CHAPTER X.
The arrival of the 'Supply' from Batavia; the State of the Colony in November, 1790.
Joy sparkled in every countenance to see our old friend the 'Supply' (I hope no reader will be so captious as to quarrel with the phrase) enter the harbour from Batavia on the 19th of October.

We had witnessed her departure with tears; we hailed her return with transport.
Captain Ball was rather more than six months in making this voyage, and is the first person who ever circumnavigated the continent of New Holland.

On his passage to Batavia, he had discovered several islands, which he gave names to and, after fighting his way against adverse elements and through unexplored dangers, safely reached his destined port.

He had well stored his little bark with every necessary and conveniency which he judged we should first want, leaving a cargo of rice and salt provisions to be brought on by a Dutch snow, which he had hired and freighted for the use of the settlement.

While at Batavia, the 'Supply' had lost many of her people by sickness, and left several others in the general hospital at that place.
As the arrival of the 'Supply' naturally leads the attention from other subjects to the state of the colony, I shall here take a review of it by transcribing a statement drawn from actual observation soon after, exactly as I find it written in my journal.
Cultivation, on a public scale, has for some time past been given up here, (Sydney) the crop of last year being so miserable, as to deter from farther experiment, in consequence of which the government-farm is abandoned, and the people who were fixed on it have been removed.