On its trip to Batavia the Supply carried letters for posting to friends and relatives in Britain, and several were subsequently published in British newspapers and periodicals, which were keen to have news of the ‘Botany Bay’ settlement. Chief surgeon John White was not impressed with the state of the colony and thought it had no future. In a letter to a friend, which was published in the Gentlemen’s Magazine, he wrote after hearing news of the wreck of the Sirius and the likelihood that food supplies would only last for seven months:

Should we have no arrivals in that time, the game will be up with us, for all the grain of every kind which we have been able to raise in two years and three months would not support us three weeks, which is a very strong instance of the ingratitude and extreme poverty of the soil and country at large; though great exertions have been made. Much cannot now be done; limited in food, and reduced as the people are, who have not had one ounce of fresh animal food since first in the country, a country and place so forbidden and so hateful, as only to merit execrations and curses; for it has been a source of expence to the mother country, and of evil and misfortune to us, without there ever being the smallest likelihood of its repaying or recompensing either. From what we have already seen, we may conclude that there is not a single article in the whole country, that in the nature of things could prove of the smallest use or advantage to the mother country or the commercial world. In the name of Heaven, what has the Ministry been about? Surely they have quite forgotten or neglected us, otherwise they would have sent to see what become of us, and to know how we were likely to succeed. However, they must soon know from the heavy bills which will be presented to them, and the misfortunes and losses which have already happened to us, how necessary it becomes to relinquish a scheme that in the nature of things can never answer. It would be wise by the first steps to withdraw the settlement, at least such are living, or remove them to some other place. This is so much out of the world and track of commerce that it could never answer. How a business of this kind (the expence of which must be great) could first be thought of without sending to examine the country, as was Capt. Thomson’s errand to the coast of Africa, is to every person here a matter of great surprize. Mons. Peyrouse and Clanard, the French circumnavigators, as well as us, have been very much surprised at Mr. Cook’s description of Botany Bay. The wood is bad, the soil light, poor, and sandy, nor has it any thing to recommend it. Accurate observers have surveyed the country without being able to see any thing like meadow land that Mr. Cook and others mention. The Frenchmen declare the same, and that in the whole course of their voyage they never saw a place half so unpromising for a settlement as this. They laid at Botany Bay eight weeks after our arrival in the country, repairing some damages which the Boussale and Astrolabe under their command received while at the Navigator’s Islands.

Before they came to Botany Bay, they had been at Norfolk Island, but could neither anchor or land. They made an observation with respect to it (which from its singularity, propriety, and force, I cannot suppress), that it was only a place for angels and eagles to reside in. The Supply tender sails to-morrow for Batavia, in hopes the Dutch may be able to send in time to save us. Should any accident happen to her, Lord have mercy upon us! She is a small vessel to perform so long and unexplored a voyage; but we rely much on the abilities and active attention of Lieut. Ball, who commands her.

- 17 April 1790, in Gentlemen’s Magazine, London, January 1791, pp. 79-80

Surgeon’s mate Lowes described his experiences in a letter to a friend:

It is now so long since we have heard from home that our clothes are worn threadbare. We begin to think the mother country has entirely forsaken us. As for shoes, my stock has been exhausted for six months, and I have been obliged since that time to beg and borrow among the gentlemen, for no such article was to be bought. In this deplorable situation famine is staring us in the face. Two ounces of pork is the allowance of animal food for four-and-twenty hours, and happy is the man that can kill a rat or crow to make him a dainty meal. We have raised some excellent vegetables, but such food, without the mixture of animal, does not supply strength, but keeps us lax and weakly. I dined most heartily the other day on a fine dog, and hope I shall soon again have a similar repast. the animals that were meant to stock the country are almost all butchered. Hunger will be appeased while any eatable remains.

Several of the convicts have perished by the hands of the natives, by rambling too far into the woods. I accompanied two of our gentlemen on a shooting party. We penetrated near thirty miles in two days over a delightful country, free from underwood, when we arrived at a rapid river that was not fordable. On the other side the country seemed to be in a state of romantic and uncultivated nature. The landscape was finished by a range of hills that rise one above another, in a very grand style, to a considerable height.

The loss of the Sirius was the first cause of our being put to such short allowance, being obliged to supply the party a second time from the common stock. To prevent murmuring, officers and men share alike.

Our births have far exceeded our burials; and what is very remarkable, women who were supposed to be past child-bearing, and others who had not been pregnant for fifteen or sixteen years, have lately become mothers.

- Dublin Chronicle, 13 January 1791, reprinted in Historical Records of New South Wales, vol. 1, pp. 770-1