also, of which eight casks had been sent as an experiment, was, on being
issued, found to be for the most part putrid, and, in the language of
surveyors of provisions, not fit for men to eat. These circumstances,
together with the extreme minuteness of the Bengal breed of cattle,
excited a general hope, that these settlements would not have to depend
upon that country for supplies. To the parent country every one anxiously
looked for a speedy and substantial assistance; and day after day used to
pass in a fruitless hope that the morrow would come accompanied with the
long wished-for arrival of ships.

The natives who lived among us assured us from time to time, that the
report formerly propagated of ships having been seen on the coast had a
foundation in reality; and as every one remembered that the _Justinian_,
after making the heads of Port Jackson, had been kept at sea for three
weeks, a fond hope was cherished that the sun had shone upon the whitened
sails of some approaching vessel, which had been discovered by the
penetrating eyes of our savage neighbours at Botany Bay. In this anxiety
and expectation we remained till the 26th, when the long-wished-for
signal was made, and in a few hours after the _Britannia_ storeship,
Mr. William Raven master, anchored in the cove, after a passage of
twenty-three weeks from Falmouth, having sailed from thence on the 15th
of last February, the day after the arrival of the _Pitt_ in this country.

The _Britannia_ was the first of three ships that were to be dispatched
hither, having on board twelve months clothing for the convicts, four
months flour, and eight months beef and pork for every description of
persons in the settlements, at full allowance, calculating their numbers
at four thousand six hundred and thirty-nine, which it was at home
supposed they might amount to after the arrival of the _Pitt_. It was
still a matter of uncertainty in England, even at the departure of the
_Britannia_, whether the merchants of Calcutta had supplied this country
with provisions; and under the idea that some circumstance might have
prevented them, this supply was ordered to be forwarded. The _Kitty_
transport, one of the three ships which were to contain these supplies,
had sailed from Deptford, at the time the _Britannia_ passed through the
Downs; her arrival therefore might be daily expected, and in her, or on
board of the other ship, it was imagined that fifteen families of
Quakers, who h