We have now really arrived at the second stage in the history of transportation. Although from the first origin of the settlement convict servants were readily provided for any master who might ask for them, the applications, as I have said, were few and far between, amounting in 1809 to an eighth only of the total numbers available, and requiring, as late as 1821, to be accompanied by the bait of distinct and tangible bribes. But now had dawned the days of "assignment" proper, the days of wholesale slavery, where private persons relieved the state of the charge of its criminals, and pretended to act, for the time being, as gaolers, taskmasters, and chaplains, in return for the labour supplied at so cheap a rate. How far the persons thus called upon to exercise such peculiar functions were entitled to the confidence reposed in them was never in question till the last few years. Emancipists got their convicts too, and of course among the settlers many were quite unsuited for so serious a charge.
The failure of assignment as a method of penal discipline will be seen later on, when its great inherent evils had had time to display themselves. At first the chief fault was over-leniency—so much so that General Darling came out as governor charged with orders to subject the convicts to more rigorous treatment. Dr. Laing, in his "History ofNew South Wales," is of opinion that, about this date, much unnecessary severity was noticeable in the carrying out of the sentence of transportation. He states that convicts were now treated by the subordinate agents, who saw that severity was the order of the day, "with a reckless indifference to their feelings as men which their situation as criminals could never have warranted."
Nevertheless it must be confessed that the condition of convicts could not be irksome when soldiers envied it, and committed crimes on purpose to become felons too. This was proved in the case of certain soldiers who had turned thieves in Sydney simply that they might be sentenced to transportation. They were caught, convicted, and sentenced to seven years at Moreton Bay or Norfolk Island. Had their story ended here the bare record of it might suffice, but it so happened that very serious consequences ensued, and these I cannot refrain from recounting. As it came out quite clearly upon their trial what had been the object and design of their theft, Governor Darling resolved that they should be treated with extra rigour, "it being an intolerable and dangerous idea that the situation of a soldier was worse than that of a convict or transported felon." The seven years at a penal settlement was therefore commuted to seven years hard labour in chains on the roads of the colony. The intention of this change was doubtless that their old comrades should sometimes see them as theywere marched to and fro; but besides this, it was ordered that at the end of their sentence they should return to their regiments. Therefore, after the proceedings of the trial had been promulgated, the prisoners were publicly stripped of their uniforms, iron collars with spikes projecting were placed around their necks, from which iron chains hung and were fastened to basils on their legs. Thus arrayed they were drummed out of their regiment (the 57th) to the tune of the Rogues' March. Under the horrors of this punishment one man, Sudds, immediately sank, and died the following day. The survivor then made a statement to the effect that Sudds complained bitterly of his chains. The projections on the collar prevented the prisoners from stretching at full length when lying on their backs. They could not lie at full length without contracting their legs, nor could they stand upright. The collar was too tight for Sudds' neck, and the basils too tight for the other's legs.
In reporting this whole case to the Secretary of State, Governor Darling says, "However much the event is to be regretted, it cannot be imputed to severity; none was practised or intended.... With respect to the chains which are designated instruments of torture, it will be sufficient to state that they weigh only 13 lbs. 12 ozs.; and though made with a view of producing an effect on those who were to witness the ceremony, the extreme lightness of their construction prevented them frombeing injurious in any respect to the individual." On the other hand, Laing says the irons usually made for the road gangs in the colony did not weigh more than from 6 to 9 lbs.; while those brought out for convicts on board prison ships from England weighed only from 3½ to 4 lbs.
Following all this came vituperative attacks in the press. Papers inspired by the government defended General Darling, and the fight was long and bitter. One result was the passing of several acts known as "Gagging Acts," intended to check the virulent abuse perpetually aimed at the government, but they failed to have the desired effect. Governor Darling grew more and more unpopular, and on leaving the colony he was threatened with impeachment. A Parliamentary commission did, eventually, inquire into his administration, and completely exonerated him from all charges.
Speaking of the trial and sentence of these soldiers, Laing observes,—"It would be unjust to consider Sir Ralph Darling's sentence by the light of public opinion in England. He was governor of a colony in which more than half the community were slaves and criminals; he had to arrest and punish the progress of a dangerous crime; but he fell into the error of exercising byex post factodecree, as the representative of the sovereign, powers which no sovereign has exercised since the time of Henry VIII, and violated one of the cardinal principles of the British Constitution by rejudgingand aggravating the punishment of men who had been already judged. At the present day it is only as an historical landmark that attention can be called to this transaction, which can never be repeated in British dominions." It is more than probable that, as a military officer of rank, he was doubly disposed to reprobate the offence recorded. All his soldierly instincts were doubtless hurt to the quick by the notion that the private men of an honourable profession preferred an ignominious sentence to service with the colours of their corps. From this came his uncompromising attitude, and the seemingly unjustifiable violence of his measures.
But except in this one instance, Sir Ralph Darling proved himself an efficient administrator. His sympathies were certainly with the "exclusionists" as against the "emancipists;" and therefore, by the latter and their organs, he was persistently misrepresented and abused. But he was distinctly useful in his generation. A most industrious public officer, he spared himself neither time nor trouble. Every matter, however unimportant, received his closest personal consideration. He may have made mistakes, but never through omission or neglect; besides which, he introduced order and regularity in the working of the state machine. Method followed disorganisation; ease and freedom, where before had been friction and clogging interference between its several parts. One of his earliest acts had been to regulate the system of granting land,which under the previous administration had fallen into some confusion. It was he who established a Land Board, and who ruled that grants were to be made to people only according to their means of improving the acres they got, and not as heretofore, simply in answer to mere application.
