On the day following the Britannia arrived, with one hundred and twenty-nine male convicts, stores, and provisions on board; and on the 16th the Admiral Barrington, the last of the ten sail of transports, anchored in the cove.  This ship had been blown off the coast, and fears were entertained of her safety, as she left the cape with a crippled main-mast and other material defects.  She had on board a captain and a party of the New South Wales corps, with two hundred and sixty-four male convicts, four free women, and one child.  She had been unhealthy too, having lost thirty-six convicts in the passage, and brought in eighty-four persons sick, who were immediately landed.  Her stores and proportion of provisions were the same as on board of the other ships.

The whole number of convicts now received into the colony, including thirty on board the Gorgon, were, male convicts one thousand six hundred and ninety-five; female convicts one hundred and sixty-eight; and children nine.  There were also eight free women (wives of convicts) and one child; making a total number of one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one persons, exclusive of the military.  Upwards of two hundred convicts, male and female, did not reach the country.

Of the ten sail of transports lately arrived, five, after delivering their cargoes, were to proceed on the southern whale fishery, viz the Mary Ann, Matilda, William and Ann, Salamander, and Britannia.  Melville, the master of the Britannia, conceiving great hopes of success on this coast from the numbers of spermaceti whales which he saw between the south cape and this port, requested to be cleared directly on his coming in, that he might give it a trial; and, the governor consenting, his ship was ready by the 22nd (a week after her arrival), and sailed on the 24th with the other whalers.

The Queen, Atlantic, Active, Albemarle, and Admiral Barrington, after being discharged from government employ, were to proceed to Bombay, by consent of the East India Company, and load home with cotton upon private account under the inspection of the company’s servants at that settlement, provided the cotton should be afterwards sold at the company’s sales, subject to the usual expenses (their duty only excepted), and provided the ships did not interfere with any other part of the company’s exclusive commerce*.

[* Notwithstanding this provision, which was expressed more at large in the licence given by the company, and which extended to the prohibition of every article except the stores and provisions put on board by government, there was on board of these ships a very large quantity of iron, steel, and copper, intended for sale at a foreign settlement in India, with the produce of which they were to purchase the homeward-bound investment of cotton.]