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• A View of the Hard-labour Bill; Being an Abstract of a Pamphlet, Intituled, “draught of a Bill, to Punish By Imprisonment and Hard Labour, Certain Offenders; and to Establish Proper Places For Their Reception:” Interspersed With Observations Relative T
• Panopticon; Or, the Inspection-house: Containing the Idea of a New Principle of Construction Applicable to Any Sort of Establishment, In Which Persons of Any Description Are to Be Kept Under Inspection; and In Particular to Penitentiary-houses,
• Preface.
• Letter I.: Idea of the Inspection Principle.
• Letter II.: Plan For a Penitentiary Inspection-house.
• Letter III.: Extent For a Single Building.
• Letter IV.: The Principle Extended to Uncovered Areas.
• Letter V.: Essential Points of the Plan.
• Letter VI.: Advantages of the Plan.
• Letter VII.: Penitentiary-houses—safe Custody.
• Letter VIII.: Uses—penitentiary-houses—reformation.
• Letter IX.: Penitentiary-houses—economy—contract—plan.
• Letter X.: Choice of Trades Should Be Free.
• Letter XI.: Multiplication of Trades Is Not Necessary.
• Letter XII.: Contractor’s Checks.
• Letter XIII.: Means of Extracting Labour.
• Letter XIV.: Provision For Liberated Persons.
• Letter XV.: Prospect of Saving From This Plan.
• Letter XVI.: Houses of Correction.
• Letter XVII.: Prisons For Safe Custody Merely.
• Letter XVIII.: Manufactories.
• Letter XIX.: Mad-houses.
• Letter XX.: Hospitals.
• Letter XXI.: Schools.
• Postscript, Part I. Containing Further Particulars and Alterations Relative to the Plan of Construction Originally Proposed; Principally Adapted to the Purpose of a Panopticon Penitentiary-house. *
• Section I.: Principal Particulars. Principal Particulars Either Settled Or Altered, Since the First Hasty Design, As Described In Letter II. And Imperfectly Represented In Plate I. See Plate II. †
• Section II.: General View of the Whole Edifice. In a General View of the Whole Building, According to Its Present Form, Three Very Different, Though Connected Masses, May Be Distinguished.
• Section III.: Annular Well. Annular Well, Instead of Stories of Intermediate Annular Area.
• Section IV.: Protracted Partitions Omitted. Protracted Partitions Omitted; Or Rather, Taken Into the Cells.
• Section V.: Cells, Double Instead of Single.
• Section VI.: Dead-part.
• Section VII.: Chapel. Chapel Introduced. *
• Section VIII.: Inspection-galleries and Lodge.
• Section IX.: Of the Communications In General.
• Section X.: Communications. Prisoners’ Staircases.
• Section XI.: Communications—inspectors Staircases.
• Section XII.: Staircase For Chapel Visitors, and For the Officers’ Apartments.
• Section XIII.: Cell-galleries.
• Section XIV.: Doors.
• Section XV.: Diametrical Passage.
• Section XVI.: Communications—exit Into the Yards.
• Section XVII.: Exterior Annular Well. ‡
• Section XVIII.: Windows Reaching Low, and Glazed; Instead of High Up, and Open.
• Section XIX.: Materials. Arched Work—much Iron—plaster Floors.
• Section XX.: Outlets, Including Airing-yards.
• Section XXI.: Approach and Fences.
• Section XXII.: Means of Supplying Water.
• Section XXIII.: Of the Mode of Warming the Building.
• Section XXIV.: Of the Economy Observed In the Construction.
• Postscript—part II. Principles and Plan of Management.
• Section I.: Leading Positions.
• Section II.: Management—in What Hands, and On What Terms.
• Section III.: Of Separation As Between the Sexes.
• Section IV.: Of Separation Into Companies and Classes.
• Section V.: Employment.
• Section VI.: Diet.
• Section VII.: Clothing.
• Section VIII.: Bedding.
• Section IX.: Health and Cleanliness.
• Section X.: Of Airing and Exercise.
• Section XI.: Schooling and Sunday Employment.
• Section XII.: Of Ventilation, Shading, and Cooling.
• Section XIII.: Distribution of Time.
• Section XIV.: Of Punishments.
• Section XV.: Mode of Guarding On the Outside.
• Section XVI.: Provision For Liberated Prisoners.
• The Following Note Respecting This Work Was Given By Bentham to Dr. Bowring, 24 Th January 1821.
• Panopticon Versus New South Wales: Or, the Panopticon Penitentiary System, and the Penal Colonization System, Compared.
• A Plea For the Constitution: Shewing the Enormities Committed, to the Oppression of British Subjects, Innocent As Well As Guilty;
• Preface.
• Section I.: Subject Matter—object—plan.
• Section II.: Power of Legislation—its Necessity In New South Wales.
• Section III: Legislation—how Far Lawful In New South Wales.
• Section IV.: American, &c. Legislation No Precedent For New South Wales.
• Section V.: Even In America, the Crown Had No Right to Legislate Without Parliament.
• Section VI.: Nullity of Legislation In New South Wales, For Want of an Assembly to Consent.
• Section VII.: Nullity of Governor’s Ordinances. For Want of a Court to Try Offences Against Them.
• Section VIII.: King’s Law-servants Not Infallible.
• Section IX.: Nullity of New South Wales Legislation, Proved By the Granada Case.
• Section X.: Governor’s Illegal Ordinances Exemplified.
• Section XI.: Governor’s Illegal Ordinances Exemplified.
• Section XII.: Expirees Forcibly Detained.
• Section XIII.: Expirees, During Detention, Kept In a State of Bondage.
• Section XIV.: Statutes Transgressed By the Legislation and Government of New South Wales.
• Draught of a Code For the Organization of the Judicial Establishment In France: With Critical Observations On the Draught Proposed By the National Assembly Committee, In the Form of a Perpetual Commentary.
• Bentham’s Draught For the Organization of Judicial Establishments, Compared With That of the National Assembly, With a Commentary On the Same.
• Emancipate Your Colonies! Addressed to the National Convention of France, Anno 1793.
• Jeremy Bentham to His Fellow-citizens of France, On Houses of Peers and Senates.
• Papers Relative to Codification and Public Instruction: Including Correspondence With the Russian Emperor, and Divers Constituted Authorities In the American United States.
• Part I.—: On Codification.
• No. I.: To the President of the United States of America.
• No. II.: James Madison, Then President of the Congress of the American United States, to Jeremy Bentham, London.
• No. III.: Albert Gallatin, Minister Plenipotentiary From the American United States to the Court of London, to Simon Snyder, Governor of Pennsylvania, Introducing a Letter From Jeremy Bentham to the Said Governor.
• No. IV.: Jeremy Bentham, London, to Simon Snyder, Governor of Pennsylvania.
• No. V.: Simon Snyder, Governor of Pennsylvania, to David Meade Randolph, Esq. Williamsburgh, Virginia, On the Subject of the Above Letter of Jeremy Bentham.
• No. VI.: Extract From a Printed Paper, Signed Simon Snyder, Dated Harrisburg, December 5 Th 1816, James Peacock, Printer, Intituled “ Governor’s Message to the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, ” Containing Seve
• No. VII.: Circular. — to the Governor of the State of
• No. VIII.: Jeremy Bentham, an Englishman, to the Citizens of the Several American United States.
• No. IX.: Jeremy Bentham to James Madison, Late President of the American United States.
• No. X.: Jeremy Bentham to the Emperor of All the Russias.
• No. XI.: Alexander I. Emperor of All the Russias, to Jeremy Bentham, London—written With His Imperial Majesty’s Own Hand, In Answer to the Above, [no. X.]
• No. XII.: Jeremy Bentham to the Emperor of All the Russias.
• No. XIII.: Prince Adam Czartoriski, of Poland, to Jeremy Bentham, London. *
• No. XIV.: Jeremy Bentham, London, to Prince Adam Czartoriski of Poland.
• Part II.: Public Instruction.
• No. I.: ( Circular. )— Letter From His Excellency Wilson Cary Nicholas, Governor of Virginia, On the Subject of Public Instruction.—addressed (the Copy of Which This Is a Transcript) to His Excellency John Quincy Adams, Minister Plenipotentiary From the U
• No. II.: ( Circular. )— to the Governor of the State of
• No. III.
• No. IV. Notice Concerning Chrestomathia, By the Paris Lancasterian Instruction Society. Report of the British and Foreign School Society to the General Meeting, Dec. 12, 1816.—EXTRACT.
• Codification Proposal, Addressed By Jeremy Bentham to All Nations Professing Liberal Opinions; Or Idea of a Proposed All-comprehensive Body of Law, With an Accompaniment of Reasons, Applying All Along to the Several Proposed Arrangements:
• Advertisement.
• Part I.—ARGUMENTS.: Positions, With Reasons For Proofs.
• Section 1.: In Every Political State, the Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That It Be Provided With an All-comprehensive Body of Law. All-comprehensiveness, Practicable, and Indispensable.
• Section 2.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That Such Body of Law Be Throughout Accompanied By Its Rationale: an Indication of the Reasons On Which the Several Arrangements Contained In It Are Grounded. Rationale, Though Unex
• Section 3.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That Those Reasons Be Such, Throughout, As Shall Show the Conduciveness of the Several Arrangements to the All-comprehensive and Only Defensible End Thus Expressed. Rationale, Indicat
• Section 4.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That, of This Rationale, the Several Parts Be Placed In the Most Immediate Contact With the Several Arrangements to Which They Respectively Apply. Rationale, Interwoven, Not Detached.
• Section 5.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That For the Function Exercised By the Drawing of the Original Draught of Such a Code, the Competitors He As Many As, Without Reward At the Public Expense, Can Be Obtained: and So, For T
• Section 6.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires—that, For the Drawing of Any Such Draught, No Reward At the Public Expense Be Given. At Additional Expense, Reward None.
• Section 7.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires—that Every Draught, So Given In, Be, From Beginning to End, If Possible, the Work of a Single Hand. Hands Not More Than One.
• Section 8.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires—that Such Original Draught, Being the Work of a Single Hand, Be Known to Be So. Hand, Known to Be But One.
• Section 9.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That the Work, Being the Work of a Single Hand, and Known to Be So, It Be Known Whose the Hand Is. Hand, Known Whose It Is.
• Section 10.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That, For the Drawing of the Original Draught, All Foreigners Be Admitted Into the Competition: and That, In So Far As Applicable, Unless It Be In All Particulars Taken Together Decid
• Section 11.: On the Part of an Individual, Proposing Himself As Draughtsman For the Original Draught of a Code of Laws, Willingness Or Unwillingness to Interweave In His Draught a Rationale As Above, Is the Most Conclusive Preliminary Test, and That
• Section 12.: On the Part of a Ruler, Willingness Or Unwillingness to See Established an All-comprehensive Code, With Its Rationale As Above, and to Receive Original Draughts From All Hands, Are Among the Most Conclusive Tests of Appropriate Aptitude,
• Part II.—TESTIMONIALS.
• I. England
• II. Geneva
• III.: Spain.
• IV.: Portugal.
• V.: Italy.
• VI.: France.
• VII.: Anglo-american United States.
• VIII.: Greece.
• IX.: South America.

PANOPTICON versus NEW SOUTH WALES:

OR, THE PANOPTICON PENITENTIARY SYSTEM, AND THE PENAL COLONIZATION SYSTEM, COMPARED.

In a Letter addressed to the Right Honourable Lord Pelham.

BY JEREMY BENTHAM, OF LINCOLN’S INN, ESQ.

My Lord,

The letter of which these printed pages form a part, was begun in the view of its being submitted to your Lordship in manuscript. Destined to represent the treatment experienced during a period of eight or nine years from the servants of the crown, by a plan that has twice at their own solicitation received the sanction of parliament—(the second time, after urgent reasons given by the committee on finance for the continually professed execution of it, and no reasons ever given by any body for the suspension of it)—the history had advanced to that stage, in which, for the first time, a disposition to “relinquish” the plan now termed a “project” (after a contract drawn, and land purchased in execution of it)—degraded thus from a plan to a project—had been avowed. Now, lately having, through an authentic channel, received intimation of an intention on your Lordship’s part to “converse on the subject with the Lord Chancellor and the Judges;” it occurred to me, that whatever opinion, if any, were eventually to be obtained from any such high and ever revered authority, any such opinion would not be the less instructive, if in this, as in other instances, it were to have had the opportunity of grounding itself on such evidence as the nature of the case afforded.

After this explanation, I proceed to submit to your Lordship that part of the originally intended address which bears more particularly upon the point in question, detaching it on the spur of the occasion from whatever was originally designed to precede or follow it.*

Fourth and last ground for the relinquishment of the Penitentiary system: “The improved state of the colony of New South Wales.”

Of the three other grounds† the inanity has been displayed: there remains this single ground to bear the strain of the whole measure—I mean, not of the penitentiary establishment, but of the relinquishment of it.

To justify the predilection shewn for the distant establishment, and the use thus made of that predilection, those who have taken upon themselves to make this collateral use of it, have two propositions to make good:

1st, That of the two rival modes of punishment—the punishment by transportation to New South Wales, and the punishment by confinement under the intended penitentiary establishment—the former is the preferable one.

2d, That it is to such a degree preferable, as to justify the laying aside the other altogether, and inclusively the imposing on the public that expense—expense in all its shapes—money, public faith, character of public men—with which the ultimate sacrifice of the thus long suspended establishment would be attended.

The first proposition is the leading one: in this is contained the principal point in issue: this being determined in the negative, the other will be superseded. How, then, shall it be tried? by analytical investigation, supported by specific evidence? or by vague assertion, supported by a few customary phrases? “In the former mode, certainly,” says a voice, which I recognise for your Lordship’s, being that of reason and justice—by the former mode, as being the only true one, how far soever it may be from being either the more generally commodious of the two or the more usual.

The two rival systems in question being systems of punishment, whichever of the two is the preferable one, must be that which will prove to be so on joint reference to the several objects or ends of penal justice.

Objects or ends of penal justice, five:

1st, Example—prevention of similar offences on the part of individuals at large, viz. by the repulsive influence exercised on the minds of bystanders by the apprehension of similar suffering in case of similar delinquency.

2dly, Reformation—prevention of similar offences on the part of the particular individual punished in each instance, viz. by curing him of the will to do the like in future.

3dly, Incapacitation—prevention of similar offences on the part of the same individual, by depriving him of the power to do the like.

4thly, Compensation or satisfaction, viz. to be afforded to the party specially injured where there is one.*

These four from Blackstone and from everybody: to these four I will venture to add a fifth, Economy. The four first, direct ends—ends to which the several measures adopted ought to tend in a direct course; the last, an indirect or collateral end—a mark which, though not the direct object of any such measure, ought not to be departed from to any greater distance, than the pursuit of the other direct ends shall be found to render unavoidable.

The list of these objects belongs to the A B C of legislation: if the application of it to practice had been equally familiar, your Lordship will judge whether it would have been possible the country should ever have seen any such establishment as Mr. Pitt’s and the Duke of Portland’s “improved colony of New South Wales.”†

Assuming these five to be what without dispute they ought to be, the common objects of both systems, let us consider each object by itself; and calling in the two systems, one after another, hear what each promises to perform, or may be considered as having performed, towards the attainment of that common end.

I. First object—Example—prevention of future offences by means of it. What, in the first place, is the course taken for this purpose by the colonial, the transportation system? The convicts and their punishment are removed by it to the antipodes, as far as possible out of the view of the aggregate mass of individuals, on whose minds it is wished that the impression should be made.

What is the course taken in the same view by the penitentiary system—Scene of punishment, the vicinity of the metropolis—the very spot which contains the greatest number of spectators of all descriptions, and in particular of those in whose instance there is the strongest reason for wishing that the impression may be made.

Plan of management—such as has for its object the pointing the impression by all imaginary contrivances to this end, the strengthening it by all apposite means, the multiplying by every imaginable device the number of the visitors and spectators—a perpetual and perpetually interesting drama, in which the obnoxious characters shall in specie, at any rate, be exposed to instructive ignominy, the individuals being with equal facility capable of being exposed to it, or screened from it, as, in the judgment of those to whom it belongs to judge, may be deemed most eligible upon the whole.

II. Second object—Reformation. Under this head, what, in the first place, does the “improved colony?” Delinquency, in the case of offences in general, and the class of offences here in question more particularly, may be considered as having for its positive and primary cause, a sort of morbid sensibility with reference to those enjoyments and those sufferings or uneasinesses, the pursuit or avoidance of which have respectively given birth to the offence. It may be considered, again, as having for its negative and secondary cause, the absence of those peculiar appropriate restraints, from which, had they been present, that vicious propensity might have received an efficacious check. Delinquents, especially of the more criminal descriptions, may be considered as a particular class of human beings, that, to keep them out of harm’s way, require for a continued length of time that sort of sharp looking after, that sort of particularly close inspection, which all human beings, without exception, stand in need of, up to a certain age. They may be considered as persons of unsound mind, but in whom the complaint has not swelled to so high a pitch as to rank them with idiots or lunatics. They may be considered as a sort of grown children, in whose instance the mental weakness attached to non-age continues, in some respects, beyond the ordinary length of time.*

To this mental debility it is the characteristic feature of the system in question—transportation to a new planted colony—to be radically incapable of administering that corrective aid which, in the case in question, is so perfectly indispensable. Field husbandry is, under this system, the principal employment—field-husbandry carried on by individuals or heads of families, each occupying a distinct dwelling, the interior of which is altogether out of the habitual reach of every inspecting eye. At sleeping times, meal times, times of recreation, no inspection whatsoever: even at working times, none but what is imperfect, interrupted, and accidental. Hence no preventive check to those propensities, the peculiar strength of which has been but too plainly demonstrated by the offence by which the individual was conducted to the scene of punishment—propensities, the indulgence of which is either itself a crime, or introductory to those vicious habits which are regarded as the immediate sources of crimes—sloth, drunkenness, gaming, venereal irregularities, profaneness, quarrelsomeness, mischievousness, rapacity.

Thus, then, on the ground of controul to vicious propensities, stands the parallel between the transportation system and the penitentiary system—the transportation system according to the New South Wales edition of it—the penitentiary system according to that edition of it to which, even in the act of sacrificing it on the altar of secret influence, no man ever durst take upon him to refuse the application of an improved one. Colonizing-transportation-system: characteristic feature of it, radical incapacity of being combined with any efficient system of inspection. Penitentiary system: characteristic feature of it, in its original state, frequent and regular inspection; in its extraordinary and improved state, that principle of management carried to such a degree of perfection as till then had never been reached, even by imagination, much less by practice.

Inspection, the only effective instrument of reformative management, being thus essentially inapplicable, and the founders of the colonial system having thus given themselves the nature of things to fight against, they set about it at their ease. Reformation, it was understood, is a species of manufacture: like other manufactures, it requires its particular capital or stock in trade: the assortment being good, that is, in sufficient quantity, and of the accustomed quality, the business will go on in regular course like other businesses. Different sorts of workmen must be got, most of them in red clothes; but to complete the set, there must be some in black, and these must have a particular sort of workshop to themselves, with tools belonging to it. Accordingly, an assortment was provided, not only of officers, civil and military, but of ministers of religion. Besides soldiers, and barracks, and guns, there were to be, and were accordingly, sooner or later, in a proportion more or less adequate, chaplains, and chapels, and good books. Thus far the head reformers saw: farther than this, it was not given them to see. Would the books be read? the chapels visited? the chaplains heard? That was the concern of the chaplains when they got there. Was it in the nature of the case, that any of these events should ever happen? a wild, speculative, out of the way question this—quite out of the line of practice. With great submission, however, to better judgment, it would not, I will venture to say, have been altogether an irrelevant one: a trigger is scarce pulled before the breath may be driven out of a refractory body; but to purify a corrupted heart, especially where nothing is to be got by purifying it, is an operation not quite so simple or so sure.†

Circumstances so favourable to a system of incapacity and negligence, could scarce in any other case have presented themselves. The measure was, indeed, a measure of experiment, and experiment is that sort of operation which calls for the exercise of all sorts of faculties: but the subject-matter of experiment was, in this peculiar case, a peculiarly commodious one—a set of animæ viles—a sort of excrementitious mass, that could be projected, and accordingly was projected—projected, and as it should seem, purposely—as far out of sight as possible.

Turn now, my Lord, to the penitentiary system; in which, if the principles pursued as above, are to be considered as the standard of orthodoxy, the scent of heresy must be acknowledged to be but too strong. In a Panopticon penitentiary system, supposing religion to be really a source of benefit—supposing it good for anything beyond a show—men would have had the full benefit of it. Church attendance would there have neither been forcible nor yet eludible. The presence of my chaplain it would have been little less possible for them to fly from, than from that of the Almighty whom he served. Unable, neither would they have wished, to fly from it. It would have been adorned and fortified by those accompaniments which, in ministering to this branch of instruction, would have combined with it as much appropriate and congenial entertainment, as inventive industry could contrive to bring together in a situation from which every rival attraction might so effectually be excluded. Yes, my Lord, my whole treasury of artifices would have been ransacked for contrivances to render the tuition as interesting as possible to the pupils; my whole dispensary would have been rummaged for sweets and conserves, to render the physic of the soul as palatable as possible to a class of patients in whom the need of it is so eminently deplorable. Nothing which, in the judgment of my superiors ad hoc in the spiritual college, should, in consideration of its conduciveness to the end, stand approved, or though but tolerated, would, on account of the novelty of it, have been shrunk from, or on account of the expense of it, have been grudged. Valeat quantum valere potest, would have been my maxim; and that (mistake me not, my Lord) not as a pretence for indifference and neglect, but as a memento and a spur to attention and to activity. Men who have the interests of religion most at heart, and whose endeavours have been most conspicuously bent to the turning it to the best possible account in the way of practice—such are the men my hopes had always pointed to for counsel and support. Such, my Lord, were veneficia mea—my pious frauds: the stock of them, I assure your Lordship, was not a scanty one. Delinquency (if—and—would have given leave)—delinquency in habit, in act, even in idea, would have been shut out; shut out, not merely by spiritual bars, by moral bars, by legal bars, but by physical ones.

In no point did my system rest itself upon cold forms. In body, in mind, in every way, if my patients suffered, I suffered with them. By every tie I could devise, my own fate had been bound up by me with theirs. Vicinity to the public eye—vicinity was the object with me, not distance. Recluse by inclination, popular at the call of duty, I did not shun the light—I courted it. Self-devoted to the task of unremitting inspection, it would have been a reward to me, not a punishment, to be as unremittingly inspected.

Thus, in so far as reformation is concerned, stands the comparison between the two systems, on the ground of general principles or theory, if a word so much in disgrace with men in whose vocabulary practice is synonymous with wisdom, may for the moment be endured. A theory is, indeed, no farther good than in so far as its indications receive, as occasion serves, the confirmation of experience. But experience, though an instructive guide, is apt to be a costly one. In the present instance, in the compass of ten or eleven years, it had cost, four or five years ago, upwards of a million:* by this time little less, probably, than a million and a half; of which near the odd million (as your Lordship will see) might have been saved, and with it the shame of a project, involving in its very essence the impossibility of success, saved, together with lives by hundreds, and crimes and immoralities without account, if antecedently to the experiment, in addition to the tongue of an orator, there had been an eye at the treasury, capable of reading in the book of human nature.

Under a system of suppression persevered in, spite of parliamentary warnings,† for these ten years,‡ from what source shall the testimony of experience be collected? Happily a more competent, a more instructive, a more authentic source: a source, in any point of view, more valuable, could scarce have been wished for, than that which the public, during the sleep of superior office, has been put in possession of by an eye-witness—the professed moral historiographer of the colony, the late Judge Advocate, Captain Collins. Nor yet simply the historiographer, but the panegyrist, the professed panegyrist likewise: a character which, when accompanied, as in this instance, with that candour and those internal marks of correct veracity with which it is so rare for it to be accompanied, renders the testimony, in this point of view, more than doubly valuable.

Fortunate it is, that whether from firmness in one quarter, or from negligence in another, the principle of suppression has passed by a mass of information that renders its exertions elsewhere of little use. The work is dedicated, and dedicated by permission, to the late Lord Sydney: in great letters, the title of “Patron of the work,” as well as that of “Originator of the plan of Colonization,” are conferred upon the noble lord. “To your patriotism,” says the panegyrist to the patron, “the plan presented a prospect of political and commercial advantage.” “The following pages,” continues the worthy magistrate, with perfect simplicity and unquestionable truth, “will serve to evince with how much wisdom the measure was suggested and conducted; with what beneficial effects its progress has been attended; and what future benefits the parent country may with confidence anticipate.”

In the preface, he concludes with acknowledging himself to be “anxiously solicitous to obtain” for the colony “the candid consideration of his countrymen; among whom,” he says, “it has been painful to him to remark a disposition too prevalent for regarding it with odium and disgust.” ... ... “Its utility consists,” according to him, in, that “besides the circumstance of its freeing the mother country from the depraved branches of her offspring, in some instances reforming their dispositions, and in all cases rendering their labour and talents conducive to the public good, it may prove a valuable nursery to our East India possessions for soldiers and seamen.” ... ... He speaks of a time in which “he began to think ... ... that some account of the gradual reformation of such flagitious characters, as had by many” (he very candidly adds, “and those not illiberal”) “persons in this country been considered as past the probability of amendment, might not be unacceptable.” So far the magistrate historian: as to the flagitious characters, there is no want of them; but as to any evidence of their reformation, here and there a white blackamoor excepted, it is all of it in his wishes—there is none of it in his book. How far the general conceptions, thus conveyed in the preface, are in agreement with the rigid truth of things, will appear from the more specific statements collected a little farther on, at the bottom of the page. For these little inadvertencies, if such they should prove, the interests of the public service are but so much the more in the author’s debt; since, if confining himself to the province for which he appears so eminently qualified, the superior province of the historian, he had left the task of the panegyrist to inferior hands, the satisfaction which, as matters stand, I flatter myself with being able to afford your Lordship on this ground, might have been less complete.

Of passages to the like effect with those which are here transcribed, enough might have been found to fill a volume. Those which are given here are selected as exhibiting the condition of the colony at the latest points of time; this being the stage at which the reforming tendency of the discipline, had it possessed any such tendency, had had the longest time to operate. General statements and observations are moreover preferred to histories of individual criminals, or crimes, partly out of deference to the logical rule, syllogizari non est ex particulari—partly because the particular anecdotes of this kind, being the materials of which a very considerable part of that large but interesting work are composed, could not possibly have been comprised within the limits prescribed by the object of this address.

The persons spoken of as reformed, are for the most part spoken of by name: in number they would scarcely, I think, be found to exceed a score—certainly not double that number, even including the many backsliders. The number of the unreformed is to that of these reformed characters, as a hundred or so to one. A bettermost sort of rogue—a man in whom on any occasion the smallest degree of confidence can be reposed, appears in that country to be beyond comparison a scarcer animal than a black swan. One thing the historian is clear in, that as to all but the few lusus naturæ thus distinguished, the longer they stay in that scene of intended reformation, and the more they are left to themselves (that is, the more entirely they are left to the separate influence of the pure principle of colonization, without any admixture of its discarded rival, the principle of inspection,) the worse they are; those who have the yoke of bondage still about their necks being a sort of half honest, half sober, half provident profligates, in comparison of those called settlers whose term is at an end.*

Reformation being the topic at present on the carpet, it is to this that the present string of extracts will therefore be confined. The other topics glanced at in the passages quoted out of Mr. Collins’ preface, belong to the head of incapacitation—I mean with reference to the commission of fresh offences within the limits of the mother country: to incapacitation, I say, and economy. The merits of the plan in relation to these objects, will be considered apart, under their respective heads.

Such was the state of the “improved colony” in September 1796, at the termination of the period comprised in the first and already published history of Mr. Collins. A continuation from the same able and candid hand is promised (I see) by the public prints, for a time which may perhaps have arrived before these pages of mine have reached your Lordship’s eye.

What subsequent improvements the colony may have received in relation to this same head, is a point on which I cannot pretend to any information from that source.*

In the mean time, so far as concerns general results, which are all your Lordship would endure to see crowded into this place, accident has put into my hands two testimonies of no mean account. In one respect they have the advantage of any which even your Lordship’s authority could command: they are in each instance the uninfluenced and undisguised effusions of the pen, committed to paper without the idea of being made subservient to this or any other public purpose. They wear no factitious colours; neither of that flattering cast which is so apt to give a tinge to the smallest piece of paper that can ever find its way from any such quarter to your Lordship’s office, nor yet of the opposite cast.

The first is an extract of a letter from Captain Hunter, at that time Governor of the colony. The date of it is the 20th of May 1799: about two and a half years had been at that time added to the experience reported by Captain Collins:—

“Sydney, New South Wales, 20th May 1799.

“The fatigue to which the Governor of this territory must submit, both mental and corporeal, is far beyond any idea you can have of the nature of his duty rendering such fatigue necessary in the Commander in chief.

“My former knowledge and acquaintance with this country encouraged me in a hope, which, however, in some respects proved delusive, that I should, with ease to myself, and with proper effect and advantage to the public, have been able to manage all the duties of my office. But I had not been long entered upon it, before I was awakened from that dream of comfort and satisfaction, the prospect of which I had so vainly indulged. The seeds of those vexations which had so disappointed me, had been sown for a very considerable time, and being rather of a prolific nature amongst such people, had gained so much strength, that it will require immense labour to grub them up by the root.

“I have persisted in my attempt to that end, and mean not to change my system; which, be assured, from being calculated to lay restraints upon every species of vice and immorality, cannot amongst such characters be a very popular one: that, however, will be a matter of no immediate concern with me, if I succeed only in a small degree to check the growing profligacy and abandoned turn of the lower classes of the people.

“This is a good country, and will do well, but its progress in improvement would be considerably hastened, could government be prevailed upon not to overstock us with the worst description of characters; for, whilst the mass of the people continue to be of that class, our difficulties will ever be very considerable: the industrious and well-disposed become a continual prey to the idle and worthless.”

It was not to myself that this letter was addressed, neither had I then, nor have I since, had the honour of any personal acquaintance with the gentleman from whom it came. It was a letter perfectly spontaneous, addressed to a person with whom he had never before had any written intercourse.

Your Lordship sees what it is the governor of the improved colony, down to that time, could find to speak of—great labours, no successes. Could any thing have been found that could have been made to wear the appearance, though it were but of a half success, would it have been passed unnoticed? Meantime, if in the line of moral improvement the governor made such small advance, it was not (if the governor himself, or the judge advocate is to be believed) for want of trying it.

The country (your Lordship sees) is a “good country;” but the word good might lead to conclusions rather wide from truth, if a distinction were not to be made between God Almighty’s works and * * * * *’s. To its Almighty Creator is it indebted for those capabilities which neither neglect nor mismanagement can deprive it of: the use made of them had been depending upon * * * * *. Your Lordship sees upon what condition its chance of improvement depended—(in the opinion of the governor at least, upon whom everything had been depending under * * * *;) upon its not being applied to the chief, if not the only purpose for which it had been established, and for which it continues to be kept up: the purpose, with reference to which, according to * * * * *, it was so much superior to everything else. By the governor, after all the labours of which he speaks so feelingly, the nature of things could not be changed. While those who have become bad for want of inspection, remain without any inspection,* (as they must do there, such of them as are not in jail there,† ) they will remain as bad as ever, or rather, according to the estimate given of them as above by the late chief magistrate, become still worse.

The next article, from a source than which that distant region never furnished a more respectable one, bears date the 7th of October 1800. The part that applies to the present purpose, comes after a paragraph of considerably greater length, which I may have occasion to submit to your Lordship under the head of Economy:—

“Governor King, who has the command, will make many regulations, as far as is in his power, for the security and advantage of the colony; and likewise pay some attention to the morals and instruction of the rising generation, to which none has been hitherto given; for certainly, if we ever hope to see worth or honesty in this settlement, we must look to them for it, and not the present degenerate race.”

What your Lordship might not otherwise have supposed, this letter is from a female pen, as well as to a female eye; not a word more in it that bears reference to anything that can be called politics. Mere accident threw it into my hands. For authentication sake, designation will (I suppose) be regarded as indispensable; but where that sex is concerned, the most reserved mode that can be thought of, is the most respectful and the best.* Such was the state of this “improved,” and ever-improving colony, with the benefit of at least a year’s improvements, more than—and—could as yet have heard of at the time (I mean July 1800) when the idea of “relinquishing” the penitentiary system, in consideration of the superiority of their improved colonial system, was first declared in black and white, after having been determined in petto for a length of time unknown to me. A year’s improvements more, and still—and—did not know that there were children there, or if there were, that they were worth saving from the gallows.

“But have not colonies,” says your Lordship, “has not transportation to those colonies been a source of good, and even in this particular line? Have not reformation and honest industry been among the experienced fruits of it?” Yes, my Lord, where the bulk of the population has been ready found and composed of men of thrift and probity—where the mass of the population being formed, the children of improvidence have been dropped in in driblets, absorbed and assimilated as they dropped in, by the predominant mass of the population into which they were received. In America, a master waiting to take charge of the delinquent as soon as landed—that employer a man of thrift—one of a neighbourhood all composed of men of thrift, all ready to make common cause against a fugitive or refractory bondsman: the bondsmen not collected together in any one place in numbers, but distributed among a number of families, one or a few at most in each. Such was a sort of society in which each convict would have to serve and be trained up in unremitting habits of unavoidable industry during his bondage: of the same cast was the society in which, if he settled at all in that quarter of the world, he would have to settle upon his restoration to independence.

Thus it was in America—thus it was with the convict consigned to any one of those old established colonies. How was it in New South Wales? The native inhabitants a set of brutes in human shape—the very dregs even of savage life—a species of society beyond comparison less favourable to colonization than utter solitude; a set of living nuisances, prepared at all times for all sorts of mischief: for plundering the industrious;† for quarrelling with the quarrelsome;‡ for affording harbour to the fugitive.∥ Other inhabitants, none but the very profligates themselves, who were thus sent by thousands from British gaols, to be turned loose to mix with one another in this desert; together with the few taskmasters that were to set them to work in the open wilderness, and the military men who were sent out with them in large but still unequal numbers, to help to keep within bounds the mischief they would be sure to occupy themselves with when thus let loose. Excepting these military guardians, whom, the endeavour was, though a vain one, to keep from mixing with their wards, it was of the very dregs of society—of men unfit to live at large in society—of men proved to be such by experience, and those collected together in multitudes, that the mass of society in this colony has hitherto been, was even meant to be, and for some generations at least would, for any rational ground that the founders could have for expecting the contrary, continue to be composed.

To an eye incapable of seeing further into things than their names, the two above contrasted scenes of existence were indeed the same, since both were colonies; but in themselves no two measures could in this respect be more different than transportation of convicts in retail, into a colony ready formed by honest men, and transportation of convicts by wholesale, into a colony not formed, but to be formed, and to be formed of convicts.

“But may not a set of regularly honest settlers be collected thither by degrees? and thus, with the addition of the improved characters, how few soever at first among the emancipated convicts, accumulate in time into whatever majority may be requisite to form the basis of an industrious and thriving population?” Possibly, my Lord; the bounds of possibility are wide: not even very improbably, so it be in some future century; in the present one, hardly. For what is there that should draw thither men of thrift and capital?—draw them to a place which, except a part of the stock of necessaries for its own inhabitants, neither does produce, nor presents any the smallest indication of being about to produce anything that will not be at the very time produced in other places, as well as imported into Britain from other places at a much cheaper rate—to a place in which, in the meantime, “the industrious and well disposed” will (as the late chief magistrate and the late governor seem to agree in observing) “become a continual prey to the idle and worthless.”

Loud and frequent have been the complaints (nor altogether, I suppose, without truth) about inveigling men (as it is called) to North America; cruel and fraudulent are the epithets given to the practice: to North America, where if manners are not, upon the whole, so amiable, yet crimes of all sorts, probably crimes of depredation certainly, are even more rare than here: to America, where a human being not employed in industry, productive or professional at least, is scarcely to be found. If to invite men to such a country be an act of fraud and cruelty, what must the act of that man be, who should seek to engage an honest settler to sink his capital, his industry, and his prospects, in New South Wales?

But of the prospect of advantageous produce from this as well as all other sources, more will come to be said presently, under the head of economy, to which it more immediately belongs.

III. Third object or end in view—Incapacitation; rendering a man incapable of committing offences of the description in question any more: understand in the present instance in the same place—the only place (it should seem) that was considered as worth caring about in this view.

In this object was seated, to all appearance, the strong hold and main dependence of the system: of reformation it would (I dare believe) have been acknowledged in a whisper there was nothing meant but the form: it was a mere make-believe. In the expedient employed for rendering it impossible for a man to do any more such mischief in the only spot in the world worth thinking about, consisted the sum and substance of the new system of compulsive colonization.

This contrivance was as firmly laid in school-logic as could be wished. Mischievously or otherwise, for a body to act in a place, it must be there. Keep a man in New South Wales, or anywhere else out of Britain, for a given time: he will neither pick a pocket, nor break into a house, nor present a pistol to a passenger, on any spot of British ground within that time.

Depredation, though committed out of Britain, would indeed not the less be depredation; but happily for our statesmen, here came in another rule of logic to their aid. Things not apparent, and things not existing, belong to the same account; the depredation and all other kinds of mischief and vice not making their appearance—that is, not here in Britain—it is the same thing as if there were none. Of the aggregate mass of his Majesty’s subjects, good, bad, and indifferent, taken together, such as remained in this and the next island constituted, according to this mode of taking stock, the only articles that had any pretensions to a place in the inventory. Those who were to be sent out of it belonged neither to the list of souls to be saved, nor to the list of moral beings. On these principles, how the people thus sent thither behaved while there, was a point which, so long as they did but stay there, or, at any rate, did not come back here, was not worth thinking about. Such was the religion, such the morality, which presided over the design and execution of the picture of industry and reformation in New South Wales.

Admitting that immorality and misery are rendered matters of indifference by being shifted from place to place, and that mischief of all kinds, so it be excluded from certain parts of his Majesty’s dominions, may be regarded as annihilated—two points remain still to be considered:

One is, in what degree the contrivance thus hit upon for securing the country in question, against the future presence of the individuals in question, is productive of that effect?

The other is, how far the advantage thus purchased is consistent with the principles of law and justice?

The answer, not to keep your Lordship in suspense, will, I believe, be found to be, that so far as the object is attained, it is attained at the expense of justice; but that even with that expense, the degree in which it is attained is very imperfect: imperfect from the first, and, in the nature of things, destined to become more and more so, the longer the establishment continues; and that, upon the whole, the shame of inefficacy is, in the very nature of the project, added to the odium of injustice.

The nature of the expedient being to be stated in the first place, before the efficacy of it can be examined into, the topic of justice will demand, on this as well as other accounts, the precedence. A word or two in the way of history is on this occasion unavoidable.

Transplantation to the colonies, a measure employed for the first time (at least under authority at this time reputed legal) soon after the Restoration,* is a mode of punishment which in lieu of, or in addition to, the other punishments annexed to offences comprised under the unfathomable and inexpressive appellation of felonies, extended itself gradually into use, so long as the now independent States of America remained upon the list of British colonies. This, like other chronical punishments, being divisible ad libitum into portions of all lengths, different lengths, adapted to the supposed exigency of the different cases of delinquency, have on different occasions, with great care and precision, been marked out: seven years, fourteen years, and for life: the length beyond comparison the most common, seven years: to say nothing of other lengths, not without example, such as terms between 7 and 14 years, and between 0 and 7 years. The statute in which the pains taken about the measurement of these lots are more conspicuous (I believe) than in any other, is a statute of the present reign, the statute of 1779;* the original penitentiary act—one of the two acts, which in a letter that will probably be one day presented in a more particular manner to your Lordship’s notice,—declares himself to have “examined” and “understood the object of.” In this statute, the several gradations of this species of punishment, or those of them at least which are in use, are brought together; and a sort of system of equivalence is established between the several degrees of this species of chronical punishment and a set of corresponding degrees, in three corresponding scales of so many other species of chronical punishment: confinement in the hulks, confinement in the then intended national and definitive penitentiary-houses, and confinement in the then existing gaols, in their destined character of so many local and temporary substitutes to those general penitentiary-houses.

This punishment, which while British America continued the scene of it, had fulfilled the ends of punishment in some points, failed in others. To the primary object, that of example, it was most obviously and incurably incompetent. Unequal in its essence, rendered still more unequal by its accidental concomitants, it was to one man as bad as death, to another a party of pleasure. By an irregularly applied, as well as unexplicitly declared distinction, on most individuals it imposed the additional yoke of bondage; others it left in possession of independence. To any one who had proposed to himself a spontaneous emigration to the same place, it presented a license for practising with impunity such offences as would send him there. So far was pure incongruity. With reference to the two other objects, reformation and incapacitation, it proved efficacious or inefficacious according to contingencies—contingencies altogether out of the thought as well as view and influence, not only of those to whom it was administered, but of those by whom it was administered, as well as of those by whom it was ordained. In some instances a man became in a greater or a less degree reformed; and in those instances the mother country commonly saw no more of him: in others, he remained unreformed; and in those she was sure to receive him back.†

Reformation is a very complex object: thought and contrivance are necessary to the pursuit of it. Local exclusion is a very simple object: it may be aimed at almost without thought. In the one case, if any thing be effected, it must be by mind operating on mind; although operations purely physical may (as I have had already occasion to observe) be among the means employed, and with assured efficacy, in that view. In the other case, body operating upon body is sufficient to the task. This observation may serve to explain the ground of whatever little portion of thought can possibly have been concerned, in the choice made of New South Wales. In a plan in other respects proper and adequate, simplicity is unquestionably a recommendation of no mean importance. But it will neither stand in lieu of efficacy, nor atone for injustice.

When, for persons of the description in question, the obtainment of the accustomed situations in America was found to be, or supposed to be, or said to be, no longer practicable, another spot came to be looked out for, and the spot chosen was this new discovered and pre-eminently distant region, that had been christened, or new christened, New South Wales.

