"Captain Sumpter gave me a good character to the governor; so that I was not two days upon the stores, but was taken off them by Mr. John Palmer, a gentleman of the highest respectability in the colony. He came out as purser in the _Sirius_, with Captain Arthur Phillip and Captain John Hunter, in January, 1787. Captain Phillip was the first governor of this place. Mrs. Palmer is very kind to me, and is as benevolent as yourself. She is a niece of a famous physician in London, Sir William Blizzard; and she says, dear lady, that she has heard her uncle speak of you. Only think that I should be so fortunate as to find a good mistress, who had some knowledge of you, even in this distant land! I feel this a great blessing. "After the loss of the _Sirius_, on a reef off Norfolk Island, Mr. and Mrs. Palmer undertook the management of the Female Orphan Asylum. This institution was established by Governor King, who purchased, for the residence of my master and mistress, the elegant house in which they now live, of Lieutenant Kent, who returned to England two years since in the _Buffalo_. He had built it entirely at his own expense, but he found that the country did not agree with him. "You know, my dear lady, how fond I always was of children, and here I have many cheerful young faces around me. We have already sixty female children, who are taken as good care of as if they were all one family belonging to Mrs. Palmer. So you see how happily I am employed. Have I not reason to be thankful to God for His great mercies to so unworthy a creature as myself? I know you will rejoice to hear of my situation. You desired me to write anything I could for your instruction. I wish my opportunities were greater, that my letter might be more entertaining; but Mrs. Palmer has afforded me some facilities, and I hope, when I write again, to give you the benefit of them. "This country is much more like England than I expected to find it. Garden-stuff of all kinds, except gooseberries, and currants, and apples, are abundant. The gardens, too, are remarkably beautiful; the geraniums run up seven or eight feet in height, and look more magnificent than those which I used to see in your own greenhouse. The country is very woody, so that I cannot go out any distance from Sydney without travelling through woods for miles. They are many of them very picturesque, and quite alive with birds, of such exquisite plumage that the eye is constantly dazzled by them.