In these and other useful labours the lead he gave was consistently followed by his immediate successor, Sir Richard Bourke, who came to the colony in December, 1831. Although by the extension of the colony the personal character of the governor was no longer of such paramount importance as in earlier days, the arrival of an efficient administrator was a distinct benefit to the whole settlement. Sir Richard Bourke was unquestionably a man of character and vigour. The measures he introduced were all salutary. Not only did he encourage free immigration, but he made fresh laws for the distribution and coercion of the convict population. His regulations for assignment—to which I shall refer directly—were wisely planned; and the reforms he introduced in the constitution of the courts of justice were as sensible as they were necessary. He had found that the decisions of local magistrates in the cases of the misconduct of convict servants were extremely unequal: some were ludicrously lenient, others out of all proportion severe. He thought it advisable to establish some uniform system by which magistrates should be guided in the infliction of summary punishments; and he passed, therefore, anact known henceforth as the "Fifty Lashes Act." This substituted fifty lashes for the first offence cognisable in a summary way, in lieu of one hundred and fifty; and made the powers of a single magistrate somewhat less than those of a bench of two or more. At the same time it was ruled that a "cat" of uniform pattern should be used in every district. "Each bench had before superintended, or left to its inferior officers, the construction of its own scourges, which varied according to accident or caprice; nor could it ever be ascertained by the mere number of lashes ordered what degree of pain the culprit was likely to have suffered." This restriction of their power was not palatable to all the magistrates, and petitions were presented to His Excellency, protesting against his new act. They urged that now their authority was utterly derided. "Such a feeling," says Sir Richard, commenting on their petition, "is not to be considered extraordinary, as it requires much judgment and moderation to overcome the instinctive love of power.... The magistrates who felt the diminution of their power as a grievance may perhaps have been excited to expressions of complaint by the annoyance to which, in their character of settlers, they are exposed from the misconduct of their assigned servants. They do not perhaps consider that the natural dislike to compulsory labour, which is part of human nature, and has existed and ever will exist under every form or mode of government, must offer great difficultiesto those who seek to carry on their business by such means. Severity carried beyond a certain point, especially towards men of violent and turbulent feelings, will only tend to inflame this indisposition to labour with more dangerous acts of desperation and revenge."
However, to give the petitioners no just cause for complaint, he instituted a formal inquiry into "those circumstances connected with the discipline of the prison population which formed the subject of the petitions." Reports were called for from the police of the several districts. From them it was clearly apparent that fifty lashes with the new cat were quite enough for any one, provided they were properly administered. "The sufficiency of the law and of the instrument of corporal punishment, in all cases where proper superintendence is exercised, being thus established on unexceptionable evidence," His Excellency considered it would be inexpedient, nay, dangerous, to add to the severity of either, "merely because, in some instances, the wholesome vigour of the existing law has been impeded by a negligent or corrupt execution. In reading the reports which have been presented, the governor could not fail to observe that where punishments have been duly inflicted, the power of the magistrates has been anything but derided. While perusing these painful details, His Excellency has indeed had abundant reason to lament that the use of the whip should of necessity form so prominent a partof convict discipline in New South Wales; but believing it to be unavoidable, the governor must rely on the activity and discretion of the magistracy for insuring its wholesome and sufficient application."
The clear-sighted policy adopted by Sir Richard Bourke in carrying out the last mentioned reform was no less observable in his treatment of the question of assignment. The system by which servants were assigned to settlers was undoubtedly not altogether free from abuses. It was alleged that successive governments worked it quite as a source of patronage to themselves. Governor Darling had however established an assignment board, which to some extent equalised the distribution of the convicts among the settlers. But it remained for Sir Richard Bourke to put the whole question on a thoroughly satisfactory footing. The rules he promulgated did not make their appearance till he had been four years in the colony; after he had gained experience, that is to say, and time to consider the subject in all its practical bearings. Excellent though they were, they were rather late in the field. From the date of their appearance to that of the final suspension of transportation there were but five years to run. The pains taken by Sir Richard Bourke are evident from his despatch to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, dated June, 1835. He observes, "My chief object in this measure has been to substitute for the invidious distinction hitherto more or less vested in the officers entrustedwith the duty of assigning convicts to private service, strict rules of qualification, intelligible alike to the dispenser and receiver of penal labour, and from which no deviation shall be permitted. It is not until after much delay, and after maturely weighing the suggestions of the various parties, that I have ventured to deal with this important and difficult subject."
