FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[253]Address to Council, June, 1841.[254]Sir James Graham, December, 1842.[255]Report of Emigration Commissioners.[256]"It is but just for me to observe, that the state of various convict establishments, inquiring into the conduct of the various officers engaged, was not so generally unfavorable as I had been led to anticipate. The negligence and irregularity of subordinate officers cannot be denied."—La Trobe's Despatch, November, 1847.[257]Forster's Report, 1845.[258]Despatches: Sir Eardley Wilmot, acting Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe, and Governor Denison.[259]Despatch, 1843, No. 34.[260]Despatch, 1844.[261]The proceedings of the colonists, in reference to this question, will be found in the first volume of this work.[262]Forster's Report.[263]"Employment, in many cases, appeared to be merely devised, because whether to the real advantage of the military chest or not, they are certainly not to the colony."—Le Trobe, November, 1847.[264]March, 1846.[265]September, 1845.[266]Forster's Report, 1844.[267]"Under all the circumstances of the case, therefore, I cannot find language sufficiently strong, to express my opinion that convicts, considered deserving of any indulgence whatever, ought not to be sent to Van Diemen's Land; ... for, in my opinion, it would be more just and humane to shut up Pentonville Prison at once, than to pass men through such a course of training, only to discover, on arriving here, that their previous expectations are a mockery, their present prospects worse than slavery, and their future moral ruin and contamination nearly a certainty."—April, 1845.[268]Sir Eardley Wilmot's despatch, 1846.[269]La Trobe's despatch, 1847, No. 18.[270]Letter to Dr. Hampton, 1845.[271]The writer thus records his opinion in 1850:—"If transportation were discontinued, and the colonists, under a free government, were allowed to exercise their own intelligence and develop the resources of their country, the stain and evils of having been the receptacle of criminals would gradually and speedily disappear.... For nearly ten years have the colonists been struggling to relieve themselves from the annual importation of criminals, and throughout that long period they have displayed a spirit and disposition worthy of the highest admiration. Regardless of the profits of convict labor, and of the immense government expenditure, they preferred any sacrifice to the continuance of what they considered demoralising their community. In future ages their conduct will be regarded as one of the few examples of a people struggling against temporal advantages for morality and virtue; and if the desire of removing a grievous injury, and aiding the sufferers in recovering from its effects, be a noble feeling, the people of England are bound to afford their powerful sympathy and assistance to the inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land."—A System of Penal Discipline, with a Report on the Treatment of Prisoners in Great Britain and Van Diemen's Land. By the Rev. H. P. Fry, A.B.[272]"A settler in the interior loses a quantity of sheep: whether correctly or not, he believes that they are stolen by probationers. Perhaps they are sold, perhaps they are slaughtered, and the wool 'planted.' He finds two members of the gang wandering over his grounds: he suspects, challenges them, and on their refusal to withdraw, attempts to arrest them. One of them seizes him by the throat, and threatens his life: the timely appearance of his brother enables him to secure them both. He conveys them to the station, lays before the magistrate a charge, who sentences them. They are turned out among the gang, without special permanent restraint, and abscond again. Our readers may fancy this to be mere romance, but every word of it is truth, and the detailed account will be found in another column. The place is Oatlands; the complainant, Mr. Wilson; the time, last week. Let us look at this case. A settler who bought his land from the government, finds in his neighbourhood ninety convicts, in the charge of a single overseer. His property, and it is impossible it should be otherwise, is subjected to daily depredation. And who is the real robber? Who, at least, are the more accountable parties? The men whose known propensities have occasioned their transportation—the unfortunate overseer, whose life hangs upon his connivance or indifference—or the government, which, knowing all these circumstances, exposed the men to temptation, and the settler to ruin? And what will be the result of all this? The unfortunate settler will chafe, murmur, and implore, but he must, at last, gather together the remnant of his property, and escape for his life!"—Observer, March, 1846."In another column will be found the proceedings of the criminal court. The puisne judge, in passing sentence on the prisoners, said 'it must be remembered that there are from 20,000 to 30,000 men spread throughout the country, whose increasing offences require that some signal examples should be made. I am sorry to say that crime has increased amongst this class very considerably within the last two or three years.' After dwelling upon the absolute necessity that the executive should rigidly carry out the sentences of the court, he added, 'I am sorry to say that within the last two or three sessions some twenty or thirty cases of this description (cutting and wounding) have been tried in this court, as great a number as were formerly tried in two or three years, and also of a more aggravated character.'"—Ibid."The evidence of Mr. James Arnold Wheeler, the superintendent of the St. Mary's Pass station, exposed some of the beauties of the system. A hawker was robbed within about a mile of the station under very aggravated circumstances, by men in the dress of probationers. It was, of course, important to ascertain who was absent from the station at that particular period, and Mr. Wheeler stated that he could not tell, as all the third class had liberty to roam about within hearing of the bell, about half a mile in any direction from the establishment. When asked by the judge what prevented the men from going further if they pleased? he replied, nothing, provided they returned at a certain hour.' His honor shook his head in silence."—Examiner, 1846."During the trial of John Burdett in the supreme court, on the 2nd instant, for robbery, the prosecutor, an old man between 60 and 70, swore that he had been robbed (his property taken) seven times since last Christmas; that his bed, rug, and blanket had been taken from his hut; that he lived a mile and a-half from Oyster Cove probation station; that he was reduced to such straits that he now depends on his neighbours for a little bread to eat; that the superintendent's lady had given him a rug and a blanket, but he had nothing but straw to sleep upon. There is only an open four-rail fence outside the station to confine the prisoners after they are let out of their sleeping cells. Mr. Justice Montagu commented, with indignation, upon the total want of restraint upon the probationers, and of protection to the poor settlers in the neighbourhood of the station; and expressed, in feeling terms, his sympathy for the prosecutor's distress and losses, and kindly declared that, if the old man would prepare a petition, and forward it to him, he would take care that the clerk of the court should give the jurors an opportunity to join in it, and would use his best endeavours with his excellency the lieutenant-governor, who, he was sure, would feel happiness in extending compensation, if it were in his power. In passing sentence of transportation for fifteen years (the lightest which the law permits in cases of robbery), his honor protested that, considering the position of the prisoner, placed in a probation station but having no restraint laid upon him to prevent from going in quest of luxuries and comforts, he would be fain to pass a lighter sentence. He felt the inefficiency of the sentence that he was about to pronounce, but he had no alternative. Accordingly he passed the mitigated sentence of fifteen years transportation."—Courier, September, 1846.[273]Despatch to Earl Grey, 1847.

