Andrew: I have enjoyed following your pursuit of this matter, and thank you for providing this, for my range of interests, VERY interesting extract. I feel that it answers a lot of the questions which have arisen on the matter. I also have a personal interest in those who worked as clerks in the Colonial Secretary's office and its forerunners, so I am also grateful for this reference to Charles NIGH. Thanks again. Ray ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew Fogarty" <[email protected]> Ken Thompson`s remarks posted on 14th November concerned with convict indents asked whether the physical descriptions of convicts were documented on departure or arrival. It seems to me that they were documented on departure from trial records. My searching in relation to this point has uncovered a reference I will quote contained in Macquarie University`s online collection of reports of old Supreme Court of New South Wales decisions. A report of the 1828 proceedings in R. v. Raine, Lee and Kemp has the following -- ! "Mr. Charles Nigh, a Clerk in the office of the Colonial Secretary, produced the indents, of the ship Atlas (4), Capt. Short, in which James Doran arrived a prisoner of the crown for life to this Colony; he appears to have been tried at London in the year 1819, on the 17th February, the ship arrived here on the 19th October, in the same year; the indent bears no official signature but is an assignment of the prisoners whose names are contained in it from the clerk of the arraigns in England to the Governor of the Colony; it is filed at the Colonial Secretary`s as a record; the office of the Colonial Secretary is the usual record Office for documents of this nature which are invariably sent with prisoners."