[67] "The captain and each officer enjoy the right of selection. Thus they continue the habit of concubinage until the convicts arrive at Sydney Town, and some are now educating five or six children. Each sailor or soldier is permitted to attach himself to one of the females: the permission and the caresses of the artful wanton have often lured the temporary parties to marry at Plymouth, more frequently to consummate the nuptials at Sydney: such a marriage manumits the convict."
"The unhappy male convicts are denied, save occasionally, these profligate liberties. Occasionally, however, they range into the quarter assigned to the women. The males, accustomed in London to indiscriminate license, discover the greatest regret at the restraint of their passions in the grossest oaths, and in the grossest language. The females, who rather resemble the brutes than rational creatures in their excesses, answer their reproaches, and rage with equal effrontery, and unbounded impudence. It is a scene like Pandemonium—a second hell, but upon the ocean. Sitting in groups, they sing, they shout, they converse in the grossest terms, corrupting, and corrupted. The concubine knits, or sews for her sailor, near his berth: the rest wash the clothes of the male convicts; exercise and cleanliness, conducive to their health and to the comforts of the ship. Many are remarkably neat: all are clad in different dresses—some have been enabled to purchase caps, more have not. The males are clothed in simple uniformity, in blue trousers and a jacket. All the convicts are compelled to wash once in the day their heads, their feet, and their faces; the men under the superintendence of a soldier, the women apart under the eye of a matron. The males are marched in a body of six across the deck to the pump: the sailors draw up the water, and they are artfully compelled to labor for health at the pump, and to rinse away the dirt. By this prudent precaution, in every variety of weather, they obtain fresh air and avoid the scurvy, or cutaneous diseases. A surgeon daily inspects this human cargo, and reports its state. They are paid per head, a sum for those who survive the voyage; hence it is the surgeon's interest to preserve these diseased wretches. To inure this assembly, disgorged from brothels, and cellars, and gaols, to the appearance, or to the idea of decorum, the men wash their bodies above decks, and the women between them. The sexes are forbid to mingle, even at their meals. So rigorous a discipline is only supported by severity of punishments. Chains, tied round the body and fettered round the ankles, confine and distress each male convict, by the clanking sound, and by annoying the feet. This image of slavery is copied from the irons used in the slave-ships in Guinea: as in these, bolts and locks are at hand, in the sides and ribs of each transport (for the vessels on this service, with peculiar propriety are so named), to prevent the escape, or preclude the movements of a convict. If he attempt to pass the sentry, he is liable to be stabbed: for the attempt, a convict was lately shot, and his executioner was applauded by his officer for a faithful, though severe, discharge of duty. If a felon kill his companion, a case very frequent in the quarrels of these highwaymen and robbers, the murderer is hung at the yard-arm, and his body is slowly carried through the ship, and launched into the deep. For the theft of provisions, or of clothes from his neighbour, a case yet more common, and more natural to footpads, the convict depredator is shot. For inferior crimes, as riot or quarrels, a soldier is commanded to whip the offender with martial severity: the first stroke leaves a deep impression of the wire, the second causes the blood to trickle, the third draws a stream of gore: under several faintings, the debilitated and disordered convict receives two dozen of lashes. On the slightest appearance of a mutiny, the ring-leader is cast headlong into the sea, in his irons and his clothes. We commit this body to the deep, the chaplain repeals, but the words of Shakespeare, perhaps, would be more applicable:—
'O mutineer! if thou hast any hope of heaven's bliss,
Lift up thy hand; make signal of that hope.
He sinks! and makes no sign.'"
—Account, by Captain Bertram, in 1800: Longman.
[68] New South Wales first fleet, 987 convicts; of which 25 died, or 1 in 35. Second fleet, 1763 convicts: died 327, or 1 in every 5½.
"I beg leave, however, to say, that the provisions were much superior to those usually supplied by contract: they were furnished by Messrs. Richards and Thorn, of Tower-street, London."—Tench's Narrative. These honest contractors deserve immortal renown.
[69] Table of Voyages, from 1810 to 1820:
| Voyages. | Course pursued. | Average. | Convicts. | Deaths. | Sick. |
| 44 | Direct | 127 days | 7,657 | 71 | 94 |
| 38 | Touched at Rio de Janeiro | 156 days | 6,470 | 132 | 123 |
| 11 | Touched Cape of G. Hope | 146 days | 1,912 | 9 | 57 |
[70] Bigge's Report.
[71] The bloody Chapman.
[72] This man, after an extraordinary career, closed his miserable life on the scaffold, for the murder of a female, to whom he was engaged. His relative conferred upon her surviving children a sum of money to ensure their education—an act of uncommon generosity which must obliterate the discredit of a relationship to one, who, however, perhaps blended insanity and deliberate crime.