We had witnessed
her departure with tears; we hailed her return with transport.
Captain Ball was rather more than six months in making this voyage,
and is the first person who ever circumnavigated the continent of New Holland.
On his passage to Batavia, he had discovered several islands, which he gave
names to and, after fighting his way against adverse elements and through
unexplored dangers, safely reached his destined port. He had well stored
his little bark with every necessary and conveniency which he judged
we should first want, leaving a cargo of rice and salt provisions
to be brought on by a Dutch snow, which he had hired and freighted for the use
of the settlement. While at Batavia, the 'Supply' had lost many of her people
by sickness, and left several others in the general hospital at that place.
As the arrival of the 'Supply' naturally leads the attention from other subjects
to the state of the colony, I shall here take a review of it by transcribing
a statement drawn from actual observation soon after, exactly as I find it
written in my journal.
Cultivation, on a public scale, has for some time past been given up here,
(Sydney) the crop of last year being so miserable, as to deter from
farther experiment, in consequence of which the government-farm is abandoned,
and the people who were fixed on it have been removed.
