Such, it appears, was formerly the mode in which the transportation of convicts used to be conducted; but at present, under the superintendence of men regularly educated in the profession, it has become a point of duty for the Surgeon to take cognizance of every circumstance connected with the care of the convicts. To this intent, the Instructions issued to him from the Navy Board require the strictest attention to ascertain that the convicts’ stores are economically expended, and to see that every tendency to waste, irregular distribution, and improper application of the Government property, is instantly checked and prevented. Under these circumstances, his professional respectability becomes unavoidably merged, in some degree, in the character of a spy, in which odious light he is liable to be viewed by the commander, over whose actions he is directed to exercise this disagreeable, and in many cases unnecessary, controul. The situation, therefore, of a Surgeon in a convict ship, besides being one of great responsibility, is subject to serious inconvenience and embarrassment from many existing circumstances, which are independent of his power or choice, and which, deriving influence from long established custom, have become inveterately incorporated with the present system of the service, and render the appointment by no means a _sinecure_. This is more strikingly evident in a female convict ship, where delicacy of management must be combined with a firmness of discipline bordering upon severity, which is at all times disagreeable, but becomes peculiarly odious when enforced, as must generally be the case, where corporal punishment is excluded. To regulate and duly restrain minds of ordinary purity and habitude of obedience, is not unattended with difficulty: but the duty is palpably irksome, though exercised with the utmost discretion, over dispositions vitiated and turbulent, as those which are generally found among female convicts; so much so, indeed, that few, knowing the extent of this painful responsibility, will be found willing to give the trial a repetition.