ly to be furnished with an
extract from his excellency's correspondence, so that by these
means the requisition would not be liable to neglect, and much
trouble would be spared to the Public Office, whose province it
had previously been to attend to this department. The reduction
of expense which would result from this appointment would be much
more than adequate to the increased expense incurred by the
appointment and remuneration of a gentleman of probity and
respectability to this office.

The method of conveying convicts from England is so very
inhuman, that some better and more benevolent measure ought to be
adopted. The lives of these unfortunate victims of depravity
ought surely to be regarded with as much care as those of any
other class of his Majesty's subjects; the contrary of this has,
however, been too frequently the case, and some of the masters of
the transports who have been entrusted with these captives, have
treated them with such uniform rigour that numbers have perished
through the intensity of their sufferings. This want of care is
to be attributed to the former custom of contracting for the
transport of the convicts at so much per head, so that the master
has no interest in the preservation of those entrusted to his
care. This evil, too, might also be remedied by the contract
being made only for the number which might be landed in New South
Wales, and by which means the owner of the transport would study
to preserve the life of each individual with the most studious
attention, since the loss of a single life would be a diminution
of his profit, and there could no longer be a danger of the
unhappy prisoners being suffered to perish from any negligence or
severity. In addition to this, the surgeon and the master might
receive a reward for each person whom they delivered in good
order, if their humanity was such as to require a pecuniary
stimulus. I believe this has been tried in some instances, at
least report has so stated, and, if so, there must have been
sufficient evidence gained of the superiority of the method over
that which was formerly adopted. It might not be a bad plan to
try if some of the superfluous frigates in the service might not
be converted into good transports; for there could be no doubt
that, in vessels of this description, the accommodations which
might be afforded to the convicts would much exceed those of the
common transport ships, and the prisoners would of course be
so