[253]Address to Council, June, 1841.

[254]Sir James Graham, December, 1842.

[255]Report of Emigration Commissioners.

[256]"It is but just for me to observe, that the state of various convict establishments, inquiring into the conduct of the various officers engaged, was not so generally unfavorable as I had been led to anticipate. The negligence and irregularity of subordinate officers cannot be denied."—La Trobe's Despatch, November, 1847.

[257]Forster's Report, 1845.

[258]Despatches: Sir Eardley Wilmot, acting Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe, and Governor Denison.

[259]Despatch, 1843, No. 34.

[260]Despatch, 1844.

[261]The proceedings of the colonists, in reference to this question, will be found in the first volume of this work.

[262]Forster's Report.

[263]"Employment, in many cases, appeared to be merely devised, because whether to the real advantage of the military chest or not, they are certainly not to the colony."—Le Trobe, November, 1847.

[264]March, 1846.

[265]September, 1845.

[266]Forster's Report, 1844.

[267]"Under all the circumstances of the case, therefore, I cannot find language sufficiently strong, to express my opinion that convicts, considered deserving of any indulgence whatever, ought not to be sent to Van Diemen's Land; ... for, in my opinion, it would be more just and humane to shut up Pentonville Prison at once, than to pass men through such a course of training, only to discover, on arriving here, that their previous expectations are a mockery, their present prospects worse than slavery, and their future moral ruin and contamination nearly a certainty."—April, 1845.

[268]Sir Eardley Wilmot's despatch, 1846.

[269]La Trobe's despatch, 1847, No. 18.

[270]Letter to Dr. Hampton, 1845.

[271]The writer thus records his opinion in 1850:—"If transportation were discontinued, and the colonists, under a free government, were allowed to exercise their own intelligence and develop the resources of their country, the stain and evils of having been the receptacle of criminals would gradually and speedily disappear.... For nearly ten years have the colonists been struggling to relieve themselves from the annual importation of criminals, and throughout that long period they have displayed a spirit and disposition worthy of the highest admiration. Regardless of the profits of convict labor, and of the immense government expenditure, they preferred any sacrifice to the continuance of what they considered demoralising their community. In future ages their conduct will be regarded as one of the few examples of a people struggling against temporal advantages for morality and virtue; and if the desire of removing a grievous injury, and aiding the sufferers in recovering from its effects, be a noble feeling, the people of England are bound to afford their powerful sympathy and assistance to the inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land."—A System of Penal Discipline, with a Report on the Treatment of Prisoners in Great Britain and Van Diemen's Land. By the Rev. H. P. Fry, A.B.

[272]"A settler in the interior loses a quantity of sheep: whether correctly or not, he believes that they are stolen by probationers. Perhaps they are sold, perhaps they are slaughtered, and the wool 'planted.' He finds two members of the gang wandering over his grounds: he suspects, challenges them, and on their refusal to withdraw, attempts to arrest them. One of them seizes him by the throat, and threatens his life: the timely appearance of his brother enables him to secure them both. He conveys them to the station, lays before the magistrate a charge, who sentences them. They are turned out among the gang, without special permanent restraint, and abscond again. Our readers may fancy this to be mere romance, but every word of it is truth, and the detailed account will be found in another column. The place is Oatlands; the complainant, Mr. Wilson; the time, last week. Let us look at this case. A settler who bought his land from the government, finds in his neighbourhood ninety convicts, in the charge of a single overseer. His property, and it is impossible it should be otherwise, is subjected to daily depredation. And who is the real robber? Who, at least, are the more accountable parties? The men whose known propensities have occasioned their transportation—the unfortunate overseer, whose life hangs upon his connivance or indifference—or the government, which, knowing all these circumstances, exposed the men to temptation, and the settler to ruin? And what will be the result of all this? The unfortunate settler will chafe, murmur, and implore, but he must, at last, gather together the remnant of his property, and escape for his life!"—Observer, March, 1846."In another column will be found the proceedings of the criminal court. The puisne judge, in passing sentence on the prisoners, said 'it must be remembered that there are from 20,000 to 30,000 men spread throughout the country, whose increasing offences require that some signal examples should be made. I am sorry to say that crime has increased amongst this class very considerably within the last two or three years.' After dwelling upon the absolute necessity that the executive should rigidly carry out the sentences of the court, he added, 'I am sorry to say that within the last two or three sessions some twenty or thirty cases of this description (cutting and wounding) have been tried in this court, as great a number as were formerly tried in two or three years, and also of a more aggravated character.'"—Ibid."The evidence of Mr. James Arnold Wheeler, the superintendent of the St. Mary's Pass station, exposed some of the beauties of the system. A hawker was robbed within about a mile of the station under very aggravated circumstances, by men in the dress of probationers. It was, of course, important to ascertain who was absent from the station at that particular period, and Mr. Wheeler stated that he could not tell, as all the third class had liberty to roam about within hearing of the bell, about half a mile in any direction from the establishment. When asked by the judge what prevented the men from going further if they pleased? he replied, nothing, provided they returned at a certain hour.' His honor shook his head in silence."—Examiner, 1846."During the trial of John Burdett in the supreme court, on the 2nd instant, for robbery, the prosecutor, an old man between 60 and 70, swore that he had been robbed (his property taken) seven times since last Christmas; that his bed, rug, and blanket had been taken from his hut; that he lived a mile and a-half from Oyster Cove probation station; that he was reduced to such straits that he now depends on his neighbours for a little bread to eat; that the superintendent's lady had given him a rug and a blanket, but he had nothing but straw to sleep upon. There is only an open four-rail fence outside the station to confine the prisoners after they are let out of their sleeping cells. Mr. Justice Montagu commented, with indignation, upon the total want of restraint upon the probationers, and of protection to the poor settlers in the neighbourhood of the station; and expressed, in feeling terms, his sympathy for the prosecutor's distress and losses, and kindly declared that, if the old man would prepare a petition, and forward it to him, he would take care that the clerk of the court should give the jurors an opportunity to join in it, and would use his best endeavours with his excellency the lieutenant-governor, who, he was sure, would feel happiness in extending compensation, if it were in his power. In passing sentence of transportation for fifteen years (the lightest which the law permits in cases of robbery), his honor protested that, considering the position of the prisoner, placed in a probation station but having no restraint laid upon him to prevent from going in quest of luxuries and comforts, he would be fain to pass a lighter sentence. He felt the inefficiency of the sentence that he was about to pronounce, but he had no alternative. Accordingly he passed the mitigated sentence of fifteen years transportation."—Courier, September, 1846.

