Alterations, which were not always improvements, began to take place in the manner of receiving these women on board ship.  The vessels were moored at Woolwich, and group by group the miserable complement of passengers arrived; in each case, however, controlled by male warders.  Sometimes, a turnkey would bring his party on the outside of a stage-coach; another might bring a contingent in a smack, or coasting vessel; while yet a third marched up a band of heavily-ironed women, whose dialects told from which districts they came.  Sometimes their infants were left behind, and, in such a case, one of the ladies would go to Whitehall to obtain the necessary order to enable the unfortunate nursling to accompany its mother; but generally speaking, the children accompanied and shared the parents’ fortunes.

Cruelties were inseparable from the customs which prevailed.  In 1822, Mrs. Pryor discovered that prisoners from Lancaster Castle arrived, not merely handcuffed, but with heavy irons on their legs, which had occasioned considerable swelling, and in one instance serious inflammation. The Brothers sailed in 1823, with its freight of human misery on board, and the suffering which resulted from the mode of ironing, was so great, that Mrs. Fry took down the names id particulars, in order to make representations to the Government.  Twelve women arrived on board the vessel, handcuffed; eleven others had iron hoops round their legs and arms, and were chained to each other.  The complaints of these women were mournful; they were not allowed to get up or down from the coach, without the whole party being dragged together; some of them had children to carry, but they received no help, no alleviation to their sufferings.  One woman from Wales must have had a bitter experience of irons.  She came to the ship with a hoop around her ankle, and when the sub-matron insisted on having it removed, the operation was so painful that the poor wretch fainted.  She told Mrs. Fry that she had worn, for some time, an iron hoop around her waist; from that, a chain connected with hoops round her legs above the knee; from these, another chain was fastened to irons round her ankles.  Not content with this, her hands were confined every night to the hoop which went round her waist, while she lay like a log on her bed of straw.  Such tales remind one of the tortures of the Inquisition.

The “Newgate women” were especially noticeable for good conduct on the voyage out.  Their conduct was reported to be “exemplary” by the Surgeon Superintendent, and their industry was most pleasing.  Their patchwork was highly prized by many, and indeed treasured up by some of them for many years after.  Officers in the British navy assisted in the good work by word and deed; in fact, Captain Young, of Deptford Dockyard, first suggested the making of patchwork as an employment on board ship.  From some correspondence which passed between Mrs. Fry and the Controller of the Navy, in 1820, we find that the building for the women in New South Wales was begun; while in a letter written about this time to a member of the Government, she explains her desires and plans relative to the female convicts after their arrival at Hobart Town, Tasmania.