Читать книгу Australian History For Dummies - Alex McDermott - Страница 67

The colony’s parson, Reverend Johnson, described the apocalyptic scene when the Second Fleet pulled into what would become Sydney Harbour, with people throwing the bodies of those who’d just died overboard. The bodies floated in on the tide in front of the ships, and came to rest on the rocks. On shore many of the convicts being unloaded were so weak they couldn’t walk: ‘Some creeped upon their hands and knees, and some were carried upon the backs of others’.

Going on board one of the ships, Reverend Johnson found ‘a sight truly shocking to the feelings of humanity, a great number of them lying, some half and others nearly quite naked, without either bed or bedding, unable to turn or help themselves’.