Читать книгу Australian History For Dummies - Alex McDermott - Страница 63

With no free settlers forthcoming from Britain, Phillip had to try to make the most of the convicts and marines he was stuck with in NSW. To do this, he tried threats, issuing the convicts with an ultimatum: No work, no eat. Rations would be given only to those who put in. The convicts called his bluff. ‘What?’ they said (or something similar). ‘You’re going to just let us all starve, are you? The government is just going to send us out here, to the other side of the world, and leave us to die?’

The convicts who arrived on the First Fleet weren’t left to die — the Governor couldn’t let that happen to convict settlers he’d been charged with looking after (and the convicts knew it) — but starvation did become a real threat. In 1789, a British ship en route to the colony with supplies struck an iceberg and sank. The great risks involved with establishing a settlement in a remote part of the world with no pre-existing shipping or trade routes became more and more apparent with each passing day as famine loomed. By early 1790, the colony’s supplies had dwindled alarmingly.