Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/214

 176 1791 Lax Bupenision. OallouB treatment. MortaUty after landing. weight on the stores/''^ Both these causes of sickness and death were preventible. Confinement, to a certain degree, was necessary; but if those who had charge of the ressds had taken any trouble in the matter, it would have been easy enough to have given the convicts as much air as would not only have preserved their lives, but have kept them in tolerable health.f But the convicts seem to have been regarded by the masters of transports as worthless beings, whose health did not demand a thought, and who were better dead than alive. The want of food could only have been caused by the default of those who had charge of them. In regard to two vessels of the Third Fleet, com- plaints wcTO made that provisions had been withheld; but as nothing was said on the point with respect to the other vessels, it must be assumed that the practice was not general. The two vessels referred to were the Active and the Queen. In the latter case an inquiry was made, and the charge sub- stantiated. J It does not appear that any action was taken with regard to the Active. § Out of two hundred and twenty-two male convicts landed from the Queen in Sep- tember, 1791, only fifty were alive in May following, j] a month after the arrival of the last of the transports, is thus described by Collins (vol. i, p. 189) : — " The mortality during this month had been great, fifty male and four female conyicts dying within the thirty days. Fiye hundred sick persons received medicines at the end of the month." Hunter, in his Journal, p. 561, says : — ** Forty-two convicts died in the month of November, and in these people nature seemed fairly to be worn out; maoy of them were so thoroughly exhausted that they expired without a groan, and apparently without any kind of pain." Referring to the number of convicts returned as siclc. Hunter says that one hundred might be added to the Parramatta list, for there was that number of men who were " so weak that they oould not be put to any kind of labour, not even to that of pulling grass for thatching the huts." t See the case of the Boddingtons, ante, p. 67. X The proceedings in this case will be found printed at length in the Historical Records, vol. ii, p. 463. § Of the Queen and Active, Collins says (vol. i, p. 179) : — " These ships had been unhealthy, and had buried several convicts in their passage. The sick which they brought in were landed immediately; and many of those who remained, and were so ill as to require medical assistance, were brought on shore in an emaciated and feeble condition, particularly the convicts from the Active. They in general complained of not having received the allowance intended for them; but their emaciated appearance was to be ascribed as much to confinement as to any other cause." . . II Collins, vol. i, p. 210.
 * tH2 THIBB VLB£T«
 * Historical Records, vol. i, part 2, p. 638. The state of affairs in Koyember,