"In another column will be found the proceedings of the criminal court. The puisne judge, in passing sentence on the prisoners, said 'it must be remembered that there are from 20,000 to 30,000 men spread throughout the country, whose increasing offences require that some signal examples should be made. I am sorry to say that crime has increased amongst this class very considerably within the last two or three years.' After dwelling upon the absolute necessity that the executive should rigidly carry out the sentences of the court, he added, 'I am sorry to say that within the last two or three sessions some twenty or thirty cases of this description (cutting and wounding) have been tried in this court, as great a number as were formerly tried in two or three years, and also of a more aggravated character.'"—Ibid.

"The evidence of Mr. James Arnold Wheeler, the superintendent of the St. Mary's Pass station, exposed some of the beauties of the system. A hawker was robbed within about a mile of the station under very aggravated circumstances, by men in the dress of probationers. It was, of course, important to ascertain who was absent from the station at that particular period, and Mr. Wheeler stated that he could not tell, as all the third class had liberty to roam about within hearing of the bell, about half a mile in any direction from the establishment. When asked by the judge what prevented the men from going further if they pleased? he replied, nothing, provided they returned at a certain hour.' His honor shook his head in silence."—Examiner, 1846.

"During the trial of John Burdett in the supreme court, on the 2nd instant, for robbery, the prosecutor, an old man between 60 and 70, swore that he had been robbed (his property taken) seven times since last Christmas; that his bed, rug, and blanket had been taken from his hut; that he lived a mile and a-half from Oyster Cove probation station; that he was reduced to such straits that he now depends on his neighbours for a little bread to eat; that the superintendent's lady had given him a rug and a blanket, but he had nothing but straw to sleep upon. There is only an open four-rail fence outside the station to confine the prisoners after they are let out of their sleeping cells. Mr. Justice Montagu commented, with indignation, upon the total want of restraint upon the probationers, and of protection to the poor settlers in the neighbourhood of the station; and expressed, in feeling terms, his sympathy for the prosecutor's distress and losses, and kindly declared that, if the old man would prepare a petition, and forward it to him, he would take care that the clerk of the court should give the jurors an opportunity to join in it, and would use his best endeavours with his excellency the lieutenant-governor, who, he was sure, would feel happiness in extending compensation, if it were in his power. In passing sentence of transportation for fifteen years (the lightest which the law permits in cases of robbery), his honor protested that, considering the position of the prisoner, placed in a probation station but having no restraint laid upon him to prevent from going in quest of luxuries and comforts, he would be fain to pass a lighter sentence. He felt the inefficiency of the sentence that he was about to pronounce, but he had no alternative. Accordingly he passed the mitigated sentence of fifteen years transportation."—Courier, September, 1846.

[273]Despatch to Earl Grey, 1847.

The notices of the treatment of female prisoners in this work have been few. Until recently, the attention of the English government has been almost entirely confined to the management of male convicts; and the impression has been always too general, that the unhappy women are beyond recovery. In the local discussion of the convict question the deliberate opinion of Captain Forster has been usually adopted, by all who have seen the conduct of the women. "I have not," said that distinguished officer, "entered upon the topic of discipline for female convicts, not considering them available subjects for prison discipline." (1837)Colonial experience, before and since, would hardly authorise any other conclusion.

The first female transports were left to the casualties of a convict colony. Some, who were adopted by the officers, became the mothers of respectable families: some wholly emerged from their degradation, and became respectable wives; but, for the most part, they merely exhibited the depth to which vice can depress. Nearly 20,000 have been transported; of these, a considerable proportion have fallen victims to intemperance, and sunk into a premature grave.

The description of the conduct of female prisoners is so uniform, that any date and any account might be joined at random. Those who read the works of Collins, of Read, of Henderson, and of Lang, and compare them with each other, and with works of the present time, will find little variety of incident. They represent woman deprived of the graces of her own sex, and more than invested with the vices of man.