The main principle of the new regulations was that servants were to be assigned solely in proportion to the land the masters occupied. A carefully prepared scale was drawn up fixing this proportion, which, speaking roughly, was at the rate of one servant per 160 acres of ordinary land, and one per 20 acres under plow or hoe culture. At the same time it was ruled that, as all mechanics were more valuable than mere labourers, each of the former should be equal to two and sometimes three of the latter. Thus one blacksmith, bricklayer, carpenter, or cooper, counted as three labourers; while a plasterer, a tailor, shoemaker, or wool-sorter, counted only as two. An entirely new process of application for these servants was also laid down. A special sessions was to be held in every district in September, for the purpose of receiving and reporting on all such applications. It was the duty of the magistrates in sessions to "inquire into the correctness of the facts stated in each, requiring such evidence thereof as to them shall seem proper; and they shall in no case recommend the claim ofany applicant unless perfectly satisfied of the truth of the statement on which the application is founded."
Over and above this they were also required to look into the moral qualifications of the assignee. They were not to recommend any person "who is not free, of good character, capable of maintaining the servants applied for, and to whose care and management they may not be safely entrusted." Had this regulation been enforced at an earlier date the system of "assignment" might have been worked with greater success. The applications having been duly passed at sessions were then forwarded to the assignment board at Sydney. Throughout, the greatest care was taken to prevent underhand dealing: when eventually the time for actual assignment arrived, it was done by drawing lots, or rather numbers from a box in the office of the assignment board, and it was impossible for the officials to show favour or affection even had they been so inclined. The whole spirit of these regulations was thoroughly equitable and straightforward. The only object was to be fair to every one. Thus the land qualification was not insisted upon in the case of tradesmen who wanted assistance in their own calling; and respectable householders were also allowed to obtain indoor servants, though without an acre of land in the colony. With these rules were included others requiring masters to remove their servants without delay, and establishing certainpains and penalties against contravention of the new law.
These arrangements were indeed admirable, all of them, but they should have been earlier enforced. Not that Sir Richard Bourke was to blame for this. The change he instituted should have been made by his predecessors. But he was probably superior as an administrator to most who had gone before. At least he was clear-sighted enough to perceive that New South Wales had already outgrown the conditions of a mere penal settlement. He was of opinion that convict labour was no longer required, and that the abolition of transportation would be really a benefit to the colonial community. He was in this ahead of his time, but within a year or two of the close of his reign the same views began to be widely entertained both in Great Britain and her colonies. In fact, the period was now approaching when the idea of the possible abandonment of transportation was to take a tangible and substantial form.
Various conditions described—Arrival and treatment of newcomers—Hyde Park barracks for males—Parramatta factory for females—Behaviour of assignees to their convict servants—Treatment at out-stations—Labour—How enforced—Demeanour of convicts—Disciplinary methods—The lash the chief penalty.
Various conditions described—Arrival and treatment of newcomers—Hyde Park barracks for males—Parramatta factory for females—Behaviour of assignees to their convict servants—Treatment at out-stations—Labour—How enforced—Demeanour of convicts—Disciplinary methods—The lash the chief penalty.
British transportation divides itself naturally into three periods. The first comprises the early history of the penal colonies; the second treats of the days when "assignment" flourished, then fell into disrepute; the third saw the substitution of the "probation" system, its collapse; and finally, the abandonment of transportation beyond the seas. Transportation was really continued for some years after the collapse of the probation system in Van Diemen's Land, but only to the extent of sending a few hundreds annually to Western Australia, and in keeping up the convict establishments at Bermuda and Gibraltar. Having sketched this early history in the two preceding chapters, I propose to draw now a picture of convict life, and the state of the colonies generally during the second of these periods. I shall, in this, confine myself chiefly to NewSouth Wales, the details of management and the results having been much the same in Van Diemen's Land, or Tasmania as it is now called. But I shall refer more especially to that island in a later page.
To the voyage out and the internal management of convict ships I intend to devote a special chapter. Let us imagine that the anchor is dropped in Sydney harbour, and that the surgeon superintendent has gone on shore to make his bow to His Excellency the Governor of New South Wales and its dependencies. There is already plenty of excitement in the town. The ship had been signalled in the offing, and there are numbers of good people on the look out for useful hands from among its cargo. The days when convict labour was a drug in the market are past and gone; the rush for "assigned" servants is now so great that requisitions far in excess of the number available crowd the office of the assignment board. All sorts of tricks have been put in practice to get early information as to the qualifications of those on board: although the indent bearing the names of the new convicts goes first to the governor and then to the assignment officers, the cunning old stagers—not a few of them themselves emancipists—have found out privately from the surgeon or the master of the vessel whether there are upon the list any men likely to be useful to them. Thus a watchmaker seeks to obtain a watchmaker; an engraver, an engraver; printers, compositors; merchants want clerks, as doctors doassistants, or as the genteel folk—"ancients" they love to style themselves—do cooks, butlers, and ladies'-maids. Many got convicts assigned to them who were distinctly unfit and unworthy of the charge. Cases were indeed known of settlers, outwardly honest men, whose only object in asking for servants was to get assistants in thieving, cattle stealing, and other nefarious transactions. All who lived inland came off second best in the general rush: unless they had some friend on the spot to watch their interests they had to take their chance later on. But these too are in want of skilled labourers: one requires a carpenter to complete a new shed or roof to his house; another a blacksmith for the farm forge; and all would be glad of men with any agricultural training or skill. If the newly-arrived ship carries female convicts, there is similar anxiety. At one time governesses were frequently got from among these outcasts; but the practice of confiding the education of innocent children to such teachers appeared so monstrous that it was soon altogether discontinued. But nursemaids and other household servants were in eager request, and it must be confessed that the moral condition of the colony was such that many of the better looking female convicts were obtained without disguise for distinctly immoral purposes.
