Page:A colonial autocracy, New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, 1810-1821.djvu/200

 placed the convicts in the charge of a surgeon-superintendent appointed by the Transport Board from the naval surgeons. This officer was responsible, not to the master of the ship, but to the Board. The guard of soldiers who always accompanied the transports, and were usually under the command of a young officer of the rank of lieutenant, was under the joint control of the surgeon and the captain. The naval surgeon was a great improvement on former transport doctors, and the death-rate fell considerably. At the same time the system introduced a new difficulty by dividing the power between surgeon and master. This difficulty was in no way lessened by the new and more detailed Instructions issued by the Board in 1819.

"The two points," wrote Bigge in his first Report, "on which such a collision of authority have most frequently occurred are the admission of the convicts to the deck, and the taking off their irons at an early period after leaving England; both, it has been observed, of considerable importance to the maintenance of their health and discipline.

"It is to the interest of the surgeon-superintendent to deliver the number entrusted to him in a good state of health; it is to the interest of the master to deliver them only in safety; and the heavy penalty into which he enters, for the punctual fulfilment of this part of his duty, must naturally outweigh the contingent value of the remuneration that is promised for his general good conduct and humane treatment; or the consideration of prejudice or loss that an opposite line of conduct may occasion to his owners. It is the opinion of Mr. Judge-Advocate Wylde, that to remedy these doubts and discussions which take place between the masters and surgeon-superintendents