The British soon realize that Botany Bay…
January 1788 CE
The British soon realize that Botany Bay does not live up to the glowing account that the explorer Captain James Cook had provided.
The bay is open and unprotected, fresh water is scarce, and the soil is poor.
First contacts are made with the local indigenous people, the Eora, who seem curious but suspicious of the newcomers.
The area is studded with enormously strong trees that the convicts try to cut down, but their tools break and the tree trunks have to be blasted out of the ground with gunpowder.
The primitive huts built for the officers and officials quickly collapse in rainstorms.
The marines have a habit of getting drunk and not guarding the convicts properly, while their commander, Major Robert Ross, drives Phillip to despair with his arrogant and lazy attitude.
Phillip worries that his fledgling colony is exposed to attack from the Aborigines or foreign powers.
Phillip and a party that includes John Hunter depart the Bay in three small boats on January 21 to explore other bays to the north.
The party returns on January 23.
The party is startled on the morning of January 24 when two French ships are seen just outside Botany Bay.
This turns out to be a scientific expedition led by Jean-François de La Pérouse.