Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/216

 178 THE tHISB FLEET. 1792 Enfeebled consti- tutions. Result of cruelty on voyage. • Culprits to be brought to trial. the canse to " change of water/' but while this may have been an element in the case^ it ifi not probable that it was the chief cause of the great destraction of life that took place. The most reasonable supposition is that the systems of the men were so reduced by the sufferings they had endured during the voyage that they were peculiarly liable to disease^ and incapable of resisting ailments which^ under other cir- cumstances, they might have thrown off. If the '^change of water" had been the cause of the complaints from which they suffered and died, it is not likely that the military and civilians who came out in the transports and the man-of-war Gorgon would have escaped. The more the circumstances are considered the stronger becomes the conviction that the ill-health and loss of life that occurred among the convicts of the Third Fleet after their arrival was mainly caused by the treatment they received on board the ships. Phillip's representations to the British Government con- cerning the treatment which the convicts had met with on board some of the vessels of the Third Fleet, although they might very well have been conveyed in stronger language, were not without effect. They were strengthened by the report of the magisterial inquiry which had been held in the case of the Queen, transport. Dundas, in a despatch of 15th May, 1792,* said he should take care that when the persons concerned in this case returned to England justice should be done ; and he informed Phillip that it was pro- posed in the future to employ, both for the transport of convicts and stores, vessels in the service of the East India Company, and he trusted that " by this means the evil^ which have hitherto subsisted will be put an end to." Any kind of labour, and the list was increasing. It might hare been supposed that on changing from the unwholesome air of a ship's between-deoks to the pure air of this country, the weak would hare gathered strength ; but it had been observed that in general soon after landing, the conxicts were affected with dysenteric complaints, perhaps caused by the change of water, many dying, and others who had strength to overcome the disease recoTering from it but slowly." — Collins, vol. i, pp. 174, 176.
 * Historical Becords, rol. i, part 2, p. 628.