THE FLEET AT SEA. 67 As the Yice-Eang offered anything the King's stores furnished 1787 that might be wanted, ten thousand musquet balls have been pur- August, chased from the arsenal, the Sirius not being able to supply the Musquet garrison with a sufficient quantity to serve till ball might be sent ^*^^' from England. Before we sailed from Portsmouth two medicino-chests were soap fitted for the transports that had none, and at Teneriffe soap was from^the
- to repay what the convicts had received before we sailed "^"^^^
from England from the marines. These articles and some few others were too trifling to draw for on the Treasury, and were paid by me. Some expenses have now attended the procuring seeds and plants that could not be purchased, and it will be necessary to Expenses fiatisfy those people whose store we have occupied with some ^ tents that have been damaged and sent on shore to air, and where we have had officers and men since we have been here, with the timekeeper and the necessary instruments to determine its rate of going ; as likewise the captain of the port, with his boat's crew, who, the day we came in, attended to give any assistance the transports might want, we then having only a light air of wind, and this I do, having refused the paying the customary fees which are paid by their own merchants' ships as well as strangers. It is £3 12s. on coming in, the same on going out, and 5s. 6d. a day Port while they remain at anchor in the port. This was demanded for ^ "*^" the transports, but never insisted on after I had said it could not be paid, as the ships had King's stores on board. And as these articles are such as do not permit vouchers, I have not thought it right to order the Commissary to pay them, but have drawn on the Treasury for £135, which will be sufficient for the whole. It is little more than half the sum which must have b^en paid for the store, had it been hired. "With respect to the convicts, they have been all allowed the H^T*°' liberty of the deck in the day, and many of them during the night, which has kept them much healthier than could have been expected. It has been necessary, that the store-ships might receive the spirits, to move part of the provisions from them into the trans- Bad stow ports, and I am soiTy to say that, what with some of the pro- **** visions being in very slight casks, and very little attention having been paid to the stowage, we have had much trouble in moving Digitized by Google
