The principles of penal government recognised in the times of Governor
Arthur, may be best ascertained from his despatches and orders, and from
the writings of Dr. Ross, who, if not directly assisted by Arthur, was
inspired by his opinions. Whether those principles were practically
applied, will be known by reference to other testimony. The deviations
must not, however, be ascribed exclusively, either to the Governor's
connivance, or to the intrinsic defect of his system. He could not act
alone, and the agents he employed were sometimes incapable, and
sometimes corrupt. In his own writings, he repeatedly alludes to the
gradual approximation to what he deemed perfection of detail: it cost
him the labor of years.
The estimate he formed, philanthropists are slow to entertain: one-third
of those who arrived in these colonies, he rated incorrigible; the rest,
chiefly affected by the prospect of reward or the dread of punishment,
and indifferent to abstract good. In tracing crimes to their causes he
largely ascribes them to poverty, and the pressure of classes on each
other. He enunciated a novel view of the mental character of
criminals--that they were subjects of _delirium_; that they saw every
object through a false medium; and that no treatment could be successful
which did not restrain them by an enlightened rigour. This view, given
in a code of rules[187] for the management of road parties, was
attributed to the reasonings of a medical member of his government: the
notion it embodies, he himself ascribed to long experience in the
management of prisoners. His observation supplied the facts; his
councillor, perhaps, constructed the system.
He believed that to remove the opportunities of crime, was the only
successful method of general prevention; that to keep the convicts
quiet, to withdraw all external excitement was essential to successful
treatment of their mental malady. He compared the ordinary offender to a
steed untrained: very impatient of the curb and rein. The discipline of
the government, either by its own officers or the master, he likened to
a _breaking in_. Under the first application of the bridle, more facile
tempers became at once submissive and docile; or if not--if the man
threw the master--then came the government with heavier burdens and more
painful restraint: he was caught, and resistance was borne down. The
milder servitude being unsuccessful, then came magisterial admonition;
then the lash; then sequestration on the roads; then irons; then the
penal settlement--with its stern aspect, its ponderous labor, and prompt
torture; in which mercy wrought through terror and pain, and hope itself
was attired in lighter chains.
Arthur alleged that his system was inductive: reared upon a foundation
of facts, its classification was self-constituted: every step in the
several gradations of a prisoner's punishment was the result of his own
will; the first, by his crime against English society, the residue by
his misconduct in servitude. It was in his power, when delivered to his
master, to work out his own liberty, without knowing again the frown of
a magistrate, or the darkness of a dungeon: it was in his choice to
delay deliverance until death. Thus the distribution and separation
vainly attempted by a direct management of government, was better done
by the prisoners themselves: they determined their own merit by their
actual position, where they awaited pardon and liberty, or gradual
descent to despair.
Arthur watched with great diligence the operation of his system. The
character of most masters was known: they were bound to make annual
returns of the number and conduct of their men. Their recommendation was
required to procure the prisoner's indulgence: his police character was
drawn out in form--the parliamentary papers shew into what minute
particulars those documents entered; even an admonition of the
magistrates was noted, and made part of the case. _Black_ and _white_
books were kept, in which meritorious actions and the reverse were
recorded. The term of preparatory servitude was four, six, or eight
years--as the sentence was for seven, fourteen years, or life; then a
ticket-of-leave allowed the prisoner to find his own employ, to enjoy
his own earnings; subject to the surveillance of the police, and to a
forfeiture for breach of its regulations.
Arthur described the police as the pivot of his system: it comprehended
surveillance and detection. The establishment of district courts, in
which a paid magistrate resided, was an essential element of its
success. The masters had a correctional authority at hand: a few miles,
often a few minutes, brought them within the police court, and the
punishment ordered followed the offence by a very short interval. The
police constables, mostly prisoners of the crown, were selected from
each ship to assist the recognition of their fellow prisoners, and they
were rewarded for every runaway they arrested. They often shortened
their own sentence by procuring the conviction of others; often, too,
they obtained considerable sums, and even instant liberty, by the
discovery of an outlaw. They were acute, expert, and, we are told by
Arthur, vigilant beyond all men he ever knew. They were objects of fear
and detestation.
The strong will of the prisoners thus encountered opposition on every
hand. They were hedged round with restrictions; they were at the mercy
of the magistrate, and subject to the lash, for offences which language
is not sufficiently copious to distinguish with nicety.[188] Their
unsupported accusations recoiled on themselves. They were entitled to
complain, but the evidence they could generally command, was heard with
natural suspicion. So well did they understand the hopelessness of
contest, that they rarely replied, where a defence sometimes aggravated
their punishment.
