Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/379
The "stowaways," as convicts concealed in ships were
called, had in 1799 caused a remonstrance from India to
Governor Hunter, against the system which permitted
them to escape to India. Not only was it desired to
exclude convicts under sentence, but "those of every
description, whether the period of their transportation
should have expired or otherwise."
King made stringent orders to meet the Marquis of Wellesley's views, and transmitted copies to each presidency. Early in 1805 he made them more stringent. The master of every ship was compelled, "before entering into any communication with the settlement, to give security, himself in £500,
"and two sufficient freeholders or well-known merchants or lealers in the sum of £50 each, not to carry off any person whatever without the Governor's certificate of a convict having served his or her term of transportation, and a free man or woman having no detainer lodged. Nor is he to depart himself without the Governor's leave, under an additional penalty of £50."
The ill-usage to which the convicts were sometimes subjected deserves exposure. An inhuman master of a ship with a cargo of convicts exercised powers of which it was hard to prevent the abuse. A vessel, the Royal Admiral, arrived (Nov. 1800) with convicts who had suffered much on the voyage. Writing (30th Oct. 1802) King said he did not apprehend they would ever recover strength. It was his custom to visit newly-arrived vessels and inquire how the prisoners had behaved, and whether they themselves desired to prefer complaints. He wrote (Oct. 1802) that in June and July 1802 the Hercules and Atlas arrived with Irish convicts, "after a passage of nearly seven months, with nearly the whole of the convicts in a dead or in a dying state." Sixty-three out of 151 male convicts in the Atlas died on the voyage. By the logbook, &c., your Lordship "will observe the dreadful diseases that raged on board those ships, and the consequent great mortality, exclusive of the numbers killed on board the Hercules in a mutiny." The miserable state of the survivors, their filthy condition on arrival, and the fact that a quantity of merchandise had deprived the convicts of air and means of cleanliness, had demanded an investigation. The case was rendered more glaring by the