this paragraph in the 'Instructions' would be faithfully carried out:—
'The increase of the stock of animals must depend entirely upon the measures you may adopt on the outset for their preservation, and as the settlement will be amply supplied with vegetable productions, and most likely with fish, fresh provisions, excepting for the sick and convalescents, may in a great degree be dispensed with. For these reasons it will become you to be extremely cautious in permitting any cattle, sheep, hogs, etc., intended for propagating the breed of such animals, to be slaughtered, until a competent stock may be acquired, to admit of your supplying the settlement from it with animal food without having further recourse to the places from whence such stock may have originally been obtained.'
But fish were so scarce that even the blacks were unable to catch them, and were starving, and the 'vegetable productions' were as yet not forthcoming.
In all his despatches home Phillip never once despairs, never even complains. He tells the truth, puts down in figures how many people there are to feed, how little food there is to give them, and what is wanted to keep the colony alive, and ends his letters with the cheerful assurance that they will still pull through all right. We have seen how Major Ross wrote to England and what he had to say of things at this time, and his letters,
