There was plenty of work to be done, and but few hands to do it. Enlarged clearings were needed; barracks, storehouses, hospitals, dwellings for the superior and other officers, huts for the convicts. Although at the time when the "first fleet" sailed, many thousands of convicts awaiting deportation crowded the various gaols of England, no attempt had been made to select for the new colony those who, from their previous condition and training, would have been most useful to the young community. Of the six hundred male convicts actually embarked, hardly any were skilled as artisans and mechanics. Nay more, though it was meant that the colony should be if possible self-supporting, and that every effort should be made to raise crops and other produce without delay, few, if any, of either the convicts or their keepers had had the least experience in agricultural pursuits. Yet with ordinary care the whole number might have been made up of persons specially qualified, accustomed to work either at trades or in the fields. Nor were there among the sailors of the men-of-war many that could be turned to useful account on shore. Again, it had been forgotten that if the convicts were to be compelled to work, overseers were indispensable; for laziness is ingrained in the criminal class, and more than change of sky is needed to bring about any lasting change in character and habits. To these retarding causes was soon added wide-spread sickness, the result of long confinement on ship-board, and an unvarying diet of salt provisions. Scurvy, which during the voyage all had escaped, broke out now in epidemic form. Indigenous anti-scorbutics there were next to none, and the disease grew soon to alarming proportions. Many convicts died, and others in great numbers sank under an almost entire prostration of life and energy. On the voyage out there had been forty deaths; now within five months of disembarkation there had been twenty-eight more, while sixty-six were in hospital, and two hundred others were declared by the medical officers to be unfit for duty or work of any kind.