One and all were compelled to lodge their applications for assigned servants with the assignment board, where practically the decision rested. Thisboard was governed latterly by the clear and explicit rules laid down by Sir Richard Bourke, to which I have referred in the last chapter, but before these regulations were framed many malcontents among the settlers were ready to declare that assignment all depended upon favour and affection. "If you had no friend on the board," says one, "you might get a chimney-sweep when you wanted a cabinetmaker." In the same way complaints were made that the members of this board, and other officials in high place, were given as many assigned servants as they asked for. Thus the Chief Justice of the colony had forty, the Colonial Secretary fifty or sixty, the Brigade Major eight or ten. The principal landowners, too, were liberally supplied. One, a salt manufacturer, had sixty or seventy; another, with a farm of forty thousand acres, employed a couple of hundred servants. Laing declares that the assignment of useful hands depended often on petty services rendered to government, and that many of the settlers succeeded in getting on the weak side of the governor and his advisers.
But to return to the ship, which meanwhile lay out in the stream. No one was allowed to communicate with her, except the Colonial Secretary or his assistant. One of these officials having gone on board to muster all hands, inspect them, and investigate any complaints, as soon as these preliminaries were concluded the disembarkation took place at the dockyard. Male convicts were at once marched tothe Hyde Park barracks, where they paraded for the inspection of His Excellency the governor. Then the assignees, having been first informed of the numbers they were to receive, waited in person or sent for them, paying on receipt one pound per head for bedding and the convict clothes. Assignees failing to appear, or to remove the lots assigned to them, forfeited the grant. With the women the system was much the same. They were first mustered, then they landed, decked out in their finest feathers. There was no attempt to enforce a plain uniformity of attire; each woman wore silks and satins if she had them, with gay bonnets, bright ribbons, and showy parasols. Persons who had applied for female servants were present at the dockyard to receive them. After that all who remained on government charge—and their numbers were large, for female convicts were not in great demand—passed on next to the great central depot or factory at Parramatta.
As the Hyde Park barracks and the Parramatta factory were to a certain extent depot prisons for males and females respectively, a word about both will not be out of place here.
Until later years the men's barracks had been very negligently supervised. There was no attempt to enforce discipline within the walls. The convicts were not even kept under lock and key. Half at least were absent as a general rule all night, which they spent in prowling about, stealing anything theycould lay hands upon. The officers at the barracks were tampered with, and winked for substantial reasons at the nightly evasions of the prisoners in their charge. Even in the day time, and inside the walls, drunkenness was very rife, and with it perpetual pilfering from one another, and much general misconduct. Naturally in this universal slackness of control the lower officials fattened and grew rich at the public expense. Gross peculation and embezzlement were continually practised. The storekeeper was known to have abstracted supplies from government stock; and others on small salaries were found to have amassed considerable fortunes, building themselves fine villas in the best part of the town, and living on the fat of the land. Having thus full scope for license and depravity, it will be conceded that there was no attempt at punishment and restraint in this the first halting-place of the transport in the land of exile.
The condition of the Parramatta factory, the depot for females, was even more disgraceful. The building, not unlike an English workhouse, was large and stood amidst spacious courtyards and gardens. The accommodation provided was of the best. There was plenty of food and comfortable raiment. The women were not confined always within the walls, they had money in plenty, and there was little or no work to be done, even by those in the lower stages or classes. A few were made to wheel sand or gravel for gardening purposes, but the barrowsused were of light construction, and the women laughed openly and made a joke of the labour imposed. The administration of the establishment was entrusted for years to a matron, whose character, to say the least of it, hardly entitled her to so responsible a charge. It was alleged that she misappropriated the labour of the convicts, keeping back the best prisoners to employ them for the benefit of herself and her daughters. It was openly said, also, that these daughters were not a bit better than they should have been. There was some attempt at classification among the female convicts according to conduct and character, but the lowest of these classes was filled with women who had been returned from service or who were sentenced to remain at Parramatta till further orders. This was just what they wished. All the women much preferred to be at the factory. It was far better, they said, than at service. If any servant misbehaved, and was taken by her master before a magistrate, she said at once, "Send me back to the factory. Send me back." These scenes in court supply curious evidence of the condition of affairs. The women constantly made use of the most desperate and disgusting language. One, after threatening her master, suddenly spat in his face. Another, when sentenced to ten days on bread and water, was so insolent that the punishment was increased to thirty. "Oh! thank you," she said coolly; "couldn't you make it thirty-one?"—knowing perfectly well that thirty days was thelimit of the magistrate's power. No wonder that, with such material to choose from, decent people refused to receive convict maid-servants into their families. As a rule their characters were so bad, they gave so much annoyance, and disturbed to such an extent the peace and quiet of households, that the settlers would rather be without their assistance altogether. "They make execrable servants," says a Mr. Mudie, speaking from long experience. In many years he had only met one or two who were well behaved. Some were exceedingly savage, and thought nothing of doing serious mischief to any one. The most flagrant case of this was the assault on Captain Waldron, a retired officer and settler. Having reason to find fault with a woman for not cleaning his veranda, he threatened to send her back to the factory. "If you send her, you must send me too," cried another woman coming forward directly. High words followed; after which the two women threw themselves without warning on their master, got him down, and mauled him so seriously that he died of the injuries he received. Other servants, convicts also, were within earshot, but not one stirred a finger to help their master.