The convict was subject to the caprice of all his master's household: he
was liable every moment to be accused, and punished.[189] Unknown,
without money, he had no protector or advocate: one magistrate could
authorise fifty lashes; one hundred could be inflicted by the
concurrence of a second. It was asserted by Arthur, that the statement
of their liabilities produced an expression of dismay in the
countenances of convicts newly arrived. The indefinite character of
these offences; the boundless discretion of the magistrate; the
influence of the master; the presumption always against the accused; the
dreadful nature of several of the punishments--doubtless created in many
the recklessness of defiance and despair. A prisoner's sentence might be
extended one or three years; he might be doomed to a penal settlement
and chains. Nor could he liberate himself from his servitude: he came
back from the triangles or road party, and stood at his master's door.
The determined resistance of change, except for punishment; the
indissoluble tie of men to masters--was one part of Arthur's plan. The
knowledge that submission was the only chance of happiness, caused many
to yield to their destiny without a struggle; and where masters were
humane, the connection lasted, without murmuring or oppression, until
the close; but with many more, it was a period of misery, mental and
bodily--the fierce passions breaking into open war, and seeking nothing
but revenge or freedom. The rolls of the muster-master exhibit curious
instances of this long struggle: there are several now before the
writer, in which punishments succeed each other with a frequency so
terrible, that the mind is only relieved by the belief that sensibility
is destroyed by incurable misery.
Governor Arthur addressed a despatch, on "secondary punishments," to
Viscount Goderich, intended to answer the report of the select committee
of 1832. He thought the witnesses were not conversant with the state of
the prisoners--a fact not surprising, since even the effect of English
penitentiaries was debated under their very walls. The gentle system of
Governor Macquarie was a tradition among the criminal population of
Great Britain; but in this country, colonised at a later date, and by
settlers of a higher class, the advantages of the convict were small,
and his control more complete. Arthur thus delineated the condition of
the assigned servant: deprived of indulgence, living in the interior,
employed in clearing and cultivating forest land, allowed no wages;
idleness, even looks betraying an insurgent spirit, exposing him to the
chain gang or the triangle; deprived of liberty, subject to the caprice
of a family, and to the most summary laws. He was a slave, except that
his master was not trusted with the lash, and his claim for service
terminable. True, he was well fed, while many in England labored hard,
and yet were hungry and poor; but nothing reconciled the prisoner to
bondage: he compared his condition not with the British pauper, but
theirs who, though working in the same field, were masters of their own
labor. He asserted that the bravado of persons, who affected
indifference when ordered for Macquarie Harbour, was fully answered by
the murderers who, to enjoy a momentary escape, ventured their lives; by
the desperate efforts of many to conceal themselves in vessels,
deprived of food for days, and tortured until their limbs mortified; by
the despair of many rioters who arrived in the _Eliza_, who, dejected
and stupified by grief, soon drooped and died. He maintained that
transportation, though not absolutely successful, was to be preferred,
as frequently most dreaded, reformatory, and final.
He maintained, that the current reports respecting transportation
deserved no credence, and were unsafe as foundations of public policy.
Often, from the most selfish motives, the most delusive statements had
been forwarded by prisoners. He instanced a woman from Liverpool, who
arrived with her four children, allured by the representation of her
husband, and sent out by the charity of his prosecutors; and who had
informed her that, beside L60 per annum, he was lodged and fed for his
labor. In this case, however, the man wrote falsely; but at that moment
there were many who might have made the statement with truth.
In the despatches of Governor Arthur there is much acute observation and
just inference. He had actually lessened abuses, until they became not
very common or very flagrant: by collecting men in the employ of
government under a more rigid system of superintendence, he had
curtailed their indulgence, and made their condition more irksome. But
it is well known to every colonist, that throughout his administration
some prisoners were favored with greater liberty than others; that they
accumulated property, and had at command whatever money could buy. He
often, with a discretion both wise and humane, mitigated the severity of
a sentence and alleviated the domestic desolation of a wife, by granting
some indulgence to her husband. It is told to his credit as a man,
although it does not add to the weight of his despatches.
