the hut lately
occupied as a bakehouse for the _Supply_, for the sale of some articles
of grocery, glass, millinery, perfumery, and stationary; but the risk of
bringing them out having been most injudiciously estimated too highly,
as was evident from the increase on the first cost, which could not be
disguised, they did not go off so quickly as the owners supposed they
would.

A report having been circulated soon after the establishing of this
settlement, that a considerable sum of money had been subscribed in
England, to be expended in articles for the benefit of the convicts who
embarked for this country, which articles had been entrusted to the Rev.
Mr. Johnson, to be disposed of according to the intention of the
subscribers after our arrival, Mr. Johnson wrote to his friends in
England to confute this report; and by accounts lately received, it
appeared that no such public collection had ever been made; at Mr.
Johnson's request, therefore, the governor published a contradiction of
the above report in the general orders of the settlement. The convicts
had hitherto imagined that they had a right to the articles which had
from time to time been distributed among them; but Mr. Johnson now
thought it necessary that they should know it was to his bounty they were
indebted for them, and that consequently the partakers of it were to be
of his own selection.

The female convicts who had lately arrived attending at divine service on
the first Sunday after their landing, Mr. Johnson, with much propriety,
in his discourse, touched upon their situation, and described it so
forcibly as to draw tears from many who were the least hardened among
them.

Early in the morning of the 23rd, one of the men at the Lookout discerned
a sail to the northward, but, the weather coming on thick, soon lost
sight of it. The bad weather continuing, it was not seen again until the
25th, when word was brought up to the settlement, that a large ship,
apparently under jury-masts, was seen in the offing; and on the following
day the _Surprise_ transport, Nicholas Anstis master (late chief mate of
the _Lady Penrhyn_) anchored in the cove from England, having on board
one captain, one lieutenant, one surgeon's mate, one serjeant, one
corporal, one drummer, and twenty-three privates of the New South Wales
corps; together with two hundred and eighteen male convicts. She sailed
on the 19th of January from Portsmouth in company with two other
transports,