Judge-Advocate Dore to Sir Michael Le Fleming. Table Bay Cape of Good Hope, from on Board the Barwell........

Dear Sir Michael

Monday 5th February 1798.

......The Barwell sailed from Portsmouth bound for Botany Bay, with 296 male convicts, eighteen free settlers for the colony, thirty one soldiery, crew, etc., 422 total. We all arrived with the loss of three convicts only, after a passage of the finest weather ever known, in Table Bay, Cape Town, January 20th, 1798, where we are expected yet to remain a month longer. All healthy and well, and no reason for tarry or detainure. .......

We sailed under convoy of the Niger, frigate, and several other sail, all of whom we left at the Madeiras, but the Barwell being a remarkably fast sailer we got here long before them, although with calms and adverse winds we lost a fortnight.....

We have not yet experienced anything very refractory - twenty five in number had meditated a rise, when the sailors were aloft, to seize our cuddy arms and take the ship etc., by the murder of us all - but one impeached the preceding evening, and in the morn they were called up and every soul double ironed and coupled in pairs........

I have the best accommodations possible. The starboard side of the round house, stern gallery etc., for self and Richard (son). I took an hairdresser's servant from London with me. Have a good mess with the captain, and plenty of black strap and fresh provisions which every day is served throughout the voyage; pigs, sheep and poultry of all kinds being plentiful stores from the Isle of Wight when we embarked. Cape living is most vile - beef, carrion; button, soft and oily; nothing good, fruit excepted, which is in great abundance and cheap; cheese and butter, intolerably bad. Some charming women, admirable walkers, and expert in dancing and music. The men are Jews in nature; eating, drinking smoking, and sleeping is their whole employ. Horses, the vilest of their kind. Multitude of soldiery, horse and foot.......

Historical Records of New South Wales, vol., 3, HUNTER 1796 - 1799 pp. 355,356