encampment amidst the rocks and wilds
of a new country, aggravated by the miseries of bad diet, and incessant
toil, will find few admirers.

Nor were our exertions less unsuccessful than they were laborious. Under
wretched covers of thatch lay our provisions and stores, exposed to
destruction from every flash of lightning, and every spark of fire. A few
of the convicts had got into huts; but almost all the officers, and the
whole of the soldiery, were still in tents.

In such a situation, where knowledge of the mechanic arts afforded the
surest recommendation to notice, it may be easily conceived, that attention
to the parade duty of the troops, gradually diminished. Now were to be
seen officers and soldiers not "trailing the puissant pike" but felling the
ponderous gum-tree, or breaking the stubborn clod. And though "the broad
falchion did not in a ploughshare end" the possession of a spade, a
wheelbarrow, or a dunghill, was more coveted than the most refulgent arms
in which heroism ever dazzled. Those hours, which in other countries are
devoted to martial acquirements, were here consumed in the labours of the
sawpit, the forge and the quarry*.

[* "The Swedish prisoners, taken at the battle of Pultowa, were transported
by the Czar Peter to the most remote parts of Siberia, with a view to
civilize the natives of the country, and teach them the arts the Swedes
possessed. In this hopeless situation, all traces of discipline and
subordination, between the different ranks, were quickly obliterated. The
soldiers, who were husbandmen and artificers, found out their superiority,
and assumed it: the officers became their servants." VOLTAIRE.]

Of the two ships of war, the 'Sirius' and 'Supply', the latter was
incessantly employed in transporting troops, convicts, and stores, to
Norfolk Island; and the 'Sirius' in preparing for a voyage to some port,
where provisions for our use might be purchased, the expected supply from
England not having arrived. It is but justice to the officers and men of
both these ships to add, that, on all occasions, they fully shared every
hardship and fatigue with those on shore.

On the convicts the burden fell yet heavier: necessity compelled us to
allot to them the most slavish and laborious employments. Those operations,
which in other countries are performed by the brute creation, were here
effected by the exertions of men: but this ought not to be considered
a grievance; because they ha