The transportation of women has been a great social evil to the colonies. At first it seemed unavoidable: it was afterwards deemed highly expedient, for reasons it is not necessary to describe. Yet it is not too much to attribute the chief vexations of domestic life to their character and conduct. It would have been better for the nation, for the male convicts, and for the women themselves, had they been detained at home, or banished to countries where they would have avoided the double degradation of moral and social infamy.[274]Such were the views of many most enlightened men. The extreme difficulty of finding them employment as servants, and their perpetual relapses, have induced the government usually to encourage, at first concubinage, and, in more scrupulous times—marriage: in some instances with great success. It is the last expedient in the administration of penal laws; when it fails, the case is considered hopeless.

The number of females transported, until within twelve years, were about 1 to 10 men; since then, they have been about 1 to 7. The penalty has been inflicted for the lighter crimes; and in many instances the Irish courts must have been influenced rather by a vague notion of humanity than of punishing offenders. Such are often young creatures: not a few could be scarcely considered depraved.

The accumulation on the hands of the government has been usually very great, and curious expedients have beendevised to dispose of the burden. The factory at Parramatta, in former times, was a mart of women. Thither the laboring man went in search of a wife, and often, after a general survey, selected one on the spot. These marriages were not always a failure, but far the greater number ended in intemperance and prostitution.

To overcome the reluctance of the settlers to employ them, Sir George Murray, when secretary for the colonies, directed the governor to compel the settlers to receive one woman with three or four men (1829). The effect of this stipulation was probably never considered. The condition of the better disposed has been one of great hazard and temptation. The last state of female degradation was often their inevitable lot. They were surrendered to solicitations and even violence: a convict constable conducted them to the houses of their master; they lodged on the road, wherever they could obtain shelter; convict servants were usually their companions,—or when their manners were superior to their class, corrupters of a higher rank were always at hand to betray or destroy them. Reformation has been commonly deemed unattainable, and precautions useless.

The influence of such persons on the tone of society, the temper of masters, the morals of children, and even the conduct of the convict men, has proved everywhere disastrous, unless checked by incessant vigilance. Smoking, drinking, swearing, and prostitution, have very commonly formed the character ever present to the tender mind. The stranger entered perhaps a splendid dwelling, and found all the advantages of opulence, except what money could not procure—a comely and honest-hearted woman servant. The eye at length became more familiar with lineaments bloated or rigid with passion and debauch, and the ear accustomed to the endless vicissitudes of the servants' hall, which discharged and received an endless succession of the same debased, despised, and unhappily despicable beings. The writer has not forgotten, for a moment, that under the protection of a virtuous mistress, some unfortunate but not depraved females have escaped the terrible ordeal, and have found in the land of their exile the comforts of a home.

FOOTNOTES:[274]Letter from Chief Justice Forbes, 1836.

[274]Letter from Chief Justice Forbes, 1836.

Lord Stanley devoted commendable and humane attention to the management of female prisoners. They were comprehended in his scheme of probation. He resolved to establish a penitentiary, on a large scale, within twenty miles of Hobart Town. The women were to be carefully classified and separated, and trained for the duties of domestic life. The discipline intended rather to restore than to punish: those remitted in disgrace to the government, were not to re-enter this place of reform. Instructions were forwarded to prepare the ground and collect the material (1843); but the local officers were averse to the plan. They complained that the contemplated site was remote and inconvenient, and they succeeded in postponing and finally defeating the project.

Mrs. Bowden, a lady of majestic presence and enlightened mind, who had acquired considerable experience in the management of the insane, was appointed matron. Her fertility of resource, courage, and zeal, had been greatly admired at Hanwell, where many hundreds of the unfortunate were relieved from the greatest of human calamities. The reputation of this lady recommended her to the confidence of government:[275]with her husband, Dr. Bowden, the medical officer, and a chosen staff of assistants—several only inferior to herself—she arrived in this colony with high expectations of success. As a temporary expedient, theAnson, a ship of war, was appropriated to the project. The decorum of the ship, and the healthy and cleanly appearance of the women, were striking to a stranger; but the early lack of employment ruined the enterprise. The government, with its usual negligence, failed in details, and thus failed altogether. Towards the close of the experiment, the making of clothing for the prisoners was more successfully attempted; but the local authorities were always hostile to the institution. It was protected by Lord Stanley and Mr. Gladstone, but Earl Grey consented to its extinction. The results were certainly not encouraging. The women, discharged from the ship ignorant of the colony, were at once thrown into every temptation of convict associations. They had been instructed in the principles of religion, reading and needlework, and the fruit of these labors will hereafterperhaps, appear; but whoever expects much from mere dogmatic knowledge, will be doomed to disappointment. On the death of her husband Mrs. Bowden returned to England, convinced that moral insanity is far more hopeless than the diseases of Hanwell. This lady and her friends and coadjutors, the Misses Holdich, found the women generally submissive and docile: they were haunted with all kinds of terrors, and had less than the ordinary courage of women. Mere children in understanding; some, such only in years; but their actual reformation, for the most part, only remained an object of confident expectation, while their true tendencies were repressed. The lady officers, who expected to reap a harvest in this field of mercy, began by blaming the colonists for scepticism, and after 3,000 women had passed through their hands, they, alas! ended in becoming sceptical.

A great number of these prisoners are married. During the probation system, the local government of the colony became far less scrupulous in reference to their character, previous engagements, and means of living. As a choice of evils this course was the least; but many of these marriages were a disguise for licentiousness, and of a very temporary character. The freed man united to a convict woman could not be detained in the colony; indeed, he was often compelled to leave it, and his wife was not permitted to accompany him. From this cause alone, infinite vice and misery has arisen; and a total disregard of ties so modified by a police regulation; which, while encouraging women to marry, subjects them to lasting desertion.

Before the introduction of Lord Stanley's probation system, several pious ladies established a committee of visitation. They entered the factories and cells, and conversed with the female prisoners. Official teachers superseded these efforts of private benevolence; and lessons, however excellent in themselves, lost the attraction of spontaneous sympathy and disinterested toil.

