“March 5th.—At 11 P. M. the master having signified that it was the Governor’s wish to see us on shore, we waited on His Excellency. His Lordship’s manner at this interview, for such it may be strictly called, as conversation was out of the question, appeared so singular that it seems well worthy of a place in this journal. On our being announced, the doors were thrown open and we advanced, when we had the honour of seeing His Lordship, who on the instant waved his hand,—turned on his heel,—muttered something about ‘Colonel Bird,’—and disappeared: such was the substance of our interview with the Governor by his own appointment.”——“It might be asked, Would His Excellency have treated his groom and his jockey with that sort of politeness as on this occasion he thought proper to show towards a respectable master of a London merchant ship and a surgeon of His Majesty’s navy, engaged to attend him, at his own desire, in an affair of public duty?”
On being thus referred to Colonel Bird, then deputy secretary to the colony, that gentleman acquainted us of the Governor’s intention of sending on board the Neptune sixteen convicts who had escaped from New South Wales, in the Harriet just arrived from that country. We represented the impossibility of accommodating so many. The agent for transports was sent for to have his opinion on the case, and he confirmed the report we had made. About an hour after this we again saw Colonel Bird, who said the Governor had made up his mind to send us the sixteen convicts. To this I replied, The instructions of the Navy Board neither required nor authorized me to receive more prisoners than I thought the ship could accommodate. The Colonel then observed that the Governor would give a positive order for them to be received, and take all the responsibility on himself. I lost no time in writing to the colonial secretary, stating my decided opinion, that the ship had neither room nor accommodation for so many, and requesting a survey to be held on board of her before the additional number of convicts should be sent.
“Of this letter no notice whatever was taken, as it appears, nor any answer returned. Our application to the Government naval commissioner, and fiscal, for the removal of the mutinous seamen had been equally unsuccessful, every one in authority evading these necessary and important requests by shifting the matter from one to another’s hands,—every one saying that the affair did not come within his department; so that, in fact, an applicant at any office of those ‘departments’ would find it necessary to make himself acquainted with all their etiquette and routine, before he could understand how to prefer a petition properly for the redress of any grievance or the removal of any inconvenience how pressing soever, or the rectification of any error however urgent its nature might be. Let this mode of conducting public business be applied to the concerns of the port of London, or any of the great commercial towns, and say what would be its consequence.”
“March 6th.—At half past six this morning the under sheriff brought two colonial convicts on board, for whom accommodation had been provided, though even that was effected with considerable inconvenience. The above officer stated, that the Governor had altered his intention, and had sent those two instead of the sixteen deserters who had come in the Harriet. The master gave the usual receipt for them, and they were victualled accordingly. About 3 P. M. the same person returned to the ship, saying the fiscal had ordered him to take the two prisoners back; but this was refused until an order was produced from some one legally empowered by the Government to do so.
“March 7th.—At half past 10 A. M. the agent for transports came on board and informed me, that he was desired by the commissioner to get a copy of the charter-party and my instructions, both of which and a copy of Captain Carns’s I procured for him. He also brought with him a carpenter from the shore to build an apartment in the prison, for the sixteen convicts already mentioned. In the same boat with the agent came a Captain Gill, who delivered to the master the order of the Governor to receive those men. The colonial secretary left altogether unnoticed, my letter to him requesting a survey of the ship to be made before any order should be issued for sending so great an additional number of convicts on board. In this manner was I reluctantly compelled to acquiesce, against my judgement, in receiving more convicts than the ship could accommodate; which involved the manifest risk of exposing the whole to much inconvenience, if not serious danger, during the remainder of the voyage.”
“March 8th.—Several carpenters from the shore employed in building a bulk-head in the prison. At 10 A. M. seven private invalid soldiers from the shore belonging to the 83d regiment came on board, as an extra guard. At 12 I read a sermon in the prison, at which Captain Carns and the commanding officer attended; after which I expressed to the prisoners my entire approbation of their conduct, and exhorted them to persevere; at the same time stating it as our determination to give them every indulgence in our power. They all expressed their thanks, and seemed highly grateful.”
“March 11th.—At half past 10 A. M., the weather having moderated a little, a boat was manned and armed, in which I went to the Harriet to arrange for the conveyance of the convicts to the Neptune. The master of the Harriet either could not or would not afford a boat, consequently we were obliged to make two trips between the ships before the transfer was accomplished. When they were all on board, I had their hair cut off, and ordered them each to be washed in the bathing tub. After this very needful operation they all received, according to the Governor’s order, two suits of slop clothing, and the rags in which they came were thrown into the sea.”
Several reasons offer themselves to justify one in pronouncing this proceeding at the Cape, on the part of the local authorities, respecting the obtrusion of the sixteen additional prisoners, as being, at the very least that may be said of it, harsh. This is stated not from any personal inconvenience which could arise to myself from an increase of professional duty; but the term is applied to that proceeding from reference to the former number of convicts even more than the ship’s proper number,—the Neptune in a subsequent voyage having carried out only one hundred and fifty-six, that being, it appears, the complement proper for her accommodation.
Lest my opinion of this transaction should seem in any respect unjust, I am desirous of explaining why I consider the putting such an extraordinary number into a vessel already overcrowded, as must appear from her having one hundred and seventy prisoners on board, instead of her proper complement of one hundred and fifty-six, highly injudicious and dangerous. A convict ship laid out for a certain number of prisoners cannot prudently be altered for the reception of more, without a manifest risk of inconvenience and danger;—the former, on account of confining their sleeping-places, seats, exercise, &c. and the latter, from the foulness of the atmospheric medium, in which the crowd must respire the doubtful or perhaps diseased exhalations from each other’s lungs.
In the present case this was the more striking, as even with all the care, regular exercise, and the most careful attention to the daily state of the convicts; even with all my experience of their constitutions and disorders, during the time the ship was proceeding from the Thames to the Cape of Good Hope; still an extreme hazard was incurred by the admission of a fresh number of men, besides including the seven invalids, all of course strangers to the regimen previously used; and perhaps, as might be suspected, tainted with infectious diseases.