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PREFACE. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 4 [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 4.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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PREFACE.

In two already printed Letters,* having for their direct object, not the legality, as here, but the policy of the penal colonization system, hints were given respecting the illegalities, which are the subject of the present sketch. At the same time, the publication of them in the ordinary mode was forborne, and the circulation of them confined to a few select hands: lest, before there should have been time for the application of a parliamentary remedy, the information thus given, of the illegality of the government there, should, by any of those indirect channels which are not wholly wanting, find its way into the colony, and be followed by any of those disorders, of which, in a community so composed, a state of known anarchy might so naturally be productive.

On that same occasion, mention was made of the case of the Ship Glatton, which in September or October had sailed with convicts for New South Wales. On all former occasions, the vessels in which convicts had been conveyed had been private vessels: the powers given by the various transportation acts not being applicable to king’s ships. The person to transport the convicts was to be a private individual:—he was to execute the business by contract; and the service to which the convicts were to be subjected, was to be rendered exclusively either to the person so transporting them, or to some other person or persons, to whom by such contracting transporter the right to such service had been assigned. The Glatton is a king’s ship: the first, if I mistake not, that had ever been employed in that service. Setting aside the possible fiction of the king’s captain having been converted for this purpose into an independent contracting merchant, and the king’s governor into a character of similar description, it follows, that, in point of law, neither has the captain during the voyage, nor will the governor have at the conclusion of it, any more power over these exiles, than he would have over any other passenger. The eventual consequences, in respect of trespass, murder, and so forth, are too complicated, yet at the same time too obvious, to be unfolded here.

This intimation, though from so obscure a quarter, has not been altogether without its fruit. I speak of the transportation facilitating act, the act of 43 Geo. III. c. 15, dated 29th December 1802; a statute which, from its almost unexampled brevity, may, without much expense of paper, find a place at the bottom of the page.

The occasion which called forth this manifestation of parliamentary wisdom, was the then and still intended expedition of the Ship Calcutta, another king’s ship with a similar lading, on a commission of exactly the same nature.

In this act, the powers I had ventured to point out as necessary for the ship that sailed without them, are precisely the powers that have been provided for the ship that is now to sail; and so far all is right. But the ship that sailed without them,—what provision is made in the act for her case? None whatever. To the case of all such convicts as may come to be transported, at any time subsequent to the 29th of December, the powers are capable of being applied: to whatever have been sent off before that time, they are not applicable. Captain Woodriff, whenever he sails, will sail (I doubt not) in the character of a lawful agent of the crown, provided with lawful powers: but Captain Colnett, (to whom I beg to be understood not to impute the smallest particle of moral blame,) Captain Colnett, for any warrant or protection that has been afforded him by this act, cannot have sailed in any other character than that of a kidnapper. For the exile, confinement, and bondage of Captain Woodriff’s cargo of convicts, there will doubtless be a sufficient warrant under this act. For the confinement and bondage of Captain Colnett’s cargo, there is no better warrant than there would be for the like coercion, if an equal number of his Majesty’s titled subjects, swept out of a birth-day ball-room, were to be the objects of it. Needless in toto, or else insufficient by half: such, upon the face of this statement, is the dilemma, out of which, if any gentleman in a long robe, or without a robe, is able to extricate the measure, he will do good service.

The act is simply enactive: it is not declarative. By being made declarative it might have been made virtually retrospective: but declarative clauses are seldom to be found, without an introductory escort of sometimes real, but more frequently pretended “doubts.” Here the preceding illegality, of the powers which it was the business of this act to confer, was beyond all doubt. In the personal character of the truly honourable servant of the crown, on whose shoulders the mechanism of this disastrous business pressed, I behold, with pleasure, a cause sufficient to account for the exclusion of this, as well as all other disingenuous pretences.

Being without retrospect in effect, the act is still more palpably destitute of every operation of that kind, expressed in direct terms. The cause of the deficiency is not less perceptible in this case than in the other. The emotion of disgust and alarm, with which an eye of legal and constitutional sensibility could not but have shrunk on this occasion from every such retrospective glance, may be anticipated in some measure from the very title-page of this Essay, and I flatter myself will be pretty distinctly warranted, as well as accounted for, by the tenor of the ensuing pages. So foul, so frightful, was the ulcer, the surgeon durst not look it in the face.

Thus then stands the matter at this hour. The same act by which legality has been given to the expedition about to sail, confesses the illegality of that which is already on its way. A deeper probe, a broader plaster, are still necessary. A fresh act must be passed for the ship Glatton, or all pretence of consistency—all regard for official decency—all regard for the forms and fences of the constitution—must be disclaimed.

[* ]Letters to Lord Pelham, giving a comparative view of the system of Penal Colonization in New South Wales, and the Home Penitentiary System, &c.

[]Letter I. p. 90.

[]43 Geo. III. c. 15, 29th December 1802.—“An act to facilitate and render more easy the transportation of offenders.”

“Whereas it is expedient that provision should be made for transferring the services of offenders transported in his Majesty’s ships or vessels, in cases where no contract is entered into, or security given in respect of such transportation, and that his Majesty should therefore be empowered to nominate and appoint persons to have a property in the service of such offenders . . . . be it enacted . . . . . that whenever his Majesty shall please to give orders for the transportation, in any ships or vessels belonging to his Majesty, of any offender or offenders, who already have, or hereafter may be sentenced to be, transported to any place or places within his Majesty’s dominions beyond the seas, it shall be lawful for his Majesty, by any order under his royal sign manual, to give, if he shall think fit, to any person or persons nominated and appointed for that purpose, in such order, a property in the service of any such offender or offenders, for such term or terms of life or years, or any part thereof respectively, for which such offender or offenders was, or were ordered to be transported, as to his Majesty shall seem fit; and on such nomination and appointment, such offender or offenders may be delivered to the person or persons so nominated and appointed, without any security being required or given for the transportation of such offender or offenders; and every person so nominated and appointed, and his or their assigns, shall have the like property in the service of such offender or offenders, as if such person or persons had contracted and given security to transport such offender or offenders, in the manner required by the act of the twenty-fourth year of his Majesty’s reign, intituled, An act for the effectual transportation of felons and other offenders, and to authorize the removal of prisoners in certain cases, and for other purposes therein mentioned, or any other law now in force; any thing in the said act, or any other act or acts, to the contrary notwithstanding.”