cation was nearly ready for the press; and when many of
the opinions which it records had been declared, fresh accounts from Port
Jackson were received. To the state of a country, where so many anxious
trying hours of his life have passed, the author cannot feel indifferent.
If by any sudden revolution of the laws of nature; or by any fortunate
discovery of those on the spot, it has really become that fertile and
prosperous land, which some represent it to be, he begs permission to add
his voice to the general congratulation. He rejoices at its success: but
it is only justice to himself and those with whom he acted to declare, that
they feel no cause of reproach that so complete and happy an alteration did
not take place at an earlier period.

CHAPTER I.

A Retrospect of the State of the Colony of Port Jackson, on the Date of my
former Narrative, in July, 1788.

Previous to commencing any farther account of the subject, which I am about
to treat, such a retrospection of the circumstances and situation of the
settlement, at the conclusion of my former Narrative, as shall lay its
state before the reader, seems necessary, in order to connect the present
with the past.

The departure of the first fleet of ships for Europe, on the 14th of July,
1788, had been long impatiently expected; and had filled us with anxiety,
to communicate to our friends an account of our situation; describing the
progress of improvement, and the probability of success, or failure, in
our enterprise. That men should judge very oppositely on so doubtful and
precarious an event, will hardly surprise.

Such relations could contain little besides the sanguineness of hope, and
the enumeration of hardships and difficulties, which former accounts had
not led us to expect. Since our disembarkation in the preceding January,
the efforts of every one had been unremittingly exerted, to deposit the
public stores in a state of shelter and security, and to erect habitations
for ourselves. We were eager to escape from tents, where a fold of canvas,
only, interposed to check the vertic beams of the sun in summer, and the
chilling blasts of the south in winter. A markee pitched, in our finest
season, on an English lawn; or a transient view of those gay camps, near
the metropolis, which so many remember, naturally draws forth careless and
unmeaning exclamations of rapture, which attach ideas of pleasure only, to
this part of a soldier's life. But an