Not a pleasant picture this of the actual consequences of female transportation. Perhaps all the women were not originally bad, but the voyage out was a terrible ordeal to those who had still some faint glimmering left of the distinctions between right and wrong. Another observer remarks thatthe character and condition of these women was "as bad as it was possible for human beings to be; they were shockingly dissolute and depraved, steeped to the very core in profligacy and vice." But I will now leave them and return to the men, who formed the bulk of the convict population.
Let us take first the case of those assigned to settlers in the interior. The assignee, as I have said, attended and carried off his quota to dispose of them on his station, or otherwise, according to his discretion. To get the men home—often a long way off—was no easy matter. Sometimes the convict was given money and told to find his own way, and again the master assumed charge, and they marched in company. Then it happened, either that those left to themselves made straight for the nearest public-house, or that those under escort gave their masters the slip and traveled in the same direction. The next the assignee heard of his new servants was a demand made upon him to take them "out of pawn." Joining with old pals, these new chums, fresh from the restraint of the convict ship, had soon launched out into drunkenness or worse. As often as not, the master found them in the lock-up, with half their clothing gone, and charged with felony. Having cost money already, they now cost more; and the process might be repeated over and over again. Nevertheless, sooner or later, all or a part of the new labourers reached their destination. Here their position was quite that of slaves.The Transportation Act gave the governor of the colony a property in the services of every convict, and this property he made over to the assignee. The authority with which the settler became thereupon vested was not exactly absolute, but it was more than an ordinary master has over his apprentice. Nevertheless, the Australian master was bound to maintain and to protect his convict servant. He could not flog him, nor was he supposed to ill-treat him; besides, the law gave the convict the right of appeal and complaint against ill-usage. Maintenance was likewise provided by law. The regulation rations consisted weekly of seven pounds of fresh meat—beef or mutton—and eight pounds of flour, with salt, also soap and other necessaries; but this minimum allowance was often largely increased. The meat issue rose to eight or nine pounds; the flour to fourteen pounds; tea and sugar were added, and occasionally rum and tobacco. In spite of the danger of supplying such men with spirits, rum was openly given—as at time of sheep shearing, and so forth, when it was supposed to be needed medicinally. The occasion of a harvest-home was often the excuse for a general jollification. Many masters found that it was to their interest to feed their convict servants well. This was bribing them to do good work, and not a few people had more confidence in the efficacy of such treatment than in purely strict and coercive measures. Mr. Mudie, again, when before the ParliamentaryCommittee of 1837, confessed to having provided one servant with a flute, just to keep him in good humour. A good master was anxious to make his servants forget, if possible, that they were convicts. Really profitable labour, they argued, could only be got out of them by making them comfortable. Here at once was a departure from the very first principles of penal discipline. It was hardly intended that the felons who were transported as a punishment beyond the seas should be pampered and made much of, simply to put money into the pockets of private individuals. As a matter of fact the average actual condition of the convict servant, as far as food and lodging were concerned, was far superior to that of the honest field labourer at home, and under a good master, as we have seen, he was much better off than a soldier. He might be under some personal restraint, and there was a chance of being flogged if he misbehaved, but he had a great many comforts. He was allowed to marry, could never starve, and if industrious, might look forward in no remote period of time to rise to a position of ease, if not of actual affluence.
At all the large stations the daily routine of life was somewhat as follows: The big bell on the farm rang out an hour before sunrise, a second bell half an hour later, and a third when the sun appeared. It was the night watchman's business to ring the bells. At the last summons all hands turned out. The mechanics went to their various works, the bullockdrivers to their carts, the herdsmen to their cattle and pigs. As a general rule the heaviest labour to be performed was kept for the newest comers, so as to break them in. It was their business to clear the land, fell timber, and burn it. At eight came the breakfast bell, and with it an hour's rest. Dinner was at one, after which work was continued until sunset. At 8 or 9P. M., according to the season, a night bell recalled every one, and after that no convict was supposed to leave his hut. On the surface, then, no great amount of rest appeared to be allowed, except at actual meal times or after sundown; but the whole character of the work performed was desultory and far from satisfactory. A convict servant's value was estimated by people of experience at something much less than that of a free labourer; so much so that there were settlers who declared they would rather pay wages, as they lost rather than saved by this gratuitous labour. The convicts worked unwillingly almost always; sometimes they executed their tasks as badly as they could, on purpose to do injury. What leisure they had was not very profitably employed. One convict in twenty might read, and some few spent their time in plaiting straw hats for sale; but the greater number preferred to be altogether idle, unless they could get a pack of cards—forbidden fruit at every station, and yet generally attainable—in which case they were prepared to gamble and quarrel all the night through. There was little or no supervisionover them in their huts. It was quite impossible to keep them inside. No kind of muster was feasible or even safe. The overseers were really afraid to visit the men's huts much after dark, fearing to be attacked or openly maltreated. It would have been far better if a strong stockade, with high palisading, had been in all cases substituted for the huts. The latter were open always, so that after the last bell at night, any—and they were not a few—who chose crept out and spent the whole of the dark hours on the prowl. Of course the convicts were incorrigible thieves, and the whole country side was laid under contributions by them while thus nightly at large. Sunday was another day which gave these idle hands abundant opportunities for mischief. Of course there was no regular work done on the farm on that day; but there was no attempt, either, to enforce religious observances in lieu thereof. The want of provision for public worship was at this time largely felt throughout the colony, and seldom were churches at hand for the convicts to attend, even if such attendance had been insisted upon. Some few superintendents of farms took their convicts to church, if there was one in the neighbourhood, but cases of this were few and far between. Even if there was a church, all who could do so, sneaked out of the way on pretence of going to bathe, and so escaped the service.