The word distant, were it not for the appearance of affectation, should have stood in capitals. In it will be found not only the grand recommendation of the plan, but the only assignable or so much as imaginable property, which, though it were but for a moment, can have presented itself in that light. Of the several efficient causes of probable reformation to be looked out for in a colony, as having actually been afforded by the old colonies as above, not a single one could have been found existing anywhere in this newfound land. Existing demand for bondsmen—for bondsmen to be employed in separate families—in a ready-formed community composed of men of thrift—with an opportunity of settling in a society of the same complexion on the return of independence—conveyance thither at an inconsiderable expense, or without any expense;—all these requisites were altogether wanting, together with all others that can be imagined.*Distance—the indisputable attribute of this favourite spot—distance, the supposed mother of security, was the virtue which it is evident was regarded as making up for the absence of every other. Of this attribute it was seen to be possessed in a degree altogether beyond dispute. The moon was then, as it continues to be, inaccessible: upon earth there was no accessible spot more distant than New South Wales. The security that had been afforded by America in this respect, the security against the return of the expelled emigrants, had been but an incomplete one: why? because the distance was comparatively so small; means of communication accordingly so abundant. The security, promised in that same way by New South Wales, was the best possible: why? because the distance was the greatest possible; means of communication already established, none; and such as for this purpose would be to be established, would be to be established by government itself: consequently (it was taken for granted) would be altogether at the command of government. From such premises, the conclusion, true or false, was obvious enough: Let a man once get there, we shall never be troubled with him any more.

Setting aside law and justice, the expedient was at any rate a plausible one: and except the revolutionary noyades and fusillades, the Calcutta black-hole, and a few other such foreign devices, a remedy against living nuisances could hardly be more promising or more simple. But suppose for a moment any such considerations as those of law and justice to be entitled to a place in the account, surely never did this country witness an exercise of power more flagrantly reprehensible, more completely indefensible.

In the design of it, if this were really the design of it, it amounted to neither more nor less than the converting at one stroke all inferior degrees of the species of punishment in question, into the highest—all finite lengths into one infinite length. In its conception, the operation is simple enough: banishment for life—for so many years as a man shall live—is as easy to conceive as banishment for any other number of years, fixed or limited; more so than banishment in different lengths, for different numbers of years. But the effects of it upon the legal system, which it was thus sporting with, would take a volume to delineate. All the distinctions which, under this head, the statute-book affords in such numbers, between punishment and punishment—adjusted with so much care to so many corresponding distinctions, real or supposed, between guilt and guilt—all this elaborate pile of distinctions, which for near a century and a half the legislature had been employing itself in building up, was upon this plan to be undermined and levelled at one blast.

In the whole body of the law, if effects are regarded, and not mere words, where shall we find a feature that bears any the least resemblance to this case? I protest I know not. A punishment has been precisely fixed by law—fixed not in species only, but in degree: fixed thus by each particular law upon the species of delinquency, it has been fixed afterwards upon each individual delinquent by a sentence grounded upon that law. The fixation thus performed, there comes upon the back of it another punishment—a punishment of prodigiously greater magnitude—a punishment added by one knows not who, added by an invisible hand, added by the hand of power (for in default of literal designation we must resort perforce to figurative)—added by the hand of power, without a hearing, and to all appearance without thought. In truth, so oblique was the course by which the object was pursued, that no adequate idea of it can possibly be conveyed by any concise form of words: a description of it will be attempted a little further on.

For a measure of this stamp, in what quarter of the English law can a precedent be looked for with any prospect of success? One case there is, in which after a verdict of conviction and damages found by a jury, the court, if they they think fit, have it in their power to increase the damages. It is the case of mayhem. I mention it as the nearest case, though at so wide a distance. Even in that case, not an atom of suffering is imposed upon the injurer, that is not in the shape of compensation converted into enjoyment for the benefit of the party injured. But so strange is the institution to an English eye, so incongruous to the spirit and general tenor of English law, that this singular instance of an apparent extension of punishment or something like punishment, after sentence or what is equivalent to sentence, would scarcely have been thought of but for its singularity, having scarcely ever, within my memory, been brought to view by practice.

For a lot of punishment to be cut down, cut down by royal prerogative, from the length marked out by law, to a length short of that which has been marked out by law, is a case common enough—a case within every day’s observation—a case but too common, were it not that in this quarter of the law, unhappily so loose and incongruous is the texture of it, as to render it matter of praise, perhaps even of merit, on the part of one of the three estates of the legislature, to make changes, even regular and habitual changes, in the work executed at former periods by the whole. Be this as it may, the case of rigour short of the law is in every day’s experience. But of rigour beyond the law, this surely may be set down for the first (as I dare hope it will prove the last) example. When the work of mercy and lenity is performed as above by the king’s prerogative, it is performed in retail—performed by a separate decision pronounced in each individual case. Where, by an abuse of the same sacred instrument (an abuse, the nature and progress of which may perhaps receive a more particular explanation in another place,) the work of rigour has been performed as here, it has been performed by wholesale; in a word, in the same summary and compendious style as that of the noyades and fusillades above mentioned.

In speaking of a rigour beyond the law, I must take the liberty of warning your Lordship against a wrong reading, which otherwise might have been suggested by preceding recollections. Rigour is the word here, not vigour:—not to vigour—not to anything like what is commonly understood by force—but rather to fraud—to the very opposite of open and manly force—belongs the credit of whatever is done in the way of rigour in the present instance.

“Oh but,” I have heard it said, “whatever may here be done, the law remains unchanged; rights remain untouched; rights remain inviolate. Now, as before, so long only as a man’s term of transportation continues, does his return to Britain stand prohibited: now, as before, the term ended, the prohibition is at an end. Let him come back then, if he choose it; nor, if he is able, is there any law to hinder him: no more law to hinder him, than if, in execution of his sentence, he had been conveyed to America, as in former times.”

I answer, so far as actual prohibition is concerned, legality out of the question, the fact is not precisely so; but of this afterwards. Supposing it were so, the plea might indeed serve, if words alone were of any importance—if effects, and such in particular as consist in human suffering, were not worth notice. When laws are issued, to what end are they issued, but to that of producing certain effects? When a law is issued, prohibiting a man from coming into a certain place, to what end is it issued but to that of preventing him from being there?

In both cases—in the supposed case of prohibitive law, and in the actually exemplified case of a system of coercion applied some how or other without the intervention of a prohibitive law—the object aimed at is the same. In both cases, it is prevention—prevention of the return of the individual or individuals on whom sentence of banishment has been pronounced. In both cases, it is by the opposing of obstacles to the deprecated event, that the prevention of it is aimed at. Thus far the two cases run together: where then lies the difference? In the supposed case, the obstacles employed are of that sort which, in the very nature of the case, are at all times liable to be surmounted, and in experience are in fact but too frequently surmounted: mere threats, mere words, by means of which an influence is endeavoured to be exercised over the will. In the really existing case, the obstacles employed, supposing them actually applied, are, in the very nature of them, insurmountable: absence of the necessary means and instruments of self-conveyance. In the one case, it is the will only that is practised upon: in the other case, the very power is taken away, or endeavoured at least to be taken away. In short, for what reason is it that physical obstacles have thus been preferred to moral ones? why? but because those physical means were regarded as more sure. In both cases, so far as obstacles of any kind are opposed to the exercise of the obnoxious act, the right of doing it is infringed to every substantial purpose. In the case, where the obstacle is most powerful, so far is the right from not being infringed, that it is in this case surely that the infringement is most complete.

Suppose it a case between individual and individual. Let us borrow Ugolino for a moment from Dante and Sir Joshua. A strong man has thrown a weak man into a dungeon, turned the key upon him, and left him there to starve: not a syllable to forbid his eating, not a syllable to forbid his coming out. The wretch lives for a week or so, and then expires. Physical obstacles, which rendered it impossible for him to escape and live, are employed in preference to ineffective threats. What follows?—that while he lives, it is not false imprisonment? that when he dies, it is not murder? No; but that the imprisonment is so much the more rigorous, the murder so much the more barbarous.

In this feigned case, it was by the strong man that the weak man was forced into the cave of death. In the real case, it is by authority of the law, that men by hundreds and thousands have been forced into New South Wales. If in this but too real case, staying there for life, because return has, with this express view, been rendered impracticable—if, while thus kept there for life, their stay there is not to be imputed to those who, in that view, sent them thither—then, neither in the feigned case, is the death of the prisoner to be imputed to the man, whom no one I suppose that thinks of the case, will scruple to call his murderer.

The mode of proceeding chosen in the view of securing the proposed effect, was of a piece with the effect itself. Had an act of parliament been passed, abrogating pro tanto in the lump the whole system of the transportation laws, and declaring that, in future, in whatsoever case transportation should be provided, nominally for this or that term of years, in effect the banishment should be for life, the measure would have been a severe one: it would have worn the appearance of an inordinately severe, and not very well considered one; but still, in respect of the course pursued for the accomplishment of it, it would have been an unexceptionable one. For in this case, being to be established by the direct authority of the legislature, and in the express words of the legislature, it could not but have been submitted to the legislature, submitted in its own genuine shape and colour, and, in that shape and colour, passed through all stages and all forms.

Unexceptionable in the mode, unexceptionable in point of form, the measure would not have been the less exceptionable in point of effect and substance. So palpably exceptionable, that I almost fancy your Lordship rejecting it as incredible, and saying to me, “Why encumber the argument thus with improbabilities? why perplex it with extreme cases?”

My Lord, if this be not precisely what was done, at any rate, this and more, and worse (your Lordship has seen already,) was actually done: done—or at least, so far as this was the real design and object of the settlement, endeavoured to be done. To give a particular and precise delineation of the course that was taken for doing what was done, would be a digression here, and must be referred to another place. To speak in generals—what was done in this behalf, was done by administration, by a sort of surprise, not to say fraud, upon the legislature. By an act of 1779, the same by which parliament supposed itself to have established the penitentiary system—by this act, in a hasty clause suggested by the exigency of the moment, the system then regarded as the preferable one not being capable of taking effect for some time, power was given to change the locus ad quem in transportation, from the quondam colonies in America, to any other place “beyond the seas;”* less latitude not appearing sufficient to insure to the transportation system even that temporary continuance which was all that was then intended for it. The evident object of that act was, to continue that mode of punishment upon a footing as near as possible to that on which it had stood ever since it was first instituted. Observing the latitude given for this purpose in the act, the founders of New South Wales laid hold of it, and upon the strength of it changed the real nature of the punishment, and placed it upon a footing as different from any footing on which it had ever stood before—as different from any that had been in contemplation of parliament,—in all essential particulars as widely different (your Lordship has seen) as possible. Of a measure, thus legal in form, thus illegal in spirit and in substance, one knows not well what account to give. It is and is not the act of the legislature. The power of parliament was applied to it: the will of parliament was not applied to it. Neither the will nor understanding of parliament had had any cognizance of what was done. Parliament was dealt with by administration, as a man would be dealt with by an attorney, who should give him a lease for life to sign and seal, telling him it was a lease for years.

True it is, that after the choice was made, and New South Wales was fixed upon—true it is that then, under colour of a clause in a later act,* but to the same effect, a fresh act was obtained from parliament,† an act of which the object, and even the sole object, was the foundation of this new colony. By foundation, I mean the doing all that was thought fit to be proposed to be done by parliament for that purpose, viz. the creation of powers for the organization of one judicial court: on the subject of legislative power, an inviolable silence being preserved, for reasons which I may have occasion to speak of in another place. But this fresh act, in which not a syllable was said of any of the existing transportation acts, nor of the virtual extension which the several transportation terms respectively created by them were destined to receive—this fresh act was but the produce of a fresh fraud of the same kind, coming upon the back of the former fraud, and committed in support of it. From the very tenor of the act, as well as from a variety of collateral circumstances relative to it, your Lordship will (I dare venture to say) see the allegation put out of doubt: the inquiry, I am inclined to think, will not be altogether an uninteresting one; but, as already intimated, it must wait for another place. What I acknowledge accordingly is, that the choice made of that situation has the authority of parliament for its sanction, and in so doing I acknowledge it to be legal. But what I assert and undertake to show is, that the mind of the legislature has never gone with it: and thence it is that, in speaking of it, I may here and there have suffered my pen to run on with a degree of freedom, such as, had I considered it as substantially the act of the legislature, my respect for so sacred an authority might scarce have permitted me to assume.

Thus it is, that for authorizing in express terms the conversion of all finite lengths of transportation-banishment into infinite, no act of parliament was in fact passed or intended to be passed: but what was intended, and in part accomplished, and this under colour of an act of parliament (viz. the act just mentioned) was, that the fate of the wretches in question should be exactly the same as if an act of parliament to that effect had really been passed. Judges were accordingly to continue, and have continued with the accustomed gravity, sentencing men to transportation for fourteen years, or for seven years, or for any number of years not greater than seven, or for any number of years between seven and fourteen (for thus stands the law in some cases,) understanding or not understanding, that under a sentence of transportation for seven years, the convict was to continue in a state of banishment from his native country—in a state of confinement within the limits of that unknown country—for the remainder of his life. Parliaments were to go on in the same strain, establishing the same distinction in words, and with the same determination on the part of the servants of the crown, not to suffer any of those distinctions to be carried into effect. In the case intended to be realized, and in the case above supposed, but rejected as too bad to be supposed, the indiscriminating rigour, the groundless oppression, are just the same: the difference is, and the only difference, that in the imaginary case, the rigour, the oppression, stands clear of fraud—in the actual case it is defiled by fraud, by fraud aggravated by a solemn mockery of the forms of justice: a fraud organized by the servants of the crown, and forced upon the judges, who have it not in their power to refuse the part they act in it.

Nor yet was it by a mere fraud—the fraud of conveying a man, under colour of an act which meant no such thing, to a place from which no prohibition (it was hoped) would be necessary to prevent his return: it was not in this simple way alone that measures were taken for that purpose. Positive orders your Lordship will see issued, addressed to men whose punishment was expired, prohibiting them from leaving the colony in express terms—orders issued in full and direct contempt of the several laws of partiament on which the punishment had been grounded. But of this in another place.

Nor is this all—for in this cluster of abuses was involved, at the outset of the business, the monstrous, and in this country almost unexampled iniquity of an ex post facto law: nor yet a mere particular ex post facto law, such as that which, under the name of privilegium, has been consigned by Cicero to infamy, but a general ex post facto law: a law of this most odious cast, established upon a wide extending scale. At the outset, convicts were found by hundreds, lying under sentence of transportation, for terms of different limited lengths, from seven years or under, to fourteen years. In all these instances, to a punishment appointed according to law and by a legal sentence, was superadded, or at least endeavoured and thought to be superadded, a punishment of much greater magnitude, inflicted, or at least meant to be inflicted, silently and without sentence: a punishment for the remainder of life, superadded to a punishment for years.

If among the group of convicts whose sentence has consigned them to a hulk, so much as a single individual were to be confined by the hulk-keeper with or without an authority from a secretary of state, that secretary of state acting therein with or without an authority from the council board—if in this way a portion of punishment, though but for a month, were to be added to the length of punishment appointed by the law, what a sensation! what an outcry! Nor yet surely without cause. Here—not in one instance only, but in hundreds of instances at once—to a punishment, of from fourteen years down to one year or less, is superadded a punishment of the same kind for ninety-nine years (to express the duration by the phrase used by lawyers to express it,) for ninety and nine years, if in each instance the wretch shall so long live.

I do not mean to say (for the case is not exactly so) that in effect there is no difference at all, between the lot of him whose sentence is for seven years and that of him whose term of transportation is for life: no, not even supposing them both to remain for life in the common scene of their intended fate. Transportation is indeed the punishment named by the law in both cases:—transportation, i. e. banishment, and that, intended to continue for life, is thereupon the punishment they are alike doomed to in both cases. But to mark the distinction between the two lots, here comes in the necessity of taking a second glance at another abuse, which has been already touched upon, and for which the only apology that could ever have been made is, that it was an ancient one. Transportation is the word used alike for all transportable convicts in the act of parliament: Transportation is therefore (I take for granted) the word that has been used for all alike in the judicial sentence or order, in virtue of which, in execution of these acts, the convicts have been sent abroad. Yet somehow or other, so it has been in practice, that under the same provision in the act, and under a judicial sentence or order couched in the same terms, transportation has been (as your Lordship has seen) to one man, simple banishment; to another man, banishment aggravated by bondage: as if to men in general, and in particular to men of British blood, the difference between bondage and liberty were a matter not worth speaking about.

This being the case, as to such part of the suffering, as (in the cases of two convicts sentenced to different lengths of transportation) is imposed by the express appointment of the law (I mean the simple banishment,) the extension thus given, under the present system, by this clandestine act of power, is in both cases really the same: what difference there is, lies in a point overlooked by the law, overlooked from the very first, as not worthy of its notice. The banishment—I mean the simple banishment—the mere continuance in the destined scene of banishment, is, or at least is hoped, and, by all who can find anything to say for the measure, expected to be in both cases for life: the only part of the punishment that has a different termination in the two cases is the bondage: the accidental accompaniment which the law in its wisdom has never yet looked upon as worth mentioning or caring about.

The bondage does not receive, nor therefore was meant to receive, any prolongation, at least any regular and avowed prolongation, from the choice made of New South Wales:* it is the banishment alone that does. But the banishment is the only part of the punishment which the statute law either speaks of in that light, or takes any care for the enforcement of: the bondage comes in by the bye: it was put in only to save charges.†

In speaking of the prolongation thus given to all these different lengths of banishment, a point I have all along been careful to keep in view, is the distinction between design and execution, between the effect intended to be produced and the effect actually produced. In its intention, it has to all alike been banishment for life. In effect, what has it been? To some perhaps what it was intended to be: to others, to many others, no such thing. For, not even at the first moment, at the time when the difficulty of evasion was at its highest pitch, did the effect come up with any uniformity to the intention: and the longer the punishment continues in use, the further and the further will it be from the attainment of this end. Many whose terms are expired, and who, with whatever views, pant for the exercise of those rights to which the law, as if it were in derision, pretends to have restored them, do indeed remain debarred from the exercise of those rights, according to the intention of those who devised and organized this plan of perfidy. But many—more, in abundance, than these politicians could have conceived—escape from this scene of intended annihilation, to afflict their mother-country a second time with their pernicious existence.

Then it is, that this expelled, this fruitlessly expelled mass of corruption—then it is, that (instead of putting on incorruption, as it was expected to have done by miracle, without any human means provided for the production of the effect,) it is found (as your Lordship has seen) to have put on a worse corruption, if possible, than before.

The price, in the way of injustice—the whole price is thus paid for the expected benefit: and it is but in an imperfect degree that the benefit is reaped. The proportions of penal justice are confounded; the poison of perfidy is infused into the system of government; and still the obnoxious vermin remain unextirpated.*

Your Lordship sees below how large, how indefinite, the number is of these exiles, that may be expected to return: the number of all descriptions: of those, whose return the governor may have been willing to permit, of those, whose return the governor may have been not willing to permit; of those, whose return he may have been willing to prevent, according to law; of those, whose return he may have been willing to prevent, contrary to law.

On this head, two further considerations may be not altogether unworthy of notice: one regarding number again—the other, quality.

As to number of returners, whatever it may have been hitherto, it may naturally be expected to be greater and greater, the longer the establishment continues: because, the longer it continues, the greater the population of it may be expected to be, and, on that and other accounts, the greater the number of vessels that touch there in a year, whether for the purpose of bringing in more convicts, or for any other purposes; whether belonging to this country or belonging to other countries.*

The consequence is, that the greater the use made of the colony in this or in any other way—the greater the increase of it in wealth as well as population—the greater, in a word, the degree of “improvement” it receives in all other points of view—the more incapable it becomes of answering the expectations formed of it, in regard to this its primary object—the more unfit, with reference to this the only real and substantial use that anybody has ever seen or professed to see in it.

Already has an open boat been known to furnish the means of escape; and that through the vast space between New South Wales and Timor. One of these days, as stations multiply, and the coasts become more and more difficult to guard, we may expect to see better boats, stolen or even built, for voyages of escape to Otaheite or some other of the many shorter voyages, with the help of a seaman or two to each of them, to command it.

Lastly, as to the quality of the persons—the sorts of characters, I mean, whose return may in the greatest proportion be expected. These are precisely those, from whom, on one account or another, the most mischief is to be apprehended. The species of delinquents, who with the greatest certainty can command the means of their return, are those who occupy the highest ranks in the hierarchy of criminality; the men of science and connexion among depredators; the master-dealers who have accumulated a capital out of the profits of their trade; the receivers of stolen goods, those wholesale merchants who, by the very nature of their prolific department in the division of criminal labour, are, in a swarm of connected depredators, what the queen bee is in the hive.

It is the indigent, and unconnected malefactor alone, that stays there, for want of the means of buying his way back: among these, it is the unenterprising, and thereby the least dangerous species of malefactor, that will be most apt to stay there, for want of being able to employ with success those means of escape, which his more ingenious, or more audacious, and on either account more dangerous comrades, make such abundant and successful use of.

In the contemplation of the beauties of the colonial establishment, your Lordship has almost lost sight (I doubt) of the establishment sacrificed to it, and the parallel that was to be kept up between the favourite and the discarded measure.

During the continuance of the penal term, at any rate, the advantage, so far as the article of incapacitation for fresh offences is concerned, may, I flatter myself, be stated as being clearly enough on the side of the penitentiary establishment. Even in an ordinary prison, an escape is not a very common incident: under the new and still more powerful securities of so many sorts, superadded to the common ones, in a prison upon the panopticon plan, I have ventured to state it as, morally speaking, an impossible one.

After the expiration of the penal term, the part of the penitentiary house at home, so far as prevention of future delinquency is concerned, becomes, in comparison of that of the colony at the antipodes, I must confess, but an under part. My means would have had for their limits those of law and justice: I could not have added an illegal indefinite punishment to a finite legal one; I could not have flogged men for the exercise of their rights. I am not a—, to tread upon the law. No, not in any case: so that how little soever he may have done in this way, in comparison of what he meant to do, that little will always be so much more than could in this way have been done by me.

For reformation indeed (as your Lordship has seen) I had strong means, and even physical means: but as to absolute incapacitation, incapacitation with regard to future mischief, physical means (I must acknowledge) fail me. It was on reformation (I must confess) I had placed my first reliance: first in order at any rate—and it was not a weak one. Drunkenness, in the “improved colony,” universal: in a panopticon penitentiary house, impossible. Religious exercise—there odious, and generally eluded: here, uneludible, and by every imaginable and becoming device rendered as inviting and interesting as possible. Profitable employment—there again odious, in a great degree eludible, and eluded as much as possible; here, uneludible again, and by diversification (the opportunities of which would be abundant) and choice, as far as choice is admissible, rendered from the first not odious, and, by habit and universal example, easy and even agreeable.

After emancipation, profitable employment—there not wanting indeed, but still generally irksome, because, under preceding habits, all along rendered so, by habitual sloth, drunkenness, and dissipation: here certain, and in whatever shape, habit, concurring with choice, may have rendered most agreeable, to bodies and minds invigorated by inviolable temperance.

Constituted as human nature is, it may be too much to expect, that even these securities should in every instance be effectual: but where they fail to be so, here presents itself, in dernier resort, incapacitation—absolute incapacitation with regard to any third offence, after conviction of a second: I mean of course by consignment to the penitentiary-house for life. Take away this instrument of incapacitation, and there remains (as at present) no other but the savage and unnecessary resource of death, or the ineffectual resource of transportation: transportation nominally, and frequently but nominally, for life.

Experience is a standard I never miss appealing to, so far as it can be employed. On one side, on the side of the penitentiary establishment, no direct reference can, unfortunately, be made to it. To afford experience, it must have had existence; and that it should not, gentlemen took effectual care. Yet, notwithstanding all their industry, added to all their negligence (for the article of escapes has shown your Lordship how difficult it is to distinguish the one from the other by their effects,) a testimony nearer to that of direct experience—of experience of the penitentiary plan itself—than could easily have been imagined, has actually started up: experience, though not precisely of that very instrument of security, yet of those means of security that are most like it, and stand next to it.

The characteristic principle of the colonization plan (loose confinement, without inspection) having been tried and found to fail—to fail as completely as it was possible for a principle to fail—one resource alone remained. This was the opposite principle, close inspection—inspection as close as there were means for making it; with or without confinement, also according to the means. A jail is not quite so easily built as talked of, not even in England, as I have had occasion to know but too well; still less in New South Wales, where even the makeshift dwelling-places could not be put together fast enough. A jail, however, being found to be the one thing needful—and among all countries most needful in that remotest of all accessible regions, to which delinquents were thus sent, on pretence of saving the expense of it—a jail, such as it was, was accordingly erected, as soon as it could be erected, and, moreover, as jail-room—room in a real immoveable jail—in that which, in the literal sense of the word, is meant by a jail—could not, with every exertion, be provided fast enough, a succedaneum to it was added—a sort of metaphorical ambulatory jail, in which the eye of an inspector, assisted or not by fetters, supplied, as well as it could, the place of prison-walls. The jail, as might have been expected—a jail built under such circumstances—was not always man-tight: it was, however, better than none at all, and, with all its imperfections (whatever they were,) was still the best and ultimate dependence.

This, then, was the real fruit of the establishment: to show (to such eyes, I mean, whosoever they may be, as are not self-condemned to incurable blindness,) to show its own perfect inefficacy, and the absolute necessity of that other establishment which, in its two different shapes, has twice been sacrificed to it, and in the vain hope of saving the honour of so many honourable and right honourable personages, still continues to be sacrificed to it. Such was the upshot of this grand Colony-founding expedition!—to save the expense of an originally improvable, and afterwards beyond all former conception improved, system of inspection-management: men sent off year after year by hundreds to the antipodes, to be kept without employment to corrupt one another under a sort of incomplete inspection-management in a makeshift jail, at an expense (for this too your Lordship will see) from twice to four times as great as that of the system sacrificed to it. Happily, on those terms, and at that distance, the necessary jail, such as it was, was built.* In New South Wales, under the law of fabricated necessity, as in Constantinople, under the lex regia, the will of the Imperator was the sole law—sole undisputed law—law not in name but in effect—law not to be dealt with like the law of Parliament—not to be trod upon, but to be obeyed. It was law paramount, my Lord, and without any dispensing power, such as (your Lordship will see) has been exercised in this country to overrule it. It being the legislator’s interest, as well as that of every other honest man in the colony, that the jail should be erected, and his conception of his interest not being disturbed by imaginations, such accordingly was his will. A law was passed for the building of that jail, and (how incredible soever it may seem to honourable and right honourable gentlemen in this country, that a law for building a jail should find obedience) built it was.

In addition to the positive testimony of the fact, it seemed necessary that a demonstration should thus be given of the possibility of such an event, lest, without some such preparation, judging of the state of law and politics there by the state of law and politics here, your Lordship should have rejected it as incredible.

The testimony does not stop here. Not only among the convicts, who were transported to the antipodes to be kept in order, but among the soldiery that were transported with them to help to keep them in order, the root of all disorder was found to he in a deficiency of inspection: and accordingly, whatever imperfect check was ever given to the disorder, was given to it by supplying that deficiency—supplying it either by inspection simply, or by inspection coupled with confinement, as the causa sine quâ non for rendering it sufficiently steady and effective.

In that land of universal and continually increasing corruption, the guardian class (as might have been expected) became corrupted by their wards. To stop the contagion, exertions on the part of the officers were neither deficient, nor yet successful. After years of ill success, what at last was the remedy?—a wall:—barracks, with “a high brick wall round them,” or “an inclosure of strong paling,” to answer the same purpose.†

Under the head of Incapacitation, one instrument I had like to have omitted, to the credit of which, the founders and conductors of this establishment have a most indisputable and exclusive title—and that is death. For keeping a man out of harm’s way—out of harm’s way in both senses—out of the way of doing it—out of the way of receiving it—the homely proverb is applicable in this case with indisputable propriety—Stone dead has no fellow.

In the course of about eight years and a half, from the 13th of May 1787 to the 31st of December 1795, convicts shipped 5196: died in the passage 522:‡ and all not told. Such care had the founders taken of their colonists, that, in the mere passage, without reckoning famines at the end of it, they had decimated them: more than decimated them, as per account, and the account is evidently an incomplete one, the article of deaths being left unnoticed in regard to five ships out of twenty-eight.

“Bad enough indeed: but did not the fault he in the contractors?” Yes, my Lord, there was but too much fault in the contractors, but it was not the less the fault of those who contracted with them, and of the system under which they contracted. It was the fault of—and his man of economy, by a double title; for having fixed upon so incurably bad a system (sacrificing to it the so much better system they found ordained by parliament with the assistance of the twelve judges,) and for having rendered the management so much worse than even under that bad system, it need to have been made.

First cause of the mischief—length of the voyage: the effect of the unexampled distance of the spot—of the spot chosen to be colonized, and to be thus colonized.

Second cause of the mischief—want of interest on the part of those on whose power depended the prevention of it—the profit which the transporter had it in his power to make by putting people to death—whether by starving them or crowding them—this profit in both cases being left to be reaped with impunity, and unbalanced by any profit to be got by keeping them alive:—want of that care which might and ought to have been taken, to do what in that case it would have been so easy to do—to bring the two antagonizing forces—duty, and that sort of narrow interest which acts in opposition to duty, into coincidence.

These causes were, both of them, peculiar to this new transportation system: they had not, either of them, any place in the old. While the territory, to which the transportation was allowed to be made, was comprised within the limits of what was then British America, the length of the voyage was scarce the third or fourth part of what it is in the case of New South Wales. Thus it stood in point of distance. The transportation was performed under the care of those, who, in the case of each individual under their charge, not only had nothing to gain by his death, but had everything to lose by it. The animal was a saleable commodity, the carcase not. The sale was not only a source of profit, but the only source. Thus it stood in point of interest.

Turn now, my Lord, to the penitentary system. Under both editions of it, voyage none. Under the original system, the managers no gainers by the death of any mortal under their management: under the improved edition of it, the manager a great loser by every one—a hundred pounds in hard money, besides other losses not susceptible of a precise and concise estimate, but which would in many instances rise to a still superior amount.

This stipulation, to the want of which, more clearly than to any other cause, may be referred the loss of so many lives as were lost in the passage to New South Wales, was not only contrived by me for my contract, and inserted by me, but maintained by me against a strong reluctance to the contrary: and after all, it was rather to the influence of will over will, of humble importunity over despotic carelessness, than to any influence of reason on such faculties as I had to deal with, that I could find any ground for attributing my success:—if success it can be termed, to receive a plighted faith, with a clandestinely promised and carefully concealed determination to break it at the bottom of it.

What the cause of this reluctance was, I do not pretend to know: whether the wish was, that the wretches should die to save charges and lighten the budget, or that the influence of profit and loss over the human breast had not been able to demonstrate itself to gentlemen even in that situation, and after so many examples of it as the voyages to New South Wales had even then been already forcing upon their eyes. The idea of establishing this coincidence, and in some such way as that proposed in the case of the penitentiary establishment, has, since that time, (if my recollection does not deceive me) conquered in some other instances the predilection for accustomed abuse, in preference to unaccustomed remedy, and forced its way into legislation or administration, I forget which. But the case is not worth hunting for: it would be found (I believe) either in the convict transportation trade, or in the slave trade, or both.*

In the account of death, I have mentioned as yet but one of the efficient causes of this species of security, viz. duress on ship-board. On their arrival at this land of cruel promise, the fugitives from pestilence were received by famine. Those who had escaped the first decimation, were now to go through a second. In one year (1792,) out of fewer than 4000 convicts, 436 breathed their last, of whom more than 400 were carried off by famine. I say by famine, for such was the degree of natural salubrity in the spot (a degree so prodigiously superior to any thing which antecedent experience could have promised,) that in 1794, out of a greater number there died but forty two, and in 1795, but twenty.*

At the end of the year 1792, the destroying angel having been at work in this way for three years, out of the whole number shipped off within that time, more than one fourth, by sea and land together, had died: out of 4792, viz. 1291.

In this combination of associated scourges (both of them in no small degree the product of official management) one circumstance requires to be observed. Of the mortality on both elements, that part which took place at sea, deplorable as it was in itself, operated in effect in diminution of the whole. The 522 who by pestilence or famine perished in the voyage—these enviable, because earlier victims—these superfluous wretches, had they landed, would probably, and by a number still greater than themselves, have increased the multitude of those subsequent victims, whom, by an undisputed title, famine called her own. From the amount of the least ration necessary to health, take away a certain portion, only a part may die: aggravate the deficiency by a small fraction more, the same fate may involve the whole. The 522 and upwards who perished at sea, may, by having been thus destroyed in time, have saved more than 521 from being destroyed by famine, in addition to the 639, or thereabouts, who actually received their quietus from that scourge.

“But,” says somebody, and not unplausibly, “to what good purpose seek, at this time of day, to rip up these old sores? In respect of life and death, the establishment presents two features: mortality at the outset; health and vitality afterwards: the mortality an infliction common to all new colonies: the vitality, a blessing in a degree altogether peculiar to this of New South Wales. The bad is past, and without remedy: for the future, (you yourself cannot but allow) the prospect is, on this side at least, a fair one.”

Yes, my Lord, in the colony itself, men being once landed there—in the several spots at present settled, and, so far as concerns ordinary disease—the healthiness of the climate, and that in a more than ordinary degree, does indeed appear sufficiently established. But should the existence of the settlement, (which God forbid on so many other accounts,) be protracted for a period of considerable length—suppose double the length of that which has already elapsed—it will then be seen whether the increase of vitality gained by exemption from ordinary disease, be not dearly paid for by a decrease produced in the same period by the operation of the scourge of famine. Further on, as the facts rise to view, I may have occasion to sketch out the very particular nature of this danger, and to submit to your Lordship, whether it be not inextricably interwoven with the unchangeable circumstances of the spot.

The pestilence too—the preliminary pestilence during the voyage—will be found, and in a very high degree, not a mere accidental and occasional concomitant, but an essential and irremoveable one: for irremoveable it must be in no inconsiderable degree, if it be really what it appears to be, the joint result of the character of the passengers and the duration of the voyage. Leave them unconfined, they mutiny; confine them, they die. Negligence, above or below, may have augmented, as it does indeed appear to have augmented, the amount of the mortality from this source: care in both places may lessen it; but in such circumstances, mortality, and that in a most deplorable degree, is an affliction that, on any right consideration of the nature of the case, can scarcely but be expected ever and anon to take place, spite of the utmost care. Accordingly, as we are informed by Mr. Collins (ii. 222) in the Hillsborough, a ship that arrived in New South Wales with convicts in July 1799, the deaths were, out of 300, no fewer than 101, not to speak of sickness; although, according to the conception of the same ever candid reporter, “it was impossible that any ship could have been better fitted by government for the accommodation of prisoners during such a voyage.” “The gaol-fever lurking in their clothing,” is the cause to which he attributes this mortality, amounting to upwards of a third. “The terms of the charter party” he understands to have been “strictly complied with.”

IV. Fourth object or end in view, Compensation, or Satisfaction: the means of it to be extracted, if possible, out of the punishment, and made over to the party specially injured (where there is one) in satisfaction for whatever loss or other suffering had been brought upon him by the offence.

In speaking of this as among the ends of punishment, I find myself driven, against my wishes, upon a distinction which, as often as it presents itself, can never be other than an unpleasing one: I mean the distinction between what exists, and what on the score of public good it were to be wished did exist, in point of law. That, in the case of transportable offences—of offences of the rank of those to which that species of punishment has been annexed—no such result is among the objects of our system of penal law, unless by accident, is but too indisputable: whether it were not desirable that it should be, may be left to every understanding, as well as to every heart, in which the study of law has not extinguished the sense of justice.

Observe, my Lord, the incongruity, the inconsistency. Where the offence is deemed least enormous, the party injured has his chance of satisfaction for the injury: where it is deemed most enormous, and punished accordingly, he has no such chance. Not that anything can be more satisfactory to anybody than this arrangement is to Blackstone.* As often as a man is hanged or transported, or kept in a jail or flogged, satisfaction is thereby given to somebody or to something: this being assumed, what sort of a thing the satisfaction is, or who gets it, is, in the learned commentator’s account, not worth thinking about.*

To your Lordship’s most humble servant, since he conceived himself to understand what satisfaction meant, nothing but dissatisfaction (he will confess) has ever been afforded by the arrangements thus made with reference to it; and with these feelings, some sixteen or eighteen years ago, he set to work, and travelled through divers investigations in relation to the subject. Cases, by injury or otherwise, calling for satisfaction, with the reasons for affording it—party to whom—party at whose expense—it shall be afforded—quantity and certainty of satisfaction—different species or modes of satisfaction, adapted to the nature of the several injuries. Such were among the subjects of those labours, the produce of which, lately rescued from the spiders by a friend, should be laid at your Lordship’s feet, could time be spared for any such trifles from your Lordship’s sublimer occupations.

Nine or ten years ago, in drawing up the proposal for my penitentiary establishment, a thought struck me, that on paying the whole expense of the experiment, I might perhaps be allowed to purchase the satisfaction of stealing the idea into practice. Amidst the blindness and negligence, the marks of which appeared but too conspicuous, my hope was, that, under favour of that vulgar and almost universal jealousy, that would rather lose a ten-fold public benefit than not nibble down to the quick the recompense to the individual who should give birth to it, a plot even for doing good might pass undetected. I had, however, miscalculated: gentlemen were too sharp for me: what was wanting in discernment, had been supplied by prejudice. When the proposal came to be turned into a contract, the battles I had to fight would be here an episode, upon what I fear has already been accused of being itself an episode. Careful of my interests, as I myself was negligent—seeing deeper into them by a glance than I had been able to do by the calculations and meditations of months or years, gentlemen trembled lest I should ruin myself.

To let your Lordship into a secret, the danger of loss was as nothing: diminution of gain was all the sacrifice. What I bound myself to do in this way, was limited by considerations of necessary prudence: my hopes, and, as far as means should extend, my intentions, were to do more. Your Lordship is now master of my secret; which, to complete the confession, has never been such to anybody that would allow me to hope he might be prevailed upon to listen to it.

To return to the question. In New South Wales, the annual value of a man’s labour being minus £46 : 5s. or some such matter, the surplus applicable to the purpose of compensation could not be great: I mean, the positive surplus, extractable from that negative quantity, for the purpose of being converted into the matter of positive compensation, payable to the individual in Great Britain who had been a sufferer by the offence for which the convict in question had been consigned to New South Wales.

I hear your Lordship stopping me. “The idea of compensation being, in such a case, so novel—novel to a degree which you yourself, sir, have even been forward to acknowledge—the absence of it cannot, consistently with justice, be objected as a blemish to that system of punishment, of which the scene was laid in New South Wales.” Be it so, my Lord: but the task in hand is—a parallel to be drawn between this exotic system and the home system, which has been set aside by it: and the mode of trial chosen by me, not knowing of a better, was, by their respective degrees of conformity to the several objects or ends of penal justice: and, at the very outset, in speaking of those ends, I assumed the liberty (I hope not altogether an unreasonable one) of adding to those actually and habitually aimed at, such others, if any, in regard to which it might appear reasonable and desirable that they should be aimed at. But, in regard to this of compensation, as far as my opportunities of observation have extended, and from all I have been able to collect from offices of insurance, courts of justice, and other places, it has appeared to me that, when a loss has been suffered, the receiving back again the amount of it, or so much towards it as may be to be had, is an event pretty generally looked upon as a desirable one; I mean, in the eyes of him by whom the loss has been sustained: nor, saving Blackstone, and those who think with Blackstone, has it ever happened to me to meet with any person, to whom it has presented itself in the opposite point of view, unless those be excepted, at whose expense and to whose loss the matter of compensation was to be found; a class of persons whose repugnance would not, I believe, on the present occasion, be regarded as an insuperable obstacle, forasmuch as, by the supposition, it is intended they should undergo punishment—and a degree of punishment, of which the mortification from such loss would be but a part.

If, then, it may be assumed that compensation presents a legitimate title to a place among the ends of penal justice, it appears further to my humble conception, that supposing, with the favourite system of exotic punishment in one scale, and the discarded system of home punishment in the other, the balance were to be found to hang exactly even (the weights from the four other topics, example, reformation, incapacitation for fresh offences, and economy, being collected and thrown in on both sides) that on that supposition, I say—and that I hope, not a very presumptuous one—a few grains of compensation might (forasmuch as there could be nothing of the sort in the opposite scale) be found peradventure to preponderate.

This is all I presume to contend for under this head: and here ends all the trouble I wish to give your Lordship, for the present at least, on the subject of this unfashionable and little regarded end of penal justice.

V. Fifth head of comparison between the two systems: fifth and last object or end proper to be kept in view in a system of penal legislation: the collateral object of Economy: economy in respect of the aggregate expense of the establishments allotted to this purpose.

In the 28th Report of the Committee on Finance, your Lordship possesses a document in which this topic stands discussed, with that comprehensive and demonstrative accuracy in which the advocates of the penal colonization system have never ceased to behold their sentence. I beg your Lordship’s pardon: instead of advocates, I should rather have said supporters; for, to be an advocate of a system, a man must have something to say for it, which in the case of a supporter is not necessary. In the present instance, in the character of advocates, I have always found gentlemen as silent and modest as in the character of supporters they have been found powerful—and by dint of power firm and strenuous. In the epithet, the so often quoted epithet, “improved,” consists (as your Lordship will find) not only the substance, but the entire tenor of their argument: and on what sort of foundation that epithet has been applied is a point on which, by this time, your Lordship is not altogether unprepared to judge. Including, as it does, the whole budget of their arguments, for all occasions, on which the merits of the favourite establishment can come in question, it would be injustice to refuse them, on any occasion, the full benefit of it.

According to the calculations in the above Finance Report—in New South Wales, the average annual expense of convicts, per head, varying according to a variety of statements and suppositions, is from £33 : 9 : 5½ to £46 : 7 : 9¼; the highest rate of expense the most probable.

Say, accordingly, rate of expense of the colonial establishment to the penitentiary establishment—in round numbers, from somewhat more than two to one, to somewhat less than four to one.

True it is, that in the course of the seven or eight years, during which the pretence for relinquishment on the ground of lapse of time, had been manufacturing, the expense of necessaries had received such an increase, that, without some such addition as between £4 and £5, the faith plighted by the acceptance of the proposal in 1793, must (as your Lordship may have observed from my armed,‡ and therefore suppressed memorial of April 1800,) have been violated in substance. True it is also, that by the compliment paid to—in the change of the spot from Battersea Rise (the spot chosen by the twelve judges, &c., and valued by a jury under the act of 1779,) to Tothill-fields, an additional expense would have been incurred: an expense, the amount of which, though not capable of exact liquidation, might, supposing the lot had been completed, be set down in round numbers at another £10,000: so that, upon the whole, the expense per head per annum of the penitentiary system, on the supposition of the thousand prisoners, would have been to be raised from about £13 : 10s. to about £18, 10s. But the difference, amounting to about £5 a-year per convict, belongs plainly to no such account as that of the original and proper expense of the penitentiary system: it may be set down to the account of public money wasted—wasted between—and—by the one of these—and incorruptible members of—, in spite of the most strenuous remonstrances on my part, out of compliment to, and for the accommodation of the other.

