Historical Records of Australia

Series 1, Volume2, 1797 - 1800, p. 376- 77

Governor Hunter to the Duke of Portland {Extract}

Sydney New South Wales 27th July 1799

My Lord Duke,

The Albion, south whaler, anchor'd here on the 29th of June, and deliver'd nine hundred tuns of salt pork, and the Hillsborough, transport, arriv'd yesterday, in which had been embark'd three hundred convicts, but I am sorry to say that such had been the mortality on board that ship two hundr'd and five only were landed here, and of that number six are since dead; most of them must for a time be placed in the hospitals.

Here again my Lord, I am compell'd, much against my inclination, to recur to my former representations of the want of cloathing and blankets. These people have been put on board this ship with a miserable matrass, and one blanket, and the cloaths only in which they embark'd, not a supply of any kind to land them here in, and those worne on board the ship are not fit to be taken on shore; yet, ragged as they are, I cannot suffer even those things which are liable to carry infection to be destroy'd, because I have nothing to supply in lieu, the whole colony being naked. I will direct every means to be us'd for preventing the goal fever (which I understand to be the principal malady) from being introduc'd into our hospitals. Permit me, my Lord, to solicit most earnestly that your Grace may issue such directions on the subject of cloathing for the people in this colony as may serve to furnish us with an early supply.

David Dickinson Mann,  George Crossley, and  George Pell  all arrived on the Hillsborough...........Read about the voyage in the Journal of  William Noah

Autobiography of Ebenezer Kelly, crewman on the Hillsborough