Thus far I have described only the pleasant side of a convict's life up the country. On the whole itwas far from irksome. Nevertheless, as a set-off against the home comforts and the comparative idleness, there was the total want of freedom of action, coupled with strictly enforced submissiveness of demeanour. A convict was expected to be even cringingly subservient in manner. For insolent words, nay, looks, as betraying an insubordinate and insurgent spirit, he might be incontinently scourged. In this way he was subject to the capricious temper, not only of his master, but of the whole of the master's family. Then the local magistrates had great powers. Singly a magistrate could sentence any man to be flogged for drunkenness, disobedience, neglect of work, or absconding; with others assembled in petty sessions, they had power, however, to inflict heavier punishments for graver offences. In "Byrne's Travels" I find mention made of several convicts who had received in the aggregate many thousand lashes. The same writer asserts that he once had an assigned servant upon whom 2,275 had been inflicted. This man was said to have grown so callous that he was heard to declare he would rather suffer a thousand lashes than the shortest term of imprisonment. Life could not be very enjoyable to men liable to such treatment. And this code was for the convicts and for them alone. Another law applied to the masters, in whom, indeed, was vested a tremendous power for good or evil. Some, as I have before remarked, were quite unfit persons to have the charge of felonservants, being themselves little better than convicts, and prepared at any time to consort with them and make them their intimate friends. Others of the better classes often delegated their authority to overseers, being either non-resident on their farms, or not caring to exercise personal control. In many cases these overseers were ex-convicts, and although it might be considered advisable that the master should not make himself too cheap, and that a middleman should be employed to come into direct communion with the convict himself, still every precaution should have been taken to prevent any abuse of power. In point of fact every well-ordered establishment should have been uniformly under the eye of its resident owner.
But in reality the lot of the convict in assignment was left altogether to chance. According to his luck in masters, he might be very miserable, or as happy as the day was long: one master might be lenient, giving good food and exacting but little labour in return; another, a perfect fiend. It was quite a lottery into which sort of hands the convict fell, for until 1835 there was little or no inquiry into the character of applicants for servants, and except in the most flagrant cases requisitions were never refused.
This, indeed, comprised one of the chief objections to the system of assignment. It was altogether too much a matter of haphazard. No system of penal discipline ought to be left thus tochance; yet as we have seen, there was no supervision and little attempt to enforce hard labour or any stringent code of discipline. This neglect fostered evil courses, and tended to increase the temptations to crime. Nor was the style of labour provided that which was always most suited to the persons for whom it was intended. In some few cases it was proper enough. Men employed as shepherds were perforce compelled to drop into regular habits from being obliged to go out and return with their herds at fixed hours, and they lived much alone. But these were only a small proportion of the whole number, and the balance working in association had many opportunities for developing vicious qualities by this corrupting intercourse. Especially was this the case with the mounted herdsmen, who were free to gallop about the country, collecting together in large numbers at the squatters' huts to drink and gamble and plot schemes of depredation.
These squatters, who about this period—1825-35—sprang up in rank growth round about the principal stations, did much to give annoyance, and to increase the difficulties of the settlers. They were mostly emancipists or ticket-of-leave men, who occupied crown pastures without paying for them, or spent their energies in stealing horses and cattle. Sometimes they established themselves at the corners of the settlers' own grants of land, getting as near to estates as they couldwithout detection. Their principal object in life seemed to make themselves useful to the convicts employed near them, for whom they kept "sly grog-shops," where they sold or bartered liquor for stolen goods. This ready market for stolen property was a source of great loss to the settlers. One calculated that it cost him £200 or £300 a year. Pigs, sheep, harness in bags, flour on its way to market—all these were purloined in large quantities, and passed at once to the receivers, who gave rum in exchange, and sometimes tea, sugar, and tobacco. The squatters were fined if caught at these illicit practices, but to recover money from them was like getting blood out of a stone. Another favouritemodus operandiwas to knock up a sort of shanty close by some halting-place on the main line of road, where there was water handy and the drays could be made snug for the night. The draymen naturally flocked to the grog-shop, and naturally also obtained the sinews of war by making free with their masters' property.
