In former times the owners of ships chartered for the conveyance of convicts to the colonies, and used also to contract for victualling them during the voyage, and were even at liberty to provide persons of their own choice to act as surgeons. With what qualifications, intellectual or moral, those _medical gentlemen_ entered on the duties of this most important branch of the service, it is not my purpose here to inquire. But the ship-owner in those days contracted for a certain number to be embarked, without any stipulation being entered into for landing them safely at the place of destination;—a material distinction, as is evident when it is considered, that it was by no means uncommon for a ship of this description to have from forty to seventy deaths, and upwards, in the course of a voyage. The following statement, extracted from Collins’s History of New South Wales, is illustrative of this assertion. “A contract,”—he says, page 102, “had been entered into by Government, with Messrs. Calvert, Cambden, and King, merchants of London, for the transporting of one thousand convicts; and Government engaged to pay 17_l._ 7_s._ 6_d._ per head, for every convict they embarked. This sum being as well for their provisions as for their transportation, no interest for their preservation was created in the owners, and the dead were more profitable (if profit alone was consulted by them, and the credit of their house was not at stake,) than the living. The following accounts of the numbers who died on board each ship were given in by the Masters: Men. Women. Children. On board the Lady Juliana 0 5 2 On board the Surprise 42 0 0 On board the Scarborough 68 0 0 On board the Neptune 151 11 2 All possible expedition was used to get the sick on shore; for even while they remained on board many died.” Again, at page 436, the same author, speaking of the Hillsborough, which arrived the 26th July, 1799, says, “Ninety-five died during the voyage, and six more were added to the number in a few days after they were landed.” Within the period since Naval Surgeons have been appointed to the superintendence of convict ships, the calamity has been considerably lessened; and now, if two or three deaths occur in a voyage, it is thought very unfortunate indeed. I may add of my own knowledge, that in 1818, when I was first in New South Wales in that service, out of 1,059 convicts embarked in England and Ireland, 1,057 were landed at Sydney in tolerably good health. This favourable result may have been influenced considerably, perhaps, by much greater attention having been given to ventilation and cleanliness, and the convicts being less crowded than they used to be for many years after the settlement of the colony.