AustLit

'Arthur Bowes Smyth was chief surgeon on the Lady Penrhyn, the one of the eleven ships of the First Fleet that carried exclusively female convicts. As well as writing a regular diary for the round journey to Australia and back from 1787 to 1789, he ensured the best health of the convicts and crew by a programme of meticulous cleanliness and good order. As he was not a regular employee of the Royal Navy, but on loan with the ship from the East India Company, he could express  independent views in his diary, though he kept several copies with his more acid comments deleted from the ones most likely to be submitted to his superiors.' (Introduction)