In the foregoing pages I have dwelt chiefly on assignment to the country districts. But every convict did not of course go to the interior. Many were assigned in the towns. Now, whatever evils may have surrounded the system as carried out inland, the practice of town assignment was infinitely worse in every respect. In the first place, it led to the congregation of large numbers in places where there were many more temptations to profligacy andcrime. And just as these were increased, so were the supervision and control that would check them diminished till they sank to almost nothing at all. Country convicts, as we have seen, were not much hampered by rules; but those in towns were free to do just as they pleased. It was impossible for the masters to enforce any regulations. In the hours of work, such as they were, the convicts might perhaps be kept out of harm's way more or less, according to the character and style of their employment; but labour over, they had great license and were practically free men. Household servants were as well off as servants at home in England: they frequented theatres and places of amusement, and the badge of their disgrace was kept altogether in the background. Masters were not compelled by law to enforce any particular discipline; nor would the most strict among them dare to exercise much surveillance over their servants. Such conduct would have been rare and singular, and it would have drawn down upon them the animosity, or worse, of the whole convict class. Such was the state of affairs that this body really possessed some power, and could not openly be affronted.
Convicts were required in the towns, as in the country, to be within doors by 8P. M.; but unhappily this rule was quite a dead letter. The Sydney police was miserably inefficient. Recruited from the convict ranks, they were known on all occasions to favour openly their old associates. If they gaveinformation they were called "noses," which they disliked; or worse, they were hooted, sometimes attacked and half killed. They were known, too, to take bribes, and to be generally most neglectful of their duties. It was not to be expected, therefore, that from them would come any zealous supervision of the convicts still in assignment, even to the extent of sending all such to their homes after 8P. M., or of preventing the commission of petty offences. But as a matter of fact, the police were never certain whether half the men they met were convicts in assigned service or people actually free. Sydney was by this time so large, and the convicts so numerous, that it was next to impossible for a constable to know every one he met, by sight. None of the assigned servants in towns wore any distinctive dress. Those in government hands wore gray, and the chain-gangs a parti-coloured suit of yellow and brown cloth, but the assigned servants appeared in their masters' liveries, or clothed just as it pleased them. Recognition was not likely to be easy or frequent. Even in our own day, with admirable police machinery, the thorough supervision of criminals at large is not always obtained. In Sydney, seventy years ago, it was lamentably below the mark. Often enough men who had arrived in recent ships, having been assigned in due course, were soon lost sight of, to reappear presently under another name, as men quite free. They had proved themselves so useful that their masters wished to givethem sole charge of a business, which, if still convicts, they could not assume. In this way it was discovered that an assigned convict servant had charge of a tan-yard close under the eyes of the police, but here it was proved that the police had connived at a grave neglect of duty.
It followed, too, from the nature of their previous vocations, that the convicts assigned in towns were the sharpest and most intelligent of their class. They were therefore the more prone to dissipation, and the more difficult to restrain within bounds. Knowing their value, they presumed on it, and felt that they were too useful to be sent off as rough farm hands into the interior. Here was another blot in the system of assignment, and generally on the whole principle of transportation. The punishment fell quite unequally on offenders. The biggest villains and the most hardened offenders fell naturally into the lightest "billets;" while the half-educated country bumpkin, whose crime may have been caused by ignorance or neglect, was made a hewer of wood and drawer of water. Prominent among those of the first class were specials, or gentlemen convicts, as they were styled; men sentenced for "genteel" crimes, forgery only, or embezzlement, but whose delicate fingers had never handled the cracksman's jimmy, or tampered with foil or blow. These genteel criminals were forever, through all the days of transportation, a thorn in the side of the administration, and they werealways treated with far more consideration than they deserved. Some of these were well-known men, like one who had been a captain in the royal navy, and whose proclivities were so ineradicable that he suffered a second sentence at Norfolk Island for forgery, his favourite crime. From among this class the lawyers selected their clerks, and the auctioneers their assistants. If unusually well-educated they became teachers in schools, and were admitted as such even into the public seminaries of Sydney. A flagrant instance of the consequences of this injudicious practice is quoted by Laing—a clergyman's son, who had a convict tutor, coming himself, under the influence of such a man's teaching, to be also a convict sentenced to transportation for life.
There was another very improper proceeding which for a long time held among the convicts of this superior or more wealthy class. Their wives followed them out to the antipodes, bringing with them often the bulk of their ill-gotten gains. Having thus ample funds, they established themselves well on arrival, and applied for a grant of convicts like the rest of their neighbours. Naturally they took care to secure that their own husbands should be among the number. There was one man who had received a very heavy sentence for the robbery of a custom house, who should have gone direct to Norfolk Island. Through some bribery he was landed at Sydney, and was made overseer at once of a gang working in the street. Within a day ortwo he absconded. His wife had joined him with the proceeds of the robbery, and they went off together. Mr. Macarthur gives another case of a farrier who was assigned to him. This convict's wife followed him, and asked permission to live with him on Mr. Macarthur's farm. When this was refused the man managed to get returned to Sydney, and was there reassigned to his wife. To something of this kind some of the largest shops in Sydney owed their origin.