“But the expense,” says somebody, “will decrease: it was expected to be great, till the colony raised its own provisions; but now that period is arrived.”

My Lord, if it were put to me to say, honestly and sincerely, whether the expense per head were most likely to increase or to decrease (reckoning from the last amount as stated in the report of the committee of finance), I should certainly answer—to decrease, and that in a considerable degree: though at the sametime, were I to be asked whether any considerable decrease would be to be depended upon, I could not answer otherwise than in the negative.

On the other side of the question, there are two other points, to which I could venture to speak with much greater confidence.

One is, that the rate of possible decrease has its limits; and those limits such, that there is not any the smallest chance whatever, that within the compass of the present century the rate of expense per head in New South Wales will be reduced to a level with the rate at which, if the public faith had been kept with me at the outset, it would have stood under the penitentiary system. I might perhaps add—nor even to a level with that at which it would now stand, if so much of the public faith, as at this time can be kept with me, were now kept.

Another is—that, long before the rate of expense per head, in New South Wales, is reduced so much as to the level of what it would now be under the penitentiary system, this latter expense would be reduced to nothing at all.

In relation to the first of these two points—the probable amount of the decrease in the case of the New South Wales system—if our expectations are governed by those which, according to the latest documents, were entertained by the conductors and supporters of it, they at least cannot complain much of the estimate.

Of the expense of the ten or eleven first years of the existence of this settlement, being the period comprised in the account signed Charles Long, 16th May 1798, and marked O in the 28th Finance Report, printed 26th June 1798, the grand total, at that time brought to account, amounted to £1,037,000. This total is compounded of seven divisions. One of them is intituled, “Expense of victualling the convicts and the settlement from home.” To this division a note is subjoined, expressive of the expectations of the conductors and supporters of this system, in relation to the reduction of the expense. “It is supposed,” says the note, “this expense, compared with the numbers victualled, will gradually decrease.”

It is to this division (your Lordship will have the goodness to observe)—it is to this division that the expectations thus declared confine themselves: of no other of the seven divisions is any such expectation so much as hinted.

In this £37, then, your Lordship sees that quantity towards which, according to the expectation of gentlemen who are urged by every imaginable motive to put the best face possible upon their “improved” colony, may be considered as likely to be making approaches, from time to time, but to which, even according to expectations so circumstanced, it can never be considered as susceptible, in the nature of the case, of ever being reduced.

But in this £37 your Lordship sees a rate of expense the exact double of that of the penitentiary establishment, taken at its latest and artificially augmented nominal amount, £18, 10s.

Which was the original and proper rate.*

Here, then, as in a nut-shell, your Lordship may see the morality, the economy, and the logic of right honourable gentlemen—all in their genuine colours.

For seven years together, by a course of management which I may have occasion to exhibit elsewhere, they were manufacturing their “lapse of time;” and thus was formed one of their four grounds for the relinquishment of the incommodious measure.

In a still longer space of time (adding preceding delays) they manufactured a necessary “increase of terms;” and this was another of their four grounds: and, in these two harmonizing features, your Lordship beholds the morality of honourable and right honourable gentlemen delineated to the life.

And here your Lordship has another sample, of that congenial cast of economy, for which the public is indebted to the contrivers of the never-to-be-forgotten Poor Bill.

It is to save the public from being burthened by that “increase of terms,” to which, not altogether without reason, they apply the attribute “great”—to save his Majesty’s subjects from paying £18 : 10s. that they saddle the present generation with £46 : 5s.—leaving to some future generation its chance for seeing the expense reduced to a sum between that and the £37.

And here, in conclusion, your Lordship sees a sample of that logic which has led to such economy, and proved such morality to be conducive to true interest, and compatible with lasting fame.

Your Lordship (I hope) has not forgotten, that, in relation to every one of those points which either have been, or ought to have been its direct objects—example—reformation—incapacitation in regard to ulterior offences—compensation for the mischief by past offences—the establishment has been (according to the nature of each object) as completely unconducive, or as strenuously repugnant, as it is possible for an institution to be: and it is for so pre-eminent a degree of unfitness with reference to all these its direct ends, that a compensation was to be looked for on the collateral ground of economy;—economy, the only ground so much as hinted at—the strong and favourite ground of right honourable gentlemen:—the only one of the five objects so often mentioned that appears ever to have had any pretensions to the honour of their notice: for, as to the confining the mischievous activity of convicts—confining it, by lawless force, to the spot from which the law, had its force been equal to that of right honourable gentlemen, would have set them free—confining it to a part of his Majesty’s dominions, and thereby preventing it from displaying itself in any part except that one—as to this point, I have already had occasion to observe, that change of place and annihilation are not the same operation to an ordinary understanding, whatever they may be to extraordinary ones.

“In arithmetic,” (says Mr. Rose most truly* ) “there is no eloquence to persuade, no partiality to mislead. In its calculations, therefore,” (I keep on saying with the right honourable gentlemen at my respectful distance,) “if the reader will have the patience to peruse them, plainly and fairly, as they are given in the preceding pages, he cannot be at a loss for his decision. To them the writer of these sheets,” (I still keep up with him,) “can with confidence appeal. The subject,” he continues and concludes, does not “admit of favour, but it cannot fail to obtain justice.” There—there, alas!—he distances me. The subject—the subject in which I was concerned—did admit of favour, and therefore it could not obtain justice.

So much for the contingent decrease upon the expense of the favourite establishment. Your Lordship may now compare it with the decrease already hinted at, in the case of its devoted rival. Of this expense, the continuance being limited to that of the longest of two lives, one of them a very insignificant and useless one, was in June 1798, in a valuation printed in the 28th report of the finance committee, estimated at from about 12⅖ to about 13¾ years;† and, in the course of the four years and more, which gentlemen have since contrived to make elapse, those two lives (it will be comprehended without much difficulty) have not, under the care thus taken of them, increased much in value.

Thus much, on the supposition of a reduction under one of the seven heads of expense. Against this will be to be set the contingency of an increase, under two other of these heads: a contingency which does not present itself as altogether an improbable one: I mean those of the military and naval establishments; to say nothing of the civil, which is so much inferior to the least of them.‡

Your Lordship has not failed to notice in its place the lady’s letter. The initial and principal part of it brings upon the carpet this same topic (and sure enough, my Lord, it is not from that source alone that your Lordship has heard of it,) the two sorts of things at present needful to the “improved” colony—more vessels and more troops. The passage is in these words:—

“Port Jackson, 7th October 1800.

“H. M. Ship Buffalo, returning to Europe, gives me an opportunity of writing to you, and of mentioning the uncomfortable state of anxiety we are kept in by the late importation of United Irishmen. For these last six months we have been under some apprehensions: but—, disbelieving their intentions,—took no steps to prevent their designs, until last Sunday week, which was the day fixed for the destruction of the military and principal families at Paramatta; a considerable settlement fifteen miles from this. The alarm being general, prevented their meeting: but above thirty of the ringleaders were apprehended and examined, when the greatest part confessed the horrid plot. Most of the passengers in the Buffalo treat this business as ridiculous: but this is probably because they are not likely now to partake of our danger, or from their not knowing the dreadful enormities already committed by these people in their own country. Our military force is very little in comparison of the numbers of Irish now in the colony, and that little much divided: the Buffalo’s sailing leaves us without any naval protection whatever. Much trouble may befal us before any succours can arrive, even after our critical situation is known; and we have every reason to believe that other ships, with the same description of people, are now on their voyage to this place.”

That these apprehensions, though expressed by a female pen, were neither unfounded nor exaggerated, appears pretty well established by posterior accounts. For these, indeed, I have no other warrant than that of the newspapers from which they are copied. All the knowledge I have of them is of the negative kind, viz. that I know nothing whatever, either of the authors of the respective articles of intelligence, or of the manner in which they found their way to the respective prints. But even this negative knowledge is not altogether without its use and application, since the result of it is, that the contents cannot have received any undue tincture from any motives by which the present representation may be supposed to have been tinged.*

“But New South Wales,” (it may still be said,) “New South Wales, besides being an establishment for the maintenance, employment, and reformation of convicts, is moreover a colony: and, as colonies in general are admitted to be valuable possessions, so must this too; since this, whatever becomes of it in any other character, remains at any rate a colony.”

My Lord—to confess the truth, I never could bring myself to see any real advantage derived by the mother country, from anything that ever bore the name of a Colony. It does not appear to me, that any instance ever did exist, in which any expense bestowed by government in the planting or conquering of a colony was really repaid. The goods produced by the inhabitants of such new colony cannot be had by the inhabitants of the mother country, without being paid for: and from other countries, or the mother country itself, goods to equal value may, without any such additional expense, as that of founding, maintaining, and protecting a colony, be had upon the same terms.

By accident, and for a time, there may indeed be, in the rate of profit obtained in dealing with the inhabitants of the new colony, a superiority with reference to the rate of profit obtained in dealing with other inhabitants of the mother country, or with the inhabitants of other states that are at the whole expense of their own maintenance; but such superiority is either not regarded as worth thinking about, or else tacitly assumed, and at any rate, never so much as attempted to be proved: while, on the other hand, an inferiority is at least as probable.* The supposition universally entertained—the supposition all along, though tacitly, assumed—the supposition on which statesmen speak and governments act, is—that the goods of the inhabitants of the colony—the productions of the colony—are obtained for nothing;—that the capital employed in carrying on the trade with the colony would not have yielded anything—would neither have yielded the ordinary rate of profit, nor any rate of profit at all, had it been employed elsewhere—had it been employed in any other branch of productive industry. On this supposition, the whole amount of the annually imported produce of the colony, figures annually on the side of national profit, without any per contrâ on the other side: or rather (what is still worse, and, if it were not so universal, more flagrantly absurd,) the export, by the sacrifice of which this import is obtained, is also considered as national profit: the loss, not only not deducted from the profit, but added to it.

Thus then stands the real account of profit and loss, in respect of colonies in general:—Colonies in general yield no advantage to the mother country, because their produce is never obtained without an equivalent sacrifice, for which equal value might have been obtained elsewhere. The particular colony here in question yields no advantage to the mother country, and for a reason still more simple—because it yields no produce.

The distinction is an essential one: I trust to your Lordship’s candour for the keeping it in broad day-light. The proposition relative to the unprofitableness of colonies in general is one thing: the proposition relative to the particular unprofitableness of this particular colony, is quite a different thing. The first may be consigned to the chapter of romance, by the admirers of arithmetic and its calculations: the other will remain as firm, as impregnable, as ever. The former gentlemen may amuse themselves with, and welcome—a good round House-of-Commons laugh will dispose of it—the other will not quite so easily be got rid off. Ex nihilo nihil fit, is a maxim, which, by its antiquity, may at least be protected from the reproach of innovation. From a colony in which no import-worthy produce can be raised, no import-worthy produce therein raised can be imported.

A trade, indeed, and a trade with foreign countries, has all along been carried on in New South Wales by the inhabitants of New South Wales. A trade? Yes, but of what sort?—a trade consisting of buying without selling. The articles purchased have been such of the necessaries and comforts of life, as the inhabitants, receiving pay immediately or mediately from the government of the mother country, have been willing to purchase, at the expense of the whole, or a corresponding portion of such their pay. The articles sacrificed have consisted, exclusively, of the money of which that pay has been composed: a trade which, with reference to any profit considered as receivable by the inhabitants of the mother country, consists in giving to the people of other countries for nothing, and in the shape of hard money, so much wealth raised on those same inhabitants of the mother country by taxes;—a trade which consists in paying tribute, tribute without return, to foreign countries. The people at large, on whom the money is levied, to be distributed, in the shape of pay, among the functionaries of government in New South Wales, get nothing at all for their money: the functionaries themselves get very little for it, since the goods they have purchased with it have always been sold to them at most enormous prices: prices some number of times perhaps as great, as they would have got the same articles for had they staid at home.*

Such has been the nature of the trade hitherto: and, if there be any prospect that the nature of that trade should undergo a change in any degree or in any respect more advantageous to the mother country, it will rest with those to whom such prospect has manifested itself, to point it out.

Of real advantages, if the case afforded any, experience, with reflection grounded on it, might furnish out the list: for ideal ones, opinion, wherever it may be to be found, is the sole resource.

In a passage that has already been submitted to your Lordship’s notice, the late Judge Advocate of the colony, taking upon himself the task of advocate in another sense, and calling over the muster roll of the advantages supposed to result from the establishment, gives the precedence to those, to which, had they any real existence, the precedence would unquestionably be due: I mean those which consist in its supposed subservience to the ends of penal justice: of which supposed subservience I have already had occasion to submit to your Lordship a somewhat different estimate. Of any of the advantages commonly looked for in colonies (advantages derived from population, produce, or trade,) I find no specific mention. Two other supposed advantages are, however, added, the account of which, that no injustice may unawares be done to it, is here given in the respectable author’s own words. The passage has been already quoted. “Valuable nursery to our East-India possessions for soldiers: valuable nursery to our East India possessions for seamen.” Nothing, indeed, of all this does the learned Advocate state it as having yet proved: but all this he supposes that one day or other “it may prove.”*

As to soldiers, in as far as it lies within the bounds of physical possibility, that soldiers stationed in New South Wales may be sent from thence to the East Indies, in so far may New South Wales be considered as capable of serving as a nursery for soldiers, with reference to the East Indies. But, forasmuch as the nearest port in New South Wales is farther from the mother country than the farthest port in the East Indies is, farther in point of time, by a third or so of the way—and forasmuch as it is not New South Wales that is in the way to the East Indies, but the East Indies that are in the way to New South Wales—on these considerations it should seem, that to be at hand for service in the East Indies, any given number of soldiers would be rather more usefully stationed if landed at once at that port, whatever it be, of the East Indies, which at any given point of time seemed likely to afford the speediest demand for their services, than if sent onwards, two or three months’ voyage farther to New South Wales, for the chance of getting them back again upon occasion by another voyage of the same length. The two wars with Tippoo Saib present the two occasions on which, since the foundation of the colony, the demand for soldiers in the East Indies seems to have been at its highest pitch. I dare venture to hope that, for some years at least, if not generations, there will not be such another. It does not appear that on either of those occasions any great use was made of that part of his Majesty’s army which was stationed in New South Wales.

If not in any state of things resembling the present, I am at a loss to conceive in what probable future state of things gentlemen here at home should, on any principles whatsoever, be either warranted in keeping up, or in any degree even disposed to keep up, in the ever so much “improved” colony, a superfluous detachment, applicable to the service of the mother country, in the East Indies.

As to seamen, men and boys may be sent on this voyage, with, for aught I know, as much advantage in point of instruction in seamanship as on any other voyage or succession of voyages, of the same length: but their proficiency in point of seamanship would not, I suppose, be much the less, if the voyage were performed at once in those other tracks, in reference to which a voyage in this track is supposed to serve as a school or “nursery,” and if there were something to be brought that were worth bringing so far from the country to which they are sent. When the vessels that have carried out from Britain goods and passengers to New South Wales, have brought any thing home, it has been (if I am not mistaken) either from China or the East Indies: so that the advantage in respect of the nursery for seamen has been pretty much of the same sort and degree as the advantage just mentioned in respect of the nursery for soldiers. If, in this case, there be any occult property in a round-about voyage that renders it preferable to a direct one, the case (I think) must be much the same in other voyages: in which case, the policy would be to establish some general and comprehensive system, for preventing vessels in general from arriving at their respective places of ultimate destination so soon as they would otherwise.

Wise or otherwise, the argument, it must be confessed, is far enough from being an unpopular one: navigation—(conveyance on the favourite element)—navigation, like trade, considered as an end, rather than as a means: or if as a means, as a means with reference to colonies. Here again comes in the ancient and favourite circle: a circle by which, in defiance of logic and mathematics, political conduct is squared, and wars generated. What are colonies good for?—for nursing so vast a navy. What is so vast a navy good for?—for keeping and conquering colonies.

A construction that might possibly have been put upon the supposed utility of the colony in the character of a nursery, receives a direct and decided negative from the author in the course of the book: I mean, the supposition that it was from among the convicts themselves that the two branches of the public service were to receive their recruits. Upon this construction a negative is put, not only by declared opinion, but by the specific experiences by which that opinion was produced.*

Be this as it may, of this stamp (it may naturally enough be conceived) were the ingredients of that mass of “political advantage,” “the prospect of which” (our historiographer informs us) “was” actually “presented by the plan to the patriotism of its noble originator” (the late Lord Sydney)—a prospect which appears to have all along presented itself in colours equally pleasing to his Lordship’s successors on the second floor of the treasury, as well as to his and their colleagues on the first—I mean always down to a point of time, the fixation of which I must beg leave to submit to your Lordship, to whom it is as precisely known as it is completely unscrutable to me at my humble distance.

The importance of these same elements of political advantage will appear in the clearer light, if they be admitted to be, what to my humble apprehension they appear to be, fair and correct samples of all those “indemnities for the past”—all those “securities for the future”—which have ever been presented by anything else that has ever borne the name of a colony, to the scrutinizing optics of those well exercised cultivators—some of them (as your Lordship has seen) professed panegyrists—“of arithmetic and its calculations.” If a fit standard of “appeal” on the subject of the burthens on the civil list, it can scarcely be a very unfit one on the subject either of the burthens or of the benefits from this or other colonies. But it is only where wisdom or fortune happen to have put right honourable gentlemen in possession of what presents itself to them as a good case, that they have either pens or tongues or so much as ears for any such undistinguished and undistinguishable individual as he who, on this ground, as well as some other already mentioned corners of the field of economy, would be proud to wait upon them in the character of a co-appellant.

In what then consists the real acquisition, the real advantage derived from the plan of colonizing the antipodes—colonizing them with settlers selected for their unfitness for colonization? This real acquisition (for one real one I do not dispute) I will beg leave to present your Lordship with an honest view of.

Two hundred and fifty plants, or thereabouts—two hundred and fifty new discovered plants—composed the amount of the stock of vegetable curiosities that had been imported from thence in 1796, according to the estimate communicated to me (in 1796 I think it was, or 1797) by Lieutenant-colonel Paterson, the chief upon the botanical staff of that colony, as well as upon the military.

In these two hundred and fifty plants, together with such others as may have been added to the number since, your Lordship sees the whole of the real gain that has ever been reaped, or can, on any tolerably rational ground, be expected ever to be reaped, by this our mother country, from that ever so much “improved” colony. In speaking of this as a gain, I admit it to be a reat one: in my own person, by the evidence of my own taste, I feel it such.

But plants, my Lord, as well as gold, may be bought too dear: and moreover, though it were fit to make as light of money as right honourable gentlemen appear on this occasion to have made of it, still, in the account of population, for each vegetable acquired your Lordship would find, I believe, some number of human lives most miserably destroyed; nor, after all, is it altogether necessary to the gathering seeds in a country, that a colony should be planted in it.

I know that, for economy like that in question, something like a precedent might be found: but unfortunately it is not broad enough. What the island, to which Botany Bay has given its name and character, was to the first Lord Sydney, this island of ours was in its day to a still more illustrious student in natural history, that first of conchologists and of concholegists—the Emperor Claudius. I say, my Lord, with submission, the precedent is not broad enough. To reap the fruit of his expedition to this wild country, the Emperor employed an army, we are told, in gathering shells here. So far the parallel runs, but no further. Employ an army here in shell gathering? Yes: but he did not leave one here.

In return for so many choice and physical plants transplanted from the colony, there is one plant, though it be but a metaphorical one, which has been planted in the colony, and of the planting of which, the founders of Botany Bay have the indisputable merit—(God forbid that it should ever be of the number of those transplanted hither!) and that is—the plant of military despotism.—Of this plant, in the soil and situation in which it is thus planted, it may be said, with at least as much truth as once by a celebrated verbal florist,* it was said of true glory (I think it was, or some such vegetable,) radices agit et propagatur. Unhappily, in the next island to this we have it already, though it is there (God be thanked!) but an annual plant; and even there men had rather see it on the dunghill than in the hot-house: nor in saying men am I uncandid enough to except even the very men who planted it there. In the other island—the seven months distant island—it is perennial; and the very geographical position of the country—with or without the particular nature of the use thus made of it—is enough to make it such.

My Lord, I could not use a poisoned weapon, though life depended on it. Without discrimination, I neither condemn martial law—nor even torture. Of words significative of ideas thus complex and thus extensive, a proposition can scarcely be framed, that shall at once be clear of all exception and be true. Knowing that government throughout is but a choice of evils, I am on every occasion ready to embrace the least of any two, whatever may be its name. In speaking of the colony as a vast conservatory of military law, I am therefore far enough from saying either that that law ought now to be abolished there (supposing the settlement with its abominations to be persevered in)—or even that it ought not to have been introduced. Odious as the plant is—fœtid as it is, even at that vast distance, to the sense of every true Briton—yet in that distant country, in which it has thus been planted, I admit it to be an useful one—I admit it even to be a necessary one. Yet this, my Lord, I will be bold to say—and let those to whom it is sweetest, contradict me if they dare—that the end for which it is employed must be pure and clear of all objection—must be pure indeed, if there be virtue in it to afford a sanction to such means.

I have already mentioned (p. 180) my intention of submitting to your Lordship a view of the subsequent symptoms of improvement that have manifested themselves in the improved colony, according to the history of it, as brought down to the time of the latest accounts (dated August 1801,) by the second volume of the valuable book so often mentioned. To this view it has since occurred to me to subjoin, by way of contrast, a view of the effects of the penitentiary system, as established in several of the American states: pointing out at the same time, in these latter establishments, a few particulars from whence a conception may be formed, whether their salutary efficacy would have experienced any diminution had the economical and moral features of the system been crowned by the architectural features of the panopticon or central inspection principle. At the outset of the letter, not to trouble your Lordship oftener than necessary, my intention was to have included this ulterior matter in the compass of it; but, considering that, of the three months within which your Lordship had the goodness to say you would “endeavour to get something settled” (I mean between the 19th of August and the meeting of Parliament,) two months and a half are already gone—and considering that there remains accordingly but a fortnight for the accomplishment of those endeavours—and considering that under your Lordship’s anxiety for the accomplishment of them, the conversations your Lordship was to have had with the Chancellor and the Judges, may have been brought to a conclusion any day, while these pages were but bringing to a conclusion—under the spur of all these incentives, I find myself compelled by necessity to refer to a further day, and to a second letter, all such supplemental matter—and, for the moment, to subscribe myself thus abruptly, my Lord, your Lordship’s most obedient and humble servant,

Jeremy Bentham.

Queen’s Square Place, Westminster,
2d November 1802.

SECOND LETTER TO LORD PELHAM, &c. &c. &c.

IN CONTINUATION OF THE COMPARATIVE VIEW OF THE SYSTEM OF PENAL COLONIZATION IN NEW SOUTH WALES, AND THE HOME PENITENTIARY SYSTEM, PRESCRIBED BY TWO ACTS OF PARLIAMENT OF THE YEARS 1794 AND 1799.

My Lord,

I resume the pen. I now submit to your Lordship the promised continuation, together with the promised contrast. On the one hand, the effects of the penal colonization system in New South Wales: on the other hand, the effects of the penitentiary system in North America: the good effects of it, even in its least perfect state: subject still to those imperfections for which the central-inspection principle presents, as I flatter myself your Lordship will recognise, a most complete and indisputable cure.

Before the picture of reformation, as it has shone forth in that rising quarter of the world, is begun to be displayed, a few words will be necessary for the purpose of fixing places, times, and vouchers. Permit me accordingly to convey your Lordship’s attention for a moment, to that scene of quondam transportation—suffer me to set it down among our ci-devant colonies—the now happily independent (and long may they remain so!) United States. Instruction grows there; your Lordship would not disdain it, though it were from enemies: how much longer shall it remain unprofited by us, sent to us, as it has been so long ago—sent to us from relatives and friends?

It was Pennsylvania that took the lead. To the task of reformation, or at any rate to the change which presented itself under that name, the first hand was there set in 1786. In that year passed an act for a new system of punishment, under which hard labour should take place of imprisoned idleness:—labour, and that hard enough: but to be performed in public, in an ignominious garb, in irons, by men in gangs on the roads, and even in the streets. Under this first plan, though already in use in Switzerland, and as such indicated by Howard, success was soon observed to fall short of expectation.* The friends of reformation were, however, not to be discouraged. An experiment of four years was on that theatre deemed a sufficient trial. Men were not there too dim-sighted to see, too careless to observe, too unfeeling to regret, too proud to confess an error, or too indolent to repair it. In 1790, after a hard-fought battle of such battles as quakers fight, and on both sides it is confessed an honest one (on both sides, my Lord, what is essential to honesty, an open one,) by an act of that date they set on foot another experiment—they obtained a second change. The badge of infamy was now pulled off: “the iron entered no longer into the afflicted soul;” separation, as far as means permitted, took place of promiscuous aggregation; seclusion, yet not unseen, succeeded to tumultuous publicity. This second experiment was successful almost beyond hope: how eminently so, your Lordship will see as we advance.

Penitentiary houses, at present two: at Philadelphia and New York. In that at Philadelphia, the plan of management under its present form, commencing in April 1790; the prison in New York, begun in 1796, completed in 1797;* month not mentioned. I speak of those from which accounts have reached us. Two others already in existence in New Jersey and Virginia.† Two more in contemplation last year, and begun perhaps by this time—in Massachusetts and South Carolina.

Historians, four: I mention them in the order of their dates: dates are not to be despised in histories. For the Philadelphia house three:—1. Lownes, the chief projector, whose account of it comes at the end of a pamphlet on the punishment of death by his co-operator Bradford, then one of the judges of the State, since deceased; date in the preface, February 26, 1793. 2. The Duke de Liancourt, a visitor (a veteran in the service of the prisoner and the poor); Philadelphia printed, London reprinted, second edition, date in title-page 1796; year of visitation from private information 1795.‡Turnbull of South Carolina (another philanthropic visitor;) date in preface, 4th August 1796; date in title-page 1797. For the New York house, one: Eddy, New York printed; date in title-page 1801; date of subsequent report annexed, 9th February 1802.

The Pennsylvania house is that which, as the date itself shews, served as an example, and naturally as far as circumstances permitted, as a model. New York follows next.—Caleb Lownes took the lead in Philadelphia. Thomas Eddy followed him in New York. In both these men, your Lordship will find, under the garb of a quaker, the head of a statesman, as well as the pen of an academic.

After this short introductory view of the transactions in North America, permit me to wait upon your Lordship back again for a moment, to New South Wales.

Facts compose the chief matter of this supplemental address: and in how eminent a degree the general propositions advanced in the preceding one will be found to receive confirmation from these facts, is a point I have already ventured to give intimation of.

In a tract like this, history in its own order is but a labyrinth, but to this labyrinth here as before, the ends of penal justice hold out a clue.

Under the head of reformation, replaced in New South Wales by corruption, I will beg leave to attend your Lordship from effects to causes; and among effects, again, from smaller to greater—from the lighter shades of depravity to the darker: presenting the effects in this order, lest the opposite one, though in other respects perhaps the more obvious one, should have produced the sensation of an anti-climax. In subordination, however, to these logical principles of arrangement, the chronological one will have its use: it will serve all along to show, and in an order perfectly natural, the progress of the “improved” colony from bad to worse. Matter thus pregnant, cannot but give birth to a variety of observations; but this will in general be most readily apprehended, and most effectually recommended, when preceded by the particulars by which they were respectively suggested.

Our authors not having had themselves any such arrangements in their view, the matter belonging to one head will every now and then, in the shape in which it comes from their hands, be found intermixed with matter belonging to another. This incongruity, which, however, is but a merely relative one, cannot always be cleared away: all that can be done with it is to point it out: this done, now and then a repetition constitutes the sum of the inconveniences.

Under each head, each picture has two sides: one for the soi-disant “improved” colony; the other for those really improved countries, whose apprenticeship in the form of colonies is expired. For each feature of depravity and corruption on the one side, your Lordship will see, on the other side according to the nature of the feature, either a blank for the absence of it, or a space filled with the opposite feature of virtue and reformation.

I.

Reformation.—First feature, Industry: Opposite feature of Corruption, Sloth;—Prevalence of it in New South Wales.

No. 1, p. 23. February 1797.—“An extraordinary theft was committed about the middle of the month, which very forcibly marked the inherent depravity of some of these miscreants. While the miller was absent for a short time, part of the sails belonging to the mill were stolen. Now this machine was at work for the benefit of those very incorrigible vagabonds who had thus for a time prevented its being of use to any one, and who, being too lazy to grind for themselves, had formerly been obliged to pay one third of their whole allowance of wheat, to have the remainder ground for them by hand-mills—an expense that was saved to them by bringing their corn to the public mill.”

No. 2, p. 40. June 1797.—“In consequence of the proclamation which was issued in the last month, one of the run-away convicts delivered himself up to a constable, and another was taken, and lodged in confinement: they appeared to be half starved; yet their sufferings were not sufficient to prevent similar desertions from work in others, nor a repetition of the offence in themselves; such was the strong aversion which these worthless characters had to anything that bore the name of work. More labour would have been performed in this country by 100 people from any part of England or Scotland, than had at any time been derived from 300 of these people, with all the attention that could be paid to them.”

Observations.—Which “all” (it appears, as well from the nature of the case as from passage upon passage in the history) could not be much:—a fresh occasion for bringing to view that deficiency of necessary inspection which is among the indelible features of the system of forced colonization.

No. 3, p. 202. March 1799.—At this time, “among other public works in hand were, the raising the walls of the new gaol, laying the upper floor of the windmill, and erecting the churches at Sydney and Paramatta. Most of these buildings did not advance so rapidly as the necessity for them required, owing to the weakness of the public gangs; and indeed scarcely had there ever been a thorough day’s labour, such as is performed by a labouring man in England, obtained from them. They never felt themselves interested in the effect of their work, knowing that the ration from the store, whatever it might be, would be issued to them, whether they earned it or not; unlike the labouring man, whose subsistence and that of his family depends upon his exertions. For the individual who would pay them for their services with spirits, they would labour while they had strength to lift the hoe or the axe; but when government required the production of that strength, it was not forthcoming; and it was more to be wondered that, under such disadvantages, so much, rather than so little, had been done. The convicts whose services belonged to the crown were for the most part a wretched, worthless, dissipated set, who never thought beyond the present moment; and they were for ever employed in rendering that moment as easy to themselves as their invention could enable them.

“Of the settlers and their disposition much has been already said. The assistance and encouragement which from time to time were given them, they were not found to deserve. The greater part had originally been convicts, and it is not to be supposed that while they continued in that state, their habits were much improved. With these habits, then, they became freemen and settlers; the effect of which was, to render them insolent and presuming; and most of them continued a dead weight upon the government, without reducing the expenses of the colony.”

Observations.—The features of worthlessness are ascribed to them (“the settlers”) in general: the non-convicts are alluded to, and are not excepted. In this view of it, the improved colony presents the picture of a community, in which not only the corrupt members of it are not amended, but the sound members—such as had been introduced into it—are corrupted. If such be the case, there is nothing in it but what ought to have been expected. In Letter I. page 210, instances in proof of it have been already given, in speaking of the soldiery: and more will come to be given under the head of Public Functionaries.

No. 4, p. 277. December 1799.—“The harvest was now begun, and constables were sent to the Hawkesbury, with directions to secure every vagrant they could meet, and bring them to Sydney, unless they chose to work for the settlers, who were willing to pay them a dollar each day, and their provisions; for at this time there were a great number of persons in that district, styling themselves free people, who refused to labour unless they were paid the most exorbitant wages.”

Observations.—Standing out for the best wages that could be got, is no proof of sloth: it is rather a proof of that appetite for gain, which is the spur and natural concomitant to industry; but high as the wages were, it appears there were vagrants, who preferred idleness even to such high wages.

No. 5, p. 314. August 1801.—“Nothing has been said, in this account of the public labour, of preparing the government ground annually for seed, and cropping it, or of gathering the harvest when ripe. But these must be taken into account, as well as threshing the corn for delivery, and unloading the storeships on their arrival; which latter work must always be completed within a limited time, pursuant to their charters. It has been said before, that it was impossible to obtain a fair day’s work from the convicts, when employed for the public: the weather frequently interfered with out-door business, and occasioned much to be done a second time. Under all these disadvantages, and with a turbulent refractory body of prisoners, we are warranted in saying, on thus summing up of the whole of the public labour during the last four years, that more could not have been performed; and that it is rather matter of wonder that so much had been obtained with such means.”

Observations.—Of wonder indeed! The worse the system, the greater the wonder that any given quantity of good works, how small soever, should be shown forth under it. The more irremediably bad—the more irreproachable the conduct, the more pitiable the lot, of those whose misfortune it was to have the management of it on the spot. The more radically bad the system, the more inexcusable those at home who planned it, but most of all those at home who persevered in it, its deformities all the while staring them in the face. The period is an early one for such reflections; but they accompany the idea of the “improved” colony from the very first glance, and never leave it till the last.

II.

Further features ofReformation—Frugality and Forecast: Opposite features of Corruption, Prodigality and Improvidence;—Prevalence of them in New South Wales.

No. 1, p. 21. February 1797.—“It now appeared, that to obtain spirituous liquors, these people, the settlers, had incurred debts to so great an amount, as to preclude the most distant hope of liquidating them, except by selling their farms. Thus all their former industry must be sacrificed to discharge debts, which were contracted for the temporary gratification of being steeped in beastly intoxication for a certain length of time. All the cautions which had occasionally been inserted in the public orders against this dangerous practice, had not proved of any advantage to those whose benefit they were intended to promote; and it was observed with concern, that several scenes of shameful imposition, which had been practised by the retail dealers in this article, were brought to light by this investigation.”

Observations.—Intermixed with the prodigality and the improvidence (your Lordship sees) comes drunkenness: but drunkenness comes in everywhere, and with every thing. We shall, however, have a head appropriated to it. All this reprobacy, too, (is it credible?) spite of all these public orders—all this good advice from the governor: pearls of which there has never been any want among these swine. Of the water of these pearls something will come to be said under the head of Drunkenness.

No. 2, p. 96. March 5, 1798.—“Speaking of the business before a court of civil judicature,” “this,” says our author, “consisted chiefly of litigation about debts contracted between the retail dealers and the settlers. As a proof to what a height this business had reached, it need only be mentioned, that an appeal was made to the governor in one prosecution for a debt of £868 : 16 : 10; which appeal was, however, withdrawn, the defendant consenting to pay the debt.”

Observations.—No small mass of property to be amassed in such a place: but of the source of it mention has been already made under the head of Colonies (Letter I. page 207); and of the security of it, more may come to be said under the head of Economy, towards the close of the present letter.

No. 3, p. 97, 98. March 1798.—“The governor having received from the settlers in each district a clear and correct statement of their grievances and distresses, informed them that it was with real concern he beheld the effects of the meeting of each civil court which for the public accommodation he from time to time had occasion to assemble. The vast load of debt with which they so frequently felt themselves burthened through the imposition and extortion of the multitude of petty dealers, by whom the colony was so much troubled, with the difficulties under which the industrious man laboured for want of some other mode of providing the necessaries which he required, were grievances of which he was determined to get the better; and, as far as his situation would authorise him, he would adopt every means in his power to afford them relief.

“To this end he found it absolutely necessary to suppress many of those licensed public houses, which, when first permitted, were designed as a convenience to the labouring people; but which he now saw were the principal cause whence many had candidly confessed their ruin to have sprung.

“He wished it were possible to dissuade them from heaping such heavy debts upon themselves by the enjoyment of articles which they could do without, or by throwing away their money in purchasing at every public auction rags and trifles for which such exorbitant sums were exacted. He urged them with a paternal anxiety to consider that their folly involved their whole families in ruin and misfortune, and conjured them to wait with patience the result of some representations which he had made to government, as well in their behalf as in behalf of the settlers upon Norfolk Island; by which he hoped that ere long they would have an opportunity of purchasing every European article that they might want, at such a reasonable and moderate price as they by their industry would be very well able to afford from the produce of their labour.

“The island upon which Captain Hamilton had run his ship, and thereby prevented her sinking with them at sea, was thenceforward to be distinguished by the name of Preservation Island. From thence, the colonial schooner had arrived with what remained of the property. As soon as she was unloaded, the property was put up to sale for the benefit of the underwriters, when the little effect of the governor’s recommendation of patience was seen by the most enormous prices being paid for every article. The money that should have been expended in the cultivation and improvement of their farms was thus lavishly thrown away; and it happened fortunately enough for the underwriters that the wheat of this last season had been received into the public granary, and immediately paid for. Twenty-two shillings were paid at this sale for one common cup and saucer.”

Observations.—Besides prodigality and improvidence, more drunkenness, more good advice, as pregnant as ever with good effects. But of this in its place, as already mentioned. “Imposition and extortion,” the fruit “of the multitude of the dealers”? Say rather, of the smallness of their number. In the multitude of dealers, much more surely than of “counsellors,” there is safety. Copies of Adam Smith do not appear to have been abundant in the libraries of New South Wales.

Government to turn shopkeeper!—Perhaps a necessary remedy—not improbably a costly, and therefore most certainly a formidable one. Away with it! cries Adam Smith. But most assuredly, among the nations whose wealth he had in view, was no such nation as New South Wales. Of this further, perhaps, under the head of Economy.

No. 4, p. 120. July 1798.—“The ready sale which the speculators who called here constantly found for their cargoes, together with the ruinous traffic which was carried on by means of the monopolies that existed, in opposition to every order and endeavour to prevent them, would, beyond a doubt, without the establishment of a public store on the part of government, keep the settlers and others in a continual state of beggary, and extremely retard the progressive improvement of the colony.”

No. 5, p. 198. February 1799.—“Presuming on the late inefficient harvest, the settlers requested again to be supplied with seed-wheat from the store, but were refused. It was well known that they sold for spirits, to the last bushel of their crop, and left their families without bread. Then they pleaded poverty and distress, and their utter inability to pay what they had borrowed. When seed has been lent them, they have not unfrequently been seen to sell it at the door of the store whence they received it.”

Observations.—Again the settlers no exception in favour of non-convicts.

No. 6, p. 279. January 3, 1800.—“The Swallow, East-India packet, anchored in the Cove, on her way to China. She had on board a great variety of articles for sale, which were intended for the China market; but the master thought, and actually found it worth his while to gratify the inhabitants, particularly the females, with a display of many elegant articles of dress from Bond Street, and other fashionable repositories of the metropolis.

“On the 11th, the Minerva transport arrived from Ireland. Having touched at Rio de Janeiro, she had brought many articles for sale, as well from that port as from England, most of which were much wanted by the inhabitants; but the prices required for them were such as to drain the colony of every shilling that could be got together.”

Observations.—Of this already (Letter I. page 207,) in speaking of paper money, and the staple trade of this peculiar colony.

III.

Per Contra—Industry, Frugality, Forecast,in the American Penitentiary Houses.

1.

Philadelphia House, instituted 1790.

No. 1. Philadelphia; 1795: Laincourt, p. 14.—“Out of his profits the prisoner is obliged to pay his board, and the price of, or in some cases a certain rent or hire for the instruments he uses. These payments, which are necessarily determined by the current price of commodities, are fixed by the inspectors four times in every year. At present it amounts to one-sixth of a dollar for each man’s board. The most infirm, however, may earn easily twenty pence per day, by picking oakum; and there are some who earn above a dollar.”

No. 2. Philadelphia; 1796: Turnbull, p. 16.—“For each convict a separate account is kept by the jailor, charging him with his clothing, sustenance, &c.; and in which a reasonable allowance for his labour is credited. It is generally rather less than the wages of other workmen in the city. These accounts are balanced at short periods, in order that the overplus or proportion which might be due to the prisoner, may be paid into the county treasury for safe keeping; and, once in every three months, they are audited before the inspectors. The committee of inspectors, once during the same period of time, fix the charges for the prisoners’ maintenance, which depend on the existing price of provisions, &c. It is now one shilling and threepence a-day for the males, and sevenpence for the females. There are few who do not earn above two shillings. The marble sawing and manufacturing of nails are the most lucrative employments followed in the prison. Several were pointed out to us, who earned at these occupations above a dollar, and one in particular whose daily labour averaged one dollar and a half.”

No. 3. Ib. p. 48.—“Some have appropriated the proceeds of their labour, while in confinement, to the support of their families; and several, on leaving the prison, have received 40 or 50 dollars (4s. 6d.) the overplus of the profits of their labour, and with this capital turned out honest and industrious members of society.”

2.

New York House, instituted 1790.

No. 4. New York; 1802: Eddy, p. 94.—“The convicts have now become more skilful workmen, and can perform more labour, and to greater advantage, than heretofore.”

Observations.—In this more recent prison, the economy, it appears, had not yet attained to such a pitch of perfection as to afford to the public a profit equal to the expense of the convict’s maintenance. Under the Philadelphia system, no allowance was to commence in favour of any convict, till after the estimated expense of his share in the aggregate expense of the prison, or at least the greater part of that expense, had been reimbursed. The New York institution appears to have had disadvantages of its own to struggle with, which by the last accounts were not yet overcome; but which, by the same accounts, were in a way to be overcome. At Philadelphia, the charge against the convict appears to have been fixed at so low a rate, that from the first some surplus went into the pocket of the convict workman, the most unskilful not excepted. Whether the same policy has been pursued, and in the same degree, at New York, I have not found. I should rather expect to find, not; and in that case I am inclined to think that a little more liberality under this head might, even in the way of economy, have been attended with advantage.

Supposing this feature in the Philadelphia system to have been copied in New York, there being no surplus for the convict workman, the virtues of frugality and forecast would not in his instance find any ground to build upon.

3.

Penitentiary system: Panopticon mode.

This spur to industry presented itself to me from the first as a very material implement in the apparatus of reformation. In 1793, when I was arranging with Mr. (now Sir Evan) Nepean (then under-secretary of state under Mr. Dundas) those terms of contract, which, without much variation, were afterwards approved of at the Treasury, and are printed in the 28th Report of the Committee of Finance—on this occasion, in my accepted proposal, on the ground of which we were proceeding, a fourth part having been specified by me as the share I was willing to allow, at the same instant he happened to mention a sixth part as the share he had thought of. Without hesitation I declined taking advantage of this facility. A fourth part (I recollected) was the share mentioned by Howard as that which, judging from his experience, he looked upon as capable of inspiring the requisite degree of alacrity. It went against me to give less than what had been recommended by so approved a judge: and, moreover, under my plan there was a particular reason for not falling short of that mark; since, for the fulfilment of the article relative to the superannuation annuity, I reserved to myself the power of retaining in my hands as far as the half of each man’s allowance, in which case the share received by him, in the shape of present allowance, would be reduced to an eighth.

