ich, under the command of Lieutenant Shortland, the agent, had
left Port Jackson on the 14th of July, 1788, and which I was
sorry to understand had not been in this bay: for I thought it
highly probable, that as their route was to the northward, by the
Molucca Islands and Batavia, they would certainly touch here in
their way home. It being now seven months since they sailed, I
was apprehensive for their safety; particularly when I considered
the very weakly condition of some of their crews, by the scurvy,
when they left us, and not a surgeon in any one of the ships.
This must be allowed to be very improper oeconomy in the owners
of those ships, when the extent of the voyage they had undertaken
is considered, together with the well known impossibility of
their being able to procure seamen, or any recruit of strength to
their ships companies, in that inhospitable and far distant part
of the world.

I cannot help here taking the liberty of saying, that it is
much to be lamented, when ships are hired for the service of
government, to perform such long and trying voyages to the health
of those employed in them, that it is not made a part of the
contract and practice, that they carry a surgeon; for I know
well, that seamen, when taken ill upon such long passages, are,
at the very idea of being without the assistance of a surgeon,
(although careless and void of thought at other times, when in
perfect health,) apt to give way to melancholy, and a total
dejection of spirits; and that many a valuable subject has been
lost to the country by such a trifling saving. Out of the nine
transports which were employed on this service, one only had a
surgeon; and that one, had she not been bound upon some other
service, after leaving Port Jackson, would in all probability
have been without one also.

On the 5th, a Dutch India ship arrived here from Rio de
Janeiro: by this ship I received information of the arrival at
that place of two vessels from the east coast of New Holland;
that they arrived singly, and in very great distress, from
sickness, and the death of many of their people; that the first
which arrived, had her name on her stern, (-Prince of Wales, of
London_;) from which circumstance, there could be no doubt of
its being one of our transports: the other vessel was also so
well described, that I knew it to be the Borrowdale store-ship.
The officers of this India ship observed farther, that they were
so weak, that had they no