In order to ascertain the time in which it is probable the colony will be able to support itself, it will be necessary to point out those circumstances, that may advance or retard the settlement.  It will depend on the numbers who are employed in agriculture, and who, by their labour, are to provide for those that make no provision for themselves.

Governor Phillip did not reckon on the little labour which may be got from the women, though some were employed in the fields; as the greatest part would always find employment in making their own, and the men’s cloathing, and in the necessary attention to their children.  The ground, which the military may cultivate, will be for their own convenience.  The providing of houses and barracks for the additional number of officers and soldiers, the rebuilding of those temporary ones, which were erected on their first arrival, and which must be done in the course of another year, as well as the building of more store-houses and huts for the convicts as they arrive, employed a considerable number of hands, and works of this kind will always be carrying on.

Temporary buildings on their first landing were absolutely necessary; but they should be avoided in future; as, after three or four years, the whole work is to be begun again; and the want of lime greatly increases the labour of building with bricks, as the builders are obliged to increase the thickness of the walls, which cannot be carried to any height; at the same time, if very heavy rains fall before the houses are covered in, they are considerably damaged.

The annexed return will show in what manner the convicts are employed at present; and the governor had increased the number of those employed in clearing the land for cultivation, as far as it would be possible to do it before January, 1791, except by convalescents, from whom little labour could be expected.  He hoped next year, that a very considerable quantity of ground would be sown with wheat and barley:  but the settlement has never had more than one person to superintend the clearing and cultivating of ground for the public benefit, or who has ever been the means of bringing a single bushel of grain into the public granary.  One or two others had been so employed for a short time, but were removed, as wanting either industry or probity; and if the person who has at present the entire management of all the convicts, who are employed in clearing and cultivating the land, should be lost, there would be no one in the settlement to replace him.

It was originally supposed that a sufficient number of good farmers might have been found amongst the convicts to have superintended the labours of the rest; and men have been employed who answer the purpose of preventing their straggling from their work; but none of them were equal to the charge of directing the labour of a number of convicts, with whom most of them were connected by crimes, which they would not wish to have brought forward.  From their former habits of life, it may easily be supposed, that few of the convicts would be good farmers.