Two Voyages to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land

Transcriber's Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
By THOMAS REID,
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS IN LONDON, AND SURGEON IN THE ROYAL NAVY.
“He who thinks he sees many around him, whom he esteems and loves, labouring under a fatal error, must have a cold heart, or a most confined notion of benevolence, if he could withhold his endeavours to set them right, from an apprehension of incurring the imputation of officiousness.”-—Wilberforce.
London:
PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1822.
MADAM ,
My late voyage in the Morley, female convict ship, having been undertaken chiefly at your instance; an account of it could not with propriety, in my opinion, be addressed to any person but yourself. A faithful relation of every circumstance connected with the voyage has rendered occasional mention of your name unavoidable, for which I have to entreat your indulgence. In soliciting your protection to the following pages, I am anxious to secure for them an attention and respect which, perhaps, their own intrinsic merit could not justly claim: of their object few are better qualified to judge than you are, and certainly none will feel a livelier interest in promoting it.
Much of your valuable time has been devoted to the cause of humanity; and the results of your efforts, with those of your amiable coadjutors, need no assistance from the journalist or historian to give them durability; they live in the grateful hearts of those who were blest with your salutary instructions: and from the solicitude evinced by many of those unfortunate persons, as I have often seen, to impress this feeling on the pliant minds of their children, it is not, I think, presuming too much to say that it will be cultivated and cherished, in distant parts of the world, by generations yet unborn.