should again experience the misery and want with which we had been but
too well acquainted, from not having had any regular mode of supply.
Intimation was likewise given, that a cargo of grain might be expected to
arrive from Bengal, some merchants at that settlement having proposed to
Lord Cornwallis, on hearing of the loss of the _Guardian_, to freight a
ship with such a cargo as would be adapted to the wants of the colony,
and to supply the different articles at a cheaper rate than they could be
sent hither from England. We were also to expect a transport with live
stock from the north west coast of America.

The master, Mark Monroe, had not any private letters on board; but (what
added to the disappointment every one experienced) he had not brought a
single newspaper; and, having been but a few weeks from Greenland before
he sailed for this country, he was destitute of any kind of information.

The _Mary Ann_ had a quick passage, having been only four months and
sixteen days from England. She touched nowhere, except at the island of
St. Iago, where she remained ten days. The master landed a boat in a bay
on this coast about fifteen miles to the southward of Botany Bay; but
made no other observation of any consequence to the colony, than that
there was a bay in which a boat might land.

The women, who were all very healthy, and who spoke highly of the
treatment which they had experienced from Mr. Monroe, were landed
immediately after the arrival of the transport in the cove, and were
distributed among the huts at Sydney, while the governor went up to
Parramatta to make such preparation as the time would admit for the
numbers he expected to receive.

The convicts whose terms of transportation had expired were now