A description of Moreton Bay in 1836 was recorded by two Quakers, James Backhouse and George Washington Walker. They were shown around by the Commandant, Captain Foster Fyans and this is what they wrote:
Adjacent to the Government House are the Commandant’s garden and 22 acres of Government gardens for the growth of sweet potatoes, cabbages, and other vegetables for the prisoners. Bananas, grapes, guavas, pineapples, citrons, lemons, shaddocks, etc., thrive luxuriantly in the open ground. The climate being nearly tropical, sugar canes are grown for fencing, and there are a few thriving coffee plants, but not old enough to bear fruit. The treadmill is generally worked by twenty-five prisoners at a time but, when it is used as a special punishment, sixteen are kept upon it fourteen hours, with only the interval of release afforded by four being off at a time. Many of the prisoners were occupied in landing cargoes of maize or Indian corn from a field down the river and others in divesting it of the husks. To our regret, we heard an officer swearing at the men and using other improper and exasperating language. We visited the prisoners’ barracks—a large stone building calculated to accommodate 1,000 men, but now occupied by 311. We also visited the penitentiary for female prisoners, seventy-one of whom are here … employed in washing, needlework, picking oakum and nursing.