While yet on the road to reformation, the discussion of these points, though by no means unapposite to that head, has at the same time led us, though prematurely, into a corner of the field of economy. Just entered upon, and that but en passant, and already, my Lord, what a light breaks in upon it! In the account of expense compare this O, or rather this minus x per annum, with the plus £46 of New South Wales.

IV.—

General Depravity—Prevalence of it in New South Wales, as attested in general expressions.

No. 1. II. Collins, p. 2. October 1796.—“The frequent commission of the most atrocious crimes, together with the dissipated, turbulent, and abandoned disposition of the convicts, had more than ever at this time been manifest.”

Observations.—Practical inference—resolution to construct the two prisons, above spoken of, at Sydney and Paramatta.*

No. 2. Ib. p. 3. October 1796.—“Far too many of them were most incorrigibly flagitious.”

Observations.—Practical inference: forming (as above) the most incorrigible of them into a jail gang (Letter I. p. 181.)

No. 3, Ib. p. 9. October 1796.—“The morality of the settlement is” expressly stated as “a point which he” (the governor) “could not venture to promise himself that he should ever attain.”

No. 4, Ib. p. 23. February 1797.—“It now appeared” by the “books” that “there were at this time not less than 600 men off the store, and working for themselves in the colony; forming a vast deduction from the public strength, and adding a great many chances against the safety of private and public property, as well as personal security.”

Observations.—Written confirmation of the general proposition so often repeated:—under inspection (viz. such inspection as the nature of the institution admitted of,) bad enough; out of inspection, worse and worse. To “working for themselves,” might have been added—or supposed to work.

No. 5, p. 53. October 1797.—“At this time, such” (observes the annalist) “was the increase of crimes, that thrice in this month was the court of criminal judicature assembled. Offences—murder, perjury, forgery, and theft.”

No. 6, p. 100. March 1798.—“The utmost vigilance was constantly requisite to guard against robbers, both on land and water. It was impossible, in such a community as this, to have a police too strict, or to be sufficiently aware at all times of such a nest of villains. Many examples had been made; but after a few days had elapsed, they were forgotten; and every act of lenity and indulgence was found to be ruinous to the welfare and comfort of the whole. It was to be hoped, however, that the introduction of more of the better, and fewer of the worst sort of characters, would in due time give the balance a favourable turn.”

Observations.—This, we see, is the ground, weak as it is, upon which, in the expectation of the late chief magistrate, as in the view of the late governor, all hope of moral improvement rests: the not applying the settlement to the only purpose, with reference to which it has ever been thought well of by anybody. Quere as to those “worst” characters—if not sent to this improved colony, what else would gentlemen wish to have done with them? If these most intractable of characters can be disposed of with advantage at a less distance and at a less expense, might not the same economy be applied to the less intractable ones?

My language would be somewhat different. Give me the worst in preference: the greater the difficulty, the greater the glory. If there must be a New South Wales, let rather the least corrupted go to New South Wales.

No. 7, Ib. p. 105. April 1798.—At this time the settlers are still spoken of as being “certainly undeserving of the attention which they met with from the governor.”

Observations.—The settlers—not now, as in October 1792, “far too many;” but the settlers:—the settlers in general. These settlers, however, were the flower of the flock: the class, in whose instance the possession of permanent property—a sort of landed property, such as the nature of a government completely arbitrary admitted of, together with a portion of appropriate stock—would, according to received theories, afford that sort of security for good behaviour which it is in the power of property in such a state of society to give; and who, as often as the occasion recurs for mentioning them, are notwithstanding, and without any discrimination, mentioned as the worst.

No. 8, Ib. p. 130. October 1798.—At this time after speaking of the wilful burning of a building at Sydney, used as a church and school (of which afterwards), “this circumstance,” it is observed, “must impress upon the mind of every one who may read” this account, to what a dreadful state of profligacy “the colony had arrived; which, alarming as it was, might have been still worse, had it not been for the civil police, which fortunately had been established: for a more wicked, abandoned, and irreligious set of people, had never been brought together in any part of the colony. The hope of their amendment seemed every day to lessen.”

Observations.—No travelling without a passport, &c. &c. A sort of system of general imprisonment within the rules: a system, which having necessity for its justification, was not the less subject to endless vexations, oppressions and abuses.

No. 10, Ib. p. 210. May 1799.—Backsliders. At this time mention is made of a convict (Robert Lowe,) one of a number who, for particular instances of good behaviour on shipboard, “had received conditional emancipation, and been allowed to provide for their own maintenance.” “Few of these people, however,” it is added, “were in the end found to merit this reward and indulgence, as their future (i. e. subsequent) conduct had proved.”

Observations.—Whatever symptoms of previous good dispositions had at any time manifested themselves among the convicts, while subject to such degree of inspection as the economical arrangements afforded, were scarce ever found capable of maintaining themselves against the corruptive effects of the state of society there established: a society composed of such characters, exempted from all restraints.

No. 11, Ib. p. 216. 2d July 1799.—Still the older the settlement, the more universal the depravity, and the more authentic the evidence of it. Two men and a woman had just been hanged for a murder committed on the body of a kind and generous friend (one of the missionaries,) to save the repayment of a sum of £10 lent by him to his murderers. “The abandoned state in which the settlement was at this time,” continues the annalist, “cannot be better understood than by a perusal of the following orders:”—The principal mischief mentioned is the “late increased number of nocturnal robberies.” Assigned cause—on the part of the petty constables and divisional watchmen, either extreme negligence or complicity with the malefactors. These subordinate magistrates were the elect among the men of property in the colony.* Remedies proposed—subscription for rewards, and a system of universal vigilance, commensurate to the universal insecurity.

Of these orders, it is stated “that they seemed to have been attended with some effect,” because some vagrants were taken up in consequence. The effect, however, seems not to have been very great, since a statement comes immediately after it—that still “alarming depredations were nightly committed upon the live stock of individuals.”

No. 12, p. 277. December 1779.—The history of this year closes with an ejaculation—“May the annalist, whose business it may be to record in future the transactions of the colony, find a pleasanter field to travel in, where his steps will not be every moment beset with murderers, robbers, and incendiaries!”

No. 13, p. 296. June 1800.—Mention having been made of executions, “the number of robbers and sheep-stealers” is mentioned as “still increasing, notwithstanding the late executions.” Whereupon comes a question—“Can it be wondered at, that so much profligacy prevailed in every part of the settlement?”

Observations.—Here or hereabouts (only four months later) concludes the regular part of the history—the part chronologically arranged. The intelligence by a vessel that quitted the colony at a posterior date (August 1801) consists of nothing but a few scattered articles, mostly without distinction of date.

2.

General Depravitycontinued—Females.

No. 1, p. 121. July 1798.—“Great complaints were now made of the profligacy of the women, who, probably from having met with more indulgence on account of their sex than their general conduct entitled them to, were grown so idle and insolent, that they were unwilling to do anything but nurse their children, an excuse from labour which very few were without. Were their value to be estimated by the fine children with which they had increased and multiplied the numbers in the settlement, they certainly would have been found to deserve every care and attention as useful members of society, but their vices were too conspicuous and prominent to admit of much palliation.”

Observations.—Among these fine children a curious enough topic of inquiry would be, How many legitimate? how many illegitimate?—Another, though not quite so ascertainable, Among the legitimate, how many who had for their fathers the husbands of their mothers?—The managers of the “improved colony,” here at home, had they received any such information, my Lord? had they used any endeavour to obtain it? were they afraid of receiving it? or was it beneath their care?†

No. 2, p. 123. August 1798.—Positively bad in July—another month, and they are become so in the comparative degree—“the women, to their disgrace,” says their historian at this time, “were far worse than the men.”

No. 3, p. 128. October 1798.—In speaking of the seamen belonging to “some of the whalers that were in the harbour,” the women of the colony, along with the spirits of it, are mentioned as the two temptations so peculiarly calculated “everywhere” to lead them astray.

Observations.—Everywhere? Yes, so far as concerns certain vices, such as idleness, prodigality, and improvidence; but not everywhere into crimes. It is only in New South Wales that incontinence exposes a man necessarily and uniformly to the seductions of women “far worse than the men”—the men of New South Wales, i. e. far worse than a gang of robbers, burglarers, murderers, and incendiaries.

No. 4, p. 138. Nov. 1798.—At this time, “the complaints which were daily made of the refractory and disobedient conduct of the convict women rendered it absolutely necessary” (it is said) “that some steps should be instantly taken to make them more clearly understand the nature of their situation, and the duties they were liable to perform:”—Semper eadem, worse and worse.

No. 5, p. 218. 3d July 1799.—Bad beyond endurance. The opinion above given is not peculiar, either to the late chief magistrate, writing at a distance from the colony, or to his informant on the spot. It is proclaimed on the spot in public orders by the highest authority in the place. “The continual complaints which are made of the conduct of the female convicts require” (says the governor in his order of this day) “the most rigid and determined discipline, with such characters, who, to the disgrace of their sex, are far worse than the men, and are generally found at the bottom of every infamous transaction that is committed in the colony.”

No. 6, p. 272. November 1799.—Speaking of divine service on Sundays, “The women” (it is said) were also directed to be more punctual in their appearance; for these still availed themselves of the indulgence which as women they had been treated with, seldom thinking themselves included in the restrictions that were laid upon others.”

No. 7, p. 284. February 1800.—This month exhibits a particular example of the effect of such characters, not upon their fellow-convicts only, but also upon the soldiery. “One of these people, a quiet well-disposed young man, fell a victim to an attachment which he had formed with an infamous woman, who, after plundering him of everything valuable that he possessed, turned him out of the house to make room for another. This treatment he could not live under; and placing the muzzle of his gun beneath his chin, he drew the trigger with his foot, and, the contents going through his neck, instantly expired.”

No. 8, p. 290. 14th April 1800.—It was in order to make an addition to the numbers of this sex, elsewhere the better half of the species, but in this “improved” colony “far the worst,” that on this day the Speedy whaler is mentioned as arriving from England with 50 “female convicts; and what were much more welcome and profitable” (observes the historiographer,) “832 casks of salt provisions, which enabled the governor once more to issue a full ration.” Profitable? Yes: welcomeness depends on appetites and tastes.

V.

General Depravity—Particular Exemplifications.

No. 1, p. 4. October 1796.—At this time, after speaking of “a murder committed by a man on the person of a woman with whom he cohabited,”—“This” (it is added) “made the fifth circumstance of the kind which had occurred within the last twelve months; and so excessively abandoned were the people, that it was scarce possible to obtain sufficient proof to convict the offenders.”

No. 2, p. 196. January 1799.—A burglary committed at this time in the house of the acting commissary (the head-keeper of the public stores) is no otherwise worth distinguishing than as it shows the audacity of the delinquent, and the insecurity of those abodes and masses of property which would naturally be the best guarded and most secure.

No. 3, p. 197. January 1799.—This next page affords an occurrence, distinguished from the herd of crimes by two circumstances—the magnitude of the property stolen, and the multitude of the delinquents associated. “Before this court” (a court held on this day) “was brought part of a nest of thieves who had lately stolen property to the amount of several hundred pounds.”

Observations.—As in the first part, so in this second, the history of “the improved” and ever-improving colony has, for its chief ingredients, a pot pourri of crimes. Giving, if without particular selection, any further additions to the bead-roll of individual offences, I might be accused, though in another sense, of adding piracy to the list. Dropping all such comparative peccadillos as robbery and burglary, I will therefore commit no further trespass on the respectable historian’s well-earned rights of authorship than by picking out the cases of incendiarism as I find them rearing their heads above the herd of ordinary crimes.

VI.

Depravity—Particular Exemplifications—Incendiarism.

No. 1, p. 17. January 1797.—“The governor, on his return from his excursion, had the mortification of seeing a stack, containing about 800 bushels of wheat, burnt to the ground. This happened at Toongabbe, near which place the country was everywhere in flames, and where much wheat belonging to government was stacked. By the accidental vicinity of a jail gang, and assistance bought of them by a universal pardon, other stacks were saved. Although at this season of the year,” continues our author, “there were days when, from the extreme heat of the atmosphere, the leaves of many culinary plants growing in the gardens have been reduced to powder, yet there was some ground for supposing that this accident did not arise from either the heat of the weather, or the fire in the woods. The grain that was burnt was the property of government, and the destruction of 800 bushels of wheat made room for that quantity to be received into the stores from the settlers who had wheat to sell to the commissary: there were, moreover, at this time, some ill-designing people in the country, who were known not to have much regard for the concerns of the public. An inquiry was set on foot to discover, if possible, the perpetrators of this mischief, but nothing could be made of it.”

Thus far our historian. Two other points—the impossibility of obtaining evidence, and the nature of the climate, devoting of itself the fruits of industry to the flames—will be noticed elsewhere.

No. 2, p. 69. December 1797.—“Some time in this month, the house of John Mischam, a settler in the district of Concord, was attacked by three villains, and set on fire, together with a stack of wheat which he had just completed and secured against the weather. This unfortunate man was indebted about £33, which the contents of his wheatstack would have paid off, but now, besides being very much beaten, he had the world to begin again, with a load of debt which this untoward accident would much increase. The man himself knew not to what cause to attribute it; and he was as ignorant who were his enemies, for two of them had blackened their faces, and to the third he was a stranger.”

No. 3, p. 72. December 1797.—“The weather was now become exceeding hot; and as, at this season of the year, the heat of the sun was so intense that every substance became a combustible, and a single spark, if exposed to the air, in a moment became a flame, much evil was to be dreaded from fire. On the east side of the town of Sydney, a fire, the effect of intoxication or carelessness, broke out among the convicts’ houses, when three of them were quickly destroyed; and, three miles from the town, another house was burnt by some runaway wretches, who being displeased with the owner, took this diabolical method of showing it.”

No. 4, p. 129. October 1798.—“Between seven and eight o’clock in the evening of this day, the church on the east side of the cove was discovered to be on fire. Every assistance, as far as numbers could be useful, was given, but ineffectually; for the building being covered with thatch, which was at this time exceedingly dry and combustible, it was completely consumed in an hour.

“This was a great loss, for during the working-days of the week, the building was used as a school, in which from 150 to 200 children were educated, under the immediate inspection of Mr. Johnson, the clergyman. As it stood entirely alone, and no person was suffered to remain in it after the school hours, there was not any doubt that this atrocious act was the effect of design, and the consequence of the late order which had been given out, and had been rigidly executed, enforcing attendance on divine service; and in the view of rendering, by the destruction of the building, the Sabbath a day of as little decency and sobriety as any other in the week.”

No. 5, p. 132. October 1798.—“On the evening of the 11th, another fire happened in the town of Sydney, which, but for a great deal of care and activity, might have burnt all the houses on the east side. A row of buildings, which had been lately erected for the nurses and other persons employed about the hospital, was set on fire and totally consumed. The flames very nearly reached the boat-yard, in which were many concerns of value.”

Observations.—Taken by themselves, the words “was set on fire,” suggest the idea of the wilful act of man; but as nothing is said of rewards offered, or other endeavours used, for the discovery of the authors of the mischief, possibly this occurrence was not meant to be understood as belonging to the calendar of crimes. In the next article, however, where the mischief is expressly referred to human will as its cause, the expression is the same—“was set on fire,”—and nothing is said about reward, any more than here.

No. 6, p. 197. January 1799.—“On the night of the 11th, between the hours of eleven and twelve, the public gaol at Sydney, which cost so much labour and expense to erect, was set on fire, and soon completely consumed. The building was thatched, and there was not any doubt of its having been done through design. But, if this was the fact, it will be read with horror, that at the time there were confined within its walls 20 prisoners, most of whom were loaded with irons, and who with difficulty were snatched from the flames. Feeling for each other was never imputed to these miscreants, and yet, if several were engaged in the commission of a crime, they have seldom been known to betray their companions in iniquity.”

Observations.—What a picture of society! The bond of connexion not sympathy, but antipathy—not sympathy for one another, but antipathy to government, the common enemy.

No. 7, p. 277. December 1799.—“About ten o’clock of the night of the same day, the log gaol at Paramatta was wilfully and maliciously set on fire, and totally consumed. The prisoners who were confined were with difficulty snatched from the flames, but so miserably scorched, that one of them died in a few days. This building was a hundred feet in length, remarkably strong, and had been constructed with much labour and expense.”

“The rewards which had been formerly held out upon similar occasions, were now offered to any man or woman who would come forward with evidence.”

Observations.—Rewards upon rewards, and always with the same success. A feature so remarkable and characteristic may furnish matter for a separate head.

Of all crimes, those excepted which, by striking at the root of government itself, threaten the community with the complicated and unlimitedly extensive miseries of foreign or civil war, incendiarism may be set down as the most pernicious. If wilful inundation be likewise to be excepted, it is only in the comparatively few particular situations, in which, by the removal of some barrier opposed to the force of waters, the wickedness of a rash hand may plunge an indefinitely extended tract of country in a ruin still more extensive than can be brought upon it by the destructive power of fire.

Wide-spreading as the mischief of the first order is but too apt to be, the mischief of the second order is sure to be still more so. While individuals in any number may have been involved in the actual past calamity, no individual whatever within the reach of the report can be secure against the terror which the idea of future possible, and to appearance more or less probable, calamities of the like kind, cannot but inspire—exitium ad paucos metus ad omnes.

The final causes, or generating motives, capable of giving birth to it, are prodigiously diversified. The specimen your Lordship has just been seeing is not a scanty one. Enmity, sport, appetite for gain, may be set down as the most common: and among these, enmity, if not the most frequent, is the most obvious.

Sport, by no means an unexampled one, is to all but the abandoned perpetrator the most horrible and terrific. From the incendiary, whose hand is not put in motion but by enmity, those alone have to fear whose misfortune it is to have excited, or to stand connected in a certain way by vicinity of possession with some one who has excited that passion in his breast. But, from the hand in which, while spreading destruction in this its most diffusive shape, the force of the social and restraining motives has not proved a match for so pigmy a passion as mere sport—and this, too, a motive which requires not, as enmity does, any particular relation or incident to bring it into action—from the assaults of such a hand, where is the individual that can call himself safe? Who was safe under Nero? who was safe under Alexander and Thaïs when in their cups?

Where appetite for gain is the generating motive, it can only be in virtue of some special relation, most commonly of the commercial kind, the effect of which is to put into the hands of a particular individual a relative profit derived from an event, the effect of which is to produce, with reference to the general mass of property, a mere loss. Thus in a case but too often exemplified, a man who has insured his house for more than it is worth, may derive a profit from the destruction of it. Thus again, in a case (as per No. 1) which could in no other place have found existence so easily as in New South Wales, a man who has a commodity to sell may, without the intervention of any such source of special relation as a preceding contract, derive a gain from the destruction of a stock of the same sort of commodity, whether in the hands of the consumer (as in that case) or in the hands of a rival dealer.

In fact, there is scarce a propensity in human nature, that, by one accident or other, may not, in minds suitably disposed, lead to the commission of this crime. Any object which, by thwarting this or that propensity, presents itself as a source of this or that uneasiness, or as an obstacle to this or that pleasure—every such object, so it be but of a nature easily subjected to the power of the devouring element, is capable of putting in action a generating motive, adequate to the production of this crime. It is in this way, that not jails only (as per Nos. 6 and 7,) but schools and churches (as per No. 4) have found incendiaries in New South Wales.

In that privileged seat of depravity, scarce a heart, that in the vulgar motive of enmity (not to speak of motives of mere casual occurrence) may not at any time experience a generative power, adequate to the production of this crime. In the abstract entity government, each subject beholds there, not as elsewhere, a protector, but an enemy: and that ideal enemy he sees embodied and made flesh in the persons of as many individuals as that government has functionaries.

Even in England, cases are not wanting, where a sort of blind malignity—a mixed propensity, compounded of sport, envy, and despair—has not only without any special provocation, but without, any assignable advantage in any shape, given birth to this crime, in many a deluded breast, which till that fatal moment had known no guile. In times of scarcity, destruction is the grand remedy of an unthinking populace: and on these occasions fire, the most commodious of all instruments, is seldom suffered to lie idle. But scarcity—simple scarcity—is not so frequent in England as famine itself not only has hitherto been, but (as your Lordship, I believe, will see) may in reason be ever expected to be in New South Wales.

The speculation is not an idle one, since the greater the number of the motives, each adequate of itself to the production of the offence, the greater at all times the number of chances that any given hand will, by falling within the sphere of action of some one of all these forces, be drawn into the commission of that offence. In New South Wales, incendiarism (as your Lordship sees) is produced by motives which would scarce lead to it anywhere else.

Motives are nothing without facilities. Facilities, to a degree unexampled elsewhere, are afforded (your Lordship has seen) by the very nature of the climate; while the means of preventing the mischief, or so much as confining it within any given limits, on a soil where every blade is tinder, are not within the reach of industry or art.

On both accounts—on all accounts—this highest upon the scale of ordinary crimes—this outrage, of which murder forms often-times but a part—this cause of ruin, by which the very existence of the whole colony—stock, subsistence, inhabitancy—is, in such a situation, at all times rendered precarious—incendiarism, in a word, has never in any other country been nearly so frequent as it has been, and from the very nature of the case may ever be expected to be, in New South Wales.

At present, it is only in a moral point of view that the mischief claims our notice: hereafter, under the head of Economy, it may be matter of inquiry, how far, amidst so many ever-probable causes of destruction, of which in such a country so inhabited this is but one, subsistence can be regarded as tolerably secure, and whether it be worth while spending fourscore thousand pounds a-year or so, in combustibles for bonfires at such a distance.

VII.

Remedies unavailing—Spiritual.

No. 1, p. 3. October 1796.—“Directing his attention also toward the morality of the settlement, a point which he could not venture to promise himself that he should ever attain, he [the governor] issued some necessary orders for enforcing attendance on divine service, and had the satisfaction of seeing the Sabbath better observed than it had been for some time past. But there were some who were refractory. A fellow named Caroll, an Irishman, abused and ill-treated a constable who was on his duty ordering the people to church, saying that he would neither obey the clergyman nor the governor: for which, the next day, he was properly punished.”

No. 2, p. 51. September 1797.—“A church clock having been brought to the settlement in the Reliance when that ship arrived from England, and no building fit for its reception having been since erected, preparations were now making for constructing a tower fit for the purpose; to which might be added a church, whenever at a future day the increase of labourers might enable the governor to direct such an edifice to be built.”

Observations.—In the first place the ruffle:—the shirt to follow it—one time or other, or never, as it might happen. Neither in the literal, nor therefore in the figurative sense, does edification appear to have been any great object with governors in the improved colony, any more than with the governed. To speak candidly, why should it have been? Of what use could the externals of religion be, in a community in which the only emotions they could reasonably be expected to give rise to were those of hatred and contempt? Better no church, than to be burnt down; better no service, than to be scoffed at.

No. 3, p. 122, 123. August 1798.—“The abandoned and dissipated disposition of most of those who were or had been convicts, so much to be regretted and so often mentioned, was particularly manifest in a shameful abuse of the Sabbath, and a profane ridicule with which everything sacred was treated. A conduct so derogatory to every Christian principle had from time to time been severely reprobated, but it had now arrived at a height that called for the exertion of every advocate for morality to subdue. Observing that instead of employing the Sunday in the performance of those duties for which that day was set apart, it was passed in the indulgence of every abominable act of dissipation, the overseers of the different gangs were strictly ordered to see their men mustered every Sunday morning, and to attend with them at church. The superintendents and constables were to see this order complied with, and that the women (who to their disgrace were far worse than the men) were strictly looked after, and made to attend divine service regularly. And as example might do something, the officers were not only to send a certain number of their servants, but they were also called upon, civil and military, to assist in the execution of this order; to the meaning of which the magistrates were required in a particular degree to pay their attention, in compelling a due obedience thereto, by preventing the opening of the licensed public-houses during the hours of divine service, as well as any irregularity on the day appropriated to the performance thereof.”

Observations.—This was “compelling them to come in” with a vengeance: but to what use, or with what fruit?—where were the wedding garments?

As to the fountains of liquid poison, if they could be sealed up—sealed up to any purpose—at church times, why not at other times, and for ever?—But as to this, see Drunkenness.

No. 4, p. 129. 1st October 1798.—“Between seven and eight o’clock in the evening of this day, the church on the east side of the Cove was discovered to be on fire. Every assistance, as far as numbers could be useful, was given, but ineffectually; for the building being covered with thatch, which was at this time exceedingly dry and combustible, it was completely consumed in an hour.

“This was a great loss; for during the working days of the week, the building was used as a school, in which from 150 to 200 children were educated, under the immediate inspection of Mr. Johnson, the clergyman. As it stood entirely alone, and no person was suffered to remain in it after the school hours, there was not any doubt that this atrocious act was the effect of design, and the consequence of the late order which had been given out, and had been rigidly executed, enforcing attendance on divine service, and in the view of rendering, by the destruction of the building, the Sabbath a day of as little decency and sobriety as any other in the week. The perpetrators of this mischief were, however, disappointed in their expectation; for the governor, justly deeming this to have been the motive, and highly irritated at such a shameful act, resolved, if no convenient place could immediately be found for the performance of public worship, that instead of Sunday being employed as each should propose to himself, the whole of the labouring gangs should be employed on that day in erecting another building for the purpose. It happened, however, that a large storehouse was just at that time finished; and not being immediately wanted, it was fitted up as a church; and thus not a single Sunday was lost by this wicked design.”

Observations.—On the Sabbath, all work, and no devotion, cries the accusing angel.—Work? Yes, answers the recording angel; but holy work, work in order to devotion. What a conflict between the letter and the spirit!—Non in me tantas componere lites. I leave it to the Saundersons of the age.

No. 5, p. 272. November 1799.—“The very little attention which had long been, and continued to be shown to the duties of religion, and the want of that decency and respect which were due to the return of the Sabbath, were now so glaringly conspicuous, that it became necessary to repeat the orders, which had indeed often been given upon that subject, and again to call upon every person possessed of authority, to use that authority in compelling the due attendance of the convicts at church, and other proper observance of the Sabbath. The women were also directed to be more punctual in their appearance; for these still availed themselves of the indulgence which, as women, they had been treated with, seldom thinking themselves included in the restrictions that were laid upon others.”

Observations.—It would be an amusing sight in some respects, if it were not in other respects so melancholy an one, to see the governor thus fighting the demon of irreligion—fighting him with the same straws with which your Lordship will behold him presently fighting the hydra of drunkenness.

No. 6, p. 299. August 1800.—“As if in defiance of the various orders which had been given to enforce a due attendance on Sunday at divine service, that day still continued to be marked by a neglect of its sacred duties, an order was again given out on the 25th, pointing out the duties of the superintendents, constables, and overseers in this particular instance, and assuring them that a farther neglect on their part would be followed by their dismission from their respective situations.”

Observations.—At this period, along with the civil and military, ends the ecclesiastical history of the “improved” colony. What effect has since been produced by these fresh orders succeeding to former orders, as often defied as issued, may be left to conjecture—to conjecture grounded on unvarying experience, as well as the unchangeable nature of the case.

3.

Per Contra—Penitentiary System

No. 7. Philadelphia, 1793 Lownes, p. 89.—“Their [the prisoners’] decorum and attention at times appointed for religious worship, have been obvious, and are such as have obtained the approbation of all those who have been witnesses to it.”

VIII.

Remedies unavailing—Temporal.

1.

Punishments and Rewards—Evidence unobtainable.

This head will consist in good measure of recapitulations.

No. 1, p. 4. October 1796.—“Five murders in the year,” as above, page 220. Strong presumptive proof adduced; but the kind of evidence necessary to establish the offence withheld.”

No. 2, p. 69. December 1796.—“The house and stock of a poor settler involved in debt, purposely destroyed by fire. Emancipation, with a settlement, offered, and offered in vain, for evidence.”

No. 3, p. 110. May 1798.—“A fine bull calf belonging to an officer was about this time taken from the herd; and though considerable rewards were offered for the discovery of the offender, nothing transpired that could lead to it. This was a serious evil; for the care and attention of years might in one night’s time be destroyed by the villany of a few of these lawless people.”

No. 4, p. 130. October 1798.—Burning of the church and school at Sydney.—Reward of £30, with emancipation if a non-expiree; return to England, if an expiree. “But it was seen with concern,” adds the historian, “that rewards and punishments alike failed in their effect.”

No. 5, p. 197. January 1799.—Speaking of a number of “executions and punishments” that took place at this time, “it might be supposed,” observed the historian, “that they would have operated as a check to the commission of offences; but they appeared to be wholly disregarded.”

No. 6, p. 268. October 1799.—“About this time a young ox was missing from the government stock-yard at Tongabbe, and there was every reason to suppose it had been driven away and slaughtered. . . . In the hope of discovering the offender, a notice was published, holding out a conditional emancipation, and permission to become a settler, to any convict for life, who would come forward with the information necessary to convict the persons concerned in this destructive kind of robbery; and an absolute emancipation, with permission to quit the colony, to any one transported only for a limited time; but nothing was ever adduced that could lead to a discovery.”

No. 7, p. 276. December 1799.—Burning of the jail at Paramatta, with one of the prisoners in it.—“Rewards such as had formerly been held out.”—Same exertions, same success.

No. 8, p. 297. July 1800.—“The prisoners who were left for execution at the end of the last month suffered death, two of them at Sydney on the 3d, and the third at Paramatta on the 5th of this month. If examples of this kind could strike terror into the minds of the spectators, they certainly had not lately been without these salutary though dreadful lessons.”

The inaccessibility of evidence presents two very material observations.

One is—that in regard to the degree of profligacy prevalent in New South Wales, the criminal calendar, an alleged copy of which is, I observe, extant in print, would, without a proper caution, be apt to give rise to false inductions, presenting the state of society under an aspect by much too favourable. If every individual offence committed, whether prosecuted or not, detected or not, were registered in it, no;—if the number of offences committed were in no greater a ratio there than in England, to the number of offences prosecuted for, no. But in a community, in which the members are, almost to a man, in a league against government—where each criminal has almost as many protectors, if not accomplices, as he has neighbours, the number of crimes on record, be it ever so small, affords no indication of any correspondent paucity in the number of crimes committed.

Some cases indeed there are, in which, though the criminal remains unprosecuted and even undetected, the existence of the crime will commonly be known, or at least suspected, and in both cases recorded. Murder, at any rate, is of the number. But in the case of a crime of the predatory class, unless accompanied by force to the person or violence to the habitation or its contents, the prevalence of the crime may be continual and universal, without any specific trace of it, and therefore without any specific mention of it.

The other remark respects the degree of depravity indicated by the universality of this mutual adherence, independently of the actual crimes resulting from it. In the ordinary intercourse of life, fidelity to engagements is a virtue: why? because in the ordinary intercourse of life, among the engagements taken there is not one in a thousand, the execution of which is not beneficial to the community upon the whole. That feature of negative sociableness which disposes men not to obstruct or thwart one another in their enterprises, even this, too, is, as far as it goes, a virtue: why? because in ordinary life, among the enterprises engaged in, great and small, there is not one in a million, the success of which is not beneficial to the community as before. But for the same reason that, in the case of innocent and beneficial engagements and enterprises, fidelity and disposition to mutual adherence are virtues: in the case of criminal ones they are vices. A sort of honour may be found (according to a proverbial saying) even among thieves. Good, as an observation; that is, true in fact; but bad if the fact be regarded with complacency, and either the thieves themselves, or the society infested by them, are considered as being the better for it. That honour does exist among thieves is not to be doubted; for thieves are a society to one another, and it is only by honour that any society can be kept together. But to regard such honour with complacency, to speak with reprobation of every instance of the absence of it, to speak with eulogium of every instance of the manifestation of it, is indeed a natural enough prejudice, but, in some of its consequences, a very pernicious one. Without honour, society even among thieves could not exist;—true, but the thing to be wished for is, that among thieves, in so far as they are thieves, society never should exist. Of thieves, as of other men, the thing to be desired is, that they should observe the laws of honour in some cases, not observe them in others: observe them on the occasion of their honest engagements; not observe them on occasion of their dishonest ones: observe them in their ordinary dealings with other men; not observe them in their dealings with one another in their capacity of thieves. By whatsoever causes produced, infidelity to criminal engagements is repentance; and wherein is a man the better for being without repentance? To give birth to such infidelity—to purchase such repentance—is the object of every reward offered for he discovery of accomplices in crimes. To censure a man for the acceptance of any such offer—to commend him for the refusal of it—is to employ so much of the force of the popular or moral sanction, in a direction diametrically opposite to that of the action of the political sanction; diametrically opposite to the interest of society—of every society, but that of malefactors.

The application of this argument is susceptible of extensions: for example, subject to certain modifications, to the case of common informers. At present, let us content ourselves with applying it to the present case: the more pertinacious and extensive this species of sinister fidelity, the more intense and extensive and incorrigible, surely, is the depravity which it serves to indicate. If, indeed, in the case of this sinister fidelity, it were sympathy—sympathy on the part of the individuals as towards one another—that were in any degree the root of it, so far the inference would fail: but over and over again the absence of such sympathy, and that to a degree unexampled elsewhere, is attested as well by particular incidents as by general observations; the true root of this fidelity is—(so it appears throughout)—not in any sympathy on their part for one another, but in their antipathy to government—to the common bond by which society is held together.

2.

Police.

No. 1, p. 8. November 1796.—“The useful regulation of numbering the different houses in the town of Sydney, particularly those in the occupation of the convicts, was followed up by another, equally serviceable, which directed the inhabitants of each of the four divisions of the town (for into that number it was portioned off) to meet, and from among themselves elect three of the most decent and respectable characters, who were to be approved by the governor, and were to serve for the ensuing year as watchmen, for the purpose of enforcing a proper attention to the good order and tranquillity of their respective divisions. Many of the soldiers being allowed to occupy houses for their families in the vicinity of the barracks, the commanding officer was desired to appoint his own officer for the military division of the town, and to order them to report to him.” For the behaviour of these watchmen, see above, p. 219, where they are stated as guilty of “extreme negligence or complicity with the malefactors.”

No. 2, p. 26. March 1796.—At this time, for any but officers, no travelling without a passport: the passport to be inspected in each district by a constable: penalty for being found without one, a month’s imprisonment for the first offence, arbitrary punishment in case of repetition. “The frequent and unrestrained passing and repassing of idle and disorderly people from one part of the colony to another, and the mischievous correspondence which was kept up by such means, was productive of great evil. To check this as much as possible, all persons, the officers excepted, who were travelling from one district of the settlement to another, were required to furnish themselves with a passport, which on a proper application they would obtain without any difficulty. This was to be shown to and inspected by the constables in each district; and if found without it, they were to be imprisoned during a month for the first offence, and otherwise punished if it was repeated. But the best local arrangements were set at defiance by those hardened vagabonds, who seemed daily to increase in number and in infamy.” For the effect of this expedient, see the next title, No. 10, July 1799.

No. 3, p. 64. December 1797.—“The annual election of constables took place in this month. These municipal regulations were attended at least with the advantage of introducing something like a system of regularity into the settlement, than which nothing was more likely to check the relaxation which had lately prevailed in it.” For the behaviour of these constables, see the next title, No. 7.

No. 4, p. 197. January 1799.—“Were it not evident that certain punishment awaited the conviction of offenders, it might be supposed that a relaxation of the civil authority had begotten impunity; but far otherwise was the fact the police was vigilant, the magistrates active, and the governor ever anxious to support them, and with incessant diligence endeavouring to establish good order and morality in the settlement. But such was the depravity of these people, from the habitual practice of vice, that they were become alike fearless of the punishments of this or of the world to come.”

3.

Functionaries corrupt—Servants worthless.

No. 1, p. 60. November 1797.—“There can scarcely be recorded a stronger instance of human depravity, than what the following circumstance, which happened in this month, exhibits. A convict who had formerly been a school companion with the Reverend Mr. Johnson, had been taken by that gentleman into his service, where he reposed in him the utmost confidence, and treated him with the kindest indulgence. He had not been long in his house before Mr. Johnson was informed that his servant, having taken an impression of the key of his store-room in clay, had procured one that would fit the lock: he scarcely credited the information; but being urged to furnish him with an opportunity, he consented that a constable should be concealed in the house on a Sunday, when all the family, this servant excepted, would be attending divine service. The arrangement succeeded but too well. Concluding that all was safe, he applied his key, and entering the room, was proceeding without any remorse to plunder it of such articles as he wanted, when the constable, seeing his prey within his toils, started from his concealment, and seized him in the act of taking the property.

“Thus was this wretched being, without ‘one compunctious visiting of nature,’ detected in the act of injuring the man who, in the better day of his prosperity, had been the companion of his youth, and who had stretched out his hand to shelter him in the present hour of adversity.”

No. 2, p. 104. April 1798.—“The proprietors of this valuable article of stock [horses] were rather unfortunate in the care of it, notwithstanding the high price which it bore. The acting commissary lost a very fine mare, through the stupidity of an Irish servant, who put a short halter round her neck with a running knot by which she was strangled in the night; and information had been received of the death of two foals belonging to government. This accident proceeded from want of proper care in those who were appointed to look after them; but unfortunately, though they were often changed, the change was never found to be for the better.”

No. 3, p. 105. April 1798.—“They [the settlers] laboured under another evil, which was the effect of an unbounded rage for traffic that pervaded nearly the whole settlement. The delivery of grain into the public storehouses, when opened for that purpose, was so completely monopolized, that the settlers had but few opportunities of getting the full value for their crops. A few words will place this iniquitous combination in its proper light. The settler found himself thrust out from the granary by a man whose greater opulence created greater influence. He was then driven by his necessities to dispose of his grain for less than half its value. To whom did he dispose of it? To the very man whose greater opulence enabled him to purchase it, and whose greater influence could get it received into the public store.”

Observations.—The English of this seems to be, that those on whom it depended to choose, of whom the governor should make, these his purchases, gave the preference to those who would bribe highest.

No. 4, p. 111. May 1798.—“The deceptions and impositions which were daily in practice among the labouring part of the colony, to the great injury of the concerns of government, rendered it highly expedient that the governor, who had those concerns to attend to, should be assisted by trusty and active persons, in every situation where public works might be carrying on. Having made some discoveries of this nature in the department of the sawyers, he issued a public order specifying the hours which should be employed in every branch of public labour. This had by no means been the first attempt to check the impositions of these people; but it was found that the private concerns of those who should superintend the various public works occupied so much of their time, that their duty was either wholly neglected, or carelessly performed. This created such a relaxation of discipline, that a repetition of orders and regulations was from time to time published, to keep the labouring people constantly in mind that they were the servants of the crown, and remind those who were appointed to look after them, that they had neglected that duty which should ever have been their first and principal consideration.”

No. 5, p. 134. November 1798.—“An instance of the fatal effects of misguided conduct, and a too late sense of criminality, occurred in the tragical end of Nathaniel Franklyn, the governor’s steward. This man, whom he brought from England, had the whole care and management of the governor’s domestic concerns entrusted to him. He had been repeatedly cautioned by his master against the many artful and designing acquaintances which he had formed in the town, and was pointedly desired to be aware of not suffering himself to be influenced by their opinions. It was proved that he had not had fortitude enough to withstand their solicitations, but had consented to rob the governor to a very considerable amount, abusing the confidence he had placed in him, and making use of his name in a most iniquitous manner. Of the infamy of his conduct he was at last sensible, and retiring into the shrubbery in the garden of the governor’s house, shot himself through the head.”

No. 6, p. 138. December 1798.—“On the 19th died very suddenly Mr. Stephenson, the storekeeper at Sydney. As his death was not exactly in the common way, so neither had been the latter part of his life—indeed all that part of it which he had passed in this country; for, by an upright conduct and a faithful discharge of the duties of the office with which he had been entrusted, he secured to himself the approbation of his superiors while living, and their good name at his death.

“Stephenson had been emancipated for his orderly behaviour, and to enable him to execute the office of storekeeper.”

Observation.—If I misrecollect not, this is the single instance of reformation mentioned by our historian, directly or indirectly, in the compass of the last five years—the period comprised in this his second volume.

No. 7, p. 139. December 1798.—“The annual election of constables recurring about this time, the magistrates were desired to be very particular in their selection of the persons returned to them for that purpose, as there was reason to fear, from the frequent escapes of prisoners from the different gaols, that the constables had been tampered with so shamefully to neglect their duty.”

No. 8, p. 196. January 1799.—“On the night of the 24th, the acting commissary’s house was broken into and robbed of articles to a considerable amount. The thieves appeared to have got in at the office window, and loosened the bricks of a partition wall, by which opening they got into the storeroom, and, forcing the locks of the chests and trunks, carried away every thing that they could manage.”

“One evil among others, which attended the frequent arrival of ships in the port, was the ready market which these plunderers found for disposing of their stolen goods, the seamen not hesitating to become the purchasers on leaving the place.”

No. 9, p. 210. May 1799.—“At the same court one man, Robert Low, was adjudged to corporal punishment and one year’s hard labour, for embezzling some of the live stock of government which had been entrusted to his care. He was a free man, and had been one of the convicts who were with Captain Riow in the Guardian, when her voyage to New South Wales was unfortunately frustrated by her striking upon an island of ice; on account of which, and of their good conduct before and after the accident, directions had been given for their receiving conditional emancipation, and being allowed to provide for their own maintenance. Few of these people, however, were in the end found to merit this reward and indulgence, as their future conduct had proved; and this last act of delinquency pointed out the necessity of a free person being sent out from England to superintend the public live stock, with such an allowance as would make him at once careful of his conduct, and faithful in the execution of his trust.”

No. 10, p. 219. July 1799.—“Still alarming depredations were nightly committed upon the live stock of individuals, and were doubtless effected by those wandering pests to society, the regulations which had long since been established as a check to such an evil being wholly disregarded. It was discovered that hogs were stolen, and delivered on the victualling days at the public store, without any inquiry being made as to whose property they were, or by whom delivered, any person’s name which they chose to give in being considered by the storekeeper as sufficient to authorise him to receive it, although printed vouchers for the delivery of such pork (and grain likewise) were left at the store for the purpose of being signed by the party offering it. This certainly operated as an encouragement to the commission of these thefts; and it became necessary to order that such persons as attended the receipt of any of these articles at the store should direct whoever delivered them to sign the voucher of the quantity received by him; the governor being determined never to approve of any bill laid before him for that purpose, unless the commissary should produce the voucher properly signed by the person in whose name such bill was made out.”