The enunciation of principles was not common in the writings of Governor
Arthur; he, however, states his view of the objects contemplated by
punishment. He held that the severity of a penalty was to be measured by
the operation of the crime on society,--or the views taken by
legislators of its effect. Unhappily, this theory overlooks the fact,
that penalties are usually for the protection of classes, rather than
communities. The severe laws against poaching have never been vindicated
on the principles of equity or national right: they are the laws of an
aristocracy, for the protection of its pleasures. The unlimited power
over life and liberty claimed by this doctrine, would excuse the Spartan
method of anticipating crime. It is the old code of the opulent and
powerful; but it is essentially unjust, fallacious, and therefore
useless and wicked.[190] It is probable, however, that abstract opinions
maintained but a slight influence on his actual policy, and that by his
strong perception of the interest of society in the reform of the
offender, he adopted many practical lessons of philanthropy.
Governor Arthur was directed by the Secretary of State to assign the
prisoners employed on public works: such as were unfit for the service
of settlers to form into gangs, and employ on stations distant from the
towns. Lord Goderich had come to the conclusion that the service of
government was rather courted than dreaded by the prisoners. This plan
was skilfully resisted by Arthur: he admitted that constables and
messengers were favorably situated. So great, however, were the
hardships of those employed in public works, that his conscience was
troubled, and only relieved by remembering that they were the worst of
offenders; or, if better conducted, passed at length into the
loan-gang--a condition as preferable to assignment, as was assignment to
the service of the crown: thus balancing the advantages of their last
against the severity of the first stage. He stated their assignment, so
far from increasing the severity of punishment, their faults, and even
crimes, would be covered by their masters, to preserve their labor;
their earnings would place them beyond the condition of their class in
Great Britain; and when their fortune should be known, they would never
want for successors. But he appealed to a still more cogent argument.
The expense of a convict mechanic to the crown, was one shilling per
day; of a free artizan, seven to ten shillings: the difference would go
to the workmen, to bribe their industry and gratify their vices. It was
not, perhaps, known fully to Arthur, that at the moment he sealed his
despatch, forty mechanics lodged in one ward, who earned not much less
than L50 per week, by the leisure hours they enjoyed.[191] It was,
however, true, that the inducement to pay large sums for occasional
labor, arose from the difficulty of obtaining it: few mechanics were
transported; so few, as to excite astonishment.[192]
But however exact and successful transportation, in Governor Arthur's
opinion, a variety of causes contributed to excite in England a powerful
prejudice against it, and to lead the ministers to interfere with some
of its details of great practical consequence. The gradual amelioration
of the criminal code--a restriction of capital punishments, demanded by
the humanity of the British public--was allowed by the ruling classes
with doubt and grudging. Some conspicuous cases confirmed their
predilection in favor of the scaffold. What punishment, they asked,
would transportation have proved to Fontleroy, who from the spoil of his
extensive forgeries, might have reserved an ample fortune? It was
reported, and not untruly, that many had carried to the penal colonies
the profit of their crime; that the wife had been assigned to the
nominal service of her husband; or, still more preposterous, the husband
committed to the control of the wife--and were enabled at once to invest
their capital in whatever form might promise success.
Several volumes issued in succession from the British press, full of
highly colored sketches of colonial life; in which the advantages
possessed by many emancipists, the splendour of their equipage, and the
luxurious profligacy of their lives, were exhibited as the larger prizes
of a fruitful lottery. Among these works, the most popular, that of
Cunningham, professed to delineate the sentiments of the prisoners, from
which it might be inferred that few conditions of human life offered so
many chances of gaiety and prosperity.[193]
About the same period, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, of a talented family,
and afterwards distinguished by his connection with colonisation, was
imprisoned in Newgate for the abduction of Miss Turner. During three
years' residence he professes to have devoted great attention to the
subject of transportation. Few sessions passed but some prisoner,
formerly transported, appeared under a second charge. In conversing upon
their prospects, they described the country of their former exile in
terms of high eulogy. It was the opinion of Wakefield that, as a
punishment, it had no influence in preventing crime. The evidence of
several settlers from New South Wales was of the same character; and
M'Queen, a member of parliament, long resident in that country, stated
that he had been often asked what offence would be sufficient to ensure
transportation.[194] The letters received from the prisoners, recorded
their good fortune, and were read by their former acquaintances. They
were filled with exaggerations, dictated by vanity or affection; and
seemed to convey an impression that, of their families, they only were
fortunate.
A colonist is certainly not entitled to deny, that many strong cases of
perversion occurred; but, except the superiority of diet, and the high
value of labor common to new countries when they prosper at all, the
descriptions given were mostly illusive and mistaken. The extreme misery
and degradation endured by many, and to which all were liable, rendered
the ordinary condition of prisoners one which could not have been
desired, except by the most wretched of the people.
