In determining the device for the seal of the colony, attention had been paid to its local and peculiar circumstances.  On the obverse were the king’s arms, with the royal titles in the margin; on the reverse, a representation of convicts landing at Botany Bay, received by Industry, who, surrounded by her attributes, a bale of merchandise, a beehive, a pickaxe, and a shovel, is releasing them from their fetters, and pointing to oxen ploughing and a town rising on the summit of a hill, with a fort for its protection.  The masts of a ship are seen in the bay.  In the margin are the words Sigillum.  Nov.  Camb.  Aust.; and for a motto ’Sic fortis Etruria crevit.’ The seal was of silver; its weight forty-six ounces and the devices were very well executed.

The cattle were immediately landed, and turned into the inclosures which had been prepared for them.  One cow died in the boat going up.

The remaining transports of the fleet were now dropping in.  On the 26th the Active from England, and the Queen from Ireland, with convicts of that country arrived and anchored in the cove.  On board of the Active, beside the sergeant’s guard, were one hundred and fifty-four male convicts.  An officer’s party was on board the Queen, with one hundred and twenty-six male and twenty-three female convicts and three children.

These ships had been unhealthy, and had buried several convicts in their passage.  The sick which they brought in were landed immediately; and many of those who remained, and were not so ill as to require medical assistance, were brought on shore in an emaciated and feeble condition, particularly the convicts from the Active.  They in general complained of not having received the allowance intended for them; but their emaciated appearance was to be ascribed as much to confinement as to any other cause.  The convicts from the Queen, however, accusing the master of having withheld their provisions, an inquiry took place before the magistrates, and it appeared beyond a doubt, that great abuses had been practised in the issuing of the provisions; but as to the quantity withheld, it was not possible to ascertain it so clearly, as to admit of directing the deficiency to be made good, or of punishing the parties with that retributive justice for which the heinousness of their offence so loudly called; the proceedings of the magistrates were therefore submitted to the governor, who determined to transmit them to the secretary of state.

Nothing could have excited more general indignation than the treatment which these people appeared to have met with; for, what crime could be more offensive to every sentiment of humanity, than the endeavour, by curtailing a ration already not too ample, to derive a temporary advantage from the miseries of our fellow-creatures!