Observations.—By “the regulations established as a check to those wandering pests to society,” I understand the regulations requiring passports, the measure above spoken of under the head of Police, No. 2.

No. 11, p. 267. October 1799.—“A number of the public labouring servants of the crown having lately absconded from their duty, for the purpose either of living by robbery in the woods, or of getting away in some of the ships now about to sail, that none of those concerned in the concealing them might plead ignorance, public notice was given,—‘That any officer or man belonging to the above ships, who should be known to have countenanced or assisted the convicts above alluded to in making their escape, would be taken out of the ship, and punished with the utmost severity of the law; and as the most strict and scrupulous search would take place on board,—for every convict which should be found concealed or suffered to remain on board without regular permission, so many of the ship’s company should be taken out and detained for daring to encourage such escape.’

* * * * * *

“On the day this order was issued, the Hillsborough, which was moving out of the Cove, and preparing for sea, was strictly searched; and several convicts being found on board, they were brought on shore, and each received a severe corporal punishment. One of them was excused, on condition of his declaring who the people were that encouraged that concealment, and prepared hiding-places for them. He accordingly deposed to two of the seamen, who were also brought on shore, punished, and afterwards drummed to the wharf, and sent back to their ship. The foregoing order was then published.

“How well it was attended to, and what effect the punishment of the seamen and convicts produced, were instantly seen. The Hunter, preparatory to a voyage to Bengal, where she was to freight with goods for the colony, went out of the harbour. A woman named Ann Holmes being missing, the governor ordered an armed boat from the Rehance to follow the ship, with some of the constables, and search her; with directions, if any person were found on board who had not permission to depart, to bring her into port again. Having found the woman, the ship was brought up the harbour, and secured.

“Several of her crew having behaved in a most insolent and mutinous manner to the officer of the Reliance, having armed themselves against the constables with cutlasses, and one of them having presented a musquet to the chief constable, they were secured, ordered to be punished on board their own ships, and afterwards turned on shore. But it was necessary to do something more than this; and a criminal court being assembled for the purpose, the master of the ship was brought to trial, charged with aiding and abetting a female convict to make her escape from the colony. As the offence consisted in aiding a convict, it was requisite to prove that such was the person found on board his ship; but upon referring to a list of the prisoners who were embarked in the Royal Admiral, the ship in which Ann Holmes had been sent out to New South Wales, no specific term of transportation was found annexed to her name. On the question, then, whether the master had aided a convict in making an escape, he was acquitted, it not being possible by any document to prove that Holmes was at that moment a convict. But the master was reprehensible in concealing any person whatever in his ship, and ought to have felt the awkwardness of his situation in being brought before a court for the breach of an order expressly issued a short time before, to guard him and others against the offence that he had committed.

“When the Hillsborough was searched, not less than thirty convicts were found to have been received on board, against the orders and without the knowledge of the officers, and secreted by the seamen. This ship and the Hunter, shortly after these transactions, sailed on their respective voyages.”

No. 12, p. 331. August 1801.—“It appeared, on examining the registers of the several terms of transportation of the convicts, that the clerks, who necessarily had had access to them, had altered the sentences of about two hundred prisoners, receiving a gratuity from each, equal to ten or twelve pounds. This was a very serious evil; and proper steps to guard against it in future have been taken, both at home and in the colony.”—Quere, Of how many hundred prisoners could the terms have been shortened by clerks in a penitentiary-house?

Observations.—“If the salt hath lost its savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned?”

At a former period, in more instances than one, the terms of the convicts, instead of an abridgment as here, obtained a prolongation. The cause of it was—not any activity on the part of any clerks or other persons in New South Wales, but the negligence (let us hope at least that it was nothing worse than the negligence) of certain persons here at home: ship after ship, convicts were sent out, and no calendar of their terms sent with them.* In England, the presumption is in favorem libertatis: at the Antipodes, where justice was turned topsy-turvy, it was naturally enough in favorem servitutis.

“We have no proof,” says government there to these convicts—“gentlemen who sent you out have given us none—of our having a right to detain you—any of you—so much as a single day: therefore in the first instance we detain you—all of you—for life. To each of you we give an estate for life in banishment and bondage: yes, for life, in the first instance; defeasible indeed as to the bondage, by what lawyers call in England a possibility upon a possibility.” Thus it was, that in New South Wales, gentlemen of the highest rank, with the help of gentlemen at home, tacked on, in a wholesale way, to the several legal, so many illegal portions of punishment—bondage and banishment together. In the case at present in question, gentlemen of an inferior rank, instead of tacking on illegal portions of punishment, struck off so many portions of legal punishment: not in toto indeed—bondage and banishment together—but bondage alone; in general, at least, leaving the banishment pretty much upon the same footing as they found it. Nor yet were the portions of bondage struck off freely and gratuitously, but for the valuable consideration of £10 or £12 a-head: in other words, part of the bondage was thus compounded for, and commuted into a fine. The fine, it is true, did not go immediately, nor, I fear, was intended ever to go, if it could safely be prevented from going, into the proper reservoir for fines, the privy purse: to which having said proper, I am almost ashamed to add—the king’s—but in this there seems little to distinguish these from other fines. Gentlemen acted in that behalf as so many self-constituted receivers and surveyors of the green wax: and as other receivers and surveyors of that same sort of wax might be expected to do, kept their own secret, kept everything, money and secret together—safe till called for. Neither indeed was the fine thus levied sufficiently public to have any very beneficial effect in the way of example: but in the way of reformation, and in the character of a remedy applied pro salute animæ, the effect of it could hardly have been greater, if levied by the purest ecclesiastical hands, or passed in and stored up in the regular official hive of the receiver and surveyor-general of his majesty’s royal green wax as aforesaid.

Question (should Robin Hood ever come to life again) for the lyceum of Robin Hood: Which are most to blame? gentlemen in New South Wales, who without law have shortened servitude? or gentlemen at home, who also without law have lengthened it?

From former titles your Lordship has been that New South Wales discipline is no source of reformation for convicts—that, è contra, it is a source of ulterior corruption for convicts: from this title your Lordship has seen, and in a variety of very extensive instances, that it is moreover a source of corruption for honest men. For government storekeepers, as per Nos. 3 and 10; superintendent, as per No. 4; stewards, as per No. 5; constables, as per No. 7; seamen in general, as per No. 8; seamen in merchant’s service, as per No. 11; clerks in the government office, as per No. 12; soldiers, as per I. Collins, 303, 455, mentioned in my former letter, p. 195, and p. 209.

Thus and thus far in known instances: in another way, and in unknown instances without account, the spread of the corruption may have been in an indefinite degree more extensive. To so many numerous and important classes of his Majesty’s subjects as are forced or tempted to make a house-of-call of the “improved colony”—to the king’s army—to the king’s navy—to seamen in private service, the nest of female convicts constitutes a constantly open school of mischief and depredation; a school in which the arts of theft, robbery, burglary, murder, and incendiarism, are taught by a set of school-mistresses of the very first order; of school-mistresses pronounced over and over again, upon the fullest experience, by the highest authorities, and most competent judges, to be “far worse than the men,” far worse than thieves, robbers, burglars, murderers, and incendiaries.*

IX.

Main Cause of Non-Reformation, Drunkenness.—Universality and Incurableness of it in New South Wales.†

No. 1, II. Collins, p. 9. November 29, 1796.—Speaking of three capital convicts, who had been executed for robbing the public stores, and three others who on conviction of the same offence had received a conditional pardon, “It was much to be lamented,” continues the judge advocate, “that these people were not to be deterred by any example from the practice of robbing the public stores, which had of late been more frequent than heretofore, and for which there could not be admitted the shadow of an excuse—as the whole of the inhabitants of every description were at this very time on a full and liberal allowance of provisions and clothing, neither of which were in any scarcity in the settlement. But the cause was to be found in the too great indulgence in the use of spirituous liquors, which had obtained among them for a considerable time past. The different capital crimes which had lately been brought before the court of criminal judicature, together with the various petty offences that daily came under the cognizance of the magistrates, did not proceed from an insufficiency either of food or clothing, but from an inordinate desire of possessing, by any means whatsoever, those articles with which they might be able to procure spirits—“that source,” as the governor expressed himself in an order which he published directly after these executions—“that source of the misfortunes of all those whom the laws of their country and the justice that was due to others had launched into eternity, surrounded with the crimes of an ill-spent life.”

No. 2, p. 18. January 18, 1797.—Speaking of the persons called settlers (the expirees, who took to farming on their own account,) and of the measures taken to reduce what was looked upon as excessive in the rate of wages demanded of them by such of their fellows as maintained themselves by serving them as labourers, he goes on and observes, “It must appear from this, that every necessary and useful regulation was suggested, that could promote the convenience and advantage of these people, who being in possession of land that yielded the most ample returns, nothing but the greatest worthlessness on their part could have prevented their getting forward and becoming men of property. That too many of them were of this description, will appear evident from its being notorious that their crops were no sooner gathered than they were instantly disposed of for spirits, which they purchased at the rate of three, nay even of four pounds per gallon, and of a spirit often lowered one-fourth or more of its strength with water.”

No. 3, p. 49. September 1797.—On the 20th of this month, “the Deptford, a small brig, arrived from Madras with a cargo of goods upon speculation for the Sydney market. The spirit of trade, which had for sometime obtained in the colony, afforded an opening for adventurers to bring their goods to this settlement. The voyage from India was short and direct; and from the nature of their investments they were always certain of finding a ready sale, and an ample return upon the original invoice. But this intercourse was found to be pregnant with great evil to the colony; for preferring spirits to any other article that could be introduced from India, the owners never failed to make the rum of that country an essential part of every cargo which they sent upon speculation; and though every necessary measure was adopted to prevent all that arrived from being landed, yet such was the avidity with which it was sought after, that if not permitted, it was generally got on shore clandestinely, and very few ships carried back any of what they had brought down. To this source might be traced all the crimes which disgraced, and all the diseases that injured, the colony.”

No. 4, p. 71. December 24, 1797.—A particular anecdote, mentioned by the historiographer under this date, may serve to show the state of public opinion among the convicts, with reference to this most prolific of all vices:—“On the eve of Christmas-day, two young men, settlers on some land midway between Sydney and Paramatta, having been boasting of their respective abilities in drinking, regardless of the solemnity of the time, challenged each other to a trial of their skill: on which they were so deliberately bent, that to prevent their being interrupted, they retired to the skirts of a neighbouring wood* with a quantity of raw spirits, which they had provided for the purpose. Their abilities, however, were not equal to their boasting; for one of them died upon the spot, and the life of the other was fast ebbing when he was taken up. Had another hour elapsed, he too must have perished like his wretched companion. They had not been able to finish all the pernicious spirit which they had prepared, some of it remaining by them in a case-bottle when they were found.”

No. 5, p. 80. January 20, 1798.—After having spoken, in p. 35, of a merchant ship called the Sydney Cove, that had been then lately wrecked in her voyage from Bengal to New South Wales on speculation, and of the dispatch of a vessel called the Francis to bring in the crew and what could be saved of the cargo, “On the 20th January 1798,” continues our author, “the Francis returned with Captain Hamilton [the captain of the Sydney Cove] from the southward. Previous to his departure for the wreck of his ship, he had informed the governor that she had on board nearly 7000 gallons of spirits, and solicited permission to bring back a part with him in the schooner. The governor, ever averse to the introduction of spirituous liquors, would certainly have resisted the application; but it being generally known in the colony that a considerable quantity of this article had been saved from the wreck, and that the island abounded with kangaroos and birds, he conceived these circumstances not only to have conduced to those desertions and captures ofboats which had been effected, but as likely to prove farther temptations to similar practices. He therefore determined to purchase the rum of Captain Hamilton, and as there was none in store for the public service, to take it on account of government. An agreement was accordingly entered into by the commissary, and 3500 gallons were brought round in the Francis.”

Observations.—Quere 1st, How much more intoxication would be produced by a gallon of spirits taken on account of government, than by ditto of ditto taken on any other account?—Quere 2d, In what degree or respect is “the source of all the crimes that disgraced, and all the diseases that injured, the colony,” &c. conducive to the public service?—Quere 3d, If by stolen boats or otherwise, spirits, when landed in Providence Island by accident, cannot be prevented from being smuggled into New South Wales, how can they, if landed on ditto, or any nearer and more convenient spot, by design and for this very purpose?

No. 6, p. 133. October 1798.—The observations made at this time by the governor respecting the state of things in a spot so often mentioned as by far the most fertile of all the settlements, may serve to show of how little avail are the most signal geographical advantages, when counteracted by this moral obstacle to all industry and all happiness:—“Towards the end of the month, the governor visited the settlers at the Hawkesbury, and while he was there made some useful regulations among the sawyers, who had fixed their own portion of public labour. He gave notice that a session should be held quarterly for settling all civil concerns, and made some other local arrangements, which, if attended to, would have conduced essentially to the welfare of the settlers, whose farms he found promising plenty, but whose houses and persons wore the appearance of poverty and beggary, they converting all the produce of their farms to the unworthy purpose of purchasing a pernicious spirit, that must ever keep them poor.”

No. 7, p. 198. February 1799.—“Notwithstanding the settlement had before it the serious prospect of wanting grain, and the consequent destruction of much useful stock, it was known that several people had erected stills and provided materials for the purpose of distilling spirituous liquors—a pernicious practice, which had long been forbidden by every officer who had had the direction of the colony. Former orders on this subject were now repeated, and persons of all descriptions were called upon to use every means in their power, in aid of the civil magistrate, to seize and destroy such stills and materials as they might find.

No. 8, p. 203. March 1799.—Speaking of an act of homicide committed in self-defence by a sentinel soldier on the person of a drunken seaman—“This accident,” continues the reporter, “was the effect of intoxication; to which, a few days after, another victim was added, in the person of a female, who was either the wife or companion of Simon Taylor, a man who had been considered as one of the few industrious settlers which the colony could boast of. They had both been drinking together to a great excess, and in that state they quarrelled, when the unhappy man, in a fit of madness and desperation, put an untimely end to her existence. He was immediately taken into custody, and reserved for trial.

“To this pernicious practice of drinking to excess, more of the crimes which disgraced the colony, were to be ascribed, than to any other cause; and more lives were lost through this than through any other circumstance; for the settlement had ever been free from epidemical or fatal diseases. How much, then, was the importation of spirits to be lamented! How much was it to be regretted, that it had become the interest of any set of people to vend them!” [It might have been added (as your Lordship will see)—and in one way or other, of every set of people without exception. As to its being become, so it always was from the first, and so it must be to the last.]

“Several robberies, which at this time had been committed, were to be imputed to the same source.”

No. 9, p. 205. April 1799.—At this time a Spanish ship, having been taken by two whalers, was brought into Port Jackson; and the ship being condemned, part of her cargo was sold by auction. The cargo (our author informs us in a note) “consisted of sugar, flour, and an ardent spirit similar to the aqua ardente of the Brazils. This article,” he adds, “the governor would not allow to be sold by auction.”

Observations.—Not by auction: that the governor would not allow it to be sold at all is not said.—Quere 1. How much more intoxication would be produced by a gallon of spirits sold by auction, than by ditto of ditto sold by hand?—Quere 2. What advantage is gained by keeping down the price “of the source of all diseases and all crimes?”

No. 10, p. 222. July 1799.—An observation made at this time serves at once to show the prodigious intensity of two vicious and closely allied propensities—drunkenness and sloth: so mighty the latter, nothing less than the former was able to get the better of it. “Much” (says our historian) “might be expected from the exertions of 355 people; and the greatest advantage would have been derived from their labours, had they been less prone to dissipation and useless traffic—a traffic which most of them entered into solely with a view to indulging themselves in their favourite propensity of drinking.”

No. 11, p. 274. 2d December 1799.—“In the evening . . . . the Plumier, a Spanish ship, anchored in the Cove. She was a prize to three whalers, who had taken her near Cape Corientes, on the coast of Peru. Her cargo consisted chiefly of bad spirits and wine, which, on her being condemned by the court of vice-admiralty as a lawful prize, were removed into the supply, and an order was given out, strictly forbidding the landing of any spirits, wine, or even malt liquor, until a regular permit had been first obtained. This restriction upon wine and malt liquor was occasioned by spirituous liquors having been landed under that description.”

No. 12, p. 275. 16th December.—“The court of criminal judicature being assembled, two mates of [the ship] Walker were brought before it, and tried for using menaces to a person who had stopt their boat when attempting to land spirits without a permit; but as he had not any special authority for making the seizure, or detaining the boat, they were acquitted.”

No. 13, p. 280. 11th January 1800.—“Arrived the Fhynne, a small snow from Bengal, under Danish colours, which had been chartered by the officers*of the colony, civil and military, through the means of an agent whom they had sent thither for that purpose. She was freighted on their account with many articles of which they were much in want; and as more labour could be obtained for spirits than for any other mode of payment, an article so essential to the cultivation of their estates was not forgotten.”†

No. 14, p. 291. 14th April 1800.—“The quantity of spirits at this time in the colony occasioned much intoxication and consequent irregularity. The settlers at the river were so lost to their own interests as to neglect sowing of their grounds;‡ a circumstance which, but for the timely interference of the governor, would have ended in their ruin. Immediately on hearing of their situation, he forbade the sending any more spirits to that profligate corner of the colony,∥ as well as the retailing what had already been sent thither, under pain of the offender’s being prosecuted for such disobedience of his orders.§

No. 15, p. 299. August 9, 1800.—“Toward the latter end of the month, an attempt was made, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, to land without a permit 1016 gallons of wine and spirits, which were seized at the wharf by the sentinel. If the person who made this attempt had been advised to so incautious and daring a proceeding, it could only have been with a view to try the integrity of the sentinels, or the vigilance of the police.”

No. 16, p. 332. August 1801.—“Several ships had arrived from India, England, and America, most of which had brought upon speculation, cargoes consisting of wine, spirits, tobacco, teas, sugar, hardware, wearing apparel, &c. &c., the sale of which was, with the governor’s approbation, advertised by the commissary, and publicly sold to all descriptions of people.

It appears that from these ships,

And

Observations.—I have already intimated, my Lord, that I see nothing blameworthy in the conduct maintained in this respect by gentlemen in the colony; nothing which it is in the power of blame to set right; nothing, therefore, for which blame would be of any use. If by any sacrifices or exertions of his own, it would have been in the power of any of them to have subtracted anything considerable from the sum-total of the mischief, then, indeed, ground for blame might not have been altogether wanting—then, indeed, blame itself might not have been altogether without its use. But in that situation it does not appear to me, that from any such single exertions, any effectual benefit could have been derived: nor even from any such joint exertions as the nature of the case admitted of. Manufacturing and importation taken together; the exclusion of the means of drunkenness out of the improved colony, presents itself to my view, I must confess, as an achievement, now and for everlasting morally impossible.

In the first place, as to manufacturing.—The settlements are spreading themselves over the face of the country: spreading themselves wider and wider every day. It is what gentlemen wish to see them do: it is matter of triumph that they do so. It is a mark of “improvement”—of that feature of improvement which has hitherto been accepted in lieu of every other. They are not only spread, but scattered: they are so already; they will be more and more so every day. Settlers will not take up inferior land on the mere recommendation of its vicinity to already settled land, when superior land is to be had within a certain distance. But the more extended and dispersed the lots of lands are, with their inhabitants, the more incapable they are of being kept under any given degree—under any sufficient degree—of inspection; of being kept under a degree of inspection sufficient for any purpose: and of all purposes for this. In respect to every purpose, the deficiency of the system of inspectors—of whatsoever professions, civil and military—under whatsoever titles—is, and in the nature of the case ever must be, a standing topic of complaint. For preventing the erections of stills, orders upon orders have all along been issued. [See No. 7, p. 232.] But the publication of each subsequent order is a pretty sufficient evidence of the inefficacy of all preceding ones.

Next, as to importation.—Is it in the nature of things that the coast all round—the coast of a country as large as Europe—should be kept sufficiently guarded for this purpose? Would the whole navy of England be sufficient to the task? Is there so much as a government cock-boat, the expense of which, especially on such a service, is not, and very justly, grudged?

When by accident—by shipwreck (as per No. 5)—a cargo of spirits had been landed on a neighbouring island, preventing the importation of them was found to be impracticable. Would not the difficulty have been at least as great, if design, instead of accident, had brought them there? The spot, though comparatively near, was positively a very distant one. In case of design, not any such distant one would be chosen—but whatever spot, in point of vicinity as well as every other circumstance, presented itself as best adapted for the purpose.

So far as to what depends on the situation and distribution of the land: next, as to the permanent interest and consequent natural disposition of its inhabitants. Whatever regulations can ever be made for the preventing the introduction of spirits into the colony—be it by manufacture, be it by importation—there is scarcely a human being in the colony, in or out of power, who has not a personal interest in the inefficacy of them—an interest as strong as it is possible for a man to have in the inefficacy of any such fiscal regulations.

Among the convicts themselves—non-expirees, as well as expirees—servants as well as masters—there is scarcely a man to whom this liquid poison is not dearer than life. Among all classes of persons—convicts—military officers—civil officers—not a master that, so long as any of it is to be had anywhere, or from anybody, can get a servant to work for him on any other terms. In one case, it is true, and that as conceivable a one as any other, this common interest would not exist. Such would be the case if not so much as a single master had so much as a single drop of the poison to give. In this case, their common corrupt interest would be wanting, and the opposite virtuous common interest—the interest which all masters have in the sobriety of their servants—would take its place. But if one gives spirits all must—or all must see their farms deserted, and their servants gone from theirs to that one. By extraordinary exertions, a reduction in the quantity habitually consumed in the colony might every now and then, I doubt not, be effected; but any such reduction can never be other than temporary: for so many masters as there are (officers as well as others) who see other masters in possession of a greater quantity than they themselves can lay hold of, so many are there who are partakers in this common corrupt interest. Upon the whole, therefore, so long as the quantity of spirits in the colony is short of the full quantity which the convicts altogether are disposed to drink, so long must the virtual auction—the universal competition among the purchasers of the article—continue. Those who, at any given period, have the advantage in this respect over their neighbours, will find themselves under the constant necessity of keeping up their stock of it; keeping it up against all competitors, for the purpose of keeping up this advantage; so that the common interest in question—the interest which men of all descriptions have in eluding all such restrictive regulations—is not merely a general and temporary interest, but a universal one, and, humanly speaking, an indefeasible and perpetual one.

With the situation of the governor of New South Wales and his subordinates, contrast, in this respect, that of the governor of a panopticon penitentiary house. Not a drop of forbidden liquor can be either drunk in the house, or so much as introduced into it, without being seen to be so by everybody: by officers—prisoners—visitors through curiosity—visitors upon business: therefore, were transgression ever so advantageous, detection and punishment would be inevitable. But what is still more, transgression would give no advantage. Without work, among those who can work, not so much as a morsel of bread is to be had by anybody (so that here, as elsewhere, as many as choose it may be starved;) and every person, the more he works the better he is paid: the amount of his earnings is ascertained, and he receives a quarter of it. Taken in excess, fermented liquors would be directly adverse to profitable economy; taken even in moderation, they would be of no use to it.

X.

Per Contra—Penitentiary System,—General Reformation, as attested in general expressions:—1. During Confinement.

No. 1. Philadelphia; 1793: Lownes, p. 89.—“The order in their” [the prisoners’] “employments, their demeanour towards the officers, harmony amongst each other, and their decorum and attention at times appointed for religious worship, have been obvious, and are such as have obtained the approbation of all those who have been witnesses to it; and we trust that the impressions received in this secluded state of existence will have a happy influence towards promoting the great object contemplated by the change of the penal code by the legislature of this commonwealth.”

No. 2. Philadelphia; 1795: Liancourt, p. 21.—“The appearance of the prisoners has nothing of that insolence or of that dejection which is so striking among our own convicts in Europe. It is cold, respectful, sorrowful, and calm.”

No. 3. Philadelphia; 1796: Turnbull, p. 4.—“There was such a spirit of industry visible on every side, and such contentment pervaded the countenances of all, that it was with difficulty I divested myself of the idea that these men surely were not convicts, but accustomed to labour from their infancy.”

No. 4. Ib. p. 27.—“The convicts are called to their meals by the ringing of a bell; we saw the men sit down to their supper, and I do not recollect a scene more interesting. At one view, we beheld about 90 fellow-creatures, formerly lost as it were to their country and the world, now collected in one body, and observing that air of composure and decency to each other, consequent only from a long and continued practice of moral habits.”

No. 5. Ib. p. 46.—“After conversing with her (the jailoress) for some time, he (a person before mentioned) inquired of her whether there were no inconveniences attending the institution? With the greatest concern she replied, that there was one which gave her no small degree of uneasiness. That the debtors in their apartments, from being able to overlook the yard of the prison, made her fear that their conversing together, swearing, &c. might corrupt the morals of her people. You may think it strange that debtors should corrupt criminals; but the case is really so, for there is certainly as much, if not more, morality among the latter, than the former. And so fully convinced were the inspectors of her apprehensions being well founded, that, to remedy the defect, they have since had the prison wall raised.”

Observations.—The sex of the keeper, compared with the nature of her office, brings to view the picture of a future golden age as delineated by prophetic poetry: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, * * * * and a young child shall lead them.” The paradox had already received its explanation in the same page.

“I was surprised to find a female in the first appointment, and on inquiry found that her husband was formerly jailor. Discharging the duties of a tender parent towards his daughter, infected with the yellow fever in 1793, he caught the disorder and died, leaving the prisoners to regret the loss of a friend and protector, and the community that of a valuable citizen. In consideration of his faithful performance of the functions of his office, his widow was nominated to succeed him. She is exceedingly attentive and humane.”

No. 6, Ib. p. 48.—“Few have been known to stay in the prison the whole of the term to which they were sentenced, the amendment and repentance of many of them being so visible to the inspectors, as to have had a claim to the governor’s clemency.”

2.

After Liberation, as per accounts.

No. 7. Philadelphia; 1793: Lownes, p. 92.—“Out of near 200 persons, who at different times have been recommended to and pardoned by the governor, only four have been returned; three from Philadelphia, reconvicted of larceny, and one from a neighbouring county. As several of them thus discharged were old offenders, there was some reason to fear that they would not long behave as honest citizens. But if they have returned to their old courses, they have chosen to run the risk of being hanged in other states, rather than encounter the certainty of being confined in the penitentiary cells of this. We may therefore conclude, that the plan adopted has had a good effect on these; for it is a fact well known, that many of them were heretofore frequently at the bar of public justice, and had often received the punishment of their crimes under the former laws.”

No. 8. Philadelphia; 1796: Turnbull, p. 48.—“Reconvictions are seldom heard of. Of all the convicts condemned for these five years past, not above 5 in a 100 have been known to return.”

Observations.—Between this article and the last preceding one, your Lordship will have observed the difference. Those of whom but 2 in the 100 proved backsliders, were picked men: men picked out as the best, and pardoned. Those of whom so many as 5 in the 100 proved backsliders, were the whole number of the “condemned” taken together. The time which gave these gave these 5 in a 100, was moreover nearly as long again as the time which gave not quite so much as the 2 in the 100.

No. 9. New York; 1802: Eddy, p. 33.—“Under the instruction of a prisoner sentenced for life, who was a skilful shoemaker, it was matter of surprise to observe with how much rapidity those who were before wholly ignorant of the trade, learned to become excellent workmen.”

No. 10. Ib. p. 52.—“It is with no small pleasure that the inspectors have observed, that a number of those who have been discharged from the prison, confided to their care, have continued in habits of industry and sobriety, and bid fair to become good members of society.”

Observations.—From a literal interpretation of this passage, an inference that might be drawn is, that though the reformed were in a certain number, the unreformed were in a number still greater. But from the general tenor of the publication, and in particular from the two next articles of it as here copied, it will appear evident enough, that the persons here alluded to as reformed were such alone as on that account happened in a particular manner to have attracted the notice of these their former guardians.”

No. 11. Ib. p. 85.—In five years ending with 1801, “of 349 prisoners who have been discharged by expiration of sentence and pardon, 29 only, or 1-12th part, have been convicted of second offences; and of these, 16 were foreigners. Of 86 pardoned, 8 have been recommitted for second offences; and of these, 5 were foreigners.”

In the recent institution at New York, your Lordship will have observed, the account of backsliders is not as yet quite so favourable as in Philadelphia. The difference may, it should seem, fairly enough be ascribed to a variety of peculiar difficulties which New York has had to struggle with.—Statement given by Mr. Eddy, too long to be inserted here.

In respect of general remarks, circumstances would naturally give a different colour to the representations as between Philadelphia and New York. The Philadelphia accounts are, the two latest of them, accounts given by strangers to strangers: the New York, by the leading manager to his fellow-countrymen and fellow-townsmen. In this latter case, the main object was to give economical and other arithmetical details: it is a compte rendu by a trustee to his principals. As to deportment, &c. of the prisoners, the persons to whom principally the writer was addressing himself were fellow-townsmen, who being on the spot, had eyes of their own to see with. That upon the whole, the chief author saw nothing to deter him from expressing himself satisfied with his work, appears from the concluding paragraph, which is as follows:—

No. 12. Ib. p. 70.—“The New York state-prison will furnish a model for others, which the increase of population and growth of luxury may render necessary in the distant parts of this extensive country* . And whatever may be the future condition of mankind, this institution will reflect lasting honour on the State; become a durable monument of the wisdom, justice, and humanity of its legislators, more glorious than the most splendid achievements of conquerors or kings; and be remembered, when the magnificent structures of folly and pride, with their founders, are alike exterminated and forgotten.

Penitentiary System continued:—Reformation—Particular Exemplifications:—Heroic Humanity.

No. 1. Philadelphia, 1796: Turnbull, p. 91.—“At the time of the yellow fever in 1793, great difficulty was found in obtaining nurses and attendants for the sick at Bush Hill hospital. Recourse was had to the prison. The request was made, and the apparent danger stated to the convicts. As many offered as were wanted. They continued faithful till the dreadful scene was closed—none of them making a demand for their services till all were discharged.

No. 2. Ib. p. 48.—“Some (on the same occasion) at the expiration of their terms of confinement, voluntarily offered themselves . . . . and conducted themselves with so much fidelity and tenderness, as to have had the repeated thanks of the managers.”

No. 3. Ib. p. 92.—Another instance of the good conduct of the prisoners during the sickness, happened among the women. When request was made of them to give up their bedsteads for the use of the sick at the hospital, they cheerfully offered even their bedding, &c. When a similar request was made to the debtors, they all refused.” Some difference, my Lord, between these women and the women “far worse than the men,” in New South Wales—some difference between the men who serve in hospitals at the peril of their lives, and those who make bonfires of hospitals, as well as of prisons with the prisoners in them:—the prisoners—their comrades—their peers—men whom, instead of burning them, they would have been ready to clasp to their bosoms, so it had been to join in mischief.

XI.

Main Cause:—Sobriety, Strictness,—Universality and good effects of it in the Penitentiary House.

No. 1. Philadelphia; 1795: Liancourt, p. 19.—“They [the convict prisoners] are never on any account permitted the use of fermented liquors, not even of small beer. The prohibition of fermented drink is a standing order, and most religiously observed. The liveliness and animation which such liquors might induce in the workmen is only an artificial and momentary vigour; a cause of irritation, heating the blood, and destroying the effect of that temperate regimen which is intended to alter the habit and the constitution.”

No. 2. Philadelphia; 1796: Turnbull, p. 26.—“The drink of the criminals is molasses and water; spirituous liquors are forbidden, except for medical purposes prescribed by the attending physician; and the person who sells, or suffers them to be introduced on any other occasion, subjects himself to a penalty of five pounds; if an officer of the prison, to dismission from office. The reason of this rigorous regulation arises, in the first place, from the probability of the abuse which might be made of the practice, were it once introduced: and in the next place, from the conviction of the inspectors, that those liquors act not so powerfully in strengthening a body doomed to more than ordinary toil and labour, as the effects of good wholesome water. That whatever cheerfulness or vigour it may produce in a labourer, it is merely temporary, and like all high stimulatives, its operations are no sooner at an end, than the system is left enervated and fatigued.”

No. 3. New York; 1802: Eddy, p. 49.—“Many of those who came into the prison with constitutions greatly impaired by excessive drinking, debauchery, and vicious habits, after being sometime used to the system of temperance, order, and industry established in the prison, have become healthy and vigorous.”

No. 4. Ib. p. 59.—“It is well known that the greater number of crimes originate in the irregular and vicious habits produced by intoxication, and by the idle, low, and dissipated practices encouraged in taverns and tippling-houses. There are few criminals whose gradual depravation cannot be traced to this source.”

No. 5. Ib. 59, 60.—“By the city charter, the power of granting licenses is vested in the mayor, who is the sole judge of the propriety of granting them, or of their number. Thirty shillings are paid for each license, four-fifths of which sum goes into the city treasury, and the residue to the mayor. While a revenue is derived to the corporation from these licenses, it is not to be expected that there will be much solicitude to lessen their number, or to examine minutely into the merits of the applicants for them.”

Observations.—Can the degree of such solicitude be expected to be much greater where, instead of now and then an odd 5s. to be gained by putting about the cup of intoxication, the greater part or the whole of a man’s income—of the income of every man who could do anything towards stopping it, depends upon the circulation of it?

No. 6. Philadelphia; 1799: Liancourt, p. 22.—“The new regimen has . . . . produced a change which is remarkably evident, even in the physician’s bill, which formerly amounted to two hundred or three hundred and twenty dollars per quarter, but at present seldom rises above forty. This enormous difference is entirely attributable to the total change of discipline which has taken place. During the former system, the irregular government of the prison was attended with filth and drunkenness; and frequent broils produced diseases, wounds, and bruises of every kind. Under the new order, these causes of evil have ceased—the disorders are confined to colds, or such accidents as are common everywhere. Only two prisoners have deceased within four years, and those of the small pox. Except in cases of contagious maladies, the sick prisoners remain in their room: in such cases, however, they are removed to a separate apartment.”

No. 7. Philadelphia; 1796: Turnbull, p. 20.—“A good proof of the cleanliness of the place you have, when I mention from authority, that out of 8060 persons who were confined in the several apartments of the prinso (the debtors’ jail included,) from the 28th day of September 1780 to the 5th of the same month in 1790, only twelve died of natural deaths. Since the latter of these periods, the establishment of the new system of discipline has produced much better arrangements, as well in respect to the comfort and health as to the good order and government of the prisoners. This has been evident in several instances. The physician’s bill, which formerly amounted to 1280 dollars a-year, seldom exceeds at present 160; and excepting in cases of contagious diseases, not more than two prisoners have died from June 1791 to March 1795, a period of nearly four years. During the fall of 1793, when the yellow fever had extended its fatal ravages over every part of the city and suburbs of Philadelphia, we have from Mr. Carey, in his account of that calamity, that only six persons in the prison were taken sick and sent to the hospital, although the situation of jails, even under the best administration, makes them most frequently liable to the generation of contagious and other diseases. At this time, too, were confined there, by order of the French consul, 106 French soldiers and sailors, besides 100 other prisoners, composed of convicts, vagrants, and criminals committed for trial.”

Observations.—From the number of the prisoners that passed through the prison within a given space of time—from the mere number alone, as compared with the number of deaths within that time, no very precise induction can be drawn: another point to be known is, what was the average duration of a prisoner’s continuance there; if, for example, about half-a-year, viz. 180 days, this would give for the 8000 in ten years, four hundred throughout the whole of every year: upon this number, 12 in the ten years would be 1⅕ death per annum upon the four hundred.

In this parallel between the two systems, your Lordship may have observed, on the part of the penitentiary system, whole heads wanting, and those very material ones. Under the head of miscellaneous crimes (given as exemplifications of depravity,) a mere blank: under the head of incendiarism in particular, a complete one. The case is—that among chronical punishments administering a coercive discipline, it is the peculiar glory of the penal colonization plan, that under it the list of crimes keeps running on, as if no coercion at all were administered; or, if there be any difference, in rather a greater proportion under and with the benefit of this discipline, than without it. In this point, I question whether the world ever saw anything under the name of punishment bearing the least resemblance to it. In the very worst ordered gaol, the discipline has at any rate been sufficient to keep the prisoners out of the commission of great crimes: even the hulks have succeeded thus far; even the worst ordered of those archetypes of our hulks that are still to be seen upon the continent—the galleys. No forcible robberies are committed—no burglaries—no churches, no hospitals are burnt—even in the galleys.

XII.

Central Inspection Principle:

Escapes, for want of it, from the American Prisons, as above.

In a method governed by the consideration of the ends of penal justice, the topic of escapes seems to belong to the head of Incapacitation—incapacitation for fresh offences. Why? Because under any mode of confinement the effect of which is to prevent offences while it lasts, the effect of an escape is to break the bridle, and leave delinquency to run on again in its old course. Unfortunately, in the penal colony of New South Wales, the place for the topic of escapes is not quite so easy to be found. When a man escapes out of it, the scene indeed of his misdeeds is changed; but the multitude of them, being during the continuance of the confinement at the highest pitch, is not in much danger of being increased by the cessation of it. Be this as it may, the confinement of the prisoner being by the supposition a desirable object, an escape by which he is liberated from that confinement must, happen where it will—must, were it only for consistency’s sake, be ranked among undesirable ones. In the case of any other place of legal confinement—in the case of an American penitentiary-house more particularly—this character will be seen to belong to it without dispute.

Good as the penitentiary system has proved itself, wherever it has been established—good in every point of view—good with reference to its end—good in comparison, with reference to every other system of confinement—I have never given it as altogether perfect: I mean, in any of its existing shapes. I have reserved to myself the submitting to your Lordship, whether from experience as well as by reason, the addition of the principle of central inspection may not be regarded as calculated to add to the perfections of it. Reformation, economy, and prevention of escapes—incapacitation thereby for fresh offences resulting from escapes—in respect of every one of these objects, I have ventured to state it as eminently serviceable. In respect of reformation and economy, its presence having never been experienced, the loss, if any, from the want of it, is a point of which, as even the existence, however probable, cannot, strictly speaking, be demonstrated, still less can the amount be mathematically ascertained. In the article of escapes, the amount of the inconvenience from the want of it, and thence of the benefit that would result from the adoption of it, is rather more open to demonstration. A postulate, it is true, must even in this case be assumed: viz. that under the eye of a keeper, with adequate assistance and means of defence at his elbow, he at the same out of the reach of assault, neither a single unarmed prisoner, nor any number of unarmed prisoners, confined in a room by bars and bolts, will so much as attempt to escape out of it. This being admitted, whatever escapes have been found actually to have taken place from a prison unprovided with this security, may be set down as having the want of it for their cause: and to this same score may be set down, in the account of economy, the expense of all such guards whose services, in a spot exterior to the prison, have for a given period been kept appropriated to this purpose. After these remarks, whatever considerations are presented to view by the ensuing extracts will, I presume, find their application without much difficulty.

XIII.

Inspectionthe more perfect—the more perfect the Management; viz. in respect ofReformation, Incapacitationas toEscapes,andEconomy.

No. 1. Philadelphia; between 1786 and April 1790, under the ambulatory jail-gang system, being the first attempt at reformation. Liancourt; 1795: p. 6.—“Criminals loaded with irons, and scattered through the streets and along the roads, presented to the public the spectacle of vice, rather than of shame and misery; and the impossibility of watching them properly, facilitated the means of excess, of drunkenness, of pillage, and of escape.”

Observations.—Under this system, it may be inferred that escapes actually did take place, with more or less frequency, as under such a system might naturally be expected.

No. 2. Philadelphia; 1786: Turnbull; 1796, p. 14.—“Finding at length that the perseverance of the ‘Society for alleviating the miseries of Prisons’ bid fair to an extinction of all hopes of their continuing in the same scene of confusion, with one consent they resolved on a breach of prison. The attempt was accordingly made on the evening of the day the new order of things had taken place. Fortunately, few of them escaped: [Fifteen, as per Liancourt, p. 31.] The jailor was immediately discharged; and since that period [to August 1796,] almost every project for the same purpose has failed, either from the want of unanimity of the most evil disposed, the fears of those less so, or the decided disapprobation of the greatest proportion of the prisoners to anything of the kind.”

No. 3. Ib. Philadelphia; 1796: Turnbull, p. 19.—“About seven [prisoners] are in a shop, one of whom is appointed by the jailor, whose duty it is strictly to notice all offences, and who, in default of it, is punished according to the rules. For this, however, there is little or no necessity, as they commonly work under the mutual inspection of each other.*The keepers constantly parade among the prisoners, in the court-yards and passages. [viz. per Liancourt, p. 19. Turnkeys, four in number for the whole house.]

Observations.—“Constantly parade among the prisoners;” i. e. constantly have some of the prisoners themselves in view:—“constantly in the yards and passages;” i. e. constantly have in view more or less of the space occupied by the prisoners:—constantly; i. e. in the day time? But in the night? have they them, all of them, and all night long, in view? Unquestionably not; if they had, the escapes indicated by the word almost, in No. 1, could not, humanly speaking, have taken place.

So far at least as mere inspection is concerned, the work of the four keepers would, in a prison upon the central inspection principle, have been performed, and much more effectually and clear of almosts, by a single keeper; at the same time that, on my plan, the economy of the concern would of itself have afforded, as well as demanded, all night long, the assistance of a number of observing eyes.

No. 4. New York; 1802: Eddy, p. 18.—“Absolute reliance ought not to be placed on the strength of any prison, let their walls be ever so well constructed. Nothing will probably prevent escape but the unremitting vigilance of the keepers, and a strict watch day and night.”

No. 5. Ib. p. 19.—“It would have been more secure, if all the cells and the rooms in the wings adjoining had communicated with one and the same passage; since the same person who watched the wings might at the same time have attended to the cells. It was probably owing to this defect that the escapes were made from the cells, which might have been prevented by a suitable watch.”

No. 6. Ib. p. 37.—“When day-light disappears, a small lamp is lighted in each room and in the halls; and then the assistant keepers go on watch in the halls and corridors, which command a view through grated doors of each apartment: they walk to and fro during the night, dividing the watch between them.”

No. 7. Ib. p. 29.—“In consequence of some escapes, the legislature, at the last sessions, authorised the governor, or the person administering the government, to raise a guard, to be called ‘The State Prison Guard.’

