March. 
VOYAGE TO NEW SOUTH WALES. j 
cal gentleman from Pcrtfmoiith, among whofe acquaintance 1787. 
I had not the honour to be numbered. He fcarcely gave 
me time to get upon the quarter-deck, before he thus 
addrelTed me — " I am very glad you are arrived, Sir ; for 
your people have got a malignant difeslfe among them of 
a moft dangerous kind ; and it will be hecefTary, for their 
prefervation, to get them immediately relanded !" Sur- 
prifed at fuch a falutation, and alarmed at the purport of 
it, I requefted of my afliflant, Mr. Balmain, an intelligent 
young man, whom I had appointed to this fhip for the 
voyage, to let me fee the people who were ill. " Sir," re- 
turned Mr. Balm.ain, taking me afide, " you will not find 
things by any means fo bad as this gentleman reprefents 
them to be : they are made much worfe by him than 
they really are. Unlike a perfon wifhing to adminifter 
comfort to thofe who are afHicfled, either in body or in 
" mind, he has publicly declared before the poor creatures 
who are ill, that they mufl: inevitably fall a facrifice to 
the malignant diforder v/ith which they are afflided ; — 
the malignity of which appears to me to exilt only in his 
own imagination. I did not, however," continued Mr. Bal- 
main, think proper to contradid the gentleman; fuppofing, 
B 2 
from 
