : — " When you oome to examine the expences of this settlement since its numbers became considerably or since 1792, you will say that it has not answer'd the expectation of Government. But, sir, I feel no difficulty in declanng it to be my opinion that such disappointment has not proceeded from the nature of the country, but from other causes. There has not been any land cleared on the public account since the above period,* the people had been Augustus Alt — on 26th April, 1794 (Historical Becoids, toI. ii, p. 210), Hunter's comments on Grose's policy.
 * ^*™* entitled to an extra grant, and had other special advantage?.
 * This statement is -at rarianoe with that madid by the Surreyor-Qeneral —