New South Wales was regarded, by the laughing portion of the British
public, as a perpetual beggar's opera. One eminent writer said, that the
people of these colonies attracted attention only from the curiosity
they excited: mankind were amused to know what form would be assumed by
a community, composed of men who narrowly escaped the executioner. By
another they were compared to an old fashioned infant, which had all the
vices and deformity of a corrupt constitution and precocious passions.
The exhibition of a panorama of Sydney in the metropolis of England,
attracted large crowds. It was hardly possible to exaggerate the charms
of its scenery, when clothed in the radiant verdure of the spring; but
the dwellings were drawn, not only in their just proportions, but with
all the grace of the pencil--cabins looked like bowers. The poet,
Campbell, struck with the glowing harmony, exclaimed, how delightful to
the London thief--beneath the clear sky and amidst the magnificent
forests of Australia,
"Where Sydney Cove its lucid bosom swells"--
to shake the hand he once encountered in the same pocket at Covent Garden
theatre! It is thus, too often, that substantial interests are sacrificed
to humour. No one, acquainted with the minds of prisoners, can imagine
that the purest atmosphere, or most exhilarating prospect, would be
half so attractive to a veteran robber, as the murky cellars of the
"London Shades."
The writings of Archbishop Whately tended to the same result. Against
the principles of transportation he entered an earnest protest, not only
as defeating the primary objects of a penalty, but as constituting a
community charged with the elements of future mischief. He reasoned in
his closet, and formed his conclusions from a process of investigation
which was not complete: he overlooked some facts which tended largely to
neutralise the evil, and that suppress or defeat propensities which
thrive in Europe. He made many senatorial converts, and those he did not
convince, in reference to his main proposition, were anxious to obviate
his objections.
To meet, however, the views which prevailed, and which were strongly
recommended by the parliamentary committee of 1832, the government
determined to increase the rigour of transportation. The effects of the
French revolution, and the pressure of commercial distress, had produced
a strong tendency to crime. In the agricultural districts of England
riot and arson were prevalent: the utmost exertion of the laborer did
not preserve his family from want. Depredations upon game, and other
species of rural property, exasperated the legislative class. The hulks
were crowded: it was proposed to establish a penitentiary at Dartmoor,
long the site of a French prison, and employ the convicts in cutting
granite for sale; but the discussions in parliament manifested the
strong preference of the agricultural interests for a system of absolute
banishment. It was observed by Peel, that the detention of prisoners
exposed the government to endless annoyance, and before half their time
was expired the solicitation of their friends often procured a
remission.
Pending these enquiries, a rumour reached the colony that transportation
was abolished. The papers broke out in the language of wailing and woe:
the _Courier_, especially, gave utterance to the most passionate grief.
The editor described the melancholy visage of the settlers, and the
different expressions of vexation and disappointment which he heard
around him. One declaiming against the perfidy of government, and
another delineating the ruin involved in the fatal resolution. Some
threatening to leave the country ruled by covenant breakers, who, in the
spirit of reckless experiment, were not only demolishing the finest
imaginable system of penal discipline, but sacrificing the fortunes of
colonists, who had emigrated in the confidence that convicts would
follow them in an uninterrupted stream.[195] These apprehensions were
but temporary. The strong representations of Governor Arthur, and the
extreme difficulty of change, secured a further trial under new
conditions.
Lord Melbourne held a consultation with Mr. Stanley. He suggested that
the increase of crime had arisen partly from ignorance of the actual
consequences of transportation. He requested him to reflect upon this
topic, and to determine whether it might not be proper to send
transgressors through a more rigorous discipline on their landing, and
to stop the comparative ease and comfort it was customary to enjoy.[196]
Mr. Stanley undertook to contrive a scheme, which should terminate the
indifference with which banishment was regarded. He had said that he
would render the punishment of transportation more dreaded than death
itself. At his suggestion Lord Melbourne addressed a letter to the
judges, and requested them, when on their circuits, to explain the
extent of torment which banishment included; to select such as they
might deem it proper to separate to a more terrific form of punishment;
and to declare, in a public manner, the degree of severity which would
follow a particular sentence.
