Bay, but
authorised him to choose another site for the settlement if he
considered a better could be found. He arrived with his fleet of
transports in 1788, after a voyage of many months' duration, so managed
that, though the fleet was the first to make the passage and was made
up of more ships and more prisoners than any succeeding fleet, there was
less sickness and fewer deaths than on any of the convoys which followed
it Phillip made a careful examination of Botany Bay, and finding it
unsuitable for planting, the settlement was removed to Port Jackson.
After landing the exiles, the transports returned to Europe _via_ China
and the East Indies, and their route was along the north-east coast of
Australia. The voyages of these returning transports, under the
navy agent, Lieutenant Short-land, were fruitful in discoveries and
adventures. Meanwhile Phillip and his officers were working hard,
building their homes and taking their recreation in exploring the
country and the coast for many miles around them. And with such
poor means as an indifferent Home Government provided, this work of
exploration went on continually under each naval governor, the pressing
want of food spurring the pioneers ever on in the search for good
land; but that very need, with the lack of vessels, of men who could be
trusted, of all that was necessary for exploration, kept them chained in
a measure to their base at Sydney Cove.

Phillip, white-faced, cold and reserved, but with a heart full of pity,
was responsible for the lives of a thousand people in a desolate country
twelve thousand miles from England--so desolate that his discontented
officers without exception agreed that the new colony was "the
most God-forsaken land in the world." The convict settlers were so
ill-chosen, and the Government so neglected to supply them with even the
barest necessities from Home, that for several years after their landing
they were in constant distress from famine; and disease and death from
this cause alone was an evil regularly to be encountered by the silent,
hard-working Phillip. The only means of relief open to the starving
settlement was by importing food from Batavia and the Cape of Good
Hope, and to procure such supplies Phillip had but two ships at his
disposal--the worn-out old frigate _Sirius_ (which was lost at Norfolk
Island soon after the founding of the settlement) and a small brig of
war, the _Supply_--which for many weary months were the only