he officers) own conveniency
or when they are called out at the head of their men; the saying of a
few words to encourage the diligent when they saw them at work, and the
pointing out the idle when they could do it without going out of their
way, was all that was desired. The convicts were then employed in
clearing the ground on which the officers were encamped, and this they
refused; they did not suppose they were sent out to do more than
garrison duty, and these gentlemen (that is, the majority of the
officers) think the being obliged to sit as members of the Criminal
Court an hardship, and for which they are not paid, and likely think
themselves hardly dealt by, in that Government had not determined what
lands were to be given to them. But I presume an additional force will
be sent out when the necessity of making detachments in order to
cultivate lands in the more open country is known, and from four to six
hundred men, will, I think, be absolutely necessary.

If fifty farmers were sent out with their families they would do more in
one year in rendering this colony independent of the mother country _as
to provisions_ than a thousand convicts. There is some clear land which
is intended to be cultivated, at some distance from the camp, and I
intended to send out convicts for that purpose, under the direction of a
person that was going to India in the _Charlotte_, transport, but who
remained to settle in this country, and has been brought up a farmer,
but several of the convicts (three) have been lately killed by the
natives, and I have been obliged to defer it until a detachment can be
made.

The natives are far more numerous than they were supposed to be. I think
they cannot be less than fifteen hundred in Botany Bay, Port Jackson,
and Broken Bay, including the intermediate coast. I have traced thirty
miles inland, and the having lately seen smoke on Lansdown Hills, which
are fifty miles inland, I think leaves no doubt but there are
inhabitants in the interior parts of the country.

Lists of what articles are most wanted will be sent by the Commissary,
and I am very sorry to say that not only a great part of the clothing,
particularly the women's, is very bad, but most of the axes, spades, and
shovels the worst that ever were seen. The provision is as good. Of the
seeds and corn sent from England part has been destroyed by the weevil;
the rest is in very good order.

The person I have appointed Provost-Marshal is