Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/89

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THE SECOND FLEET, 1790. JOHJ^ MACARTHUR. 61 of public thanksgiving for His Majestj*s recovery, wht^.n

    • the attendance on Divine service was %'erj fnlL**

On the 20fch another sail was announced, and the Jnstitnan, storeship, arrived, after a passage of only five months from England. On the next day the full ration was restored y and the settlement hreathed freely. In the same month the iSurprisr, Neptune, and Smrbt>rouffh, trans- ports, arrived, and the harbour iivonld have been gay but for the condition of the new-comers. Two hundred and sixty-one deaths of male convicts had occurred in the three ships, and sickness still raged among them, Phillip reported (13th July) the scene of misery which the hospital and sick tents exhibited" when the convicts were landed. They were too crowded on board, and tliereby afflicted; ** 488 were under medical treatment" on arrivaL Of two men, very different in character, who arrived in . these plague-smitten ships, a word must be said. The ^fcagacity, energy, and enterprise of John Macarthin% of the ^fc^ew South Wales Corps, w^ere to mould the destinies of ^Australia, and hasten by decades her material progress. ^D'Arcy Wentworth was to become the father of her gi^eatest orator and patriot. They embarked m the same vessel, Pthe Ncpttmef and a prophet might have said to her, OresaretfL tfliis (iffivtunfiH snaR, There were disagreements on board, and at the etpiator Macarthur exchanged duties with an ofiSeer on board the Svarhoroiufh, In all the ships there was pestilence. More than one hundred and fifty convicts Kied on board of the Neptune. The father of John Macarthur had, with several brothers, lOUglit for the Pretender at CuUoden. His brothers were slain, and the solitary survivor, after fleeing abroad, settled in Plymouth, Twenty years after the death of his uncles, John Macarthur was born. He entered the army, and at the close of the war in 1783, studied to complete iiis educa- ^tion, his regiment having been reduced, and lie being on H&a^^^'P^^y- ^^^^ expedition which winged its way to the South attracted a mind eager in character, and large in its concei)tion9. He purchased a commission in the New South Wales Corps, and with his young wife sailed to Sydney. D'Arcy Wentworth, a dissipated youth, who was a tax to his friends, but had some knowledge of surgery^ had be^^w