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British Settlement at 



treatment, and he is paid a gratuity of 10.5. 6<f. for every convict 

 landed in New South Wales. The instructions to the master 

 are equally satisfactory. He is to be particularly cautious to 

 receive no diseased person on board during the voyage ; a pro- 

 portion of the prisoners is daily to be admiited upon deck, and 

 the births of all cleaned and aired ; and these things are to be 

 noted in the log-book, which is afterwards submitted to the 

 Governor of New South Wales ; and if the conduct of the 

 master appears to have been satisfactory, he receives a gratuity 

 of 50/. if the contrary should turn out to be the case, a power 

 of mulcting him is given by the contract, and he becomes liable 

 to a prosecution. I'he ration of provision is fixed, and appears to 

 be amply sufficient for the support of the men ; about 200 men 

 or women are generally embarked on board one ship, with a 

 guard of 30 men and an officer. Such are the present regula- 

 tions for t!)e voyage^ and however bad the treatment of the 

 convicts on board the vessels may formerly have been, the present 

 system appears to your committee to be unobjectionable. The 

 witnesses speak of it in terms of high commendation, particu- 

 larly two of those, who have been sent out as convicts. Governor 

 Macquarie, in his last dispatches, mentions the good treatment 

 of the prisoners on board the two transports last sent out; and a 

 still stronger proof of the improvement in the mode of convey- 

 ance is, that from the year 1795 to 1801, of 3,833 convicts 

 embarked, 385 died on board the transports, being nearly 1 in 

 10; but since 1801, of 2,398 embarked, 52 only have died on 

 the passage, being 1 in 46. The only further observation your 

 committee have to make on this part of the subject is, one of 

 regret that no arrangement whatever is made for the performance 

 of Divine Service during this six months' voyage ; that this, which 

 13 the heaviest part of their punishment, is also the least likely to 

 produce reformation. With the dispatches from Government a 

 list of the convicts is generally sent, but this list has for the 

 most part been very deficient in particularizing the offences of 

 which they have been convicted; and in distributing them upon 

 their arrival, the Governor has no clue to guide him in giving to 

 them more or less advantageous situations, according to the 

 nature of their crimes and characters: this is a neglect easy, and 

 at the same time most necessary to be corrected. Upon the 

 arrival of a transport, general orders are issued for returns of the 

 number of men wanted, with the land held in cultivation by 

 each settler. The trade, age, character, and capacity of the 

 convicts are, as far as possible, investigated ; the artificers are 

 in general reserved for the service of Government,' and as many 

 of the others as may be wanted. Persons who have been in a 

 higher situation of life have tickets of leave given to them, by 

 which they have liberty to provide for themselves, and are 