“The annual expense of this guard will be about 7000 dollars (£1575.) Though the security of the prison is of the highest consequence, since the efficacy of mild punishments depends on their certainty; yet it is probable that an increase of the number of keepers [i. e. within the prison] and a more perfect arrangement of them, would have been equally effectual to that security, and would create not half the additional expense of the present guard.”

Observations.—A more perfect arrangement of the apartment, viz. upon the central inspection principle, would have been much more effectual, and saved the expense not only of the guard itself, but of the proposed succedaneum to it.

No. 8. Ib. p. 54.—“About twenty-two of the most obdurate criminals are kept confined and at work in the separate apartments, and are not suffered to come out, or to have any communication with other prisoners, but are constantly watched by keepers day and night.”

Observations.—Without the benefit of the central inspection principle, by which the whole inhabitancy would have been watched by a single keeper without effort, how severe the obligation of such vigilancy, how inordinate the expense!

That these precautions were neither unnecessary, nor so much as sufficient, appears but too plainly from the account of escapes, as given by the same intelligent and zealous administrator, whose labours had, under the invincible disadvantage of ill-adapted architecture, been applied to the prevention of them.

From this it appears, that in the case of that prison, the number of the prisoners that have escaped has, within the five years in question, been almost equal to the number who have died in it; between 1-3d and 1-4th of the number who have been discharged out of it by pardon; between 1-8th and 1-9th of the number discharged by expiration of their sentences; and between 1-27th and 1-28th of the whole number received into it.

If a man may be allowed to quote himself, a few observations written on the same subject on another occasion* will not here be altogether out of their place. “If in a building on this plan, anything of disorder is supposed, it must be because, though in words the adoption of it may have been admitted, the state of things that would be the necessary result of it is not present to the mind. The disorder supposed, is supposed to be out of sight, which in fact it never could be. From the want of this advantage proceeds that anxiety, the intensity, and at the same time the inefficacy of which is apparent in every page of the rules and orders that one sees. Officers frequently to go into the wards—frequently to hear complaints—master frequently to go into every ward, and inspect the persons therein, on a particular day of the week especially—twice a-week the matron to inspect every part of the house—paupers to be kept clean—officers frequently to take a view of them—paupers to come down into the dining-hall to be mustered and employed—doors to be locked that they may not harbour in the wards in the day time;—nurse-children frequently to be visited—once a-month at least;—apprentices frequently to be visited by the messenger.—This from the regulations of one of the first-rate poor-houses. All this an attempt—and that probably in a great degree an unavailing one—to effect by great exertions, not a hundredth part of what on the central inspection plan would take place of itself, without a man’s stirring from his chair.”

Being thus far engaged in self-piracy, I will e’en beg leave of your Lordship to go so much further as to transcribe a passage on the same subject from another work: I mean the book entitled Panopticon; containing an exposition of the central-inspection principle, with a view to the variety of different purposes to which it presented itself as applicable. The insertion may perhaps be the more pardonable, inasmuch as though the first of the three little volumes, of which the work consists, was in 1791 reprinted, and perhaps sold in Ireland, by order of the government of that day, yet neither that partial re-impression, any more than the original impression, can have ever found its way here into the shops. At the same time, not to obtrude as necessary, what may perhaps be deemed superfluous, it stands dismissed to the bottom of the page.*

What is below being read or not read, let me beg of your Lordship to consider whether, if the too famous prison in Coldbath Fields had been upon any such plan, those complaints which have given so much trouble to so many Right Honourable and Honourable Gentlemen could ever have obtruded themselves?—whether the ground for those complaints, such as it was, could ever have had existence?—whether the time of so many public men, whose labour, so much to their regret, was for so many weeks employed upon this irksome service (men worthy of better occupations,) would not have been saved, and the peace of the metropolitan county, together with the situation of its veteran representative, have remained undisturbed?

At different times a sketch on the central-inspection plan has been shewn to jailors:—at no time without producing an exclamation: Ah! if my jail were like this, my task would be a safe and easy one!

Different men, different opinions: where is the subject, my Lord, that will not display the difference, especially when motives prompt opinions, and situations convert them into laws?

One man, upon being told of a prison, in which every prisoner was without intermission exposed to an inspecting eye.—“Then they’ll all get out,” says he. This was one of those men, whom, under the ancien regime, gentlemen used to send out to govern kingdoms: accordingly, so long as he reigned, he took effectual care there should be no such jail to get out of in his dominions, spite of everything that could be said to him by subordinates.

Another man, upon seeing the model of a prison round like Ranelagh, with this difference, that excepting iron bars and supports as in work-shops, the circumference was all glass, exclaimed immediately—“This prison will be too dark: the keepers in the middle will never be able to see their prisoners.” The room it was in, being none of the lightest, ocular demonstration was so far on his side. By I know not by what accident, this reason missed being added to the four reasons for relinquishment: though, sure enough, there was a time, my Lord, when they lay all together safe and snug in the same place. Alas! my Lord! why were they ever suffered to get out of it? There, there indeed, was an escape!

Behold here again, my Lord, another governor of kingdoms: a task a man seems to be set down to, when he is fit for nothing else. Alas! my Lord! what a truism was the deathbed observation of Chancellor Oxenstiern to his son: Nescis, mi fili, quam parvâ sapientiâ mundus regitur!*

XV.

Fruit of the Penitentiary System, in point of Example as well as Reformation. Decrease of Crimes.

No. 1. Philadelphia; 1793: Lownes, p. 93.—“Our streets now meet with no interruption from those characters that formerly rendered it dangerous to walk out of an evening. Our roads in the vicinity of the city, so constantly infested with robbers, are seldom disturbed by those dangerous characters. The few instances that have occurred of the latter, last fall were soon stopped. The perpetrators proved to be strangers quartered near the city, on their way to the westward.

“Our houses, stores, and vessels, so perpetually disturbed and robbed, no longer experience those alarming evils. We lie down in peace—we sleep in security.

“There have been but two instances of burglaries in this city and county for near two years. Pickpockets, formerly such pests to society, are now unknown. Not one instance has occurred of a person being convicted of this offence for two years past. The number of persons convicted at the several courts has constantly decreased. Thirty and upwards at a session have frequently been added to the criminal list: at this time, when both city and county courts are but a few days distant, there are but five for trial! Such have been our measures—such is the state of things—and such the effect. If any one can assign other causes for them than are here adduced, they must have other opportunities, other means of information than I am acquainted with.”

No. 2. Philadelphia; 1796: Turnbull, p. 91.—“It appears that since the late improvements in the penal code, offences have diminished in a proportion of about one half; and when we recollect that the first table contains the offences of the city and county of Philadelphia only, we may pronounce that they have decreased throughout the whole state nearly two thirds. The two periods are equal, and the latter commences from 1791, from the new discipline not having taken place previous to that time. The most material point gained with respect to offences, is the diminution of the most heinous ones, which are still in a greater proportion. They stand in the table as follows:—

Observations.—This is a success indeed! a success reported at first after a trial of about two years: confirmed afterwards, as per last accounts, by a further experience of between three and four years. According to the figures, the first-rate crimes reduced to less than a fifth of their former number: but even this degree of success, prodigious as it is, falls short of the proportion really obtained. The larger number (the 126) during the prior period is for the capital—Philadelphia—city and county alone:—the smaller number (the 24) during the subsequent period—the period of improvement—is for all Pennsylvania—for the whole state. But in the jail of this same state, in December 1792,* at a time when, for the whole state, the number of convicts of all sorts was 37, out of these 37, the number for the city and county taken together was but 24; that is, was not quite so much as two thirds of the number for the whole state. Assuming, for supposition’s sake, that at the point of time in question (August 25, 1796,) the proportion was still the same, it would follow, that at this latter point of time, out of the 24 for the whole state, no more than 16 were for the city and county:—in this latter period of five years, no more than 16 from the same portion of territory, which in the earlier period of the same length, had furnished convicts of the same description, to the number of 126. If instead of the 126, the number had been 128, the proportion of convicts for the latter period would have been no more than one-eighth of the number for the former—instead of four fifths, the decrease would have amounted to seven eighths.

Permit me on this occasion to add, my Lord, that the difference thus produced—the distinction thus noted—between the number of first-rate crimes and the number of crimes of a less mischievous complexion, is matter of particular satisfaction to me. It gives the permit of experience to some speculative and therefore contraband ideas, consigned long ago to some of the useless papers I have already hinted at. After the diminishing the number of crimes of all sorts and sizes taken together, another distinguishable though concomitant object should be (so it appeared to me,) by a system of due proportions as between punishments and offences, to shove down, as it were, the number of the higher crimes, to convert the higher ones as far as can be done into inferior ones—which inferior ones will then be found such to the mischief of which it is in the power of money to apply a cure. This done, the mischief might, with the help of a few obvious and necessary precautions, be brought within the healing influence of the principle of insurance: the principle applied with so much success to the reducing the quantum of suffering from various other causes. Under the head of Compensation, I have already troubled your Lordship with a reference to the humble endeavours I had used to throw my mite into this treasury. What I do not pretend to say is—that against mischief from criminality, any more than against mischief from fire or water, the door could be altogether shut by this means or any other: but what I fear not to say is—that by this means the mischief from criminality—from such crimes as are committed (not to speak of defalcations that might be made from the mass of mischief, by defalcations from the absolute number of crimes,) might be made to undergo a degree of reduction, beyond anything which in this country at least has ever yet been looked up to as within the reach of hope. The great point is, to clear the country of those crimes, each instance of which is sufficient to awaken and keep alive, in every breast within a certain circle, the fear of boundless injury to person or property, as well as of destruction to life itself—in comparison of this widespreading—this almost universally extending mischief—this fear of boundless injury—the sum of the mischiefs resulting in each instance from losses and other injuries actually sustained by particular individuals would be found relatively inconsiderable. From the number of these superlatively terrific crimes, seven eighths or thereabouts appear, in the instance in question, to have actually been struck off in actual experience. In this, or any other country, my Lord, would not the same advantage have been worth purchasing at the same price?

In speaking of the price, it would be incorrect, I doubt, to state it as consisting of such exertions, merely as would be requisite for the establishment of a penitentiary-house. Another cause which appears to have contributed, and perhaps in at least an equal degree, to the production of the effect, is—the abolition, next to a total one, of the punishment of death. If this be so, then to the account of exertions must be added the effort (no slight one) necessary for giving up the favourite punishment; the punishment so dear to vengeance, hard-heartedness, prejudice, and indolence. On this subject, let the following fact speak in the first place:—

No. 1. Philadelphia; 1786: Liancourt; 1796, p. 38.—“In the year 1786, after the law had been passed which abolished the punishment of death and established the new system, two prisoners arrested for crimes (which according to the ancient jurisprudence were punishable by death, and by the new one only by imprisonment,) preferred to be judged according to the ancient law, rather than be subjected to so long and rigorous a detention; and particularly to that solitary confinement which they started from with horror, though they had never experienced its bitterness. They were confirmed in this choice by the hope of a free pardon; an event which would have restored them to immediate freedom. One of them was not deceived in his expectations; the other suffered death.”

Observations.—From this instance, my Lord, may it not be inferred, and may not an instance thus happily apposite be pronounced sufficient of itself to support the inference—that it is not merely in the way of reformation, but by its subserviency to the still superior end, example, that penitentiary punishment, when well conducted, operates with so palpable an effect in diminution of the multitude of crimes? This same instance, is it not moreover sufficient to support the further inference that death, which reforms only by annihilation, which incapacitates for crimes only by incapacitating for everything—that death, of which the only recommendation is its supposed superior efficiency in the way of example, yields even in this point to that which is so much superior to it in every other? Turning again to penitentiary punishment, and comparing the exemplification here given of the terror inspired by it, while as yet unexperienced, with the preceding accounts of the deportment and apparent state of mind of the patients under and during the infliction of it, is it not, in both points of view, everything that, for the sake of all parties, one would wish to find it?—does it not, as far as is compatible with the melancholy complexion of the case, exhibit that combination so desirable in every case—the utile cum dulce? In prospect terrible, in experience tolerable?

Observe, my Lord, how the separate experiences on both sides are confirmed and crowned by this comparative experience. Of the efficiency of penitentiary punishment, the separate exemplifications have just been presenting themselves to your Lordship’s view. Of the inefficiency of capital punishments, observations upon observations occur in the annals of the penal colony as recorded by its chief magistrate. At the time of execution,* at the time of dissection,† on a variety of other occasions, such as on all minds might have been expected to be, and on other minds would have been impressive. The insensibility of the survivors to the fate of their comrades and associates is matter of surprise no less than concern to the historian who witnessed it. Confronted together, these contrasted masses of experience, consistent though unconnected, would of themselves afford a proof of no light weight in the scale of prudential conjecture;—would afford that sort and degree of proof, which of itself might appear of sufficient strength to support a correspondent practical inference, with its correspondent measure. But what an accession of force is added to these separate experiments, when thus supported by a corroborative of so rare a complexion, as that which is afforded (to use the language of Lord Bacon) by this conjunct experiment!—the experiment, I mean, in which the two punishments being put in the opposite scales of the same balance, and in the same minds, the punishment of death is found light—the more temperate and regulated mode of punishment outweighing it.

XV.

New South Wales—Economy—Prospects, as per last accounts.

The subject of reformation being thus far considered, economy presents the only remaining topic on which any very material lights can be thrown by the ulterior accounts. On this subject, the evidence might be supposed to have been favourable, or at least less unfavourable than before, if so conspicuous a topic were passed over altogether without notice. At the outset my intention was, to have exhibited the passages as before in terminis. Frightened, however, at the mass of paper already filled, I give up the greater part of the attempt I had projected on this ground, upon your Lordship’s patience, confining myself, for the present at least, to a brief indication of the topics, with references instead of quotations.

Respecting expense, past or future—I mean expense to government, the ulterior accounts afford not to my view any indications worth referring exclusively to that head. Two other co-ordinate heads comprise everything that presents itself as worth mentioning:—perpetual probability of sudden destruction—hopelessness of a non-convict population—the existence of one, a circumstance that seems all along assumed as a condition sine qua non to the ultimate success (whatever may be understood by success) of the 14 years’ experiment;—assumed by the concurring opinions of the late governor,* and the late chief magistrate,† gentlemen whose opinions on this as on every other head cannot but be as weighty in the scale of opinion as any observations of mine, were I to take upon me to present them in that character, would be light. As to success, what sort of result is to be understood by that expression is a question, for the answer to which I must beg leave to refer your Lordship to the gentlemen themselves, by whom the word, or what amounts to it, has been employed. What I myself should mean by it, has, I hope, for some time been tolerably clear—accomplishment of the several already enumerated ends of penal justice. Be this as it may, in the notice given by this previous announcement, I claim some merit, my Lord; because, if the results in question be not worth regarding, the proof is still less so: the paper, if thus far read, is thrown by, and so much of your Lordship’s time is saved.

Three main causes of famine, and destruction by famine perpetually impending over the ever-so-much “improved” colony: each of them adequate to the effect, according to the time. Fire—drought—inundation—for so the case seems to be—there is always either too little water or too much. Fire, by the malice or phrenzy of the colonists themselves, converted alike by good or bad government into intestine enemies.* Fire, again, by hostility of external enemies, the native savages, ever ready, ever able, to return evil for evil, and for good likewise:† fire, even spontaneous, or in the language of law and religion, by the visitation of God.‡ From all these sources together, danger of fire continually brooding over the whole colony, and covering every acre of ground contained in it. Of inundation, the danger not quite so universal, being confined to the settlements on George’s River and the Hawkesbury,∥ the only spots that present any hope of agricultural advantage.§ On the other hand, what it wants in universality made up in point of certainty, grounded on the topographical features of the country, and by the very latest accounts (dated August 1801,) realized to such a degree, that “many of the settlers who had farms on the banks had in despair totally abandoned them.”¶

To these, more awful scourges might be added, insect vermin, grubs** and caterpillars;†† plagues as destructive and as frequent as inundation: more and more ineludible than fire. These minor plagues indeed (it will occur) have their equivalent in other countries. True—but then such other countries have unplagued neighbours to draw upon for relief.

As there are years in which the crop does not amount to above a third of what it does in others;‡‡ hence, to guard against dearth, if dearth could be guarded against, would require amply stocked magazines:—receptacles in which, over and above the ordinary provision for an ordinary year, more than two-thirds of a year’s crop should be kept constantly in store.* The quantity of land cultivated on government account not being yet so much as a tenth part of the whole quantity in culture,† it follows, that to make any tolerable provision against famine, two-thirds of a crop, plus the nine-tenths of a crop, must be bought on government account of the settlers, and a constant overplus to that same amount be kept up by the same means. Here, then, comes a constantly real necessity for a prodigious quantity apparently superfluous. If the demands of this necessity are yielded to, then comes a proportionally heavy expense, and in the natural course of things, suspicions at home in consequence, reprimands in consequence of these suspicions:—if in consequence of these suspicions and reprimands, or otherwise, the demands of the necessity are not yielded to, then, on the other hand, comes famine:—nor that alone, but along with it the insufficient exertions in the way of expense made as heretofore in fighting against the famine. Beau jeu in all this (your Lordship may perhaps observe) for opposition: if opposition were to find a glance to bestow upon such trifles, and if half a dozen thousand convicts in New South Wales were worth half the pains that have been seen to be taken about half a dozen seditionists, or supposed seditionists, in Coldbath Fields. Is the necessary provision made? Outcry against the expense:—is it withholden? then in God’s own good time comes the famine, which, if it were the fashion to look to any such distance, would be a still better thing than the expense.

So again, about the chandler’s shop already spoken of.* Is the shop sent out thither and opened?—then again comes the expense in that shape. Are the governor’s promises on that head kept by gentlemen here, as in my instance they have been keeping their own engagements for these nine years?—then comes the impoverishments of the settlers—the already established reason for keeping up that enormity of price† by which the expense is let in, and the public money let out at another crevice.

It would be something, if at any expense the security could after all be purchased; but as the security increases on one hand, so does the danger on the other. These magazines, are they scattered over the face of the country?—so many stations, so many points to guard against depredation. Are they kept together in one mass?—the more comprehensive, then, the destruction they are exposed to suffer from the devouring flames. Each Caligula (in a state of things capable of giving birth to many Caligulas) beholds his wish thus realized: all heads standing upon one neck, and capable of being cut off at one stroke. The supposition, can it, in that situation, be deemed a forced one? Even in the mild climate of the mother country, when symptoms of dearth break out, does not the actual cautery stand in the materia medica of the populace, upon the list of remedies?

But not to speak of a whole stock of settlers, how should so much as a single settler, henceforward at least, ever find his way thither, without insanity on his part, or cruel treachery on the part of those who sent him?‡ No tolerably assured source of supply, either for accustomed comforts, or so much as necessary tools and implements∥ —no tolerably assured market for produce when raised.§ The chance depending, in the first place, upon the real wants of government; in the next place, upon the arbitrary will and pleasure of a single person, in a situation capable of making a tyrant out of a Trajan or a Titus.¶ Storehouses and dwelling-places requiring repairs every year,* and even on those terms (such is the law of the climate) not capable of being made to hold together above ten years.†Property (supposing it acquired)—property (not to speak of person) incapable of being removed, and exposed all the time to depredation, as well as to so unprecedented an assemblage of the causes of destruction as that referred to as above. No stirring from home without a special license; an instrument to be inspected and confirmed every two or three miles, by a man who may not be to be found, or may refuse to look at it,‡ —every action of life depending, ultimately or immediately, upon the caprice of a governor, whose caprice is without controul, and whose whole course of government (as I propose to myself the honour of stating to your Lordship ere long) is one unintermitted, howsoever excuseable, violation of law. While a niche in a rock is to be had in Nova Zembla—I beg leave to ask, my Lord—could a man in his senses, supposing him apprised of all these circumstances, regard any otherwise than with abhorrence, the idea of becoming a settler in New South Wales?—in a country peopled almost entirely with characters, the importation of whom into any other “community,” though it were in the smallest numbers, is compared by the chief magistrates to the “importation of the plague, or the yellow fever?”∥

After the view already given of the establishment, with reference to the avowed, or at least only avowable, ends of its institution, the sketch likewise given of the eventual probability of its destruction would to some eyes be productive, not of regret, but satisfaction: a satisfaction the more complete, the nearer that probability were looked upon as approaching to certainty. The worse the system, the more fortunate that the maintenance of it should be thus hopeless. Once admitted, this hopelessness would ease gentlemen of the responsibility, save them the expense of thought, relieve them from the burthen of reflection and debate. Such, I am inclined to think, would be the effect of the picture on some eyes:—whether your Lordship be or be not of the number, is a point altogether above the reach of the best observations that can possibly be made from so humble an observatory as mine.

XVI.

English Hulksand “Improved Prisons”—Topics deferred.

After so much as has been said of the two specially contrasted systems—the system of penal colonization on the one hand, the penitentiary system in its most improved realized form, as likewise in its supposed still more improved, though as yet unrealized form, on the other—a supplement of a very moderate length would suffice to complete the review of the several modifications of chronical punishment that have as yet been either exemplified or proposed among Britons and men of British race. “Hulks” and “improved prisons” are the heads under one or other of which all the yet remaining matter might be comprised. Principles being already laid down, a small number of additional pages would suffice for the application of them to these two topics. At present, however, considering how large the draughts are which I have been venturing to draw already upon a time so precious as your Lordship’s—how complete the uncertainty is to a man at my humble distance, in what proportion, if in any, this or any such draughts from any such quarter will ever be honoured; considering with what imperturbable serenity your Lordship was pleased to view the outline, which it has been the business of this and the former letter to fill up—how incapable it was of producing on your Lordship’s part any other perceptible effect than a philosophical reflection on the supposed frame of mind by which some other papers that accompanied it were supposed to have been produced; considering how impossible it is for me to know, or so much as to conjecture, whether the lot of convicts, or that portion of public security which depends upon the disposal of them, has ever yet been regarded, or is ever destined to be regarded, as worth a moment’s thought, either by your Lordship, or by any of those other exalted persons with whom, when anything is acted, your Lordship acts; considering how much easier, in certain circumstances, repose is than action, silence than justification, or even excuse; taught by a course of nine years’ experience, how much superior your Lordship’s situation is to every level of practical responsibility—how much inferior mine, and every public subject that has the misfortune to be connected with it, is to every level of effectual and exigible right; recollecting, with an emotion of not altogether uninterested sympathy, the mortification experienced by the well-bred visitor at Mrs. Salmon’s circle, whose homage to a well-dressed lady was not sufficient to procure him the return of so much as a nod;—putting all these things together, my Lord, I have determined to consult my own ease at least, whether your Lordship’s be or be not connected with it, by reserving to an occasion of future contingency what little may require to be said on those other uninteresting topics above glanced at;—and accordingly for the present, waiting with the necessary resignation that nod, which at one time it was said to be in your Lordship’s contemplation to bestow, I have the honour once more to subscribe myself, my Lord, your Lordship’s most obedient and humble servant,

Jeremy Bentham

Queen’s Square Place,
Westminster,
17th December 1802. }

[* ]The relinquishment here in question was hypothetical, and but hypothetical, in form, though hitherto it has been categorical in effect.

[† ]The three other grounds were—1. Lapse of time; 2. Increase of terms, meaning thereby, of public expense (an increase barely proposed, and studiously forborne to be insisted on;) 3. Improvements observed to have been made in some of the existing gaols. Of two of these grounds, a recapitulatory glimpse may come to be given in the course of the present pages, under the concluding head of Economy.

[* ]Of all these ends, example, be it observed, is beyond comparison the most important. In the case of reformation, and incapacitation for further mischief, the parties in question are no more than the comparatively small number of individuals, who having actually offended, have moreover actually suffered for the offence. In the case of example, the parties are as many individuals as are exposed to the temptation of offending; that is, taking the character of the delinquency in the aggregate, the whole number of individuals of which the several political communities are composed—in other words, all mankind.

[† ]The words used in the secret correspondence between the two offices—Documents dated 13th August 1800; 25th August 1800; 17th March 1801—Disclosed (on the change of ministry) in “Further Proceedings of the Treasury,” printed (for the use of the House of Commons) by order dated 12th June 1801, pp. 79, 80, 81.

[* ]Policy, or I am much mistaken the deepest and steadiest policy, will be found to concur with the tenderest humanity, in regarding the criminal world in this instructive and unimpassioned point of view. To an eye thus prepared, the most profligate offender will present—on the one hand, no fitter object of unprofitable resentment; on the other hand—no less necessary object of preventive coercion, than would be presented by a refractory patient or a froward child. Guided by this analogy, the favourite remedy, death, has for these five and thirty years appeared to me (in the cases, at least, in which it is ordinarily applied) scarcely in any degree less absurd in a political, than it would be in a medical point of view. In point of fact, nothing that can with any tolerable propriety assume the name of policy—not sober reason—not so much as reflection—appears at any time to have been the efficient cause of the use so abundantly made of it. Vengeance, passion, began the practice: prejudice, the result of habit, has persevered in it.

[† ]Number of chaplains, at one time, one; at another, two: stations, at first but one; before Captain Collins left the colony, from five to ten, each to appearance at too great a distance from the rest to send auditors to a congregation collected at any other. In the map annexed to Captain Collins’ book, I observe about this number of separate stations, without including such small ones as, being to appearance each of them within two or three miles of some other may be supposed not too far distant for that purpose. Are the labours of the sacred function to be regarded as an essential article among the efficient causes of reformation? Then the establishment of from four to eight of these stations, of every number above that of the chaplains—was, and continues to be, indefensible. Instead of being a necessary, is religious service a mere luxury? Then no such officer as a chaplain should have been sent out at all—none at least for the convicts—none, unless it be a regimental chaplain for the benefit of the military; though, indeed, of the military themselves the distribution must have been regulated in some measure by that of the convicts—that of the watchmen by that of the persons to be watched.

Of late, malcontents from Ireland have been sent in multitudes to New South Wales. Part of them, probably the greater part, must have been of the Catholic persuasion: among these, have there been any priests? It seems not improbable; and if so, as far as their quarters may have been within distance of the stations of their lay companions, so far all may have been right. Have there been no priests? Then surely one priest, at least, should have been sent out on the same voluntary footing as the clergymen of the Church of England. If there be a difference, of all branches of the Christian religion, the Catholic is surely that in which the services of a consecrated minister are most strictly indispensable.

In Norfolk Island, how is it? If there be a clergyman now (and I have not found that there is one,) there was no such officer, at least so late as on the 18th of October 1796, though at that time the number of inhabitants was already 887.aQuere 1. How many fewer souls to be saved have 887 persons in Norfolk Island, than the same number of persons in New South Wales or Great Britain? Quere 2. If out of 4848 persons, sacerdotal service be needless to 887 taken at random, what need is there of it for the rest? In January 1792, a minister of religion (the chaplain of the New South Wales corps) did, it appears, pay a visit to that spot. It was, however, the first visit of the kind in so many years; and that a mere temporary excursion, the fruit of spontaneous zeal, and not of any particle of attention that appears ever to have been paid to the subject by the arch-reformers here at home.b

But to judge from the whole tenor of Captain Collins’ Journal, as well as from the nature of the case, the truth is, that so far as the convicts were concerned, the real service which it was in the power of any ministers of religion, of any persuasion, or in any number, to render to these poor wretches, was in all places alike: presence or absence made no sort of difference.

What is above was written before the historian’s second volume had made its appearance. In this continuation it appears, that in one of the importations of the convicts from Ireland, a priest of the Catholic persuasion (Harold by name) was actually comprised.c

If instead of this seditionist, a loyalist clergyman of the same religious persuasion had been sent out, such an addition to the civil establishment might, in that country, one should have thought, have been not ill worth the expense. The political sanction might thus have found in the religious a useful ally—a useful defence against the hostility of the popular sanction. The spirit of tumultuary violence, the epidemic malady for the cure of which these deplorable objects had been ordered to this disastrous watering-place, might in that case, instead of being constantly stimulated, have been gradually allayed. The rebel priest, the most pernicious pastor that could have been found for the rebel flock, might have been consigned to Norfolk Island, on the supposition of their remaining all of them in New South Wales. The two lives which it was afterwards deemed necessary to sacrifice to public justice and security might thus have been preserved,d and the exigence which has given birth to so dangerous an expedient and precedent as that of volunteer associations among unreformed convicts,e might never have taken place.

[* ]£1,037,230.—28th Finance Report, 26th June 1798, p. 22.

[† ]See 28th Report of the Committee of Finance, anno 1798.

[‡ ]The last official communications made to the House of Commons on the subject of New South Wales, bear date in 1792.

[* ]I.

Improbity, uncorrected and incorrigible.

No. 1, p. 382. July 1794.—“An honest servant was in this country an invaluable treasure: we were compelled to take them, as chance should direct, from among the common herd; and if any one was found who had some remains of principle in him, he was sure to be soon corrupted by the vice which everywhere surrounded him.”No. 2, p. 419. June 1795.—“With very few exceptions, it was impossible to select from among the prisoners, or those who had been such, any who would feel an honest interest in executing the service in which they were employed. They would pilfer half the grain entrusted to their care for the cattle; they would lead them into the woods for pasturage, and there leave them, until obliged to conduct them in; they would neither clean them nor themselves. Indolent, and by long habit worthless, no dependence could be placed on them. In every instance they endeavoured to circumvent.”No. 3, p. 445. December 1795.—“At Sydney, another attempt being made to steal a cask of pork from the pile of provisions which stood before the storehouse, the whole was removed into one of the old marine barracks. The full ration of salt provisions being issued to every one, it was difficult to conceive what could be the inducement to these frequent and wanton attacks on the provisions, whenever necessity compelled the commissary to trust a quantity without the store. Perhaps, however, it was to gratify that strong propensity to thieving, which could not suffer an opportunity of exercising their talents to pass, or to furnish them with means of indulging in the baneful vice of gaming.”

No. 4, p. 473. April 1796.—“No punishment, however exemplary, no reward however great, could operate on the minds of these unthinking people.”

II.

Improvidence, extreme and universal.

No. 1, p. 414. April 1795.—“The farmers now began everywhere putting their wheat into the ground, except at the river, where they had scarce made any preparations, consuming their time and substance in drinking and rioting, and trusting to the extreme fertility of the soil, which they declared would produce an ample crop at any time, without much labour.”

No. 2, p. 435. November 1795.—“Instead of completing in a few hours the whole labour which was required of a man for the day, the convicts were now to work the whole day, with the intermission of two hours and a half of rest. Many advantages were gained by this regulation;—among which, not the least was the diminution of idle time which the prisoners before had, and which, emphatically terming their own time, they applied as they chose, some industriously, but by far the greater part in improper pursuits, as gaming, drinking, and stealing.”

No. 3, p. 458. February 1796.—“They [the settlers] seldom or never showed the smallest disposition to assist each other. Indolent and improvident, even for their own safety and interest, they in general neglected the means by which either could be secured.”

No. 4, p. 467. March 1796.—“At the Hawkesbury, where alone any prospect of agricultural advantages was to be found, the settlers were immersed in intoxication: riot and madness marked their conduct; and this was to be attributed to the spirits that, in defiance of every precaution, found their way thither.”

No. 5, p. 470. April 1796.—“In the beginning of this month, a very liberal allowance of slops were served to the prisoners, male and female. As it had been too much the practice for these people to sell the clothing they received from government as soon as it was issued to them, the governor on this occasion gave it out in public orders, that whenever it should be proved that any person had either sold or otherwise made away with any of the articles then issued, the buyer, or seller, or receiver thereof, would both subject themselves to corporal or other punishment. Orders, however, had never been known to have much weight with these people.”

No. 6, p. 482. June 1796.—“The settlers at the different districts, and particularly those at the Hawkesbury, had long been supposed to be considerably in debt; and it was suspected that their crops for two or more seasons to come were pledged to pay these debts.”

No. 7, p. 483. June 1796.—“The gentlemen who conducted the inquiry found most of the settlers there [the Hawkesbury] oftener employed in carousing in the fronts of their houses, than in labouring themselves, or in superintending the labour of their servants in their grounds.”

No. 8, p. 483. June 1796.—“The practice of purchasing the crops of the settlers for spirits, had too long prevailed in the settlement; . . . . . . it was not possible that a farmer, who should be idle enough to throw away the labour of twelve months for the gratification of a few gallons of poisonous spirits, could expect to thrive.”

No. 9, p. 492. August 1796.—“They [the settlers] were in general of such a thoughtless, worthless description, that even this indulgence might induce them to be, if possible, more worthless and thoughtless than before; as, to use their own expression, they had now to work for a dead horse.” The indulgence consisted in the being suffered to give assignments on their crops then in the ground, to save themselves from imprisonment for debt.

III.

The longer the application of the supposed cause of reformation, the worse the effect.

No. 1, p. 358. March 1794.—“Had the settlers, with only a common share of honesty, returned the wheat which they received from government to sow their grounds the last season, the reproach which they drew upon themselves by not stepping forward at this moment to assist government, would not have been incurred; but though to an individual they all knew the anxiety which every one felt for the preservation of the seed-wheat, yet when applied to, and told (in addition to the sum of 10s. a-bushel) that any quantity which they might choose to put into the store should be brought from their farms without any expense of carriage to them, they all or nearly all pleaded an insufficiency to crop their ground for the ensuing season; a plea that was well known to be made without a shadow of truth.”

No. 2, p. 394. October 1794.—“The presence of some person with authority was become absolutely necessary among those settlers, who finding themselves free from bondage, instantly conceived that they were above all restrictions; and being without any internal regulations, irregularities of the worst kind might be expected to happen.”

No. 3, p. 432.—It appears likewise by this muster, that one hundred and seventy-nine persons subsisted themselves independent of the public stores, and resided in this town. To many of these, as well as to the servants of settlers, were to be attributed the offences that were daily heard of: they were the greatest nuisances we had to complain of.”

No. 4, p. 471. April 1796.—“At the Hawkesbury, the corn-store was broken into, and a quantity of wheat and other articles stolen; and two people were apprehended for robbing the deputy-surveyor’s fowl-house.”

No. 5, p. 471. April 1796.—“All these depredations were chiefly committed by those public nuisances, the people of the stores.”

No. 6, p. 473. April 1796.—“The Hawkesbury was the refuge of all the Sydney rogues when in danger of being apprehended.”

No. 7, p. 474. May 1796.—“Daily experience proved that those people whose sentences of transportation had expired, were greater evils than the convicts themselves. . . . . . Many were known to withdraw themselves from labour and the provision-store on the day of their servitude ceasing. On their being apprehended, punished for a breach of order, and ordered again to labour, they seized the first opportunity of running away, taking either to the woods to subsist by depredations, or to the shelter which the Hawkesbury settlers afforded to every vagabond that asked it. By these people (we were well convinced) every theft was committed.”

Thus far Captain Collins. The corruption which it thus appears was so general among the settlers, i. e. among those whose terms of bondage were expired, who by that means had recovered a degree of independence, and had withdrawn themselves more completely out of the reach of every inspecting eye, had (as might have been expected) this independence, this exemption from inspection for its cause. For so late as in August 1792, a time when the residence of those who had arrived first in the colony had not been so long as five years, and when few had as yet regained their liberty, and none had been in possession of it for any length of time, “with very few exceptions,” says Captain Collins, p. 210, the uniform good behaviour of the convicts was still “to be commended.”

[* ]Since the above paragraph was written, the public has been put in possession of the promised information; and surely never did the deductions of reason receive a more ample confirmation from experience, than has been afforded in the present instance by the actual condition of the “improved” colony, as exhibited in this second volume, dedicated by permission to the noble lord in whose hands the management of it had by that time been reposed. Extracts in continuation of those given from the first volume are intended to accompany this address.

To keep clear of all possible imputation of intrigue, I abstained purposely from every endeavour to open any sort of communication, direct or indirect, with the respectable historian to whose ulterior testimony I was looking forward with such well-grounded confidence.

[* ]I.

General necessity of Inspection.

No. 1, p. 63. March 1789.—“Being advanced in years, he (the person entrusted with the direction of the convicts at Rose Hill) was found inadequate to the task of managing and controuling the people who were under his care, the most of whom were always inventing plausible excuses for absence from labour, or for their neglect of it while under his eye.”

No. 2, p. 400. December 1794.—“Our settlements had now become so extensive, that orders did not so readily find their way to the settlers, as runaways and vagrants, who never failed of finding employment among them, particularly among those at the river.”

[† ]II.

Necessity of Jails and Jail Gangs for closer Inspection.

No. 1, p. 383. July 1794.—“During this month a building, consisting of four cells for prisoners, was added to the guard-house on the east side of the Cove. This had long been wanted; and the whole being now inclosed with a strong paling, some advantage was expected to be derived from confinement adopted only as a punishment.”

No. 2, p. 402. December 1794.—“A jail-gang was also ordered to be established at Trongabbe, for the employment and punishment of all bad and suspicious characters.”

If I understand this jail-gang right, it was composed of a set of workmen, working not within the walls of a jail (a place in which there could hardly be any work to be done;) but though in an unconfined space, an uninclosed field, yet under the close inspection of persons, set over them as guards, with or without the addition of fetters, to keep them from running away.

No. 3, p. 487. July 1796.—“The town of Sydney was shortly after filled with people from the different settlements, who came to the judge-advocate for certificates of their having served their respective sentences. Among these were many who had run away from public labour before their time had expired; some who had escaped from confinement with crimes yet unpunished hanging over their heads; and some who, being for life, appeared by names different from those by which they were commonly known in the settlement. By the activity of the watchmen, and a minute investigation of the necessary books and papers, they were in general detected in the imposition, and were immediately sent to hard labour in the town and jail-gangs.

“To the latter of these gangs, additions were every day making; scarcely a day or a single night passed, but some enormity was committed or attempted, either on the property or persons of individuals.”

No. 4, p. 493. August 1796.—“The jail-gang at this time, notwithstanding the examples which had been made, consisted of upwards of five and twenty persons, and many of the female prisoners were found to be every whit as infamous as the men.”

To crown the whole, and that nothing might be wanting that could help to demonstrate the complete inefficacy and inutility of everything that is peculiar to the penal colonization system, one of its latest improvements has been the importation of the hulk system from the Thames. In August 1801, the Supply (we are informed by Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, in the continuation of his History) “was fitting up as a hulk to receive such convicts as were incorrigible,” ii. 330.

To avoid employing prisons and hulks at home, expeditions upon expeditions are fitted out to employ convicts in farming at the antipodes. In the course of a few years, a discovery is made, that drinking is preferred to labour, and that nothing is to be done without hulks and prisons, even there, though in a situation in which profitable labour under confinement is impossible; and it is this combination of particular forced idleness, with universal unbridled drunkenness, that is given not only as an “improved” system, but a system to such a degree improved, as to justify the proscription of a system of sobriety and industry that would have been carried on at home at a fraction of the expense.

At this time, at the expense of £3954, the colony had been put in possession of what is called “the county gaol,” a convenient sort of building, which besides that, its standing use, serves occasionally as a bonfire. The same gaol, the Sydney gaol, (metaphysical discussion about identity apart) had served once in that capacity already, as well as another at Paramatta. [ii. Collins, p. 197, 276, 331.] The country is particularly favourable to such exhibitions. Things take fire there of themselves [ii. Collins, p. 72;] a fortiori, with a little assistance.

[* ]Oblique as it was when the announced designation presented itself in print, my resolution failed me, and I expunged it. The sex of the writer, and the fidelity of the extract, being admitted, whatever claim to confidence can be given by situation will be found stamped upon the style.

[† ]i. Collins, 444, 458, 459; ii. 13, 31, 33, 56, 204.

[‡ ]Ibid. 30, 415; ii. 281.

[∥ ]Ibid. 459; ii. 84, 40, 59, 299.

[* ]13 & 14 Ch. II. c. 1, § 2; c. 12, § 23.

[* ]19 Geo. III. c. 74.

[† ]Under the old transportation system, all this inequality was the result of the course taken for ridding the country of these its obnoxious inmates. Powers being given for the purpose by parliament, they were made over by government to a contractor, who, for the profit to be made by selling their services, for the penal term, to a master in America, engaged to convey them to the destined scene of banishment, or at least to convey them out of the country (the mother country) from which they were to be expelled. Taking the punishment thus upon the face of the letter of the law, the effect of it would be in all cases alike—to add to the fundamental and introductory part of it, banishment, the ulterior and perfectly distinct punishment of bondage—banishment from the mother country, bondage to be endured in the country to which the convict was to be expelled. Such being in all cases the effect in appearance, such also would it in general be in practice; because, in general, the poverty of the convict precluding him from purchasing any indulgence, the price paid for his services by a stranger in America was the only source of profit to the first purchaser—I mean, the merchant who in Great Britain insured the conveyance of the convict to that distant quarter of the globe. But a very moderate sum of money was sufficient to enable a man to exempt himself from this most afflictive part of the punishment; for wherever it happened that through the medium of a friend or otherwise he could bid more for himself than would be bidden for him by a stranger, liberty thereupon, of course, took place of bondage. Poverty, therefore, rather than the crime of which a man was convicted, was the offence of which the bondage was the punishment; and, so far as the amount of the depredation is to be taken as a measure of the magnitude of the crime, the greater the crime, the better the chance which the criminal would in this way give himself for escaping the severer part of his lot. The profession of a receiver of stolen goods—a connexion with an opulent and successful gang—were among the circumstances that would in general secure to a man an exemption from this most salutary as well as afflictive part of the penal discipline.

