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Peter Cunningham was a surgeon in the Royal Navy and had made four journeys as surgeon-superintendent of Convict Ships to the colony of New South Wales. In his book Two Years in New South Wales, A Series of Letters, Comprising Sketches of the Actual State of Society in that Colony; of its Peculiar Advantages to Emigrants; of its Topography, Natural History, &c. &c., Vol II, Henry Colburn, London, 1827, he gives the following details on what the conditions on board the transports were like:
pp. 216-225.
Before leaving the Hulk, the convicts are thoroughly clothed in new suits, and ironed and it is curious to observe with what nonchalance some of these fellows will turn the jingling of their chains into music whereto they dance and sing. Two rows of sleeping berths, one above the other, extend on each side of the between-decks of the convict-ship, each berth being six feet square, and calculated to hold four convicts, every one thus possessing eighteen inches space to sleep in, - and ample space too ! The hospital is in the fore-part of the ship, with a bulk-head across, separating it from the prison, having two doors with locks to keep out intruders; - while a separate prison is built for the boys, to cut of all intercourse between them and the men. Strong wooden stanchions, thick studded with nails, are fixed round the fore and main hatchways, between decks, in which is a door with three padlocks, to let the convicts out and in, and secure them at night. The convicts by these means have no access to the hold through the prison, a ladder being placed in each hatchway for them to go up and down by, which is pulled on deck at night. Scuttle-holes, to open and shut for the admission of air, are cut out along the ship’s sides; - a large stove and funnel placed between-decks, for warmth and ventilation; swing stoves and charcoal put on board, to carry about in the damp corners; - and in fact every thing that can be thought of provided to secure health and proper comfort to the convicts during their voyage. Each is allowed a pair of shoes, three shirts, two pair of trowsers, and other warm clothing on his embarkation, besides a bed, pillow, and blanket - while Bibles, Testaments, prayer-books, and psalters, are distributed among the messes.
“The rations are both good and abundant, three quarters of a pound of biscuit being the daily allowance of bread, while each day the convict sits down to dinner off [sic] either beef, pork, or plum-pudding, having pea-soup four times a week, and a pot of gruel every morning, with sugar or butter in it. Vinegar is issued to the messes weekly; and as soon as the ship has been three weeks at sea, each man is served with one ounce of lime-juice and the same of sugar daily, to guard against scurvy: while two gallons of good Spanish red wine, and one hundred and forty gallons of water, are put on board for issuing likewise - three to four gills of wine weekly, and three quarts of water daily, being the general allowance. The sick are in like manner provided with all requisite medicines and comforts, as well as with warm dresses, spare bedding, sheets, and every description of hospital furniture.
“The common diet of the convict is certainly more than is requisite to keep them in health, as they have no work to do; but it is not more than is politic to allow them; because, if you stint them on the voyage, you must keep them under greater restraint, and their healths will suffer in consequence. Two delegates, chosen in rotation from the several messes, daily see the provisions weighed out, and justice done to the whole body in that particular.
“On my first appointment to this service, I knew that none could give me advice regarding the best mode of convict management, and consequently was obliged to plan a method of my own, which I have continued to pursue, with occasional improvements ever since, and which is about the same, in fact, as that usually followed by all experienced surgeons in this service; for, the same objects being to be attained in every voyage, the same train of thinking naturally occurs, and as, naturally produce the same results.
“Previous to the convicts embarking, I have the whole prison thoroughly secured and ventilated, all the mess-berths and mess articles numbered according to their corresponding messes, and the beds, blankets, and pillows, marked with consecutive numeral figures in black paint, from No. 1 up to the highest number of convicts embarked. The beds are all marked at the same corner, and the pillows being sewed to the head of them, (with a stout board appended to tie them up by,) the blankets are now placed inside, and all rolled together, with the number of the bed outside, (to admit its being referred to), and the whole placed according to their consecutive numbers in the sleeping-berths, ready for distribution. - The convicts are allowed to choose their own messmates; and, on the mess-list being arranged upon the deck, they are put below according to muster in their respective messes and sleeping-berths; each mess being supplied with its necessary utensils, and each individual furnished with the bed corresponding to his name, - all thus messing and sleeping along the prison deck in regular numerical progression.
