January 1788 - Arrive Port Jackson, New South Wales

Phillip arrived at Botany Bay on January 18, 1788. Finding the bay a poor choice, he moved north to Port Jackson, which he discovered to be one of the world’s best natural harbors. Here he began the first permanent settlement on January 26, now known as Australia Day.

In Australia convicts were expected to become a self-sufficient (экономически самостоятельный) community of farmers. Of the 759 who were selected, the men outnumbered the women by three to one. Because there was no government, it would be a military colony.

The settlement was named Sydney for Britain’s Home Secretary (министр внутренних дел), Lord Sydney, who was responsible for the colony.

Lord Sydney Britain’s home secretary

The male convicts came ashore first. On 3 February a sermon (проповедь) was preached to them by the Reverend Johnson. No women were present at either the first raising of the flag or the sermon. They were not brought ashore until 6 February, eleven days after the First Fleet's arrival.

Before leaving England, Phillip had asked for an advance party (" передовой отряд") to be sent out to obtain information. This request had been disregarded (игнорировать), as had also his plea (просьба) for better provisions, since the government was anxious to get the convicts out of the way as quickly as possible. Hence no one really knew what Australia was like. There had been no surveys to find out about the climate, rainfall, soil, vegetation and wild life. In the party there was not a single botanist or farmer, except Phillip himself, to advise the settlers how to grow crops and produce their own food. They had no draught horses (рабочая лошадь), no manure (навоз) to enrich the sandy earth, and most of the seeds had been spoilt on the voyage out. The hand tools supplied by government contractors (подрядчики) were the cheapest and poorest obtainable.

Phillip’s domain (владения) covered half of Australia, but his human resources were limited. Only one of the convicts was a farmer. There were no horticulturists (садовод), skilled carpenters, and engineers needed to develop a self-supporting colony. Most convicts were urban residents of a working class background with few of the skills and none of the pioneering attitudes essential in a new colony. The convicts were illiterate, prone (склонный) to drunkenness, idle and unwilling to work. Most of these people were habitual offenders (рецидивисты) and incorrigible (неисправимый). A minority of the prisoners were from the upper class and were serving sentences for crimes such as forgery (подлог); these convicts were often able to use their training in business and in government offices. In general, the convicts were an exceptionally difficult population with which to build a new society. No wonder Phillip wrote home in exasperation: " If fifty farmers were sent out with their families they would do more in a year... than a thousand convicts."

The marines (солдаты морской пехоты) were not keen to help build a settlement. They felt that their job was only to defend it.

Three major problems confronted the early governors: providing a sufficient supply of foodstuffs (продовольствие); developing an internal economic system; and producing exports to pay for the colony’s imports from Britain.

From the start the Governor was anxious about the stores (запасы). He had provisions (провизия) that were supposed to be sufficient to last for two years, but when they were opened they were found to be of very poor quality and some were mouldy (заплесневелый) and almost useless.

Within a year the colonists were nearly starving. Food was in such short supply that Phillip warned the convicts and marines that anyone who stole the " most trifling" (мелкий) article would be hanged. The first execution in Australia was a 17 year old youth named John Barrett, for stealing food, on the 6th of March, 1788. A dozen or more were hanged in the first year, from a tree between the male and female quarters. In these first years stealing a fowl (домашняя птица) or a piece of salt pork was enough to have a man or woman " launched into the other world".

At Rio de Janeiro the first fleet took on " all such seeds and plants... as were thought likely to flourish on the coast of New South Wales, particularly coffee, indigo, cotton, and the cochineal fig". At Cape Town they brought on board close tofive hundred animals, including fat-tailed sheep, cattle, pigs and poultry(домашняя птица). But the first vegetables and grain planted did poorly in the Sydney soil. Fresh meat was very scarce (редкий), for the colony's entire livestock (домашний скот) numbered only 2 bulls, 5 cows, 1 horse, 3 mares, 3 colts, 29 sheep, 19 goats, 74 pigs, 5 rabbits, 18 turkeys, 29 geese, 35 ducks and 210 fowls. After the long voyage the stock was in poor condition and the animals did not thrive (благоденствовать) on the coarse (грубый) grass of the area. The cattle wandered off (убегать) into the bush and were not found for years. All but ten of the sheep were killed by lightning (молния) shortly after landing. Even the rabbits, which were to become a pest (вредитель) seventy years later, did not increase. Rain, rats and weevils (долгоносик) destroyed much of the seeds.

Natural food sources were largely limited to fish and kangaroo. Although they had guns the British were at first not very expert at hunting the wild animals. Phillip tried to find out how the aborigines managed to live in this inhospitable land but, although he had prisoners taken, they told him little that a European could understand about their way of life.

Some colonists died, but others survived by eating grass, rats, crows and lizards; if someone shot a wild dog, he cooked its flesh and made soup from the bones. The chief surgeon (военный врач) wrote, " not one ounce of fresh animal food since first in the country; a country and a place so forbidding and so hateful as only to merit curses (заслуживать проклятий)."

Clothing was chronically short and even eleven years later men were still working naked in the fields.

Phillip established farms on the more fertile (плодородный) banks of the Hawkesbury River, a few miles northwest of Sydney, but this land was often flooded or still used by the Aborigines. Needed food supplies came mainly from Norfolk Island, nearly 1600 km away, which Phillip had occupied in February 1788.

But Phillip kept his faith in the venture (предприятие), he was sure it would succeed if the British government would do more to encourage free people to come out from Britain. Phillip believed free emigrants would come if they were offered grants of land. The colony would prosper because they would work hard while the convicts could be put to work for them. But, to people in England, America was a more attractive place. It was easier to get there and easier to return home. Only 13 free migrants came to New South Wales in the first five years.

By the end of 1789 the people at Port Jackson were beginning to think they had been abandoned. No supplies had arrived and one of the colony's two supply ships had sunk near Norlofk Island. They were saved by the arrival of the second fleet in June 1790. But the ships brought new problems. It had been an awful voyage. Of just over 1000 convicts who had left England, 267 had died of scurvy, dysentery and fever. On one ship, Neptune, one in every three convicts had died. More than 120 convicts from the second fleet died after landing.

It was a similar story with the third fleet which arrived the following year. But somehow the settlement began to establish itself. Some of the marines decided to stay. They were given grants of land and assistance in farming it. Some convicts were also granted small plots (участки) when they had served their sentences (отбыли срок). They were called emancipists (бывший каторжник) - people who had been set free.

In October 1792, three and a half years after the first fleet had arrived, Phillip reported that nearly 5000 bushels of maize (кукуруза) had been harvested. There were 1700 acres under cultivation. Whalers (китобойное судно) and sealers (охотник на тюленей) had begun operating from the port. It was still a tiny settlement, but it was beginning to look like it could last (выжить). Phillip returned to England in December 1792 convinced that New South Wales would one day be 'the most valuable acquisition that Great Britain ever made'.