Читать книгу Australian History For Dummies - Alex McDermott - Страница 66

By the time the Second Fleet arrived in June 1790, a quarter of the settlement had died. But the fleet itself, while carrying supplies, brought with them a human disaster. While the First Fleet had been well planned and supervised, the second was a story of neglect, brutality and deliberate starvation. The job of transporting the convicts had been given to private contractors, whose usual cargo was African slaves. Slaves fared slightly better, however, because with slaves came the incentive for those in charge to keep as many as possible alive to sell at the other end of the journey. Here, however, no such rule applied and the more who died, the easier the contractors’ job got.

Of the 750 convicts who actually made it to NSW, 500 were hospital cases, and the half-starved colony set to work putting up emergency hospital tents. When news got back to London, a scandal erupted, and a trial of the contractors was held. (The contractors got off.) The outcry meant that even though convicts were being transported out of sight, they weren’t completely out of mind. In future, more rigorous regulations and official supervision would ensure the vast majority transported arrived alive and in reasonable health.