Читать книгу The English Colony in New South Wales (Vol. 1&2). Narrative of the British First Settlement in Australia 1788-1801 онлайн

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Immediately after the departure of these ships, the governor directed his attention to the regulation of the people who were left at Sydney, and to the preservation of the stock in the colony. For these purposes, he himself visited the different huts and gardens whose tenants had just quitted them, distributing them to such convicts as were either in miserable hovels, or without any shelter at all. It was true, that by this arrangement the idle found themselves provided for by the labour of many who had been industrious; but they were at the same time assured, that unless they kept in good cultivation the gardens which they were allowed to possess, they would be turned out from the comforts of a good hut, to live under a rock or a tree. That they might have time for this purpose, the afternoon of Wednesday and the whole of Saturday in each week were given to them. Much room was made every where by the numbers who had embarked (in all two hundred and eighty-one persons); the military quarters had a deserted aspect; and the whole settlement appeared as if famine had already thinned it of half its numbers. The little society that was in the place was broken up, and every man seemed left to brood in solitary silence over the dreary prospect before him.