Among the many lighter and more remunerative kinds of employment into which the convict of the special class readily fell, was employment on the public press. As time passed there had grown up a strong antagonism between bond and free, and both sides had their newspapers. The organs which were emancipist in tone were not of the highest class, but they were often conducted with considerable ability. Their staff was of course recruited from the convict ships as they arrived, where compositors, leader writers, and even sub-editors were occasionally to be found. The most notorious instance of this description, was the case of W., who was originally assigned as a servant to the proprietor of theSydney Gazette. This paper, which was then published only three times a week, was an able and influential journal, and its editor and owner was a certain O'S., who had himself been assigned to a former proprietor, and by him employed as a reporter. To him came W., and these two, accordingto Dr. Laing, bent all their energies to compass "the abolition of all the moral distinctions that the law of God has established in society; to persuade the public that the free emigrant was no better than the convict, that the whole community was equally corrupt, and those of the convict class were no worse than the best in the colony, their situation being the result of misfortune, as they pretended, and not of misconduct."
W. was a Scotchman, who had been outlawed for some misdemeanour in the office of a solicitor by whom he had been employed in Edinburgh; he then went to London, and was taken into a large mercantile house, Morrison's; from which, for embezzlement, he was transported for fourteen years. He was sent out in Governor Darling's time, and was sent to Wellington Valley, then a penal settlement for educated convicts. He stayed there but a short time, thanks to his interest with the superintendent, and returning to Sydney obtained a ticket-of-leave, being afterwards employed as a clerk in the corporation office, under the archdeacon of the colony. On the dissolution of the corporation he was no longer required there, but he found great demand for his services from editors of newspapers, having two sub-editorships offered to him at the same time. He went to theSydney Gazette, and thenceforward had it under his entire control, the ostensible editor being a person of dissipated habits, who let him do as he pleased. This W. was a man of considerabletalent. From that time forth he proved a source of prodigious demoralisation from the sentiments he disseminated, and the use he made of the powerful engine he had under his control, in endeavouring to exasperate the prison part of the population against the free emigrants. He was tried at length on a charge of having bribed a compositor to steal a printed slip from another newspaper office in the colony. The printed slip was a proof of a letter that had been sent for publication to the editor of the paper, and which contained libellous matter, reflecting on the character of a certain emancipist. The letter was not very carefully examined by the editor until it had been set up in type, but on discovering the nature of its contents he considered that he ought not to publish it. Though actually printed, it never appeared in the paper. W. came to know that such a paper was in type, and he bribed a convict compositor in the office to which the letter had been sent to purloin a copy, or one of the proofs of the letter. He then sent the letter in an envelope through the post to the person libelled, in order that there might be proof of its publication. The person to whom the letter referred thereupon brought an action against the editor of the paper to which it had been sent, and endeavoured to establish the fact of publication from the circumstance of his having received the letter through the public post; but the action failed. On inquiry, W.'s complicity in the matter was discovered, and he was tried for beinga party to the theft. Of this he was acquitted, as the property found was not of value sufficient to constitute grand larceny; but the judge considered that he should not be allowed to remain at Sydney, and the governor sent him to Port Macquarie, a station for gentlemen convicts. Though now two hundred and fifty miles from Sydney, he still continued to contribute articles to theSydney Gazette; and soon afterwards the widow of the late proprietor of the paper, into whose good graces he had insinuated himself, went down to Port Macquarie and married him. He then got into trouble by stirring up a feud between the harbour master and a police magistrate. In the investigation which followed, both these officials were dismissed and W.'s ticket-of-leave was cancelled. He was sentenced to be classed again with the convicts in government hands, and on hearing this he absconded. Nothing more was heard of him.
I think it will be evident from what I have said that the actual condition of men who were in assigned service was not very disagreeable if they were skilful hands and useful to their masters. This much established, they found their lives were cast in pleasant places. They did not want for money: they were allowed openly a portion of their earnings, and these gains were often largely increased by illegal methods. Besides this, many masters gave their servants funds to provide for themselves. They even went so far as to allow their men tomarry—saddling themselves with the responsibility of having perhaps to keep both convict and his family. These convict marriages, when permitted, took place generally in the convict class, though cases were known of free women who had married assigned servants, andvice versa. Among the latter, Byrne, in his "Travels," speaks of a certain old lady, the mother of very respectable people, who had married when a convict, and who did not, to the day of her death, quite abandon the habits of her former condition. Her husband had been an officer of high rank, and her sons rose to wealth and prosperity in the colony; but no considerations for the feelings of those belonging to her were sufficient to wean her from her evil propensities. She was so passionately addicted to drink, that it was in vain her children sought to keep her with them: she always escaped, taking with her all on which she could lay hands, and returned to her favorite associates—the brick-makers in the suburbs of Sydney.
But such marriages as these were the exception. As a general rule the assigned servant, whether in town or country, paid a visit to Parramatta factory, and made his case known to the matron by whom it was governed. "Turn out the women of such and such a class," forthwith cries Mrs. G., and the marriageable ladies come trooping down, to be ranked up in a row like soldiers, or like cattle at a fair. Benedict walks down and inspects, then throws his handkerchief, and if the bride be willing, the tworetire to a corner to talk a little together. If the conversation is not quite satisfactory to "Smith,Aboukir," or "Jones,Lady Dacre,"[1]he makes a second selection; and so on, perhaps, with three or four. Cases were known of fastidious men who had run through several hundreds, and had declared in the end that there was not a single woman to suit. Others were less particular. Men up country have been known to leave the choice to their masters, upon the latter's next visit to Sydney. There was of course no security against bigamy: often both parties to the colonial marriage had wife or husband alive at home, and just as inevitably the conduct of these factory brides was most questionable after the new knot was tied.