Editing Prison ship (section)

====Thames prison fleet====
While the ''Tayloe'' was still in use, the British Government was simultaneously developing a longer-term plan for the use of transportees. In April and May 1776, legislation was passed to formally convert sentences of transportation to the Americas, to hard labour on the Thames for between three and ten years.<ref name="Frost1617">Frost 1994, pp. 16–17</ref> In July 1776, ''Tayloe''{{'}}s owner Duncan Campbell was named Overseer of Convicts on the Thames and awarded a contract for the housing of transportees and use of their labour. Campbell provided three prison ships for these purposes; the 260-ton ''Justitia'', the 731-ton former French frigate ''Censor'' and a condemned [[East Indiaman]], which he also named ''Justitia.''<ref name="Frost1617"/> Collectively, these three prison ships held 510 convicts at any one time between 1776 and 1779.

Conditions aboard these prison ships were poor, and mortality rates were high. Inmates aboard the first ''Justitia'' slept in groups in tiered bunks with each having an average sleeping space {{convert|5|ft|10|in|m|1}} long and {{convert|18|in|cm|0}} wide. Weekly rations consisted of biscuits and pea soup, accompanied once a week by half an ox cheek and twice a week by porridge, a lump of bread and cheese.<ref name="Frost21">Frost 1984, p. 21</ref> Many inmates were in ill health when brought from their gaols, but none of the ships had adequate quarantine facilities, and there was a continued contamination risk caused by the flow of excrement from the sick bays.<ref name="Frost21"/> In October 1776 a prisoner from Maidstone Gaol brought [[typhus]] aboard. It spread rapidly; over a seven-month period to March 1778, a total of 176 inmates died, or 28 percent of the prison ship population.<ref name="Frost24"/>

Conditions thereafter improved. In April 1778 the first ''Justitia'' was converted into a receiving ship, where inmates were stripped of their prison clothing, washed and held in quarantine for up to four days before being transferred to the other vessels.<ref name="Frost24">Frost 1984, p. 24</ref> Those found to be ill were otherwise held aboard until they recovered or died. On the second ''Justitia'' the available sleeping space was expanded to allow for just two inmates per bunk, each having an area {{convert|6|ft|m|1}} long and {{convert|2|ft|cm|0}} wide in which to lie.<ref name="Frost24"/> The weekly bread ration was lifted from 5 to 7 pounds, the supply of meat enhanced with the daily delivery of ox heads from local abattoirs, and there were occasional supplies of green vegetables.<ref name="Frost24"/> The effects of these improvements were evident in the prisoner mortality rates. In 1783 89 inmates died out of 486 brought aboard (18%); and by the first three quarters of 1786 only 46 died out of 638 inmates on the ships (7%).<ref>Frost 1984, p. 25</ref>