It is with deep regret these observations are recorded. It is not intended to assume that the reform of female prisoners is impossible. A considerable minority are probably not inferior to the lower classes of poor and uneducated women in the cities, or more uncivilised provinces. Re-convictions are not numerous; though, of course, many are deeply implicated with colonial crime. The law which consigns all to one penal fate, devotes all to one common ruin. Were it possible to escape the contamination of a gaol, whatcould be hoped, where the male population is contributed chiefly by prisons? What can be done to obviate these evils? Such is the enquiry of the philanthropist: would to God it could be successfully answered.'

FOOTNOTES:[275]Report of Hanwell Institution, 1842.

[275]Report of Hanwell Institution, 1842.

Whatever details are omitted from the foregoing pages, nothing has been withheld necessary to complete a colonial view of transportation. Errors may doubtless be detected; but as they have not resulted from carelessness or haste, it is hoped they will be found both unimportant and rare.

The views expressed by various parties on the subject of transportation are modified, or even wholly suggested by their interests. The English peer rejoices that sixteen thousand miles of ocean divide him from the "wretch" who entered on his preserves, or dragged his rivers, and is at rest; the citizen is glad that one burglar less lives in his neighbourhood, and considers that transportation is indispensible to the safety of plate. The colonist farmer regards convictism as a labor power; the working emigrant as a rival labor market; while the officers in charge naturally cloak its evils and exalt its efficacy.

It is nearly impossible for a stranger to estimate the weight of testimony, so prejudiced throughout, and nearly as impossible for a writer, interested in the issue of its discussion, to preserve the unclouded judgment required to arrive at truth. But little reliance can be placed on official statistics: they give imperfect views of moral or industrial results. They have often been compiled by government for specific purposes, or by agents unworthy of confidence.

It may be proper to point out the chief difficulties which beset this branch of penal jurisprudence. Some of these have been long noticed by authorities on political philosophy. From Paley, to the latest speculators on transportation, all have noticed its inequality. They have dwelt on the uncertainty of its details—from the differing habits and original condition of those subject to its infliction; and from the absence of supervision, only to be expected where those who direct the sentence secure its observance. The convictis condemned to a penalty which may subject him to predial slavery, to capricious punishments; to brutal taskmasters, and to the antipathies of a caste; or he may be regarded with compassion, good-will, and even preference: the sting of the law may be taken away, and what was a penalty may constitute a brotherhood.

Thus it happens that no uniform description is a true one. What may correctly delineate the aspect of transportation on one class, may be false in reference to another; what may be facts one year, may be an exaggeration in the year following. This inequality has been partly the result of the law. The relation of the convict to the free has been constantly changing. He was a bond servant; he was permitted to compound his servitude by a daily payment; he was allowed to work partly for himself and partly for the crown, at the same moment. He has been restrained in government gangs; he has lodged in barracks, and worn the coarsest dress, or he has lived in his own hired house. Sometimes treated as a public enemy, chained, flogged, and over-worked; at others, petted as a favorite or soothed like a child.

The public policy has depended on causes which have had little relation to the individual character of convicts. A mild or severe governor, or secretary of state; a great increase or decrease of numbers; the book of some literary idler, or of an angry colonist; instances of extraordinary good fortune, or an insurrection against tyranny; the fluctuations of feeling at home, sometimes wrath against crime, sometimes compassion for the criminal. Such are the causes, traced in the incessant agitation of penal transportation.

Two incompatible objects have been always professedly embraced—intimidation and reform; but while they have both animated the scheme, they have struggled for the ascendancy, and the one or the other has seemed to be the chief, if not sole, motive of government. The Australian seal expressed the design of mercy: it was to oxen ploughing—to bales of merchandise, and the various attributes of industry, that Hope pointed the landing convict, when she broke off his bonds. Fifty years after, Lord Stanley deemed many years spent in chains, a just punishment for crimes against property, or others of no deep dye.

The changes of systems have been usually based on facts and opinions, elicited during those paroxysms of reform which occur generally once in ten years. Thus the improvement of discipline; the efficiency of convict labor; the severalefforts to restrain its attendant vices; have usually occurred when some old officer has been superseded; and others have devoted to their novel duties the first vigour of their zeal.

The whole spirit and apparent object of convict discipline has been revolutionised several times. In the vicissitudes of English factions a new secretary of state has had power to sift and overturn the expedients of a rival. It has rarely remained beyond a few months in one stay. For four or six years, during the governorship of Colonel Arthur, transportation reached its highest perfection. It was rendered uniform, by the imperial confidence reposed in his judgment; more so by the demand for labor, by the rapid influx of capital, and by the common interest of the government, the colonist, and the well-doing prisoner. It would be difficult to find half that period undisturbed under any other ruler.

Many difficulties connected with transportation are created by natural and social laws: full of mercy to the human race. The sufferings inflicted by man cannot reform man: he cannot carry out the vengeance of another, for wrongs he neither endured nor saw. His heart melts at the sight of distress, and forgetting general principles, says, in the absence of accusers, "neither do I condemn thee;" or if forgetful of a common nature, he punishes with inflexible severity, while the iron enters the soul of his brother his own heart is seared. Thus, again, a nation cannot send away her criminals, and yet make their punishment exemplary; she cannot detain them in masses, without rendering them a scourge; she cannot discharge them to live under a clement sky and amidst abundance, without meeting everywhere the reproaches of the honest poor. Thus beset on every side, she is taught that crime is not an excrescence to be cut off, but a disease to be cured; and that to increase the comparative penalty of guilt, more than liberty must be forfeited. She must offer something better to her paupers than the benefits of disgraceful exile.