“Every article of clothing belonging to each individual is next uniformly marked in a conspicuous manner with a number corresponding to the bed he has been supplied with, which prevents the thieving each other’s articles, enables every man to know his own from his neighbour’s, enables the surgeon to distinguish them in litigated cases, and enables also any individual in the ship to single out an ill-doer by simply taking a note of his number, without reference to either his name or personal appearance. Before I adopted this plan of numbering the clothing, the lazy incorrigibles would toss their dirty garments overboard, and coolly help themselves to a clean shirt from their simpler comrades !
“The next consideration is, to cull out a portion of the most fitting among them to make a sort of petty officers of, for seeing orders executed, and keeping the rest in subjection. These individuals are called captains of the deck, four officiating in the prison and two upon the deck; all the convicts being obliged to obey their orders equally with the surgeon’s; while a captain is appointed to each mess, who sees his place kept tidy, attends for the rations, and is responsible for the orderly demeanour of the other five members. Two individuals are also employed to fill the cistern, &c. every day; two to take charge of the hospital; and four to attend to the schools.
“The captains of the deck have double allowance of wine each day it is served, and a glass of rum during the other days of the week. The rest of the individuals in office have only double allowance of wine for their trouble, but all official characters are permitted to carry their wine away and drink it, the remainder being obliged to drink theirs at the tub. I also allow each captain of the deck and hospital-man two pounds of tobacco for use on the voyage, served out in portions to them monthly, besides giving them the choice of the clothes, and in fact, every little encouragement possible, to insure the correct performance of their duty. Six or eight pounds expended in this way by the surgeon, out of his own pocket, will be amply repaid him in the greater ease with which he can carry on duty, and the satisfaction he will reap in the good order resulting. The main objects to be looked to, with regard to the management of convicts, are, - seeing strict justice done them in issuing the rations from the ship’s stores; promoting cleanliness, comfort, and hilarity, among them; admitting them freely upon deck to take the air; and striking off their irons as early on the voyage as due caution may warrant.
“The upper and lower decks are daily cleaned under the superintendence of the captains of the deck; being scrubbed, swabbed, scraped, or dry holystoned, according to the state of the weather; the whole of the prisoners being constantly kept on deck till the prison is thoroughly dry.
“Dancing is encouraged also every afternoon, and they may sing all day long, if they please. As they have but little to amuse themselves with, endeavours must be made to find amusement for them, and this can be no ways better accomplished than by giving them something to work at.
“Three separate written codes are pasted upon boards and hang up between-decks, for individual perusal, after first being read over and commented on. One contains the duties of the captains of the deck, captains of the messes, delegates for attending the issuing of provisions, &c.; another, regulations regarding divine service, the cleaning of the deck, cutting up and cooking the meat rations, washing-days, musters, schools, &c.; the third being a sort of criminal code, in which every offence that can be committed and the punishment awarded, are plainly expressed.
“It is also essential to point out explicitly to every man what you expect from him, as he then clearly understands the duties he has to perform, as well as the consequence of his failure therein: and by impressing upon the minds of the culprits, that it is for their good as well as for the good of their associates you thus punish them, they in general quietly submit. Gambling is a prevailing vice, and requires great exertion to keep it under; dice, cards, pitch and toss, and various other speculations, soon becoming general, unless checked; and to such a height of infatuation will this vice be carried, that I have known a country simpleton ‘go’ three whole days without food, having gambled away all his rations for that period. Until gambling is stopped, thieving will be carried on; because the fellow who loses his own diner will always insure one out of some other person’s mess, unless he is a very sorry thief indeed, which was the failing of the three days’ Lent-keeper before spoken of. I do not object to their bartering and selling their rations among each other, never seeing any harm accrue from it. Indeed, I could not stop it, if I would. They seldom eat promiscuously at a meal, but the mess-allowance is divided into six equal parts, and awarded by lot (being as suspicious of each other’s honesty in eating as in every thing else). The provisions are cooked by two of their own body, who have the fat as a perquisite, which they readily sell in New South Wales for 10l.thus clearing 5l. each on the voyage.
