24 



who were ill. 'Sir,' returned Mr. Balmain, taking me aside, 

 'you will not find things by any means so bad as this gentleman 

 represents them to be : they are made much worse by him 

 than they really are. Unlike a person wishing to administer 

 comfort to those who are afflicted, either in body or in mind, 

 he has publicly declared before the poor creatures who are 

 ill, that they must inevitably fall a sacrifice to the malignant 

 disorder with which they are afflicted ; the malignity of which 

 appears to me to exist only in his own imagination. I did 

 not, however,' continued Mr. Balmain, 'think proper to con- 

 tradict the gentleman ; supposing from the consequence he 

 assumed, and the ease with which he had given his opinion, 

 or more properly his directions, that he was some person 

 appointed by the Secretary of State to officiate for you till 

 your arrival. When you go among the people you will be 

 better able to judge of the propriety of what I have said.' 

 Mr. Balmain had no sooner concluded than I went between 

 decks, and found everything just as he had represented it to 

 be. There were several in bed with slight inflammatory 

 complaints ; some there were who kept their bed to avoid the 

 inconvenience of the cold, which was at this time very piercing, 

 and whose wretched clothing was but a poor defence against 

 the rigour of it ; others were confined to their bed through 

 the effects of long imprisonment, a weakened habit, and low- 

 ness of spirits ; which was not a little added to by the declara- 

 tion of the medical gentleman above mentioned, whom they 

 concluded to be the principal surgeon to the expedition. 

 However, on my undeceiving them in that point, and at the 

 same time confirming what Mr. Balmain had from the first 

 told them, viz., that their complaints were neither malignant 

 nor dangerous, their fears abated." 



The Surgeon-General then goes on to say that he in- 

 formed the patients that he would give orders for the supply 

 of clothing to those who were in want of it, and that as 

 they had been nearly four months on board on a diet of salt 

 provisions he would endeavour to get some fresh for them 

 while in port. "This short conversation had so sudden an 

 effect on those I addressed, and was of so opposite a tendency 

 to that of the gentleman alluded to, that before we got from 

 between decks, I had the pleasure to see several of them put 

 on such clothes as they had, and look a little cheerful. . . . 



"On returning to the quarter-deck, I found my new 

 medical acquaintance still there; and before I could give 

 some directions to Mr. Balmain, as I was about to do, he 

 thus once more addressed me — 'I suppose you are now con- 

 vinced of the dangerous disease that prevails among these 

 people, and of the necessity of having them landed, in order 



