NORFOLK ISLAND. 35f lie had to send related to the return of the Golden Grove 1768 from Norfolk Island with letters from the Commandant, cNoyamteD. and the formation of the settlement at Bose Hill. Since I closed my letter of the 30th of October to your lord- ship the Golden Grove has arrived from Norfolk Island, inhere the people and provisions were landed, and from whence I have received the most favourable accounts. They have vegetables in Good great abundance, as well as fish. The grain that had been sowed t^^Sa^ after the first had failed (from having been heated in the passage i^^ or injured by the weevil) promises a great increase. The soil is extremely rich, and to the depth of many feet wherever they have dug; the people very healthy and perfectly satisfied under an oficer who will in less than two years render that island independent of independent this colony for the necessaries of life, if we can procure black cattle " ^®y®*^ to send him. He will have an additional number of people in the course of the sunmier. A few honest industrious families would ihere find themselves happy, in a good climate as healthy as this settlement (and no place can be healthier), with a rich land easy of cultivation, and where the storms of thunder and heavy rains have not been felt The flax plant will supply the settlers on that Flax, island with rope and canvas, as well as a considerable part of their cloathing, when they can dross it properly ; but a person experi- enced in dressing flax is much wanted, as well as a few good husbandmen, for those we have been able to send there are not only in general idle and abandoned, but ignorant. A cocoanut that was as good as if just taken from the tree, and waiiaaad a small piece of wood, said to resemble the handle of a fly-flap as "^^ made in the Friendly Islands, and which did not appear to have been long in the water, have suggested an idea that some island which is inhabited lays at no great distance, but which my present situation does not permit me to determine. The remains of two or three canoes have been found on the rocks. The Golden Grove in her passage from Norfolk Island saw a very dangerous reef, the south end of which lay in the latitude of a dangerous 29" 25' Bouih, longitude IbQ"" 59' east It appeared from the N.K '^' fcy N. to 1^. when they were four leagues from it, but no judge- ment can be formed how £ar it extends to the northward.*^
- This veef was discovered by lieat. Shortland on his voyage to England
in the tnuisport Alexander, in July, 1788, and was named by him Middle- ton Shoals. — Fhillip*s Voyage, p. 189. Digitized by Google
