Historical Records of Australia

Series 1, Volume 1 1788 - 1796., p. 274

Governor Phillip to Lord Grenville

Sydney, New South Wales November 5th 1791.

Of the convicts mentioned by your Lordship to be sent out, 1,695 males and 168 females have been landed, with six free women and ten children. It appears by the returns from the Transports that 194 males, 4 females and 1 child died on the passage; and, although the convicts landed from these ships were not so sickly as those brought out last year, the greatest part of them are so emaciated, so worn away by long confinement, or want of food, or from both these causes, that it will be long before they recover their strength, and which many of them never will recover. Your Lordship will readily conceive that this addition to our numbers will for many months be a deadweight on the stores. The surgeon's returns of this day are: "Under medical treatment and incapable of labour, 626- 576 of whom are those landed from the last ships."