rendered the services which were required of her, had she been put
together, coppered, and sent out manned and officered from England; by
these means too the colony would have received many articles which were
of necessity shut out of the _Pitt_ to make room for her stowage.

About this time a malady of an alarming nature was perceived in the
colony. Four or five of the convicts were seized with insanity; and, as
the major part of those who were visited by this calamity were females,
who on account of their sex were not harassed with hard labour, and who
in general shared largely of such little comforts as were to be procured
in the settlement, it was difficult to assign a cause for this disorder.

April.] With a dreadful sick list, and with death making rapid strides
among us, the month of April commenced: a lamentable circumstance to
those who had to provide by their labour for the support of a colony, in
which, from its great distance, not only from the parent country, but
from every port where supplies could be procured, it became an object of
the first magnitude and importance to endeavour speedily, and by every
possible exertion, to place its inhabitants in a situation that accident
or delay might not affect. His Majesty's ship _Guardian_ afforded a
melancholy recollection how much this colony had already felt from
misadventure, and the delay which occurred in the voyage of the _Lady
Juliana_ transport had proved equally calamitous. The recent circumstance
of a ship arriving without a supply of flour, and other contingencies,
spoke with a warning voice, and loudly demanded that every arm which
could be raised should be exerted to make provision against the hour of
want. Few, however, in comparison with the measure of our necessities,
were the numbers daily brought into the field for the purpose of
cultivation; and of those who could handle the hoe or the spade by far the
greater part carried hunger in their countenances; but it was earnestly
hoped and anxiously expected, that by the speedy arrival of supplies from
England the full ration of every species of provisions would be again
issued, when labour would be renewed with additional vigour and effect;
health and strength be seen residing among us; and the approaches of
independence on Great Britain be something more than a sanguine hope or
visionary speculation.

The convicts, and such stores and provisions as the governor thought it
necessary to send to Norfo