$0 THE SECOKD FLEET. 1789 The Nepture was so mucli '^ more wretched and intolerable " that lie did not require dissuading. After the survivors had been landed, Mr. Johnson obtained information from the convicts as to the treatment they had received on board the different vessels. They allege that " for a considerable time together they had been to the middle in water, chained together hand and leg, even the sick not excepted — ^nay, many died with their chains upon them.* prSwtttoO. When the transports returned to England public attention was directed to this shameful sacrifice of human life. In- formation was laid on oath by several of the crew and marines, charging the master (Donald Trail) and chief mate (William Ellington) of the Neptune with causing the death of a number of convicts by curtailing their allowance of food and water. It was also alleged that when the ship arrived at Sydney they opened a warehouse on shore, and sold the provisions which the convicts ought to have had. The substance of the affidavits was published in the Dublin Chronicle of 1st December, 1791.t Trail and Ellington were subsequently charged with the wilful murder of two of the crew of the Neptune and one convict, J but they both fled
- Collins (vol. i, pp. 122, 123) thus describes the condition of these people
when they arrived at Sydney : — " The appearance of those who did not re- quire medical assistance was lean and emaciated. Several of these miserable people died in the boats as they were rowing on shore, or on the wharf as they were lifting out of the boats ; both the living and the dead exhibiting more horrid spectacles than had ever been witnessed in this country. All this was to be attributed to confinement, and that of the worst species — con- finement in a small space and in irons, not put on singly, but many of them chained together. On board the Scarborough a plan had been formed to take the ship This necessarily, on board that ship, occasioned much future circumspection ; but Captain Marshall's humanity considerably lessened the severity which the insurgents might naturally have expected. On board the other ships, the masters, who had the entire direction of the prisoners, never suffered them to be at large on deck, and but few at a time were permitted there. This consequently gave birth to many diseases. It was said that on board the Neptune several had died in irons; and what added to the horror of such a circumstance was that their deaths were concealed, for the purpose of sharing their allowance of provisions, until chance and the offensiveness of a corpse directed the surgeon, or someone who had authority in the ship, to the spot where it lay." t Historical Becords, vol. ii, p. 791. jib., p. 462.
