upon them.  In this resolution, by good fortune, and by his own great address, he has happily been enabled to persevere.  But notwithstanding this, his intentions of establishing a friendly intercourse have hitherto been frustrated.  M. De la Peyrouse,* while he remained in Botany Bay, had some quarrel with the inhabitants, which unfortunately obliged him to use his fire-arms against them:  this affair, joined to the ill behaviour of some of the convicts, who in spite of all prohibitions, and at the risque of all consequences, have wandered out among them, has produced a shyness on their parts which it has not yet been possible to remove, though the properest means have been taken to regain their confidence.  Their dislike to the Europeans is probably increased by discovering that they intend to remain among them, and that they interfere with them in some of their best fishing places, which doubtless are, in their circumstances, objects of very great importance.  Some of the convicts who have straggled into the woods have been killed, and others dangerously wounded by the natives, but there is great reason to suppose that in these cases the convicts have usually been the aggressors.

[* This is the right form of that officer’s name; it was printed otherwise in a former passage by mistake.]

As the month of February advanced heavy rains began to fall, which pointed out the necessity of procuring shelter for the people as soon as possible.  To have expedited this work in the degree which was desirable a great number of artificers would have been required.  But this advantage could not be had.  Only sixteen carpenters could be hired from all the ships; among the convicts no more than twelve were of this profession, and of them several were sick.  These therefore together formed but a small party, in proportion to the work which was to be done.  One hundred convicts were added as labourers; but with every effort, it was found impossible to complete either the barracks for the men, or the huts for the officers, as soon as was desired.  As late as the middle of May these were yet unfinished, as well as the hospital, and the storehouse for those provisions which were not landed at first.  The Governor himself at that time was still lodged in his temporary house of canvas, which was not perfectly impervious either to wind or weather.

14 February 1788.

On the 14th of February a party was sent out in the Supply, to settle on a small island to the north-west of New Zealand, in latitude 29 deg. south, and longitude 168 deg.. 10’. east from London, which was discovered and much commended by Captain Cook, and by him named Norfolk Island, in honour of the noble family to which that title belongs.  To the office of superintendant and commandant of this island, and the settlement to be made upon it, Governor Phillip appointed Philip Gidley King, second lieutenant of his Majesty’s ship Sirius, an officer much esteemed by him as of