it may with truth be said, 'Here nature is
reversed, and if not so, she is nearly worn out'; for almost all
the seed we have put in the ground has rotted, and I have no doubt
it will, like the wood of this vile country, when burned or rotten
turn to sand;"

Captain Tench, one of Ross' officers, wrote:--

"The country is very wretched and totally incapable of yielding to
Great Britain a return for colonising it.... The dread of
perishing by famine stares us in the face. [Sidenote: 1792]
The country contains less resources than any in the known world;"

and the principal surgeon, White, described the colony in these words:--

"I cannot, without neglect of my duty to my country, refrain from
declaring that if a 'favourable picture' has been drawn, it is a
'gross falsehood and a base deception.'"

Yet shortly before Phillip left it, in 1792, Collins says:--

"In May the settlers were found in general to be doing very well,
their farms promising to place them shortly in a state of
independence of the public stores in the articles of provisions
and grain. Several of the settlers who had farms at or near
Parramatta, notwithstanding the extreme drought of the season
preceding the sowing of their corn, had such crops that they found
themselves enabled to take off from the public store some one, and
others two convicts, to assist in preparing their grounds for the
next season."

In June, according to the same authority, the ground sown with wheat and
prepared for maize was of sufficient area, even if the yield per acre did
not exceed that for the previous season, to produce enough grain for a
year's consumption.

The last returns relating to agriculture, prepared before Phillip left,
show that the total area under cultivation was 1540 acres, and the
previous year's returns show that the area had doubled as a result of the
year's work. Besides this, considerable progress had been made with public
buildings; and the convict population, which by the arrival of more
transports had now reached nearly 4000 souls, were slowly but surely
settling down as colonists.

With a thousand people to govern, in the fullest meaning of the word, and
a desolate country, absolutely unknown to the exiles, to begin life in,
Phillip's work was cut out. But, more than this, the population was
chiefly composed of the lowest and worst criminals of England;