At length, after six months of indescribable anxiety and privation, the expected signal was made, and a boat was sent off (in very rough weather) to direct the ship how to get safely into the harbour. It was the transport-ship, the _Lady Juliana_, which had been no less than ten months upon the voyage, and which brought news of the almost total destruction of another ship, the _Guardian_, which had been sent out previously, and well supplied with every thing necessary for a rising colony. _The Lady Juliana_ brought very little addition to the supplies, compared with the additional number of consumers, above 200 female convicts, which she had with her; these had been sent upon the reckoning of the _Guardian's_ stores arriving beforehand; and if this had been permitted, probably the colony would never more have experienced want. It was unfortunate, at a time when a cargo of any thing but of convicts would have been serviceable, that scarcely any thing else should arrive. Before the end of June, however, another ship laden with provisions arrived, after having very narrowly escaped a wreck off the heads at the entrance of Port Jackson; and upon the welcome arrival of this supply the immediate scarcity ceased. Three other vessels shortly followed, and things were thus for a time restored to their former course; but repeated trials, arising from want of provisions, were afterwards, at intervals, the lot of the colony. In 1794, on the very day when the doors of the provision-store were closed, and the convicts had received their last allowance which remained, the signal for a sail was made; and it was the third day before the two vessels then in sight could be got into the harbour, but their arrival brought comparative abundance to the starving population of 3,000 people, who were beginning seriously to reckon up how far their live stock would go towards the supply of their necessities. Several other similar seasons of famine have been recorded, and it is curious and instructive to look back upon the day of small things in a country abundant as New South Wales at present is in the necessaries, comforts, and even luxuries, of life.