My Lord,

I do myself the honor to report to your Lordship that the Earl Spencer Transport with Three Companies of the 1^st Bⁿ of the 73^d Regiment on board arrived at Colombo on the 25^th Instant — I inclose [sic] a Copy of the disembarkation Return of this Detachment, from which Your Lordship will perceive that the Companies are strong in numbers and in perfect health but I regret to see very much encumbered with Women and Children, which in this part of the World is attended with distressing consequences but which to the utmost of my power I will endeavour to shield them from. Major General M^cQuarrie [sic] informs me that the remaining Divisions of the Regiment which He gives me reason to expect will reach the Island by the latter end of May, will exceed 800 Rank and file, with an encreased [sic] number of Women and Children [T]o provide for this unexpected accumulation of the latter description of Persons I shall order comfortable Huts to be constructed for Married Soldiers within the Forts of Colombo and Galle, in the hope of being able to control the vicious habits of European Soldiers Wives in this Climate and preserve the health of their Children - the causes of the former are the want of a lower order of European Society with which they can associate and there being no employment for them.

I have the honor to be y^r

Rob^t. Brownrigg

Provenance
Manuscript held at the National Archives of Sri Lanka, Colombo. Letterbook copy of original sent to London. "Governor Robert Brownrigg to Earl Bathurst, Secretary of State". Government House, Aripo 31 March 1814. [Despatch No. 73] National Archives of Sri Lanka: 5/7/85-86.)

Manuscript Transcripts
Transcript prepared by Robin Walsh
Macquarie University Library, Sydney, Australia. © 2003

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