CLEARING THE GAOLS. 365 for the purpose of transporting convicts, Phillip's request 17W that some mechanics and overseers should be sent out, was complied with ; but his protest against any more convicts being sent until the colony was prepared to receive them, did not meet with any consideration at all. So far from that being the case, the Minister determined to clear the gaols at once, by shipping another selection of their inmates to Port Jackson as soon as the transports could be got ready for sea. His intention was made known to the public without delay : — Government have come to a resolution to send out all the con- Q^oia to be victs sentenced for transportation, and all the respites, in the next ^^ fleet that is to sail for Botany Bay, in order that his Majesty's gaols in this kingdom may be at once quite cleared.^ As this announcement was published a few days after Phillip's first despatches had reached the Minister's hands, it is clear that the resolution to clear the gaols again had been formed without any loss of time, and without any reference to the state of the colony. Phillip's urgent repre- pwiup's sentations on the subject counted for nothing. Although Si8r«Karded. it was known that he had been disappointed in his expecta- tions of finding land fit for cultivation, and that the men he had to employ for the purpose understood nothing about it, it was assumed that he would be prepared to receive another fleet full of the same sort of material as that he had already to deal with. There was clearly no consider- ation either for him or the colony in Sydney's view of the matter; the one point on which his attention had been concentrated from the first remained fixed in his mind to the last — the gaols should be cleared at any price. The Home Office addressed the Treasury as follows : — ' The letters which have been received from Captain Phillip, Governor of New South Wales, representing that a great part of the provisions sent out with him to the settlement lately made apon that coast has been expended, and that there is an immediate
- The Gentleman's Magazine for March, 1789, vol. lix, p. 274»
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