In reference to practical results, almost every theory may be sustained by the records of transportation, if one class of facts only are admitted into view. Thus it has been pronounced by men distinguished and intelligent, as an expedient worthy an enlightened statesman, and gratifying to the most ardent though scrupulous philanthropist; but they have often omitted sections of facts which, resting on evidence not less deserving regard, excite astonishment, disgust, and horror.

Whether the judgment of Governor Arthur was correct on the main question, or not, he doubtless pointed out the great difficulty. His words are well worthy remembrance:—"Sanguine as I am of the beneficial results of transportation, and confident as I feel that it may be made to surpass any other secondary punishment, both as relates to the criminal and to the country from which he is banished,—I cannot lose sight of many imperfections of our present system, some of which are bottomed on a state of things which no human ingenuity can rectify:—'you cannot make that straight which God hath made crooked.'"[276]

A few men of the generation survive, which witnessed the departure of the first fleet of convict vessels to a country then a wilderness, and inhabited only by savages. The stranger, who lands where they first pitched their tents, will survey the scene and consider the question of transportation determined. The shipping which crowd the harbour; the public and private buildings rivaling the architecture of Europe; the spacious churches, filled with well-dressed families; the extensive thoroughfare, thronged with business and equipages, and adorned with elegant shops and offices; the courts of law; the public markets; the London cries; the noise of the hustings; the debates of the assembly. Such are the alleged results of transportation: as if by some vast effort the people of an old country had transferred the seat of empire, and were collecting all that art could devise and wealth could bring. Should the visitor extend his enquiries, he will find vessels trading to many neighbouring and kindred cities. They all owe their existence to that first fleet. Sometimes they repudiate their origin; but they bear evidence that their giant youth has learned from the experience, and risen in part under the auspices of the great convict country. Should the traveller extend his travels to Van Diemen's Land, he will hear the same tale of penal transportation, and its wondrous effects in former times. He will pass over a road made after scientific plans, and bridges of costly structure. He will see orchards, in which mingle the blossom of the cherry, the apple, the pear, and the peach; and gardens green with British vegetation. This successful spread of the English name, language, commerce, and power, has required less than the life of man. Many survive, who were born when the first sod of Australia was turned by the hoe of a banished Briton. The man even now seen saunteringalong, chained and moving sullenly to labor, is but a continuation of that army who first broke in on the solitude of a new world; laid the first foundation, and planted the first field.

Should the traveller still extend his enquiry, his astonishment and delight will not be diminished. The swarms of children rushing from a village school participate the blood of men, some of whom were once a terror to society, or of women who were its reproach. In the lists of religious societies, commercial companies, jurors, magistrates, will be found traces of their lineage. What could hope have anticipated beyond these realities!

But the connection between these successes and transportation, is rather co-incidental than of cause and effect. Were it supposed that seventy years would have elapsed prior to the occupation of these countries, but for transportation, the advantage must be calculated not by actual achievements but the value of that advanced starting point, which colonisation now possesses. It is not improbable that colonisation would have commenced at a much earlier date: the first ships of free settlers would have been more intelligent; their attention to the resources of the country more earnest. The second quarter of a century had half expired, when the Blue Mountains ceased to be a barrier to the colonists of New South Wales. The dawning of a new world must have attracted the national mind, had not an unexampled society, abandoned to vice and crime, appeared to the people an object of dread and horror.

The progress of the colonies, until 1830, cannot be considered rapid. The first settlers were, individually, prosperous: many emancipists were wealthy; but for the rest, their houses were mean, their commercial arrangements pedling and insignificant; their public buildings generally miserable. It is from the date of emigration that progress has been conspicuous: and that date is but recent—a progress in a ratio vastly greater than any previous cycle. The great colonies of Port Phillip and South Australia, before that time, were hardly in existence.

If, indeed, no capital had been introduced; no whalers collected the treasures of the deep; no free emigrant arrived; no free colonies erected; then the improvements of this quarter of the globe might be ascribed to penal laws; but they have the same relation to its present prosperity as the numerous parts of an edifice have to each other—not such as of the oak to the acorn. When, therefore, it is statedthat transportation has been the making of these colonies, it should be rather said it was the cause of their establishment. The outlay of the crown, although great, has been small compared with the outlay of the people. The chief settlers of the convict colonies were capitalists; they gave themselves to cultivation, which, in most instances, has involved them. Agriculturists are poor: it is the shepherd prince who is rich. He may be benefited a few score pounds by labor artificially supplied; but nature is the great patron of his house.

The chief connexion between transportation and progress is in the government outlay; but that has been less than apparent; it has often been the mere difference between an English and a colonial price; it has been attended with great consumption without equal re-production. It has sometimes had no other effect than foreign commerce on the places of depôt and transit. The price of labor, when labor was chiefly supplied by transportation, was often very high. Thus a farmer found one man with rations and clothing; but a person, working in the same field, received £30, £40, or even £60 per annum. The price of labor was therefore often, on the whole, sufficient to absorb the capital of the employer.

There are many wealthy landowners, who are, however, the sole representatives of those numerous fortunes lost by London firms in these colonies. The court of insolvency made that which was foreign, colonial property. The rich freights sent from Europe, when not wasted by an extravagant consumption, were really exchanged for land improved, and finally disappeared from the ledger of the merchant. It remains—not as the result of convict labor, but as the dividend of an expenditure which shews more loss than gain.

