Stephen Walcott¹ to Faraday²   4 April 1853

Colonial Land and Emigration Office, | 8, Park Street, Westminster, 4th April, 1853.

Sir, - I am directed by the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners to make to you the following statement, and to express the hope of the Commissioners that you would be so good as to favour them with your opinion upon it.

In the emigrant ships sent out by the Commissioners to the Australian Colonies complaint was repeatedly made by the Surgeons in charge that the medicines supplied for the use of the emigrants proved on trial to be of inferior quality, either by adulteration or age. In consequence of the frequency of these complaints the Commissioners determined to have the drugs required for their vessels supplied exclusively from Apothecaries’ Hall; and a clause to that effect was introduced into their charter-parties. Against this regulation the Chemists of London, in the first instance, and more recently the Chemists of Liverpool, have protested, and have claimed that shipowners should be allowed absolute liberty to choose their own tradesmen, on the ground - 1st, that the restriction is an imputation on their fair dealing; and, 2nd, that it is unnecessary, inasmuch as any fairly-competent medical man would be able by inspection and by well-known tests to ascertain the genuineness of all the medicines put on board the Commissioners’ ships.

I enclose a list of those medicines. The question on which the Commissioners would request to be favoured with your opinion, is, Whether a medical man of average knowledge might fairly be expected, in a rapid and compendious examination, to detect any adulteration or inferiority of quality in the drugs, so as to point out the necessity of a more rigid scrutiny - and whether such more rigid scrutiny, if it became necessary, would occupy any considerable length of time? I need not, of course, observe that as a defect in the drugs discovered after the sailing of the vessel is irremediable, and might have the most fatal consequences, the Commissioners would not feel justified in accepting anything short of the best security which under the circumstances they can obtain.

I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant | (Signed) S. Walcott, Secretary.

To M. Faraday, Esq.