On the seaboard, although he was almost without vessels (scarcely a decent open boat could be mustered among the possessions of the colonists), with the boats of the Sirius the coast was searched by Phillip in person as well as by his junior officers.

Major Ross, who commanded the Marines, and who was also lieutenant-governor, described the settlement thus:—­

“In the whole world there is not a worse country than what we have yet seen of this.  All that is contiguous to us is so very barren and forbidding, that it may with truth be said, ’Here nature is reversed, and if not so, she is nearly worn out’; for almost all the seed we have put in the ground has rotted, and I have no doubt it will, like the wood of this vile country, when burned or rotten turn to sand;”

Captain Tench, one of Ross’ officers, wrote:—­

“The country is very wretched and totally incapable of yielding to Great Britain a return for colonising it....  The dread of perishing by famine stares us in the face. [Sidenote:  1792] The country contains less resources than any in the known world;”

and the principal surgeon, White, described the colony in these words:—­

    “I cannot, without neglect of my duty to my country, refrain from
    declaring that if a ‘favourable picture’ has been drawn, it is a
    ‘gross falsehood and a base deception.’”

Yet shortly before Phillip left it, in 1792, Collins says:—­

“In May the settlers were found in general to be doing very well, their farms promising to place them shortly in a state of independence of the public stores in the articles of provisions and grain.  Several of the settlers who had farms at or near Parramatta, notwithstanding the extreme drought of the season preceding the sowing of their corn, had such crops that they found themselves enabled to take off from the public store some one, and others two convicts, to assist in preparing their grounds for the next season.”

In June, according to the same authority, the ground sown with wheat and prepared for maize was of sufficient area, even if the yield per acre did not exceed that for the previous season, to produce enough grain for a year’s consumption.

The last returns relating to agriculture, prepared before Phillip left, show that the total area under cultivation was 1540 acres, and the previous year’s returns show that the area had doubled as a result of the year’s work.  Besides this, considerable progress had been made with public buildings; and the convict population, which by the arrival of more transports had now reached nearly 4000 souls, were slowly but surely settling down as colonists.