Under the new transportation system—the system of transportation to the land of general bondage—this inequality received a pretty effectual correction, far as the nature of the punishment was from being improved, and the condition of the convict population from being meliorated, upon the whole. The person on whom the lot of the convict, in this respect, was made to depend, was no longer in any instance a friend or trustee converting the nominal bondage into real liberty: he was in every instance one and the same person—the general agent of the crown, the governor of the colony, who, with regal powers, dealt out justice or mercy, in each instance, according to the joint measure of his own humanity and his own wisdom. Bondage was not now to be bought off for money; at the same time, it was but natural that in the case of an individual whose education and mode of life had habitually exempted him from ordinary labour, a proportionate degree of indulgence should be manifested, in respect of the quality or quantity of his task. So far, so good. On the other hand, the instances to which this improvement extended were but few and accidental; while, in point of industry, sobriety, and other features of moral amelioration, the condition of the many was, by the causes already stated, rendered worse, not better, by the change. Under the old transportation system, the person on whom the condition of the convict depended—a master employing him for his own (the master’s) benefit—would stand engaged, by the tie of personal interest, to extract from him as much labour as could be extracted,—to watch over his conduct, in that and every other respect, with the most uninterrupted vigilance,—and, upon the whole, in respect of quality as well as quantity of work, to give the utmost value to his service. Under this new transportation system, the management being mere trust management—management under the general orders of the governor, conducted for the benefit of the public purse—management, therefore, without interest, at least without pecuniary interest, as well as without any other than a very loose inspection—the effect of it was in this respect such as from the nature of man might be expected. By the late chief magistrate of the colony, the average amount of a day’s labour was estimated (as will be seen further on) at not more than a third of what would have been rendered by a free labourer working on the ordinary terms.a True it is, that a considerable part of the convict population has all along been distributed among the officers, to be employed by them for their own benefit; in which case it can scarce be doubted, but that in all points, and especially in that of industry, more attention was paid to the conduct of the convicts thus disposed of, than was or could be paid to such of them as were retained, on the footing above exhibited, in the public service. Still, however, in this case, the closeness of inspection would on many accounts fall short of that which under the old transportation system (the system of transportation to America) would have been generally kept up. In America, the masters becoming such by purchase would without exception be persons already engaged in habits of vigilance and industry. In a society composed of military men, a character of this sort could not reasonably be expected to be found equally prevalent. In America, the master’s own choice had in every instance fixed him, and for life, in that employment for the purpose of which he took upon himself to purchase the interest in question in the convict’s services. In New South Wales, the profession of the species of master in question is of the number of those which are embraced more frequently through disinclination than through any predilection for money-getting industry—thoughts and wishes pointing homewards the whole time—and the continuance of the situation, by which the demand for such compulsive service is afforded, short-lived and precarious. Service that was to be had for nothing would not naturally (it is true) in that situation, any more than in any other, be refused: but, on the other hand, neither does it seem reasonable to suppose, that in such circumstances any such advantage would, upon an average, he derived from it, as in America, under the old transportation system, would have been generally extracted by a purchasing master from the services of his purchased bondsman.

The emancipated convicts, under the name of settlers, constituted indeed another class of masters, who, under the authority of the governor, either on the same gratuitous terms as in the case of the officers, or for wages on the footing of a free contract, shared in a considerable proportion whatever benefit was to be reaped from the labour of their fellow-convicts during their respective penal terms in some instances, as well as in other instances after the expiration of those terms. But in the way of moral improvement, as well as steady industry, still less benefit (it is evident) was to be expected from this source than from the other. Accordingly, at the Hawkesbury settlement (in a passage which your Lordship has already seen, p. 467, anno 1796, stated by the late chief magistrate as the only one of all the settlements “where any prospects of agricultural advantage were to be found,”) it is moreover stated (in another passage which your Lordship has also seen, p. 483,) that “the settlers were found oftener employed in carousing in the fronts of their houses, than in labouring themselves, or superintending the labour of their servants on their grounds.”

Thus much as to the degree of pecuniary interest on the part of the master, and the quantity and quality of the effect it may be expected to have on the pecuniary value of the labour of the convict servant. But (setting aside rare and extreme cases, such as that of labour extorted in such excess as to shorten the thread of life) the moral interest of the convict bondsman, and the pecuniary interest of the purchasing master, will (we may venture to say) be found pretty exactly to coincide; since the more steadily a man’s time and thoughts are occupied in profitable labour, even though the profit be not his own, the more effectually they will all along be diverted from all unlawful objects. The general consequence is, that while the fortune of the master is receiving improvement from the labour of the once criminal workman, the moral habits of the workman himself will in the same proportion be receiving improvement from the same cause.

Two circumstances—two disastrous circumstances—have in a greater or less degree been common to transportation-punishment, under both its forms: in point of comfort, the condition of each convict under and during the punishment has been matter of pure contingency; while, in point of morality, his reformation, depending upon the same unforseeable events, has been left alike to be the sport of fortune. In both respects, happiness and morality, his condition has been thrown altogether out of the view of every eye in the country, under the laws of which, the discipline such as it was, had been administered—of the legislature by which the species of punishment had been selected and allotted to the species of offence—of the judges and the executive government by whose authority the individual had been consigned to that species of punishment—of that public which has so important an interest in the efficacy of every punishment, as well in the way of reformation as in the way of example, not to mention the interest which, on the score of humanity, every community has in the well-being of the meanest of its members. Under the transportation system—under that system in both its forms—the state of the convict, in relation to all these essential points, was and is, under the former by dispersion, under the latter by distance, thrown as it were purposely into the shade. Under the panopticon system, and that alone, light—the clearest and the most uninterrupted light—takes place of all such darkness. Considered with a view to moral health, as well as to physical comfort, a Panopticon is a vast hospital; but an hospital of that improved and hitherto unexampled description, in which, without prejudice to the management, and thereby to the efficacy of the regimen, the condition of the patient is at all times open to all eyes. In this home scene, neglect is as impossible, as any sufficient attention is in the distant one.

Among savages, when to a certain degree a man is sick in body, he is cast forth, and thought no more of. In a nation civilized in other respects, the same barbarity is still shown to this at least equally curable class of patients, in whose case the seat of disorder is in the mind. Not indeed to every division in this class. For patients labouring under insanity, known and characterized by that name, no man has yet prescribed a voyage to New South Wales. The inefficacy of such a prescription, however, could not be more complete in the case of that description of patients, than it has hitherto been, and from the nature of the case ever must be, in the instance of the other description to which it continues to be applied.

[* ]I mean of course with reference to the only declared objects of the measure: for as to mere existence, requisites with relation to that object—such as climate affording sufficient warmth, and earth affording the usual choice of soil—these, however material in other points of view, were mere blanks with reference to the objects professed on this occasion to be aimed at.

[* ]19 Geo. III. c. 74, § 1.

[* ]24 Geo. III. c. 56, § 1.

[† ]27 Geo. III. c. 2.

[* ]The caution which dictated the words, “at least any regular and avowed prolongation,” was not a groundless one. In the so often quoted history of the colony, and especially in the continuation of that history, instances where the bondage has been prolonged, regularly or irregularly, are to be found to no inconsiderable amount. By “avowed,” I meant of course avowed by the supporters or advocates of the penal colony here at home: in the colony, whatever is done in this way by the governor, cannot of course but be avowed there, avowed by the governor by whom it is done.

[† ]By the old transportation laws, the person who shall contract for the transportation of the convict, is declared to “have a property in his service,”a and that property is made transferable to “assigns,” and, for the sake of what was to be got in America by the sale of that property, contractors were, latterly at least, if not from the first, ready and willing to take upon themselves the charge of the transportation, without further recompense. Under the modern transportation laws,b the same form of words is still copied, the practice under them being (as already stated,) as far as the condition of the convict at least is concerned, as different as possible. In saying “the form of words,” I mean so far as concerns the giving to the transporter and his assigns, a property in the service of his passengers; though (as everybody knows) at the end of the voyage there is nothing to be got by selling them, nor so much as any person to whom they can be sold; the transporter being paid, not by a purchaser in any such sale, but by government itself.—Quere the first. By what law does the governor exercise the power he takes upon himself to exercise in New South Wales over the convicts during their terms? Is the property of the service of each convict assigned over to him by the merchant-transporter under his contract?—Quere the second. By what law does the commander of a king’s ship (the Glatton for instance) take upon himself to transport convicts? Is he made to sign a contract for the transportation of these his passengers, as an independent merchant would be for the performance of the same service? If the formality of a contract is employed, where is the legality? if not, where is the honesty of the practice? Powers obtained from parliament for one purpose are employed for another, and that an opposite one: powers given for the institution of domestic bondage, under management on private account in single families, are applied to the institution of public bondage, under management on trust account in gangs. Whoever said anything to parliament, of this radical change passed through Parliament under cover of the identity of the words?

[* ]I.

No care taken in England, for four years and a half, to prevent unlawful returns: care then taken to prevent lawful ones.

No. 1. August 1792, pp. 229, 230.—“During this month the governor thought it necessary to issue some regulations, to be observed by those convicts whose sentences of transportation had expired. The number of people of this description in the colony had been so much increased of late, that it had become requisite to determine with precision the line in which they were to move. Having emerged from the condition of convicts, and got rid of the restraint which was necessarily imposed on them while under that subjection, many of them seemed to have forgotten that they were still amenable to the regulations of the colony, and appeared to have shaken off, with the yoke of bondage, all restraint and dependence whatsoever. They were therefore called upon to declare their intentions respecting their future mode of living. Those who wished to be allowed to provide for themselves were informed, that on application to the judge-advocate they would receive a certificate of their having served their several years of transportation; which certificate they would deposit with the commissary, as his voucher for striking them off the provision and clothing lists, and once a-week they were to report in what manner and for whom they had been employed.”“Such as were desirous of returning to England were informed, that no obstacle should be thrown in their way, they being at liberty to ship themselves on board of such vessels as would give them a passage. And those who preferred labouring for the public, and receiving in return such ration as should be issued from the public stores, were to give in their names to the commissary, who would victual and clothe them, so long as their services might be required.“Of those here and at Paramatta, who had fulfilled the sentence of the law, by far the greater part signified their intention of returning to England by the first opportunity; but the getting away from the colony was now a matter of some difficulty, as it was understood that a clause was to be inserted, in all future contracts for shipping for this country, subjecting the masters to certain penalties, on certificates being received of their having brought away any convicts or other persons from this settlement without the governor’s permission; and as it was not probable that many of them would, on their return, refrain from the vices or avoid the society of those companions who had been the causes of their transportation to this country, not many could hope to obtain the sanction of the governor for their return.”

No. 2. February 1793, p. 268.—“A clause was inserted in the charter party, [of the Bellona] forbidding the master to receive any person from the colony without the express consent and order of the governor.” [The day mentioned as the day of her sailing from England, is the 8th of August 1792.]

II.

Return without permission easy:—Return, not Settlement, the general object.

No. I. October 1793, pp. 315, 316.—“Seven persons, whose terms of transportation had expired, were permitted to quit the colony in these ships, and the master of the SugarCane had shipped Benjamin Williams, the last of the Kitty’s people, who remained undisposed of. One free woman, the wife of a convict, took her passage in the Sugar Cane.

“Notwithstanding the facility with which passages from this place were procured (very little more being required by the master than permission to receive them, and that the parties should find their own provisions,) it was found, after the departure of these ships, that some convicts had, by being secreted on board, made their escape from the colony; and two men, whose terms as convicts had expired, were brought up from the Sugar Cane the day she sailed, having got on board without permission; for which the lieutenant-governor directed them to be punished with fifty lashes each, and sent up to Toongabbe.”

No. 2. October 1793, p. 320.—“Charles Williams, the settler so often mentioned in this narrative, wearied of being in a state of independence, sold his farm, with his house, crop, and stock, for something less than £100. . . . James Ruse, also, the owner of the experiment farm, anxious to return to England, and disappointed in his present crop which he had sown too late, sold his estate, with the house and some stock, (four goats and three sheep) for £40. Both these people had to seek employment until they could get away; and Williams was condemned to work as a hireling upon the ground of which he had been the master . . . . . . . .

“The greatest inconvenience attending this transfer of landed property, was the return of such a miscreant as Williams, and others of his description, to England, to be let loose again upon the public.

No. 2. July 1794, p. 382.—“The Hope sailed this month for Canton, the master being suffered to take with him one man, John Pardo Watts, who had served his time of transportation.”

No. 3. November 1794, p. 398.—“This man [the master of the Revolution] had been permitted to ship as many persons from the settlement, as he had stated to be necessary to complete his ship’s company; notwithstanding which, there was not any doubt of his having received on board, without any permission, to the number of twelve or thirteen convicts, whose terms of transportation had not been served. No difficulty had ever been found by any master of a ship, who would make the proper application, in obtaining any number of hands that he might be in want of; but to take clandestinely from the settlement the useful servants of the public, was ungrateful and unpardonable.”

No. 4. December 1794, p. 400.—“The master of the transport [the Dædalus] had permission to ship twelve men and two women, whose sentences of transportation had expired.”

No. 5. 18th September 1795, p. 429.—“We found after their departure, [that of the ships Endeavour and Fancy] that notwithstanding so many as fifty persons, whose sentences of transportation had expired, had been permitted to leave the colony in the Endeavour, nearly as many more had found means to secrete themselves on board her.”

No. 6. February 1796, p. 457.—“In her [the Otter] went Mr. Thomas Muir . . . . and several other convicts, whose sentences of transportation were not expired.”

No. 7. March 1796, p. 469.—“The Ceres sailed . . . . for Canton. Being well manned, the master was not in want of any hands from this place; but eight convicts found means to secrete themselves on board a day or two before she sailed.”

See further, Supplement. Besides the natural facility of returns, lawful or unlawful, two other points may have been noted in this part of the case: the care not taken in the first instance, as to the prevention of unlawful returns:—the care taken afterwards for the prevention of lawful ones. But of this more particularly in another place.

[* ]Now, lately, a king’s ship (the Glatton, formerly of 54 guns) has been appointed, I see, to the service, instead of a contracting merchant’s vessel, as before. Amongst other advantages, this course, as far as it is pursued, may reasonably be expected to put an end to the unpermitted emigrations. But the other channels will remain open; unless it should be thought fit to shut up the ports of New South Wales like those of Japan: an expedient which would cut up by the roots every idea of trade, and profit in the way of trade, the great object looked to, or professed to be looked to, in all colonies. See the head of Economy—Colonial advantages.

Whether this preventive effect was among the considerations that gave birth to the change, I do not pretend to know: one should rather hope it were not. The observation still remains in full force, that in this way nothing can ever be gained, that is not gained at the expense of law and justice. If by a re-importation at the public expense, the banishment of these exiles were made regularly to cease, as soon as it ceased to be legal—on these terms, and no others, the exclusion of all other means of return might (whatever became of trade) be reconciled to justice. Nullus liber homo......exulet......nisi per legale judicium parium suorum vel per legem terræ.—Violating this right by deeds, while it is allowed in words, is tearing Magna Charta to pieces, to patch up a bad measure of police.

[* ]I. Collins, p. 383.

[† ]I. Collins, pp. 303, 455.

[‡ ]See Table of Mortality, p. 198.

[* ]Since the writing of the paragraph in the text, upon turning to Bryan Edwards’ History of the West Indies (vol. ii. book 4, ch. 4,) I find the following information on this head. So long ago as the year 1788, in the act 28 G. III. c. 54, use had been made of the principle of reward, for cementing the connexion between interest and duty, in the case of the ship surgeons, thereby required to be retained, on board the several ships concerned in the negro import trade. This might be a year or two before the time when, upon drawing up my penitentiary establishment proposal, the article in question had first occurred to me. In this legislative provision it is the principle of reward, reward alone as contradistinguished to punishment, that is applied. But it is the property of the principle of life-insurance, as employed in that proposal, to apply, and by the same movement, both springs of human action, reward and punishment, together: reward in the event of a degree of success, and thence as it may be presumed of care and exertion, beyond what is looked upon as the ordinary mark;—punishment in case of no higher a degree of those desirable results, than what is considered as falling short, by a certain amount, of that ordinary mark. The idea of employing the principle of reward in this way—the principle of reward singly—in the preservation of human life was thus, though a recent one, a principle already fixed in legislative practice, at the time when the idea of this principle of double action thus occurred to me—which double principle, even in this its double form, has so little of novelty in it, that it is in fact no more than the old established practice of life-insurance, applied to the preservation of the thing itself, which is the subject of the insurance. The practice of life insurance was in itself of comparatively very ancient date; but in the form in which it is thus familiar, it has no influence on practice, no influence on the duration of the life which is the subject of it. The life is in the hands of the owner, and depends not in any respect upon the conduct of the other party—on the conduct of the person who receives the actual premium, on condition of subjecting himself eventually to the payment of the contingent retribution. It is only in particular cases, that the life of one man is lodged in the power of another, in any such way as to be capable of being abridged, not only by positive deliberate design, but by mere negligence; and that in circumstances which render the application of punishment by judicial means impossible. Of these cases, the case of the gaoler presents itself as the most extensive and prominent case. To this case the other cases in question may be reduced. A ship employed in the transportation of convicts is a floating jail, employed for the confinement and conveyance of criminals under the law of the state: a ship employed in the slave-trade is a floating jail employed for the confinement of innocent men under the law of the strongest.

It appears, therefore, that in the contrivance of this article, I had proceeded one step indeed, but no more than one step, and that a step already indicated, and by no means obscurely, to any scrutinizing eye, by the closeness of its analogy to the first. Reward is a principle you get a man to subject himself to the action of, without difficulty: punishment, which, even when composed of no stronger materials than those very ones which constitute the matter of reward, is so much the stronger principle of action—punishment, you may in this shape get him to submit also to the action of, upon terms.

This accordingly is what is done, by the principle of life-assurance, applied as above, to the relation subsisting between the keeper of a place of confinement and his prisoners.

Under the influence of even the weaker half of the double principle—under the influence of reward alone, introduced as above, into the slave-trade, it may not be amiss to observe what effects, in practice, had already been the result:—say in July 1793, when the penitentiary proposal, after two or three years of neglect, was unfortunate enough to obtain the acceptance of Mr. Pitt.

Before the slave-trade regulations spoken of, “a ship of 240 tons would frequently be crowded” (according to Edwards)a “with no less than 520slaves; which was not allowing 10 inches of room to each individual. The consequence was, often times a loss of 15 per cent. in the voyage, and 4½ per cent. more in the harbours of the West Indies, previous to the sale, from diseases contracted at sea.” After, and doubtless by virtue of, those regulations—with their consequent comforts, prescribed breathing space and professional care taken together—the separate efficacy of each being undistinguishable—after these regulations made in 1788, and yet before June 1793 (this being the date that stands in the dedication prefixed to the first editions of Edwards’ book,) the 15 per cent. loss on the voyage was sunk already to an average of 7 per cent.; an apparent average which, for the reasons he gives, ought scarcely to be taken for more than perhaps half that rate. This at sea, and the 4½ per cent. loss in harbour, was reduced at the same time to so small a fraction, as three fourths per cent.

The experiment has instruction in it:—instruction derivable from it in more points of view than one. The difference between loss and loss shows the influence that may be exercised over human action, by a due application of the principles of moral dynamics—by a right management of the springs of action in human nature. The amount of the original customary loss—this amount compared with the causes that produced it, may serve to show how insufficient is the utmost check which the principle of sympathy, supported by whatever assistance it may happen to receive from all other principles of the social stamp—religion for instance, and regard for character, put together—is capable of opposing to the influence of the self-regarding principle of pecuniary interest, even where human life—where human lives even in multitudes are at stake. It may at the same time serve to obviate the imputation of passion or propensity to personal satire, if on any occasion a suspicion should be seen to suggest itself, that, in this or that instance, the fate of convicts may have been regarded with indifference, by men hardened possibly in some instances by personal character, naturally more or less in all instances by official situation. The views thus given are not among the most flattering ones; but the statesman, who should on that account shut his eyes against them, would be as little fit for his business as the surgeon was, whose tenderness would not suffer him to observe the course he was taking with his knife.

But to return. The principle on which these regulations were grounded (I mean in particular so much of it as concerns the rewards) had, all this time, not only been introduced into the statute book—introduced by that means within the pale of that consecrated ground, to which even the jealousy of office cannot refuse the name of practice—but had been agitated, and (one may almost say) beat into every head, in and about the treasury, at both ears, by those discussions about the slave-trade, that year after year had been occupying and agitating both houses of parliament: and the act itself by which this principle was first introduced, has since been, year after year, amended and enforced by statute after statute. Of this so much agitated—this so universally accepted principle—accepted at least in its application to the conveyance of the unhappy subjects of the black trade—what use, what application, was made in the adjustment of the contracts for the conveyance of white men, native Britons, to New South Wales, the contracts themselves, the contracts alone, were they for this purpose to be called for by parliament, would serve to show. It would then be seen—supposing the deficiency, if any, in point of care, to be the result, not of financial design, but of honest negligence—it would then be seen, whether the difference between a white skin and a black one were, or were not, an interval too wide, for such powers of abstraction as the treasury at that time afforded to measure and embrace.

[* ]Medium of the two years, 33. This, taken from the whole number of deaths in 1792, 436, leaves, for the number of deaths by famine in that same year, 403.

To separate what may be considered as the extraordinary, from what may be considered as the natural rate of mortality, proceed as follows:—

1. Instead of being landed year after year, as per Table, suppose the whole number of convicts actually shipped in the nine years had been landed the first year.

2. Suppose the number of natural deaths to have been the same for each of these nine years as for the medium of the last two, viz. 33.

which, within six or seven, is the exact medium between 1-5th and 1-4th of the number shipped. But the real proportion (it may have been observed) must, on several accounts, have probably been above this mark.

[* ]He observes, and with great truth (B. iv. ch. 1,) that if the Crown takes everything, there remains nothing for anybody else. “As the public crime (says he) is not otherwise avenged than by forfeiture of life and property, it is impossible afterwards to make any reparation for the private wrong.” But is it necessary or right, that while damage remains without reparation—injury without redress—the King, who has sustained no damage—that is, A or B in the name of the King—should take everything—should sweep away the whole of that fund from which reparation might have been afforded? The affirmative was found as easy to assume, as it would have been difficult to prove.

[* ]“We seldom hear any mention made of satisfaction to the individual,” says he:—“the satisfaction to the community” (viz. by the destruction of one of its members) “being so very great; and indeed as the public crime,” &c. continues he, giving the reason he is so well satisfied with as above.

[‡ ]Armed. i. e. with reasons: suppressed, because the reasons were found troublesome. The distinction is one which it was necessary to note; because, in the unarmed memorial, cut out to pattern, as per order, and delivered in instead of the other, no such troublesome reasons might be to be found. The armed one is, moreover, the one which, notwithstanding all suppressions, has been in your Lordship’s hands these six months. The harmless one lies very quietly upon the Treasury shelves. The distinction, by no means an uninstructive one, will be explained in the course of the narrative by a variety of examples.

[* ]In addition to this £46 : 5s., or this £37, the whole produce and value of the whole labour extracted or extractable from the convicts (while in their state of bondage at least) may be considered as so much thrown away: or, if not considered as thrown away, then, whatever may be the value of it ought at any rate to be added to the account of expense, since that account is lessened and reduced to those sums respectively by the amount of it. On the panopticon plan, one fourth part of the produce of each man’s labour would, without any additional expense to government, have been employed—partly in insuring to him a maintenance in his declining years, partly in administering present comforts to himself and family, where he has one: the other three fourths would have been employed—partly in furnishing the capital necessary for the setting to work such convicts as should choose to betake themselves to the establishment for employment, after the expiration of their respective terms; (a good deal of it in the charges of buildings, and other masses of fixed and other capital)—partly in affording subsistence and recompense to the various descriptions of persons employed in the way of management and superintendence.

Under the head of Incapacitation (viz. for fresh offences), I have had occasion to point out the advantages reaped in that way from the tranquillizing hand of death. The same active and gratuitous agent, while thus employed in the police department in cutting short the thread of life, will have been rendering proportionate service in the financial department, by a proportionable abridgment of the thread of expense.

At the time of the last account, the actual quantum of the expense, taken in its total, rose no higher than a million and thirty-seven thousand pounds, for the eleven or twelve years at that time elapsed: but unless gentlemen choose to take credit, as for a service done to his Majesty, for the number of his subjects thus got rid of, to this £1,037,000 should be added, upon a fair estimate, some such matter as one, two, or three hundred thousand pounds more. Bad as it is, as a measure of police—bad as it is as a measure of finance—it would in both characters have been still worse, had it not been for its efficacy in the character of a measure of destruction. Some men, I hope, will not, even in the secret of their own bosoms—no man, I trust, will openly, and in the face of day, be bold enough to set down this destruction on the profit side of the account. Not that even this flagitious profit, if it were one, could be justly placed to the account of this new invented transportation system: since, by setting or leaving men to rot in gaols at home, the same, or any still more preventative and more economical degree of destruction might be effected at a small part of the expense.

Notwithstanding this increase in the total quantum, the rate of expense per head (it may be observed on the other hand) would in this case have been diminished: since those divisions of the expense, which are fixed, and apply in common to the whole number of persons maintained—such as the expenses of the several official establishments—civil, military, and naval—those heads of expense having, by the supposition, a greater number of heads of persons to distribute themselves upon; would fall, in so much the less magnitude, upon each. The truth of this observation must, to a certain extent, be admitted: some heads of expense there are, to which the survivance of the human beings, who perished, would not have added any increase. The expense of transportation is an example: but in what degree—or indeed whether in any degree—the expense of the several superintending establishments above mentioned, can with propriety be considered, as being in the same case, will be matter of great doubt. Throughout, the scantiness, or supposed scantiness, of these several establishments, appears to have been matter of general complaint: this complaint, well or ill-grounded, has been among the few complaints which appear to have met with adequate attention here at home, and a very considerable increase in the total of those establishments has been the consequence. Thus stands the matter, notwithstanding the reduction effected in the population, by the causes of destruction above mentioned: can it reasonably be assumed, that, if the population had been in any considerable degree greater, the establishments for the management of it would not in the same degree have been increased?

This topic is mentioned only, (as Necker would say) pro memoriâ: to form a precise calculation, would require a mass of labour and paper disproportionate to the present purpose.

[* ]On the Civil List 1802, p. 39.

[† ]Appendix H. p. 81.

[‡ ]Comparative State of the three Establishments, Civil, Military, and Naval, in different years, as per 28th Report of the Committee of Finance, p. 25, and Appendix O to do. p. 121.

[* ]Porcupine, 10th June 1801.—“A letter from Botany Bay, dated the 7th October, contains the following intelligence:—‘A very unpleasant circumstance had like to have occurred here lately. The Irish rebels, who were lately transported into this country, have imported with them their dangerous principles, rather increased than subdued by their removal from their native country. They began by circulating their doctrine among the convicts, and a conspiracy had scarcely been formed before it was happily discovered. They had conducted their scheme with great art and secresy, to which they were generally sworn, and offensive weapons were made, even from the tools of agriculture, for carrying their purpose into execution. In no part of the British dominions upon any occasion, could the troops and principal inhabitants show more zeal and alacrity in coming forward in support of the government.’ ”

Such is the account given in the above paper, of an affair which appears to have been the same as that spoken of in the lady’s letter.

The account given of the same affair, in the continuation of Captain (now Lieutenant-colonel) Collins’ history, is as follows, page 306:—“The Buffalo sailed for England on the 21st of October, and as the Governor had intended to touch and land at Norfolk Island, for the purpose of learning, from his own observation, something of the state of that settlement, some few of the Irish prisoners, who were suspected of laying plans of insurrection and massacre, were taken in the Buffalo, and landed there.”

The prisoners in question appear to have been of the number of those who had been taken up (as the historian informs us), and examined on the suspicion of a plot of this kind, so long before as in the beginning of the preceding month. II. Collins, p. 302. Marks of falsehood (it is to be observed) appear on the face of the confessions as reported: but an interpretation that suggests itself is—that though the plot, as pretended to be confessed, was false, the object of the falsehood was to conceal a true one. That the belief of a true plot at the bottom of the whole, was generally entertained, appears by the exertions made, under the authority of the governor, to guard against the apprehended mischief, by so strong a remedy as the formation of volunteer associations: “two volunteer associations of fifty men each,” out of such materials as “the most respectable inhabitants” in a colony so composed. The declared object was “the increasing the armed force of the colony.” If in the amount of the regular force the deficiency had not, in the judgment of the governing part of the colony, been a very decided one, it may be imagined whether any such auxiliaries would, in any such number, have been called in to supply it.

Bell’s Weekly Messenger, 3d January 1802.—“In consequence of a number of Irish rebels having been transported and sent to Botany Bay, and there attempting to subvert the government by various acts of disorder and tumult, that colony became in a state of insurrection; and at Norfolk Island they would have succeeded, but for the manly and spirited conduct of Governor King and Lieutenant-governor Patterson, who caused the principal ringleaders to be secured, some of whom were executed. The spirit of insurrection was in some degree revived by the arrival of the Lady Anne transport in March last, bringing with her one hundred and fifty of the vilest miscreants of all descriptions, convicted of the worst of crimes, such as murder, &c., &c.; but by a timely check it was soon overturned. We are happy to announce, that the military force there behaved throughout with much commendable firmness and spirit; though at the same time we lament that the present force seems by no means adequate to so dangerous and arduous an undertaking.”

In the newspaper, as above, the time of the occurrence is not mentioned. In Lieutenant-colonel Collins’ Continuation, no further mention is made of it, than what is contained in the following short paragraph, page 333:—“At Norfolk Island, it was fortunately discovered, that, on the 14th of December 1800, a plot had been formed by some of the convicts to murder the officers, and getting possession of the island, to liberate themselves. Two of the ringleaders were immediately executed.” So far the historian: another circumstance, from which it may be judged whether the alleged plot, examined into but two months before, was altogether an imaginary one.

[* ]In a report made by the committee of his Majesty’s Privy Council in 1789 (a report which, it may be presumed, did not meet with much disagreement on the part of either the first Lord or the Secretary of the Treasury)—in this report, as quoted by the late Mr. Bryan Edwards, in his History of the West Indies,a the value of British capital in these colonies is estimated all together at £70,000,000. At the same time, the “Mercantile value of the capital per annum,” (by which, I take for granted, he means the annual value of the produce raised by the employment of that capital) is estimated at no more than £7,000,000. This according to Mr. Edwards’ estimate; in which, if I understand the plan of valuation right, the rate assigned is rather higher than in that of their Lordships. Upon 70 millions, 7 millions is 10 per cent. In Mr. Pitt’s and Mr. Rose’s estimate, made for the purpose of the incometax, 15 per cent. is reckoned upon as the ordinary rate of profit upon mercantile capital, employed in the home trade:b an estimate which, in the main, appears to be agreed to and confirmed by Dr. Beeke.c It would be a problem worthy the ingenuity of those right honourable gentlemen, to show us by what process “indemnity for the past and security for the future” are to be bestowed upon this or any other country, by engaging its capitalists to employ their capital in a branch that produces no more than 10 per cent. in preference to so many other branches that produce 15 per cent.

[* ]II. Collins, page 202, March 1799.—“The settlement was at this time much in want of many necessaries of life; and when these were brought by speculators and traders, who occasionally touched there, they demanded more than 500 per cent. above what the same articles would have been sent out for from England, with every addition of freight, insurance,” &c.

Ibid. page 280, 3d January 1800.—“Having touched at Rio de Janeiro, (the Mercury) had brought many articles for sale, as well from that port as from England, most of which were much wanted by the inhabitants: but the prices required for them were such as to drain the colony of every shilling that could be got together.” To such a degree had this exhaustion been carried, that, if I apprehend the passage right, a species of paper money, and that issued by government itself, had been then already, and if so, probably continues to be, current in New South Wales. The Governor, not being supplied from government at home with money in sufficient quantity for the purchase of that proportion of the stock of public subsistence which was to be obtained by purchase from such of the inhabitants by whom it had been produced, found himself under the necessity of coining this fictitious species of money, imposing thereby, on government at home, a quantity of debt to the amount of it.

Ibid. page 263.—“The difficulties which were still placed in the way of the commissary in preparing his accounts to be sent home, through the settlers and other persons who had not come forward, as they were sometime since directed, to sign the requisite vouchers for the sums paid them for the grain or pork which they had delivered at the public stores, [these difficulties still continuing unremoved] the commissary was directed not to make immediate payment in future, but to issue the government-notes quarterly only, when every person concerned would be obliged to attend, and give the proper receipts for such sums as might be there paid them. This was a most useful regulation, and had been long wanted.” The government notes: an expression which seems to imply that the issuing of such notes had then already been in habitual use.

This was in August 1799: four or five months before the time of the complaint made, as above, of the disappearance of hard money.

Down to the last moment, the supposition which the historian proceeds upon is—that whatever hard money ever finds its way into the colony in any shape, though it be but in half-pence, will (unless preventive measures, such as he suggests, be employed) find itself under a perpetual impossibility of staying there. These remedies are—such as unexperienced good sense would naturally suggest—but of the complete and radical inefficacy of which, history, and the reflections which have grounded themselves on that history, might have completely satisfied him. Though every shilling had been called half a crown, no American who received it to take with him to America, would have given so much as thirteen pence for it.

Ibid. page 271, November 1799.—“Information was at this time received, that copper coinage to the amount of £550 was in the Porpoise, whose arrival might be daily looked for. The circulation of this money would be attended with the most comfortable accommodation to the people in their various dealings with each other; and it might be so marked as to prevent any inducement to take it out of the colony. If it should ever be found convenient by government to order a silver coinage for the use of the settlement, if it were fixed at not more than half or two thirds of the intrinsic value of what it might pass for, so as to render the loss considerable to any one attempting to carry it away, it would be felt as a considerable advantage, and would effectually prevent the forgeries to which a paper currency was liable.”

By this same passage, the existence of a paper currency, though not directly stated, appears, however, to be pretty effectually confirmed.

In addition to the other imported blessings—idle hulks and equally idle gaols—the foundation of a sort of national debt appears thus to be laying, if not already laid, in the “improved” colony.

The particular vessel to which the exhaustion is ascribed, was (it may perhaps be observed) not a foreign but a British one. But the cause which gave birth to the first manifestation of the effect, would naturally be the cause to which, in a simple and ordinary mode of statement, the effect itself, the whole effect, without distinction of parts and degrees, would be ascribed. By the table of ship arrivals given by our historian, among eighteen vessels that, in the course of the seven or eight years, from November 1792 to February 1800, arrived in New South Wales with cargoes of goods for sale, it appears that eight were from his Majesty’s dominions (Indian possessions included;) the other ten from various foreign states.

It is in deference to the more obvious, and what, I believe, are the more common opinions, that a distinction between a trade of this sort, carried on with foreign ships and territories, and a trade of the same sort, carried on with British ships and territories, is thus noted. The more closely it is examined into, the more immaterial will this distinction, I believe, be found to be. What is gained in this way upon his Majesty’s subjects resident in New South Wales, by his Majesty’s subjects resident in Old Britain, operates in no greater degree in diminution of taxes (taxes raised upon his Majesty’s subjects resident in Old Britain,) than if it had been gained by those same subjects of his Majesty in other ways, or gained by foreigners. The real mischief is—that wealth in any shape—in that of money, as well as in any other, and not more than in any other—that wealth in any shape, raised without equivalent, and therefore in the way of compulsion, by taxes, should be parted with for such a fragment of an equivalent—should, as to so large a proportion of it, be parted with, without equivalent—by those whose means of subsistence are composed of it, and limited in their amount by the value of the goods obtained in exchange for it. They are thus loaded with a continual tax, to the amount of the difference between the price they are thus obliged to give in the improved colony, and the price for which they might have provided themselves with the same articles had they staid at home.

In proposing what presents itself to him in the character of a remedy, the worthy magistrate does not consider that the evil, such as it is, is rooted in the very nature of the colony, and bids defiance, not only to the remedy proposed, but to every other. For many articles which the colony does not produce, a demand—a continual demand exists in the colony:—and that demand is (in the language of Adam Smith) an effectual demand; since, for a certain portion of what they would wish to have, men have that which will be accepted of by the proprietors as an equivalent, viz. hard money. If the country produced anything that would be worth sending to other countries, that would be better worth sending than money—so much as it produced in this shape, so much would be so disposed of, and the equivalent in money saved. But the country does not afford any such internal produce. Whatever it does produce is consumed by the inhabitants, affording them a part, and but a part, of their subsistence. Part of it is, without changing hands, consumed by the persons by whom it is produced: the remainder changes hands, and is purchased—either by the Governor there, in exchange for the hard money he receives from England, or by the functionaries of government, in exchange for money received by them, in the shape of pay, from the same source.

In the nature of men and things, is it possible to keep money from going out of a country, where (besides that the export of money out of it is not prohibited) men have on the one hand wants, on the other hand money, and nothing but money to give in exchange?

[* ]Collins, I. Preface, pp. 9, 10.

[* ]No. 1. September 1794, p. 391.—“Eight convicts were pardoned on condition of their serving in the New South Wales corps until regularly discharged therefrom.

“It was pleasing to see so many people withdrawing from the society of vice and wretchedness, and forming such a character for themselves as to be thought deserving of emancipation.”—Pleasing certainly for the time, but observe the upshot, as per No. 3.

No. 2. October 1794, p. 395.—“A guard of an ensign and twenty-one privates of the New South Wales corps were on board the transport. Six of their people were deserters from other regiments brought from the Savoy; one of them. Joseph Draper, we understood, had been tried for mutiny (of an aggravated kind) at Quebec.

“This mode of recruiting the regiment must have proved as disgusting to the officers, as it was detrimental to the interests of the settlement. If the corps was raised for the purpose of protecting the civil establishment, and of bringing a counterpoise to the vices and crimes which might naturally be expected to exist among the convicts, it ought to have been carefully formed from the best characters; instead of which, we now found a mutineer—(a wretch who could deliberate with others, and consent himself, to be the chosen instrument of the destruction of his sovereign’s son) sent among us, to remain for life, perhaps, as a check upon sedition, now added to the catalogue of our other imported vices.”

No. 3. February 1796, p. 455.—“The most active of the soldiers in this affair” [a not] “had formerly been convicts, who, not having changed their principles with their condition, thus became the means of disgracing their fellow soldiers. The corps certainly was not much improved by the introduction of people of this description among them. It might well have been supposed, that being taken as good characters from the class of prisoners, they would have felt themselves above mixing with any of them afterwards; butit happened otherwise. They had nothing in them of that pride which is termed esprit de corps, but at times mixed with the convicts familiarly as former companions; yet, when they chose to quarrel with, or complain of them, they meanly asserted their superiority as soldiers.”

No. 4. May 1796, p. 475.—“Arrived two officers of the Bengal army, and a surgeon of the military establishment, for the purpose of raising 200 recruits from amongthose people who had served their respective terms of transportation. They were to be regularly enlisted and attested, and were to receive bounty-money.

“On the first view of this scheme, it appeared very plausible; and we imagined that the execution of it would be attended with much good to the settlement, by ridding it of many of those wretches whom we had too much reason to deem our greatest nuisances; but when we found that the recruiting officer was instructed to be nice as to the characters of those he should enlist, and to entertain none that were of known bad morals, we perceived that the settlement would derive less benefit from it than was at first expected. There was also some reason to suppose, that several settlers would abandon their farms, and leaving their families a burden to the store, embrace the change which was offered them, by enlisting as East India soldiers. It was far better for us, if any were capable of bearing arms and becoming soldiers, to arm them in defence of their own lives and possessions, and by embodying them from time to time as a militia, save to the public the expense of a regiment or corps raised for the mere purpose of protecting the public stores and the civil establishment of the colony.

“Recruiting, therefore, in this colony for the Bengal army being a measure that required some consideration, and which the Governor thought should first have obtained the sanction of administration, he determined to wait the result of a communication on the subject with the Secretary of State, before he gave it his countenance. At the same time, he meant to recommend it in a certain degree, as itwas evident that many good recruits might be taken, without any injury to the interests of the settlement, from that class of our people who, being no longer prisoners, declined labouring for government, and, without any visible means of subsisting, lived where and how they chose.”

Good—in the mouth of a governor of the “improved” colony, looking to the interests of that same colony, and to no other interests—the worse the nuisance, the better the riddance. But a Governor of Bengal?—what, on such an occasion, might be expected to be his language? Let the late chief magistrate of the “improved” colony, Lieutenant-colonel Collins, speak for him: “What community,” says he, speaking of the colony at the latest and most improved period of its existence, May 1800, (ii. 295,) and on the very question respecting the endurance of the emigrants from thence, in this very country of Bengal—“what community, where honesty and morality was cultivated, would not deprecate even the possibility of such characters mixing with them, with as much earnestness as a people in health would dread the importation of a plague or a yellow-fever.”

[* ]Cicero.

[* ]Lownes, p. 76.—“In the year 1776, the Convention of Pennsylvania directed a reform of the penal laws, and the introduction of public hard labour, as a punishment for offences. This was attended to by the legislature, and an essay was made in the year 1786, by a law which directed that the convicts should be employed in cleaning the streets, repairing the roads, &c., have their heads shaved, and be distinguished by an infamous habit. This was literally complied with; but, however well meant, was soon found to be productive of the greatest evils, and had a very opposite effect from what was contemplated by the framers of the law. The disorders in society, the robberies, burglaries, breaches of prisons, alarms in town and country—the drunkenness, profanity, and indecencies of the prisoners in the street, must be in the memory of most. With these disorders, the numbers of the criminals increased to such a degree, as to alarm the community with fears that it would be impossible to find a place either large or strong enough to hold them. The severity of the law, and disgraceful manner of executing it, led to a proportionate degree of depravity and insensibility, and every spark of morality appeared to be destroyed. The keepers were armed with swords, blunderbusses, and other weapons of destruction: the prisoners secured by cumbrous iron collars and chains fixed to bombshells. Their dress was formed with every mark of disgrace. The old and hardened offender daily in the practice of begging and insulting the inhabitants—collecting crowds of idle boys, and holding with them the most indecent and improper conversation. Thus disgracefully treated, and heated with liquor, they meditated and executed plans of escape—and, when at liberty, their distress, disgrace, and fears, prompted them to violent acts, to satisfy the immediate demands of nature. Their attacks upon society were well known to be desperate, and to some they proved fatal!”

Observations.—In this disastrous and justly exploded, though neither unexampled, nor in every respect discommendable system, your Lordship will immediately recognise the New South Wales jail gangs. Not that the parallel reflects anything like blame upon those who instituted them in the “improved” colony. What is one man’s meat is another man’s poison: mischief could not but be done by them in Philadelphia: mischief could not be done by them in New South Wales. In Philadelphia, their deportment was an object of disgust and terror to the great bulk of the passing multitude: it became, notwithstanding—such is the power of example, even the example of wretchedness and infamy over some minds—it became in one way or other a source of corruption to a few. In New South Wales, society was proof against both mischiefs—no eye to which the deportment of the profligate was not much more familiar than any other: no ear—which had any unlearned wickedness to learn of them. Jet cannot be blackened: putridity cannot be corrupted.

[* ]Eddy, p. 17.

[† ]Ibid. p. 70.

[‡ ]It was in that year that it came to me in French, from the worthy author, in manuscript, and (for I know not what cause relative to the calamities of the times) under the seal of secresy. It was not till the next year I had the satisfaction of finding myself released from the obligation, by an advertisement announcing a translation of it in English.

[* ]Supra, p. 181.

[* ]II. Collins, pp. 8, 64.

