Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/630

» 506 LETTERS 1790 Sniveoh White. Wreck of the Siriua. Council of war. RaUons reduced. speaks of the quantity of flour in the colony. The publicf retnm of provision, dated Nov. 16, 1788, is as follows : — Months. Beef and pork 20 Flour and rice ... 18 Butter 13 Pease 16 A letter from Surgeon White, in the same collection, was published in an English newspaper, from which it was cut out and pasted on a sheet of paper, with the following note in the hand- writing of Sir Joseph Banks : — "This letter was addressed to Mr. Skill, dealer in hams, tongues, salt salmon, <kc., in the Strand '* : — Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, New South Walea^ Dear sir, April 17, 1790. His Majesty's ship Sinus and Supply tender sailed from heno^ the 6th of March last, with the Lieutenant-Gk>vemor, half the marines, and about two hundred convicts, for Norfolk Island, and landed them safe the 16th. This division of our numbers the Governor thought necessary on account of the low state of our provisions. The ships stood ofi* and on until the 19th, before an opportunity of landing the provisions and stores offered ; then the Sirius stood in as close as possible to hasten and fo^ilitate get- ting the things through a heavy surf, which continually rolls in on the beach, but by a current, or some other unforeseen cause, she was driven on a reef of hidden rocks and irrevocably lost. The ship's bow is in a position which will probably make her hold together until everything is got ashore, where all the officers and men are safe, with a greater store of provisions than we have here. Had the Sirius arrived safe, she was immediately to have gone to China for some relief for us, and on her despatch our all depended : but, alas ! that hope is no more, and a new scene of distress and misery opens to our view. When the Supply arrived with the melancholy tidings, the Governor called all the officers together, to consult and deliberate on what was best to be done in our present distracted and deplor- able situation. He laid before us the state of the provision store, which contained only four months' flour, and three of pork at half allowance, which has been our ration for some time past, every other species of provision being long since expended. We therefore determined on the necessity of reducing our half allowance of those two articles to such a proportion as will enable us to drag out a miserable existence for seven m onths. Should we have no arrivals in that time the game will be up with us, for all the grain of every kind which we have been able to raise in two years and three months would not support us three weeks, which is a very strong instance of the ingratitude and extreme poverty of the soil and country at large; though great exertions have been made. Digitized by Google