The value of convict labor has been generally overestimated. "The day that sees a man a slave, deprives him of half his worth." The employers, as a class, are uniformly poor. Slave labor in America is dearer than free, although it implies no moral degradation.[277]What then could beexpected from bondmen of the same colour as their lords; whose resentment and indolence combined to prevent their usefulness. It may be safely affirmed, that the employer who gained by his servants, not only watched, but paid them.[278]Instances may be found in opposition to this conclusion: the great employers, who reduced their men by an unrelenting pressure, were few in number; and their advantages were of brief duration.[279]

The ordinary settlers purchased convict labor at great sacrifices, which they never estimated. They lived in woods, often without religious instruction, medical attendance, and in want of those refinements which can be realised only when the stern features of the wilderness are softened by neighbourhood and civilisation. Who can value the toil and time, and wear and tear of life, in bringing the stubborn, ignorant, and vicious to drive the plough and reap the harvest. Other colonists, in other lands, with less capital, but with free labor, have thriven faster; and attained a prosperity far less compromised by debt, and far more durable.

A very great quantity of property has been destroyed by crime and vice. It is commonly said that theft merely changes ownership, and does not detract from the aggregate of wealth; but the thief is not only idle, his expenditure is reckless; he wastes more than he consumes.

Many colonists of former years spoke of the arrival of prisoners with gladness, and seemed to regard the punctual supply of a certain but increasing number as a boon. The minds of these persons usually dwelt solely on the advantage of coercive labor, of military and prison expenditure, and the prisoner was regarded as a "productive power." When ashamed of sordid calculation, they discovered a defence in the blessedness of expatriation to the offender. His food was greater in quantity, and better in quality, than he could obtain by industry in a crowded country. His liberty restored, fortune became often auspicious, and the temptation, to rude roguery ceased. He took his side with the laws; he married, and educated his children; he attended the house of God, and became serious; he rivalled his master in liberality and public spirit. Multitudes died in hospitals and in prisons; but they were forgotten, and the fortunate only were conspicuous.

The public works performed by convict labor, though sometimes extensive and important, will appear inconsiderable, if compared with the imperial or colonial cost. The deep cuts and massive bridges, which please the eye, are yet disproportionate to the traffic, and produce no adequate return. The proportion between free and bond labor, is as 2 and 3 to 1. Task labor has been commonly found incompatible with discipline, or liable to favoritism and official dishonesty: the overseer "approximates" or guesses, when not inclined to reckon. Day work is still less satisfactory: the pick is slowly uplifted, and descends without effect. The body bends and goes through hours of ineffectual motion; or if the rigour of discipline renders evasion penal, the triangles disgrace a civilised nation, and the colony is filled with violence and vengeance. Yet convict labor has, generally, been deemed important to an infant settlement; to secure a combination, without which preliminary stages of colonisation are slowly passed. Such has been its undoubted use; but who, with the prodigies of modern enterprise before him, will assign to bond labor a peculiar efficacy, or doubt that well directed capital can ensure all that force can effect.

The industrial enterprises of the crown have been utterly unsuccessful: they have been the laughter of the colony. Examples might be given in abundance; but it is needless to prove what has been never disputed. Convicts have been employed by the authorities as ship-builders, masons, hop-growers, and cultivators; but the general results would have involved any less opulent proprietor in ruin.

Nearly 120,000 prisoners have landed in these colonies; of these, the major part have passed into eternity. Thousands have died in chains; thousands and tens of thousands perished by strong drink. Their domestic increase, compared with equal numbers of free persons, is insignificant—partly by the effects of vice, and in part by the impracticability of marriage: they melt from the earth, and pass away like a mournful dream. In every parochial burial-ground there is a large section of graves, where not a tomb records who slumber there.

The nursery is the natural hive of arts and agriculture. The sons of the farmer, when they commit him to the dust, occupy his fields, and the little one becomes a thousand. There are several families in this colony, more than were the sons of Jacob when he lodged in Goshen; but convicts, for the most part, die childless.

In delineating the character of an exile population, abroad line must be drawn between the accidental offender and the hereditary robber. To the first no special description will be applicable: they are often not inferior to the ranks from which they sprung. Though a small section of the whole, they present not the least affecting picture among the many sad sights of a penal land. In the folly and recklessness of youth they lost at once their fame, their honor, and their freedom. The statesman may behold only a mass of outcasts; but among them are many whose names are the burden of a father's prayer, or are traced in deep lines of sorrow on a mother's breaking heart.

Transportation confounds men of entirely distinct character in one common penalty. Thus every variety of disposition, and every grade in life may be discovered. A proportion, certainly not considerable, obtain the respect and influence due to benevolence, integrity, successful toil: a much larger number exhibit only the common faults of uneducated men, and acquire the common confidence suited to their original station.

The character of convicts cannot be safely inferred from their sentence. Thus highway robbers were not unfrequently the best conducted men: they exhibited a courage and resolution which, directed aright, became useful to society and to themselves. The petty thief, often detected in his least offence, proved incapable of shame or gratitude. To an English reader, preference expressed by masters for persons under heavy sentences, would appear inexplicable; but it was founded, not on length of servitude alone, but a not uncommon superiority of disposition. Those transported for agrarian offences and political crimes, were often honest men. The rustic insurgents of 1832, were considered valuable servants. The Canadian prisoners conducted themselves with exemplary decorum.

Among those who belong to the class of habitual offenders, a large proportion are intellectually deficient. These unfortunate beings regularly return to crime on their discharge; incapable of resisting temptation: while prisoners, they are perpetually involved in difficulties. A very bad man will pass through the different stages of his sentence without reproach, while the weak-minded are involved in endless infractions of discipline and successive punishments. Nothing retards the release of the artful villain when his time is expired, while the warm and incautious, but better man, accumulates a catalogue of prison penalties.

The most civil and useless prisoners are the Irish: themost base and clever are the Scotch. They stand in different relations to the law: the Scotchman violates his own judgment, and offends, against knowledge; the Irish peasant unites a species of patriotism with his aggressions.

