Then he alludes in indignant terms to the condition of the unfortunate female convicts on board the transport Lady Penrhyn, 'The situation in which the magistrates sent the women on board … stamps them with infamy—almost naked and so very filthy that nothing but clothing them could have prevented them from perishing.' The clothing for these women he provided himself from the stores on the Sirius, and asked that the Navy Board would replace it, for their deplorable state filled him. with horror and indignation. As it was, a fever had already broken out among them. Many of them were suffering from special complaints which, he wrote, 'must spread in spite of every precaution I may take hereafter, and will be fatal to themselves. There is a necessity for doing something for the young man who is on board that ship as surgeon, or I fear that we shall lose him, and then a hundred women will be left without any assistance, several of them with child. Let me repeat my desire that orders immediately may be given to increase the convict allowance of bread; 16 lb. of bread for 42 days is very little. …
'This is a long letter, but it is my duty to repeat complaints that may be redressed, and which I am certain you desire equally with myself.'
It was the same old story, better remembered in connection with a greater man—Wellington fighting his campaigns in spite of the Government, and without the assistance which he legitimately required.