[† ]It cannot have been a secret to them. In the unpublished book, entitled Panopticon, printed in 1791, I find in page 141, on Separation, &c. the following passage:—“Turn now to New South Wales: 2000 convicts of both sexes, and 160 soldiers, not to speak of officers, jumbled together in one mass, and mingling like beasts: in two years, from 14 marriages, 87 births: the morals of Otaheite introduced into New Holland, by the medium of Old England.”

After this I find a reference as follows:—“See Governor Phillips’ account of the settlement, 4to. 1791, pp. viii. 67; Mr. White’s ditto, 4to. 1790, and extracts of letters and accounts printed and laid before the House of Commons in pursuance of an order of April 8th 1791, p. 3.”

November 1802.—I find now, my Lord, I ought to beg pardon of the beasts, since by subsequent accounts there have been times in which, in point of decency, as far as depends upon clothing, the four-footed race have had greatly the advantage.

No. 1, II. Collins, p. 101, March 1798.—“Provisions ... stores—16 months since the last were received. A few slops were served to the male convicts in the beginning of this month, they being nearly naked, and the store unable to supply them with covering.”

No. 2, Ib. p. 142, January 1799.—“The convicts in general had suffered much through want of clothing and bedding. Indeed, during the late harvest, several gangs were seen labouring in the field as free of clothing of any kind as the savages of the country. This had made them insolent, and anonymous letters were dropped, in which were threatenings of what would be done at the proper season.”

Nakedness, and thence insolence:—and the blame, my Lord—where is it? With those who wore no clothes because they could get none? or with those who left them without clothes?—Suffer till you rot, suffer without complaint—no notice taken: complain—notice taken that you are insolent. Harsh forms excepted, could not your Lordship’s recollection furnish you with something like another instance?

[* ]I. Collins, p. 74; II. pp. 131, 212, 267.

[* ]In the note inserted p. 181 (Letter I.) the following head, intended for the third, was omitted by mistake. It will be found, I believe, not less apposite in this place. III.

Soldiery corrupted by the Convicts—closer Inspection the only remedy.

No. 1, p. 59, 60, 61. March 1789. “He [Hunt] accused six other soldiers of having been concerned with him in the diabolical practice of robbing the store, for a considerable time past, of liquor and provisions in large quantities . . . . . . . . A connexion subsisted between them and some of the worst of the female convicts, at whose huts, notwithstanding the internal regulations of their quarters, they found means to enjoy their ill-acquired plunder . . . . . . On the morning of their execution, one of them declared to the clergyman who attended him, that the like practices had been carried on at the store at Rose Hill by similar means, and with similar success. He named two soldiers and a convict as the persons concerned.”

No. 2, p. 313, 314. September 1793.—“The foundation of another barrack for officers was begun in this month. For the privates, one only was yet erected; but this was not attended with any inconvenience, as all those who were not in quarters had built themselves comfortable huts between the town of Sydney and the brick kilns. This indulgence might be attended with some convenience to the soldiers; but it had ever been considered that soldiers could nowhere be so well regulated as when living in quarters, where by frequent inspections and visitings their characters would be known, and their conduct attended to. In a multiplicity of scattered huts, the eye of vigilance would with difficulty find its object; and the soldier in possession of a habitation of his own might in a course of time think of himself more as an independent citizen, than as a subordinate soldier.”

No. 3, p. 425. February 1796.—“This intercourse had been strongly prohibited by their officers; but living (as once before mentioned) in huts by themselves, it was carried on without their knowledge. Most of them were now, however, ordered into the barracks; but to give this regulation the full effect, a high brick wall, or an inclosure of strong paling round the barracks, was requisite: the latter of these securities would have been put some time before, had there not been a want of the labouring hands necessary to prepare and collect the materials.”

[† ]A cause perhaps equally efficient is the promiscuous aggregation; and this being of the very essence of the colonization system, is still more palpably incurable than the drunkenness. But as this, in the character of a matter of fact, needs no proof, it would have been misplaced, if inserted among the heads under which the evidentiary matter stands arranged.

[* ]“To prevent their being interrupted,” not to prevent its being known, since their supposed abilities in this way were matter of boast.

[* ]The governor? Was he too of the number?—If not, did she sail, or was she freighted or unloaded without his knowledge?—What, then, Sir, do you mean to accuse all these gentlemen * * * *?—Not them—indeed, my Lord.

[† ]Dic quibus in terris . . . . . Where is that colony, which, if it were not poisoned, would be starved?—For the consequence, see the next article.

[‡ ]Drunk, they will not sow—not drunk, they will not reap—(No. 13.)

[∥ ]A prohibition of this sort, if it could be made effectual in one place, why not in another?—if at one time, why not at another?

[§ ]Quere, the penalty, and on what statute an offender would have been to be indicted?

[* ]“Similar prisons are already established in New Jersey and Virginia, and others are proposed to be erected in Massachusetts and South Carolina.”

[* ]The prisoners under the inspection of each other!—A pretty check that would be in New South Wales!

[* ]Papers intituled, Pauper Management Improved; first printed in Young’s Annals, anno 1797 and 1798.

[* ]A collateral advantage, and on the score of frugality a very material one, is that which respects the number of the inspectors requisite. If this plan required more than another, the additional number would form an objection which, were the difference to a certain degree considerable, might rise so high as to be conclusive: so far from it, a greater multitude than ever were yet lodged in one house, might be inspected by a single person. For the trouble of inspection is diminished in no less proportion than the strictness of inspection is increased.

Another very important advantage, whatever purposes the plan may be applied to, particularly where it is applied to the severest and most coercive purposes, is, that the under-keepers or inspectors, the servants and subordinates of every kind, will be under the same irresistible control with respect to the head keeper or inspector, as the prisoners or other persons to be governed are with respect to them. On the common plans, what means, what possibility, has the prisoner of appealing to the humanity of the principal for redress against the neglect or oppression of subordinates, in that rigid sphere, but the few opportunities which, in a crowded prison, the most conscientious keeper can afford—but the none at all which many a keeper thinks fit to give them? How different would their lot be upon this plan!

In no instance could his subordinates either perform or depart from their duty, but he must know the time and degree and manner of their doing so. It presents an answer, and that a satisfactory one, to one of the most puzzling of political questions, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? and as the fulfilling of his as well as their duty would be rendered so much easier than it can ever have been hitherto, so might and so should any departure from it be punished with the more inflexible severity. It is this circumstance that renders the influence of this plan not less beneficial to what is called liberty, than to necessary coercion; not less powerful as a controul upon subordinate power, than as a curb to delinquency; as a shield to innocence, than as a scourge to guilt. Another advantage, still operating to the same ends, is the great load of trouble and disgust which it takes off the shoulders of those occasional inspectors of a higher order, such as judges and other magistrates, who, called down to this irksome task from the superior ranks of life, cannot but feel a proportionable repugnance to the discharge of it. Think how it is with them upon the present plans, and how it still must be upon the best plans that have been hitherto devised! The cells or apartments, however constructed, must, if there be 900 of them, (as there were to have been upon the penitentiary-house plan) be opened to the visitors one by one. To do their business to any purpose, they must approach near to, and come almost in contact with, each inhabitant, whose situation being watched over according to no other than the loose methods of inspection at present practicable, will on that account require the more minute and troublesome investigation on the part of these occasional superintendents. By this new plan, the disgust is entirely removed, and the trouble of going into such a room as the lodge is no more than the trouble of going into any other.

Were Newgate upon this plan, all Newgate might be inspected by a quarter of an hour’s visit to Mr. Ackerman.

Among the other causes of that reluctance, none at present so forcible, none so unhappily well grounded, none which affords so natural an excuse, nor so strong a reason against accepting of any excuse, as the danger of infection: a circumstance which carries death, in one of its most tremendous forms, from the seat of guilt to the seat of justice, involving in one common catastrophe the violator and the upholder of the laws. But in a spot so constructed, and under a course of discipline so insured, how should infection ever arise? or how should it continue? Against every danger of this kind, what private house of the poor—one might almost say, or even of the most opulent—can be equally secure?

Nor is the disagreeableness of the task of superintendence diminished by this plan in a much greater degree than the efficacy of it is increased. On all others, be the superintendent’s visit ever so unexpected, and his motions ever so quick, time there must always be forpreparations, blinding the real state of things. Out of nine hundred cells, he can visit but one at a time; and, in the meanwhile, the worst of the others may be arranged, and the inhabitants threatened and tutored how to receive him. On this plan, no sooner is the superintendent announced, than the whole scene opens instantaneously to his view.

In mentioning inspectors and superintendents who are such by office, I must not overlook that system of inspection, which, however little heeded, will not be the less useful and efficacious: I mean the part which individuals may be disposed to take in the business, without intending perhaps, or even without thinking of, any other effects of their visits, than the gratification of their own particular curiosity. What the inspector’s or keeper’s family are with respect to him, that and more will these spontaneous visitors be to the superintendent: assistants, deputies in so far as he is faithful, witnesses and judges should he ever be unfaithful to his trust. So as they are but there, what the motives were that drew them thither, is perfectly immaterial: whether the relieving their anxieties by the affecting prospects of their respective friends and relatives thus detained in durance, or merely the satisfying that general curiosity, which an establishment on various accounts so interesting to human feelings, may naturally be expected to excite.

You see I take for granted as a matter of course, that under the necessary regulations for preventing interruption and disturbance, the doors of these establishments will be, as, without very special reasons to the contrary, the doors of all public establishments ought to be, thrown wide open to the body of the curious at large:—the great open committee of the tribunal of the world. And who ever objects to such publicity where it is practicable, but those whose motives for objection, afford the strongest reasons for it?

Decomposing the plan, I will now take the liberty of offering a few separate considerations, applicable to the different purposes to which it appears capable of being applied.

A penitentiary-house more particularly is (I am sorry I must correct myself, and say was to have been) what every prison might, and in some degree at least ought to be, designed at once as a place of safe custody and a place of labour. Every such place must necessarily be, whether designed or not, an hospital: a place where sickness will be found at least, whether provision be or be not made for its relief. I will consider this plan in its application to these three distinguishable purposes.

Against escapes, and in particular on the part of felons of every description, as well before as after conviction—persons from the desperateness of whose situation attempts to escape are more particularly to be apprehended, it would afford, as I dare say you see already, a degree of security, which perhaps has been scarcely hitherto reached by conception, much less by practice. Overpowering the guard requires an union of hands, and a concert among minds. But what union, or what concert, can there be among persons, no one of whom will have set eyes on any other from the first moment of his entrance? Undermining walls, forcing iron bars, requires commonly a concert, always a length of time exempt from interruption. But who would think of beginning a work of hours and days without any tolerable prospect of making so much as the first motion towards it unobserved? Such attempts have been seldom made without the assistance of implements introduced by accomplices from without. But who would expose themselves even to the slightest punishment, or even to the mortification of the disappointment, without so much as a tolerable chance of escaping instantaneous detection?—who would think of bringing in before the keeper’s face so much as a small file, or a phial of aquafortis, to a person not prepared to receive any such thing, nor in a condition to make use of it? Upon all plans hitherto pursued, the thickest walls have been found occasionally unavailing: upon this plan, the thinnest would be sufficient; a circumstance which must operate, in a striking degree, towards a diminution of the expense.

In this, as in every other application of the plan, you will find its lenient, not less conspicuous than its coercive tendency; insomuch that if you were to be asked, who had most cause to wish for its adoption, you might find yourself at some loss to determine between the malefactors themselves, and those for whose sake they are consigned to punishment.

[* ]While correcting the press, an incident occurs, from which it should seem that American prisons are not the only places of confinement from which, when correcting eyes are wanting, or off their station, or opposed by walls, a man may find means to make his escape.

Times, December 15, 1802.—“J. Murphy, a convict, who made his escape from the Captivity hulk on Wednesday se’nnight, was taken near Fareham, and lodged in the Bridewell at Gosport. He made his escape from that prison on Wednesday last, by scaling the walls, and got clear off. This is the fourth time he has contrived to get out of confinement since he was sentenced to transportation; once from Newgate, from the hulk at Woolwich, from the Captivity at Portsmouth, and from the gaol as above.

Query 1st. How many times in the same period would this ingenious person have effected his escape from a prison on the panopticon plan, out of an apartment exposed night and day to the view of several pairs of eyes, themselves unseen by him, and commanding the whole circle without so much as a change of place?

Query 2d. What obstacle, if any, did noble lords expect would be opposed to any such ingenuity in these four places of confinement, together with the rest of them, 250 or so, throughout England, by the gentleman who, confining his inspection to the hulks, takes four peeps at them in a year, at £87 a peep?

Query 3d. Was it lest noble eyes should be suspected of being constantly asleep, that subordinate eyes were commissioned to be periodically awake?

Query 4th. When, for the single purpose of this nominal inspection, Parliament was called upon for a fresh act [42 Geo. III. c. 28, 24th March 1802,] might it not have been as well, if some show of obedience had been paid to the two already existing acts, of which, if obeyed, real inspection would have been the fruit?

[* ]3d December 1792. Bradford and Lownes, p. 108.—Report of Inspectors of the Prison. By the same report, under the influence of the former system, no more than about one year and a half before, viz. 3d of May 1791, the number was as high as 143.

In 1791, according to the census for the United States, the population of the city and county was about one eighth of that of the whole state (as 54, 391 to 434, 373:) the number of the criminals in the rest of the state being but 13, when that of the city and county was 24, this gives the degree of criminality, in the country situation no more than about one sixth of ditto in the town ditto.

[* ]Collins, I. 392.

[† ]Ib. 492.

[* ]Letter I, p. 180.

[† ]I. Collins p. 235; II. 40, 100, 210.

[* ]II. Collins, 17, 69, 72, 129, 132, 197, 277. Supra, pp. 221-2.

[† ]II. Collins, 15, 31, 32, 33, 40, 56, 68, 204, 209.

[‡ ]Ib. 125, 139, 199, 334.

[∥ ]Ib. 199, 289, 334.

[§ ]Ib. 467, Let. I. p. 178.

[¶ ]II. Collins, 334.

[** ]Ib. 203.

[†† ]Ib. 272.

[‡‡ ]Ib. 136.

[* ]In my uninformed situation, I should have found it a matter of extreme difficulty to make any thing like a tolerably correct calculation of the proportional quantity of provisions requisite to be kept in store. From this difficulty the passages in the first part of Captain Collins’ history relieve me in some measure, by fixing the quantity at a two years’ stock. In November 1789, this in fact was the proportion landed;a and as to opinion in February 1790, after near two years’ experience, the same quantity “at the least,” was what “the governor, in all his dispatches, had uniformly declared the strong necessity of having in store for some time to come.”b The date of this opinion (it may be observed) was a time at which the proportion furnished by the colony itself was as yet but very inconsiderable: whereas, by the last accounts, the quantity furnished by the colony within the year appears to have been nearly, if not completely, sufficient for the consumption of the year. To state the question with perfect precision would require more discussion than it were worth; but at any rate it does not appear that the demand for a security-fund of this sort is varied in any determinable proportion by the difference respecting the source looked to for the supply. At the time of that calculation, the danger to be provided against was the danger of non-arrivals: at present, if the internal resources of the settlement are to be trusted to, and no more provisions are to be sent thither from without, the danger to be provided against is the internal danger—the danger composed of non-production on the one hand, and destruction on the other. The two years’ provisions spoken of as received in the colony almost two years after the arrival of the first and principal expedition, was, it should be observed, so much over and above whatever stock was at that time expected here at home to have been raised within the colony. The breeding part of the live stock, it may on the other hand be observed, is a resource capable of being added to the part destined for consumption, together with the vegetable stock in store. True: but the live stock itself depends upon the vegetable stock—a bad crop may reduce, and in the same proportion—the men themselves, and the cattle that should feed them.

The natural course of things seems to be—that to save the expense, which is the certain evil, and that which comes most home to gentlemen here at home—the supply should from henceforward be kept constantly deficient—the calamity, till it happens again, being as usual regarded as impossible. Of the two rival results—on the one hand sufficiency, and thence expense—on the other hand deficiency, and thence famine—that the famine should happen now and then to thin the ranks and lighten the budget, as before, seems at any rate the most convenient result, and so far the most probable. I speak of a moderate famine, of the customary established scantling; for if, instead of a fourth or so, the whole population were to be carried off by this or any other cause at once, this would be a sort of innovation: it might possibly make a sensation; and it seems not improbable, that the beginning the business again de novo—an operation requiring thought—might find somebody to object to it.

It appears, already, that an apprehended scarcity, such as that which struck off “a third of the ration” in January 1800, had not been understood to warrant the governor in forbearing to lessen the encouragement, the influence of which was all he had to trust to for any increase in the supply. It was but the month before that “they were told [the settlers in a body] to prepare for the reduction that would certainly take place in the next season.”c At this time there was not “more than “six months” provisions in the store at full allowance,” for in the next month (January 1800,) when the reduction of the ration took place, there was “not more than five;”d and it was at the very moment of this declaration of scarcity, that an actual defalcation to the amount of 5 per cent.—an unpredicted, previous to the predicted one—was made from the price. Economy appears to have been at this time the order of the day, and the order must, humanly speaking, have come from gentlemen here at home. Men neither embrace starvation nor any approach to it, unless forced. Is it natural, that when one governor was not contented with less than a two years’ stock, another governor should be so well contented with a five months’ stock, as to take precisely that time for reducing the only encouragement men had for raising more?

Supplement to Swift’s Directions to Servants.—King’s Upper Servants—If you want to show what credit you have with your master, and how little you care for gainsayers, take as bad a measure as you can find; bad by repugnance to its pretended object, and doubly bad on account of the expense. Then, to show your economy, instead of giving the measure up, starve it, with the people concerned in it; which saves so much expense.

[† ]I. Collins, p. 334.

[* ]II. Collins, 97, supra, p. 216.

[† ]10s. per bushel in December 1799; II. Collins, p. 276: in Norfolk Island, 15s. in January 1799; Ib. 196.

[‡ ]Letter I. p. 182.

[∥ ]II. Collins 92, 105, 114, 205, 269, 274, 305.

[§ ]Ib. 106.

[¶ ]Ib. 126, 269, 274, 276.

[* ]II. Collins 139.

[† ]Ib. 135.

[‡ ]Ib. 26, 295.

[∥ ]Ib. 294.

[† ]Number of chaplains, at one time, one; at another, two: stations, at first but one; before Captain Collins left the colony, from five to ten, each to appearance at too great a distance from the rest to send auditors to a congregation collected at any other. In the map annexed to Captain Collins’ book, I observe about this number of separate stations, without including such small ones as, being to appearance each of them within two or three miles of some other may be supposed not too far distant for that purpose. Are the labours of the sacred function to be regarded as an essential article among the efficient causes of reformation? Then the establishment of from four to eight of these stations, of every number above that of the chaplains—was, and continues to be, indefensible. Instead of being a necessary, is religious service a mere luxury? Then no such officer as a chaplain should have been sent out at all—none at least for the convicts—none, unless it be a regimental chaplain for the benefit of the military; though, indeed, of the military themselves the distribution must have been regulated in some measure by that of the convicts—that of the watchmen by that of the persons to be watched.

Of late, malcontents from Ireland have been sent in multitudes to New South Wales. Part of them, probably the greater part, must have been of the Catholic persuasion: among these, have there been any priests? It seems not improbable; and if so, as far as their quarters may have been within distance of the stations of their lay companions, so far all may have been right. Have there been no priests? Then surely one priest, at least, should have been sent out on the same voluntary footing as the clergymen of the Church of England. If there be a difference, of all branches of the Christian religion, the Catholic is surely that in which the services of a consecrated minister are most strictly indispensable.

In Norfolk Island, how is it? If there be a clergyman now (and I have not found that there is one,) there was no such officer, at least so late as on the 18th of October 1796, though at that time the number of inhabitants was already 887.aQuere 1. How many fewer souls to be saved have 887 persons in Norfolk Island, than the same number of persons in New South Wales or Great Britain? Quere 2. If out of 4848 persons, sacerdotal service be needless to 887 taken at random, what need is there of it for the rest? In January 1792, a minister of religion (the chaplain of the New South Wales corps) did, it appears, pay a visit to that spot. It was, however, the first visit of the kind in so many years; and that a mere temporary excursion, the fruit of spontaneous zeal, and not of any particle of attention that appears ever to have been paid to the subject by the arch-reformers here at home.b

But to judge from the whole tenor of Captain Collins’ Journal, as well as from the nature of the case, the truth is, that so far as the convicts were concerned, the real service which it was in the power of any ministers of religion, of any persuasion, or in any number, to render to these poor wretches, was in all places alike: presence or absence made no sort of difference.

What is above was written before the historian’s second volume had made its appearance. In this continuation it appears, that in one of the importations of the convicts from Ireland, a priest of the Catholic persuasion (Harold by name) was actually comprised.c

If instead of this seditionist, a loyalist clergyman of the same religious persuasion had been sent out, such an addition to the civil establishment might, in that country, one should have thought, have been not ill worth the expense. The political sanction might thus have found in the religious a useful ally—a useful defence against the hostility of the popular sanction. The spirit of tumultuary violence, the epidemic malady for the cure of which these deplorable objects had been ordered to this disastrous watering-place, might in that case, instead of being constantly stimulated, have been gradually allayed. The rebel priest, the most pernicious pastor that could have been found for the rebel flock, might have been consigned to Norfolk Island, on the supposition of their remaining all of them in New South Wales. The two lives which it was afterwards deemed necessary to sacrifice to public justice and security might thus have been preserved,d and the exigence which has given birth to so dangerous an expedient and precedent as that of volunteer associations among unreformed convicts,e might never have taken place.

[† ]Under the old transportation system, all this inequality was the result of the course taken for ridding the country of these its obnoxious inmates. Powers being given for the purpose by parliament, they were made over by government to a contractor, who, for the profit to be made by selling their services, for the penal term, to a master in America, engaged to convey them to the destined scene of banishment, or at least to convey them out of the country (the mother country) from which they were to be expelled. Taking the punishment thus upon the face of the letter of the law, the effect of it would be in all cases alike—to add to the fundamental and introductory part of it, banishment, the ulterior and perfectly distinct punishment of bondage—banishment from the mother country, bondage to be endured in the country to which the convict was to be expelled. Such being in all cases the effect in appearance, such also would it in general be in practice; because, in general, the poverty of the convict precluding him from purchasing any indulgence, the price paid for his services by a stranger in America was the only source of profit to the first purchaser—I mean, the merchant who in Great Britain insured the conveyance of the convict to that distant quarter of the globe. But a very moderate sum of money was sufficient to enable a man to exempt himself from this most afflictive part of the punishment; for wherever it happened that through the medium of a friend or otherwise he could bid more for himself than would be bidden for him by a stranger, liberty thereupon, of course, took place of bondage. Poverty, therefore, rather than the crime of which a man was convicted, was the offence of which the bondage was the punishment; and, so far as the amount of the depredation is to be taken as a measure of the magnitude of the crime, the greater the crime, the better the chance which the criminal would in this way give himself for escaping the severer part of his lot. The profession of a receiver of stolen goods—a connexion with an opulent and successful gang—were among the circumstances that would in general secure to a man an exemption from this most salutary as well as afflictive part of the penal discipline.

Under the new transportation system—the system of transportation to the land of general bondage—this inequality received a pretty effectual correction, far as the nature of the punishment was from being improved, and the condition of the convict population from being meliorated, upon the whole. The person on whom the lot of the convict, in this respect, was made to depend, was no longer in any instance a friend or trustee converting the nominal bondage into real liberty: he was in every instance one and the same person—the general agent of the crown, the governor of the colony, who, with regal powers, dealt out justice or mercy, in each instance, according to the joint measure of his own humanity and his own wisdom. Bondage was not now to be bought off for money; at the same time, it was but natural that in the case of an individual whose education and mode of life had habitually exempted him from ordinary labour, a proportionate degree of indulgence should be manifested, in respect of the quality or quantity of his task. So far, so good. On the other hand, the instances to which this improvement extended were but few and accidental; while, in point of industry, sobriety, and other features of moral amelioration, the condition of the many was, by the causes already stated, rendered worse, not better, by the change. Under the old transportation system, the person on whom the condition of the convict depended—a master employing him for his own (the master’s) benefit—would stand engaged, by the tie of personal interest, to extract from him as much labour as could be extracted,—to watch over his conduct, in that and every other respect, with the most uninterrupted vigilance,—and, upon the whole, in respect of quality as well as quantity of work, to give the utmost value to his service. Under this new transportation system, the management being mere trust management—management under the general orders of the governor, conducted for the benefit of the public purse—management, therefore, without interest, at least without pecuniary interest, as well as without any other than a very loose inspection—the effect of it was in this respect such as from the nature of man might be expected. By the late chief magistrate of the colony, the average amount of a day’s labour was estimated (as will be seen further on) at not more than a third of what would have been rendered by a free labourer working on the ordinary terms.a True it is, that a considerable part of the convict population has all along been distributed among the officers, to be employed by them for their own benefit; in which case it can scarce be doubted, but that in all points, and especially in that of industry, more attention was paid to the conduct of the convicts thus disposed of, than was or could be paid to such of them as were retained, on the footing above exhibited, in the public service. Still, however, in this case, the closeness of inspection would on many accounts fall short of that which under the old transportation system (the system of transportation to America) would have been generally kept up. In America, the masters becoming such by purchase would without exception be persons already engaged in habits of vigilance and industry. In a society composed of military men, a character of this sort could not reasonably be expected to be found equally prevalent. In America, the master’s own choice had in every instance fixed him, and for life, in that employment for the purpose of which he took upon himself to purchase the interest in question in the convict’s services. In New South Wales, the profession of the species of master in question is of the number of those which are embraced more frequently through disinclination than through any predilection for money-getting industry—thoughts and wishes pointing homewards the whole time—and the continuance of the situation, by which the demand for such compulsive service is afforded, short-lived and precarious. Service that was to be had for nothing would not naturally (it is true) in that situation, any more than in any other, be refused: but, on the other hand, neither does it seem reasonable to suppose, that in such circumstances any such advantage would, upon an average, he derived from it, as in America, under the old transportation system, would have been generally extracted by a purchasing master from the services of his purchased bondsman.

The emancipated convicts, under the name of settlers, constituted indeed another class of masters, who, under the authority of the governor, either on the same gratuitous terms as in the case of the officers, or for wages on the footing of a free contract, shared in a considerable proportion whatever benefit was to be reaped from the labour of their fellow-convicts during their respective penal terms in some instances, as well as in other instances after the expiration of those terms. But in the way of moral improvement, as well as steady industry, still less benefit (it is evident) was to be expected from this source than from the other. Accordingly, at the Hawkesbury settlement (in a passage which your Lordship has already seen, p. 467, anno 1796, stated by the late chief magistrate as the only one of all the settlements “where any prospects of agricultural advantage were to be found,”) it is moreover stated (in another passage which your Lordship has also seen, p. 483,) that “the settlers were found oftener employed in carousing in the fronts of their houses, than in labouring themselves, or superintending the labour of their servants on their grounds.”

Thus much as to the degree of pecuniary interest on the part of the master, and the quantity and quality of the effect it may be expected to have on the pecuniary value of the labour of the convict servant. But (setting aside rare and extreme cases, such as that of labour extorted in such excess as to shorten the thread of life) the moral interest of the convict bondsman, and the pecuniary interest of the purchasing master, will (we may venture to say) be found pretty exactly to coincide; since the more steadily a man’s time and thoughts are occupied in profitable labour, even though the profit be not his own, the more effectually they will all along be diverted from all unlawful objects. The general consequence is, that while the fortune of the master is receiving improvement from the labour of the once criminal workman, the moral habits of the workman himself will in the same proportion be receiving improvement from the same cause.

Two circumstances—two disastrous circumstances—have in a greater or less degree been common to transportation-punishment, under both its forms: in point of comfort, the condition of each convict under and during the punishment has been matter of pure contingency; while, in point of morality, his reformation, depending upon the same unforseeable events, has been left alike to be the sport of fortune. In both respects, happiness and morality, his condition has been thrown altogether out of the view of every eye in the country, under the laws of which, the discipline such as it was, had been administered—of the legislature by which the species of punishment had been selected and allotted to the species of offence—of the judges and the executive government by whose authority the individual had been consigned to that species of punishment—of that public which has so important an interest in the efficacy of every punishment, as well in the way of reformation as in the way of example, not to mention the interest which, on the score of humanity, every community has in the well-being of the meanest of its members. Under the transportation system—under that system in both its forms—the state of the convict, in relation to all these essential points, was and is, under the former by dispersion, under the latter by distance, thrown as it were purposely into the shade. Under the panopticon system, and that alone, light—the clearest and the most uninterrupted light—takes place of all such darkness. Considered with a view to moral health, as well as to physical comfort, a Panopticon is a vast hospital; but an hospital of that improved and hitherto unexampled description, in which, without prejudice to the management, and thereby to the efficacy of the regimen, the condition of the patient is at all times open to all eyes. In this home scene, neglect is as impossible, as any sufficient attention is in the distant one.

Among savages, when to a certain degree a man is sick in body, he is cast forth, and thought no more of. In a nation civilized in other respects, the same barbarity is still shown to this at least equally curable class of patients, in whose case the seat of disorder is in the mind. Not indeed to every division in this class. For patients labouring under insanity, known and characterized by that name, no man has yet prescribed a voyage to New South Wales. The inefficacy of such a prescription, however, could not be more complete in the case of that description of patients, than it has hitherto been, and from the nature of the case ever must be, in the instance of the other description to which it continues to be applied.

[† ]By the old transportation laws, the person who shall contract for the transportation of the convict, is declared to “have a property in his service,”a and that property is made transferable to “assigns,” and, for the sake of what was to be got in America by the sale of that property, contractors were, latterly at least, if not from the first, ready and willing to take upon themselves the charge of the transportation, without further recompense. Under the modern transportation laws,b the same form of words is still copied, the practice under them being (as already stated,) as far as the condition of the convict at least is concerned, as different as possible. In saying “the form of words,” I mean so far as concerns the giving to the transporter and his assigns, a property in the service of his passengers; though (as everybody knows) at the end of the voyage there is nothing to be got by selling them, nor so much as any person to whom they can be sold; the transporter being paid, not by a purchaser in any such sale, but by government itself.—Quere the first. By what law does the governor exercise the power he takes upon himself to exercise in New South Wales over the convicts during their terms? Is the property of the service of each convict assigned over to him by the merchant-transporter under his contract?—Quere the second. By what law does the commander of a king’s ship (the Glatton for instance) take upon himself to transport convicts? Is he made to sign a contract for the transportation of these his passengers, as an independent merchant would be for the performance of the same service? If the formality of a contract is employed, where is the legality? if not, where is the honesty of the practice? Powers obtained from parliament for one purpose are employed for another, and that an opposite one: powers given for the institution of domestic bondage, under management on private account in single families, are applied to the institution of public bondage, under management on trust account in gangs. Whoever said anything to parliament, of this radical change passed through Parliament under cover of the identity of the words?

[* ]Since the writing of the paragraph in the text, upon turning to Bryan Edwards’ History of the West Indies (vol. ii. book 4, ch. 4,) I find the following information on this head. So long ago as the year 1788, in the act 28 G. III. c. 54, use had been made of the principle of reward, for cementing the connexion between interest and duty, in the case of the ship surgeons, thereby required to be retained, on board the several ships concerned in the negro import trade. This might be a year or two before the time when, upon drawing up my penitentiary establishment proposal, the article in question had first occurred to me. In this legislative provision it is the principle of reward, reward alone as contradistinguished to punishment, that is applied. But it is the property of the principle of life-insurance, as employed in that proposal, to apply, and by the same movement, both springs of human action, reward and punishment, together: reward in the event of a degree of success, and thence as it may be presumed of care and exertion, beyond what is looked upon as the ordinary mark;—punishment in case of no higher a degree of those desirable results, than what is considered as falling short, by a certain amount, of that ordinary mark. The idea of employing the principle of reward in this way—the principle of reward singly—in the preservation of human life was thus, though a recent one, a principle already fixed in legislative practice, at the time when the idea of this principle of double action thus occurred to me—which double principle, even in this its double form, has so little of novelty in it, that it is in fact no more than the old established practice of life-insurance, applied to the preservation of the thing itself, which is the subject of the insurance. The practice of life insurance was in itself of comparatively very ancient date; but in the form in which it is thus familiar, it has no influence on practice, no influence on the duration of the life which is the subject of it. The life is in the hands of the owner, and depends not in any respect upon the conduct of the other party—on the conduct of the person who receives the actual premium, on condition of subjecting himself eventually to the payment of the contingent retribution. It is only in particular cases, that the life of one man is lodged in the power of another, in any such way as to be capable of being abridged, not only by positive deliberate design, but by mere negligence; and that in circumstances which render the application of punishment by judicial means impossible. Of these cases, the case of the gaoler presents itself as the most extensive and prominent case. To this case the other cases in question may be reduced. A ship employed in the transportation of convicts is a floating jail, employed for the confinement and conveyance of criminals under the law of the state: a ship employed in the slave-trade is a floating jail employed for the confinement of innocent men under the law of the strongest.

It appears, therefore, that in the contrivance of this article, I had proceeded one step indeed, but no more than one step, and that a step already indicated, and by no means obscurely, to any scrutinizing eye, by the closeness of its analogy to the first. Reward is a principle you get a man to subject himself to the action of, without difficulty: punishment, which, even when composed of no stronger materials than those very ones which constitute the matter of reward, is so much the stronger principle of action—punishment, you may in this shape get him to submit also to the action of, upon terms.

This accordingly is what is done, by the principle of life-assurance, applied as above, to the relation subsisting between the keeper of a place of confinement and his prisoners.

Under the influence of even the weaker half of the double principle—under the influence of reward alone, introduced as above, into the slave-trade, it may not be amiss to observe what effects, in practice, had already been the result:—say in July 1793, when the penitentiary proposal, after two or three years of neglect, was unfortunate enough to obtain the acceptance of Mr. Pitt.

Before the slave-trade regulations spoken of, “a ship of 240 tons would frequently be crowded” (according to Edwards)a “with no less than 520slaves; which was not allowing 10 inches of room to each individual. The consequence was, often times a loss of 15 per cent. in the voyage, and 4½ per cent. more in the harbours of the West Indies, previous to the sale, from diseases contracted at sea.” After, and doubtless by virtue of, those regulations—with their consequent comforts, prescribed breathing space and professional care taken together—the separate efficacy of each being undistinguishable—after these regulations made in 1788, and yet before June 1793 (this being the date that stands in the dedication prefixed to the first editions of Edwards’ book,) the 15 per cent. loss on the voyage was sunk already to an average of 7 per cent.; an apparent average which, for the reasons he gives, ought scarcely to be taken for more than perhaps half that rate. This at sea, and the 4½ per cent. loss in harbour, was reduced at the same time to so small a fraction, as three fourths per cent.

The experiment has instruction in it:—instruction derivable from it in more points of view than one. The difference between loss and loss shows the influence that may be exercised over human action, by a due application of the principles of moral dynamics—by a right management of the springs of action in human nature. The amount of the original customary loss—this amount compared with the causes that produced it, may serve to show how insufficient is the utmost check which the principle of sympathy, supported by whatever assistance it may happen to receive from all other principles of the social stamp—religion for instance, and regard for character, put together—is capable of opposing to the influence of the self-regarding principle of pecuniary interest, even where human life—where human lives even in multitudes are at stake. It may at the same time serve to obviate the imputation of passion or propensity to personal satire, if on any occasion a suspicion should be seen to suggest itself, that, in this or that instance, the fate of convicts may have been regarded with indifference, by men hardened possibly in some instances by personal character, naturally more or less in all instances by official situation. The views thus given are not among the most flattering ones; but the statesman, who should on that account shut his eyes against them, would be as little fit for his business as the surgeon was, whose tenderness would not suffer him to observe the course he was taking with his knife.

But to return. The principle on which these regulations were grounded (I mean in particular so much of it as concerns the rewards) had, all this time, not only been introduced into the statute book—introduced by that means within the pale of that consecrated ground, to which even the jealousy of office cannot refuse the name of practice—but had been agitated, and (one may almost say) beat into every head, in and about the treasury, at both ears, by those discussions about the slave-trade, that year after year had been occupying and agitating both houses of parliament: and the act itself by which this principle was first introduced, has since been, year after year, amended and enforced by statute after statute. Of this so much agitated—this so universally accepted principle—accepted at least in its application to the conveyance of the unhappy subjects of the black trade—what use, what application, was made in the adjustment of the contracts for the conveyance of white men, native Britons, to New South Wales, the contracts themselves, the contracts alone, were they for this purpose to be called for by parliament, would serve to show. It would then be seen—supposing the deficiency, if any, in point of care, to be the result, not of financial design, but of honest negligence—it would then be seen, whether the difference between a white skin and a black one were, or were not, an interval too wide, for such powers of abstraction as the treasury at that time afforded to measure and embrace.

[* ]In a report made by the committee of his Majesty’s Privy Council in 1789 (a report which, it may be presumed, did not meet with much disagreement on the part of either the first Lord or the Secretary of the Treasury)—in this report, as quoted by the late Mr. Bryan Edwards, in his History of the West Indies,a the value of British capital in these colonies is estimated all together at £70,000,000. At the same time, the “Mercantile value of the capital per annum,” (by which, I take for granted, he means the annual value of the produce raised by the employment of that capital) is estimated at no more than £7,000,000. This according to Mr. Edwards’ estimate; in which, if I understand the plan of valuation right, the rate assigned is rather higher than in that of their Lordships. Upon 70 millions, 7 millions is 10 per cent. In Mr. Pitt’s and Mr. Rose’s estimate, made for the purpose of the incometax, 15 per cent. is reckoned upon as the ordinary rate of profit upon mercantile capital, employed in the home trade:b an estimate which, in the main, appears to be agreed to and confirmed by Dr. Beeke.c It would be a problem worthy the ingenuity of those right honourable gentlemen, to show us by what process “indemnity for the past and security for the future” are to be bestowed upon this or any other country, by engaging its capitalists to employ their capital in a branch that produces no more than 10 per cent. in preference to so many other branches that produce 15 per cent.

[* ]In my uninformed situation, I should have found it a matter of extreme difficulty to make any thing like a tolerably correct calculation of the proportional quantity of provisions requisite to be kept in store. From this difficulty the passages in the first part of Captain Collins’ history relieve me in some measure, by fixing the quantity at a two years’ stock. In November 1789, this in fact was the proportion landed;a and as to opinion in February 1790, after near two years’ experience, the same quantity “at the least,” was what “the governor, in all his dispatches, had uniformly declared the strong necessity of having in store for some time to come.”b The date of this opinion (it may be observed) was a time at which the proportion furnished by the colony itself was as yet but very inconsiderable: whereas, by the last accounts, the quantity furnished by the colony within the year appears to have been nearly, if not completely, sufficient for the consumption of the year. To state the question with perfect precision would require more discussion than it were worth; but at any rate it does not appear that the demand for a security-fund of this sort is varied in any determinable proportion by the difference respecting the source looked to for the supply. At the time of that calculation, the danger to be provided against was the danger of non-arrivals: at present, if the internal resources of the settlement are to be trusted to, and no more provisions are to be sent thither from without, the danger to be provided against is the internal danger—the danger composed of non-production on the one hand, and destruction on the other. The two years’ provisions spoken of as received in the colony almost two years after the arrival of the first and principal expedition, was, it should be observed, so much over and above whatever stock was at that time expected here at home to have been raised within the colony. The breeding part of the live stock, it may on the other hand be observed, is a resource capable of being added to the part destined for consumption, together with the vegetable stock in store. True: but the live stock itself depends upon the vegetable stock—a bad crop may reduce, and in the same proportion—the men themselves, and the cattle that should feed them.

The natural course of things seems to be—that to save the expense, which is the certain evil, and that which comes most home to gentlemen here at home—the supply should from henceforward be kept constantly deficient—the calamity, till it happens again, being as usual regarded as impossible. Of the two rival results—on the one hand sufficiency, and thence expense—on the other hand deficiency, and thence famine—that the famine should happen now and then to thin the ranks and lighten the budget, as before, seems at any rate the most convenient result, and so far the most probable. I speak of a moderate famine, of the customary established scantling; for if, instead of a fourth or so, the whole population were to be carried off by this or any other cause at once, this would be a sort of innovation: it might possibly make a sensation; and it seems not improbable, that the beginning the business again de novo—an operation requiring thought—might find somebody to object to it.

It appears, already, that an apprehended scarcity, such as that which struck off “a third of the ration” in January 1800, had not been understood to warrant the governor in forbearing to lessen the encouragement, the influence of which was all he had to trust to for any increase in the supply. It was but the month before that “they were told [the settlers in a body] to prepare for the reduction that would certainly take place in the next season.”c At this time there was not “more than “six months” provisions in the store at full allowance,” for in the next month (January 1800,) when the reduction of the ration took place, there was “not more than five;”d and it was at the very moment of this declaration of scarcity, that an actual defalcation to the amount of 5 per cent.—an unpredicted, previous to the predicted one—was made from the price. Economy appears to have been at this time the order of the day, and the order must, humanly speaking, have come from gentlemen here at home. Men neither embrace starvation nor any approach to it, unless forced. Is it natural, that when one governor was not contented with less than a two years’ stock, another governor should be so well contented with a five months’ stock, as to take precisely that time for reducing the only encouragement men had for raising more?

Supplement to Swift’s Directions to Servants.—King’s Upper Servants—If you want to show what credit you have with your master, and how little you care for gainsayers, take as bad a measure as you can find; bad by repugnance to its pretended object, and doubly bad on account of the expense. Then, to show your economy, instead of giving the measure up, starve it, with the people concerned in it; which saves so much expense.

[a]1 Collins, pp. 504, 508, 512, 497.

[b]Ibid, p. 194.

[c]Ibid. p. 293.

[d]2 Collins, p. 333.

[e]Ibid. p. 303.

[a]II. Collins, p. 40.

[a]4 Geo. I. c. 11, § 1.

[b]24 Geo. III. sess. 2, c. 56, § 1, 13; 28 Geo. III. c. 24, § 5.

[a]2 Edwards, p. 121.

[a]II. Edwards, p. 381, 390, b. iv. ch. iii.

[b]Rose, Brief Examination, &c., 7th Edit. 1799, App. No. 7.

[c]On the Income Tax, 2d Edit. 1800, p. 131.

[a]I. Collins, 83.

[b]Ibid. 97.

[c]II. Collins 274, 276.

[d]Ib. 283.