Historical Records of Australia

Series 1  p.188

Governor Bligh to The Right Hon. William Windham

Government House, Sydney 31st October 1807

Sir,

The extreme misconduct of Mr. Darcy Wentworth, one of the Assistant Surgeons, in applying Convicts to private labour whom he received into the Hospital at Parramatta as sick men, rendered it absolutely necessary for me to suspend him from his situation, on the 25th July last, until His Majesty's Pleasure is known thereon.

I herewith transmit the Depositions of a M. Francis Oakes Chief constable at Parramatta, and John Beldon an Overseer, both free Men, of what has recently been done.

Instead of the Hospital being an Asylum for sick Men, and as soon as they recovered to be returned to Government labour, or to the poor Settlers from whom they came, it has been a practice to allow them to remain victualled as Hospital Patients requiring care, applying their use to private advantage.

In my Journeys through the country the Settlers have stated to me, in affecting terms, that the Men allowed them by Government constantly framed excuses and got into the Hospital; that after feeding them for fourteen days (at the expiration of which time the expense of victualling falls on Government), conformable to the Regulation, they have not been returned to them upon recovery, by which a heavy loss was sustained on their part, besides being worn out with fatigue in endeavouring to cultivate their ground for support - and which appears to me to have been the case, I Have &C., Wm. Bligh.