“The convicts have changes of garment weekly, and are shaved twice a week, one shirt and a pair of trowsers being marked with the letter A above the numeral, and the others with the letter B, the individual wearing A shirt and trowsers one week, and B shirt and trowsers the next. They are all mustered in the prison every fine evening, with their shoes and stockings off, and trowsers rolled over their knees, to see that the persons are clean, - as many of them would not wash during the voyage if not compelled. During the warm weather, the half of them bathe every morning; and on Sunday they are all mustered to hear the church-service read on the quarter-deck - the guard being kept under arms during the time.
“Thirty-three soldiers compose the guard (under command of a commissioned officer), who do duty in three alternate watches on the poop or quarter deck. - a sentry with a drawn cutlass guarding the small doors in the barricade carried across the upper deck dividing them from the convicts.
“No instance has been known of a convict-ship being captured by the convicts, nor indeed is such a thing possible with any thing like ordinary precaution; as, being so treacherous to each other, abundance of them are always ready enough to inform. The Jane Shore was taken by the soldiers and sailors, conjointly - women convicts only being on board, by whom they were instigated. (The mutineers shot the captain and chief-mate, and carried the ship into Monte Video.) The establishment of an effective police among themselves will always check any attempts at combination. The petty officer must be composed of thieves of highest repute for the number and nature of their offences, inasmuch as these are most likely to keep down the others. The veteran thief assumes the same sort of lofty port and high-toned consequence over the juniors of the profession, that the veteran warrior of fifty campaigns does over the raw bumpkin of yesterday; and what he cannot force these tyros to do by bullying, he will exact from that sort of willing obedience which the more unsophisticated in every calling are ready to pay to those distinguished therein.”
pp. 245-246.
“The only real signs of religion I ever saw among convicts, were amongst a portion of the Catholics on board; for as soon as they had mustered down, both hatchways were crowded round with them counting their beads and fervently crossing themselves and repeating their prayers from the book. There was no ostentation in this, because I often saw them do so when they could have no idea I was near; but indeed a great portion of them were poor simple peasantry, transported for very trumpery offences.
“The English convicts divide themselves into the two great classes of townies and yokels; while the Irish divide themselves into three, namely, the ‘Cork boys,’ the ‘Dublin boys,’ and the ‘North boys,’ and these are so zealous in upholding their respective tribes, that when two individuals of different classes quarrel, there is no possibility of arriving at the truth, - since a dozen of each class will rush forward, and bawl out at once, in favour of their respective comrades, evidence of the most conflicting, contradictory nature. The ‘north boys’ are commonly called Scotchmen by the others, and indeed many spoke the Scotch dialect so broadly as almost to puzzle me to unravel it.”
pp. 270-275.
“THE ship is fitted up in the same way for the women as the men, excepting the addition of tables and shelves upon which to iron their clothes and stow away their tea-ware. No guard of soldiers is required here, and consequently there is no bulk-head across the upper deck in midships. Their rations are the same as those enjoyed by the men, with the addition of tea and sugar, for the service of which there is a kettle supplied to each mess, and a tin-pot to each female, tea being usually made night and morning. Their oatmeal I allowed them to draw as they required it; always keeping a store in the hospital for the supply of such as wished to have gruel for supper, under which name the mess oatmeal slided down their throats like custard, while at the same mess formerly cooked for them under the vulgar sea-epiphet of burgou, the whole of them turned up in aversion their genteel noses - so much for the ‘magic of a name.’
“More accommodation is allowed for the women than for the men, the usual number of convict women proceeding out in one vessel seldom exceeding ninety; a separate apartment being usually fitted up in each ship for the accommodation of the free women (with their children) going out to join their husbands who are convicts in the colony, a certain number annually being forwarded this way by the government to those husbands who behave well and can support them.
