The presiding god of this unhappy place was a narrow lopsided captain of the navy, Arthur Phillip, who had led that first fleet of ships into this harbour two years earlier. As a naval captain he was used to being God and king combined, but little in his experience could have prepared him for what the governor of New South Wales had to contend with: to be in charge of a thousand felons desperate for escape or rebellion, and a restless body of reluctant guards. Alone, with no one who could share his dilemmas, a year’s sailing time from any advice, his was the loneliest of situations.
Still, the authorities had chosen their man well. In a place where goodwill was hardly to be found, he was a person of goodwill and generosity, and hoped that his own honourable ways would set an example. When the food stores had begun to run low some time before our arrival, he had decreed that every person in this hungry place was to be served exactly the same ration, so that the meanest convict’s fare was the same as the governor’s. He had gone so far as put his own private supply of flour into the common store for all to share.
It seemed, though, that the people were not interested in his selfless example. In spite of guards and floggings, every carrot and turnip was stolen as soon as it grew as big as a finger. There was no honour among those thieves. Shortly after we arrived, a prisoner in desperation had exchanged his only pot for a handful of rice, but no one would lend him a pot to cook the rice in, and he died of having wolfed it down raw. As for the marines, and the new arrivals of the New South Wales Corps, behind the governor’s back they seethed with resentment at being as hungry as the prisoners.
The governor knew how doomed his task was, and managed it with more grace than most would have found possible. Still, he was only human, in a circumstance that demanded something more than human. It was common knowledge that he suffered a nagging pain in his side that all the surgeon’s efforts could not relieve, which left him easily exhausted, easily harassed. Under the splendid gold buttons and despite the sword that hung by his side, he could be seen to be a man not far from collapse.