le part, the husk,
would not give more than three pounds of good meal; and the rice was used
by the convicts in a much greater variety of modes than it was possible
to prepare the maize in.

As at this period the flour in store was reduced to a very inconsiderable
quantity, twenty-four days at the new ration (one pound and a half per
week), and the salt provisions at the present ration not affording a
supply for a longer time than three months, it became a melancholy,
although natural reflection, that had not such numbers died, both in the
passage and since the landing of those who survived the voyage, we should
not at this moment have had any thing to receive from the public stores;
thus strangely did we derive a benefit from the miseries of our fellow
creatures!

Several of the settlers who had farms at or near Parramatta,
notwithstanding the extreme drought of the season preceding the saving of
their corn, had such crops that they found themselves enabled to take off
from the public store, some one, and others two convicts, to assist in
preparing their grounds for the next season. The salt provisions with
which they supplied them they procured by bartering their corn for that
article, reserving a sufficiency for the support of themselves and
families, and for seed. Mr. Schaffer from a small patch of ground got in
about two hundred bushels of Indian corn; and with the assistance of four
convicts expected to have thirty acres in cultivation the next season.
But others of the settlers, inattentive to their own interests, and more
desirous of acquiring for the present what they deemed comforts, than
studious to provide for the future, not only neglected the cultivation of
their lands, but sold the breeding stock with which they had been
supplied by order of the governor. Two settlers of the former description
having clearly forfeited their grants, and it being understood that they
did not intend to proceed to cultivation any further than to save
appearances till they could get away, their grants were taken from them,
and other settlers placed on the grounds. But exclusive of the idle
people, of which there were but few, the settlers were found in general
to be doing very well, their farms promising to place them shortly in a
state of independence on the public stores in the articles of provisions
and grain; and it must not be omitted in this account, that they had to
combat with the bad effects of a short and reduced ra