4 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



bable date of their departure. The period of forced inaction was 

 turned to good account by Mr. White, the humane surgeon in 

 charge of the fleet. He soon found that the cramped quarters, 

 want of exercise, scarcity of clothing and unsuitability of provisions 

 were likely to decimate his charge if allowed to continue over so 

 long a period as the unknown character of the voyage appeared 

 to indicate. He visited all the transports in turn, inspecting the 

 accommodation, and pressed upon the Secretary of State the 

 necessity for some relaxation of the discipline and improvement of 

 the commissariat. He succeeded in obtaining authority to allow 

 all the convicts full rations of fresh provisions when the ships were 

 in port ; to ensure all of them being admitted to daily exercise on 

 deck for a certain number of hours, and that their quarters should 

 be periodically lime- washed and disinfected. The deficient clothing 

 was a matter which the Government apparently did not care to 

 incur the expense of remedying; and though many of the poor 

 half-clad wretches were suffering severely from the biting winds of 

 an English March, the prospect of an early advent to warmer 

 latitudes was the only palliation they were able to secure. 



Of the 756 convicts for whose transport all these elaborate 

 preparations were slowly approaching completion, only thirty- five 

 were under sentence for life, and only eighteen for fourteen years, 

 the remainder uniformly for seven years. When it is taken into 

 account that a vast range of offences was covered by the 700 

 culprits to whom such uniformity of punishment was meted out, 

 it appears to indicate a rule of thumb method of administering the 

 law that was inimical to the claims of justice. 



It is no exaggeration to say that more than half of these 

 offenders would have escaped in our police courts to-day with 

 sentences ranging from seven days to three months' imprisonment. 

 Many of them suffered for comparatively venial offences against 

 the game laws, the licensing acts and the Customs regulations ; 

 a large number for petty peculations and frauds ; a few for seditious 

 writings or speeches, and of these it may be said that to-day their 

 utterances would escape the dignity of a prosecution. The number 

 condemned for crimes of violence was comparatively small, for in 

 1787 the gallows was a flourishing institution, and the journey by 