“A similar mode of management must be adopted must be adopted with the women as the men, appointing a certain number of respectable old matrons of Magdalen Asylums and venerable pave peripatetics to superintend their manners and morals during the voyage, and to see the prison kept in tidy trim, none except influentials of this description being capable of managing the unruly throng.
“The women are more quarrelsome and more difficult to control than the men, their tempers being more excitable, and a good deal being calculated on by them in respect to the usual leniency shown to their sex. They are certainly more abandoned in their expressions, too, when excited; but this probably arises not so much from greater profligacy of disposition, as from their having less control over their passions and their tongues. Formerly they lived promiscuously with the seamen on the passage out, and the voyage was certainly then brought to a close much more harmoniously than now, and (strange as it may seen [sic]) with greater benefit to the reformation of these females, for the period at least, when the rules of decency were not outraged in the intercourse. - All reformations, to be lasting, must be gradual; for whatever is suddenly done, is liable to be suddenly undone, and by bridling in their long-indulged inclinations by sheer brute force, you produce no moral regeneration, but rather engender an accumulation of vice, which will break out with overwhelming impetus when restraint is taken off. By being suffered to live in concubinage with the sailors during the voyage, they become initiated in the moral principle of personal attachment, unknown to them before. The great evil of such an arrangement was, that the sailors often married them at the end of the voyage; when Jack, as soon as tired of the ‘happy state,’ would take to ship again and leave his spouse to the exercise of her own free will and meditations; while the number of females being transported being so few, in comparison to the men, the former ought certainly to be made preserves of, to furnish wives for the latter. The truly pitiable surgeon who has hitherto endeavoured strictly to enforce the orders of the navy board on his head during the voyage, has certainly most justly entitled himself to the full honour of Catholic canonization on his landing. And as regards the crew themselves, really poor Jack is planted in a perfect garden of temptation, when among probably a hundred of such fair seducers, and is more an object of pity than wrath. To see twenty wicked fingers beckoning to him, and twenty wicked eyes winking at him, at one and the same time, no wonder his virtue should sometimes experience a fall !
“A very ingenious plan, however, (persevered in from the commencement of the interdictory system until reported to the navy board,) afforded free scope to these amorous flirtations. The swains first gained over the Arguses in charge of the hospital; forced up the piece of board nailed over the coal-hatch, which being under a bed-place was completely hidden from view; then, entering the prison, ‘puffed out the rush-light’ and continued their tete-a-tete with the ‘fair penitents,’ until the inquisitive eye of day began to blink in upon them.
“When you do, indeed, detect Jack in a slip, who can gravely lecture him thereupon, should he make such defence as was once made to the captain in my presence, on an accusation of creeping through the coal-hatch : - ‘Me, sir !’ exclaimed the tar with an expression of surprise, ‘No, sir, I hopes I know how to behave myself better sir, than that ere; if I was going about a thing of that kind, I would go about it with economy, sir !’ - a defence the meaning of which could not be readily guessed at.
“In speaking relative to each other, the women always make use of the term ladies which they do more in sober earnest than jest, and, whenever the ‘frail body’ is summoned to attend for their rations, it is, ‘Ladies, come up for your biscuits; Ladies, come up for your pork; Ladies the puddings are ready,’ and so forth; yet, while affecting all this gentility as a body, when particularizing each other it is plain Poll, Late, or Sal; Miss being very seldom made use of, though Mrs. usually distinguishes the married and the elderly.
“Innocent amusements of all kinds I encouraged among them. They danced several times weekly in the evenings throughout the voyage; kept up singing for an hour or so every night before retiring to bed; and had occasionally regular concerts and masquerades, at which latter, dressed out in their gayest plumage, or disguised in fantastic habiliments, they would prolong the frolic till bed-time. Some of the passengers in the cabin would now and then go down into the prison to listen to the singers, several of whom possessed sweet and plaintive voices, while the fantastic airs and quavers of others were ridiculous.”
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