The modern convict is, in some respects, better than his predecessor; less ruthless, or prone to atrocious violence. Civilisation has extended its mollifying influence, even to the professional robber. On the other hand, in former times, men were transported for very trivial offences: poaching, with its consequences, formed the leading crimes of the English counties; yet many poachers were otherwise first-rate men, both in disposition and physical development. The modern convicts are, more generally, criminals in the popular sense. The abolition of capital punishments, and the erection of penitentiaries at home, left the penalty of transportation chiefly to more serious offences.

The tendency to particular crimes is often curiously displayed. Prisoners are safe amidst scenes which present no allurements adapted to their former habits: the pickpocket is perfectly trusty as a shepherd; the housebreaker makes a confidential dairy-man. Old temptations are fatal: even the stealing particular goods seems a special propensity. A woman, lately convicted of stealing blankets, who was originally transported for blanket-stealing, had twice stolen the same article in the colony. It is, of course, in the same department that the robber, the coiner, or the receiver of Europe, resumes in Australia his antagonism to the laws. These characteristics are happily often obliterated and overpowered.

The Christian will not doubt that reformation is possible, and that many once neglected and unfortunate, placed under the guidance and encouraged by the countenance of benevolent men, acquire both the principles and habits of ordinary society. The affections of domestic life are all awakened. The parent feels a new interest in the world: his share in the common prosperity excites the sentiment of patriotism. He promotes his children's education with unusual care; but it is at this stage of life that his heart endures a pang which legislators never contemplated.

The occasional prosperity of the transported person has been the opprobrium of the laws. He rises above his former condition; becomes a master where he was a bondman; patronises public amusements, and rides in his chariot past the pedestrian who received him in bonds. Great changes in condition are common everywhere: but transportation presentsthe whole career of the exile, from the bar to the civic hall, as parts of the one drama. A pardoned offender is lost in the population of Great Britain. Were the changes in his fortune noticed, it would occasion no reflection on the laws; but when numbers ascend under the same auspices, their prosperity is flagrant, and stands in ludicrous contrast with the predictions of the magistrate, who opened up a field of successful enterprise when he pronounced the sentence of transportation.

The colonial aspect of transportation is, to a British statesman, a secondary question: thus the injury of a distant community is of inconsiderable importance. If the expatriated classes carry out with them their ignorance, disorder, and crime, they retard the progress and destroy the reputation of a distant country, but the nation may still be satisfied: she may balance the evil and the good, and find herself the gainer. The colony is injured; but the parent country is saved. Thus transportation not only removes the habitual criminal, it extinguishes the embers of insurrection: it prevents the dreaded war between property and poverty, and silently withdraws a mass of dangerous discontent.

Of those transported a great proportion, if in England, would be in prisons; or, if at large, preying on the world—following their old calling, as burglars, coiners, and sheep-stealers. They would be active incendiaries and anarchists: they would be out at every riot, and by throwing their numbers into the scale of sedition, overturn all order, and even change the constitution. Such have been the conclusions of English statesmen: perhaps, partly founded on their fears, or stated for effect; but not wholly unsupported by analogy.

While some exhibit a convict colony as depraved beyond all examples of depravation, others lower the standard of human virtue, and not only extenuate its evils but magnify its worth. It was asserted by Lord Stanley, that the feeling of caste guarded the habits of the free. A view so flattering to human pride could hardly fail to be confessed; but, in fact, familiarity with crime, although it may not corrupt the judgment, must abate the moral sensibility. No colonist can forget his shudder at the first spectacle of men in chains: none can be unconscious that the lapse of years has deadened the sense of social disorder. It has, indeed, made many doubly circumspect, and awakened a peculiar interest in the ordinances of religion. Nor is it to be doubted that many expirees, disgusted with the enormities of vice, have,under the same feeling, contributed to set up the indispensable land-marks of honesty and religion.

Never were families guarded with more care, or efforts to educate the population more earnest, than during the inundation of the probation system. The external decorum of the Sabbath, the general attendance of the free inhabitants on worship, would go far to countenance the idea that the place of peril is the place of caution and prayer.

Ministers of the crown are, or profess to be, astonished that when the freed population increases, and the territory is explored, a country, still needing labor, should object to the prisoner supply; but the slave-holding interest expires, when immense numbers can be held no longer by a few: the common views of mankind re-assert their ascendancy. All, save employers, are hostile to degraded labor; employers themselves become less interested as masters than as colonists.

But transportation to one country cannot continue for ever. The causes which suggest the exile of offenders will occasion their rejection: money or labor may bribe the settler to become an overseer for the crown; but from the beginning he will calculate on a nobler vocation. A considerable community cannot be tempted by convict labor: and the numbers who regain liberty are enemies to the social state they have escaped. Fathers, who for themselves dreaded no dangers, tremble for their children: the adventurer becomes a citizen; a merchant, a politician: and the time approaches, when the same causes which induced the parent country to send the first convict vessel, will impel the colony to send back the last.

The late expedient of Earl Grey, is the trial of a scheme long present before his imagination.[280]Its rejection by the Australian continent has limited the experiment to Van Diemen's Land, where resistance is unavailing. It is the last achievement of penal philosophy, and will ascertain how long one small portion of the earth can receive theliberated masses, gathered by the penal laws of a mighty empire!

The ticket man lands; the colony is crowded with his predecessors; the colonists consider his arrival a grievance; the government, ignorant or careless of his fate, cast him into new temptations. Under such a plan the emigrant is gradually superseded by the exile population: the emancipated laborer is expelled by a fresh ticket holder. The country-born youth finds himself unable to live in his native land. The tone of public morals follows the prevailing spirit: crime is currently spoken of merely as a fault or a misfortune; the press teams with vicious sentimentalism; the administration of justice becomes more uncertain, perjury more common; the reputation of the colony is formed from the census, and the land becomes a by-word and a hissing.

Such, then, is the scheme which originated in philanthropy; such the practical result of years of laborious inquiry and official debate!

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