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Resources transported with the First Fleet using sources as evidence
JOHN WHITE ESQ
As Chief Surgeon of the First Fleet, John White was particularly concerned with the food, water and medical supplies needed to keep people healthy during the long voyage. His journal shows how access to fresh provisions — and especially fresh water — could directly affect the health of convicts, marines and crew.
At Tenerife, the Fleet replenished its water and obtained fresh provisions. White recorded that marines and convicts received fresh beef, rice and vegetables, while wine was issued to the marines. Fresh fruit was limited because of the season.
White also described periods when water supplies had to be rationed. At one stage, people aboard were restricted to three pints of drinking water each day. Drawing on his medical experience, White believed an adequate supply of fresh water was particularly important in preventing scurvy, alongside anti-scorbutic provisions such as essence of malt and sauerkraut.
Later, fresh provisions again demonstrated their importance. At Rio de Janeiro, White recorded that the troops and convicts were supplied with rice, fresh beef, vegetables and oranges, which he observed quickly relieved the symptoms of scurvy.
White’s journal demonstrates that water, fresh food and anti-scorbutic provisions were vital resources aboard the First Fleet. His medical observations show how the supplies carried and obtained along the journey could directly influence the health and survival of the people on board.​
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Source: Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales
Author: John White Esq
Link: Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales​ (1790)
About
John White was a key figure in the early history of Australia—best known as the chief surgeon of the First Fleet and the author of one of the earliest detailed accounts of the new colony. As chief surgeon, White was responsible for treating convicts, marines, and officers, managing health during the eight-month voyage, establishing early medical care in Sydney Cove, and studying local plants for medicinal use.
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Selected excerpts
Fresh meat, vegetables and wine at Teneriffe
3rd June. This evening, after seeing many small fish in our way from the Salvages, we arrived at Teneriffe, and anchored in Santa Cruz... We were visited the same night, as is the custom of the port, by the harbour master, and gained permission to water and procure such refreshments as the island afforded. The marines were now served with wine in lieu of spirits; a pound of fresh beef was likewise daily distributed to them as well as to the convicts, together with a pound of rice instead of bread, and such vegetables as could be procured. Of the latter indeed the portion was rather scanty, little besides onions being to be got; and still less of fruit, it being too early in the season...
Dehydration, water rationing
5th July.. The wind continuing adverse, and the fleet making little progress in their voyage, Captain Phillip put the officers, seamen, marines, and convicts to an allowance of three pints of water per day (not including a quart allowed each man a day for boiling pease and oatmeal); a quantity scarcely sufficient to supply that waste of animal spirits the body must necessarily undergo, in the torrid zone, from a constant and violent perspiration, and a diet consisting of salt provisions...
Were it by any means possible, people subject to long voyages should never be put to a short allowance of water; for I am satisfied that a liberal use of it (when freed from the foul air, and made sweet by a machine now in use on board his Majesty's navy) will tend to prevent a scorbutic habit, as much, if not more, than anything we are acquainted with...
In one of his Majesty's ships, I was liberally supplied with that powerful antiscorbutic, essence of malt; we had also sour krout; and, besides these, every remedy that could be comprised in the small compass of a medicine chest; yet when necessity forced us to a short allowance of water, although aware of the consequence, I freely administered the essence, etc. as a preservative, the scurvy made its appearance with such hasty and rapid strides, that all attempts to check it proved fruitless, until good fortune threw a ship in our way, who spared us a sufficient quantity of water to serve the sick with as much as they could use, and to increase the ship's allowance to the seamen.
This fortunate and very seasonable supply, added to the free use of the essence of malt, etc. which I had before strictly adhered to, made in a few days so sudden a change for the better in the poor fellows, who had been covered with ulcers and livid blotches, that every person on board was surprised at it: and in a fortnight after, when we got into port, there was not a man in the ship, though, at the time we received the water, the gums of some of them were formed into such a fungus as nearly to envelope the teeth, but what had every appearance of health.
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Scurvy
9th August. The contract being settled, the commissary supplied the troops and convicts with rice (in lieu of bread), with fresh beef, vegetables, and oranges, which soon removed every symptom of the scurvy prevalent among them.
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