It was determined that the more hardened should be confined at Norfolk
Island or Macquarie Harbour; and that no prisoner for life should be
withdrawn from a penal settlement, until seven years of his sentence was
passed, or until one-third of a shorter period was completed. Then
drafted to the roads: after wearing chains a further five years, he
might be assigned to a master, and commence his probation. The less
guilty were to join the road party at once, and in seven years be
liberated from their chains. Mr. Stanley forwarded sixteen persons in
the _Southwell_, whom he directed should be kept in chains for the first
seven years of their bondage. He thus established the system,
distinguished as the "certain and severe" in the orders of government;
and for several years described by the journals, as the "worse than
death" system of Mr. Secretary Stanley.[197]
The object of Stanley was to invest transportation with novel terrors,
and to give a more tragic aspect to the law. He did not, however,
reflect, that he who has destroyed hope has also made the despairing
worthless; that the victim will have recourse to violence or
insensibility--that when he cannot rupture he will hug his bonds. He did
not perceive that no Englishman would accept the service of a felon, who
for twelve years had experienced the misery of chains--that it was not
as prisoners, but as husbandmen, that the poachers and rioters of
England were acceptable to the Australian farmer; who was reconciled to
penal slavery, only when disguised under semi-patriarchal forms.
The change proposed by Stanley was greatly disliked by Arthur. It was
the reverse of his system. Whatever influences were brought into action
by agricultural service, would be lost in a gang. He foresaw the
despondency, the oppression of the prisoners, and the gradual alienation
of the colonists. Arthur referred Stanley's despatch to the executive
council, with his own rejoinder. His system of twelve years bondage and
chains was unanimously reprobated: the council concurred in the opinion
of the Governor, that it would break up the gradations of punishment;
and unless sustained by a large reinforcement of military, endanger the
public safety and produce habits of outrage and revenge.[198] Whatever
influence these representations possessed, the plan was abandoned of
necessity. The chief justice of New South Wales advised the Governor
that the law had not authorised the arbitrary addition of chains to a
sentence of transportation--to increase the misery, not to add to the
safe keeping of the prisoners. Such, on reference, was the opinion of
the English legal authorities, and the men in irons were released.[199]
Whatever the motives of Lord Stanley, the transmission of such an order,
without ascertaining the authority under which it was issued, was a
serious official error. It is probable, that the persons injured had no
means of appeal, and deserved no redress; but when it is remembered,
that the law does not profess to determine the moral enormity of an
offence by the extent of punishment, to aggravate a penalty which the
legislators deemed equal to the crime--avowedly to make it more terrible
than death itself--was a stretch of official power, which can scarcely
be explained.
St. Paul denounced the judge who smote contrary to the law. Mr.
Stanley's encroachment on the functions of legislation was only more
defensible because less corrupt. To repress colonial disorders, the
local government had, indeed, grafted the penalties he prescribed on the
colonial statute book; but the despotic interference of a secretary of
state was specially objectionable. Persons sentenced to transportation
for political or agrarian crimes, were not unlikely to provoke the
personal hatred of ministers, and therefore to suffer a vengeance beyond
the intention of the judges, or the spirit of the laws.
To render corruption more difficult, the power of the governors was
limited by statute. They had granted tickets-of-leave for the discovery
of outlaws, the detection of serious crimes, and any service of great
public utility. They had been often swayed by feelings of humanity in
hastening the liberation of men, whose families required their care; but
an Act "for abolishing the punishment of death in certain cases,"[200]
not only fixed the time when prisoners should be capable of
tickets-of-leave, but abstracted the chief advantages a ticket
conferred. They were excluded from the protection of civil laws, and
thus thrown on the mercy of any who might employ them. These clauses
were introduced by Lord Wynford (Sergeant Best), and were intended to
equalise the punishment of offenders, and to prevent an early enjoyment
of plunder. This restriction was, however, practically unjust. The grant
of a ticket-of-leave was to enable a man to procure a livelihood: to
deprive him of legal resource, was to invite the swindler and the cheat
to make his earnings and acquisitions their prey. The local courts had
hitherto resisted the injustice by evasion: a record of conviction being
required to stay a civil action; although in the criminal courts it was
sufficient to prove that the person accused had been dealt with as a
transported offender.
Lord Wynford's Act made no such distinction. Its provision, probably the
result of inadvertence, was so palpably a contradiction, that it was
never acted upon in Van Diemen's Land, and was earnestly deprecated by
all classes. To grant a prisoner liberty to seek subsistence, and yet
suffer any fraudulent person to deprive him of his just wages, could
arise only from that confusion of ideas, too common in legislation on
the subject.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 187: "It can scarcely be doubted, that the main body of
convicts are under mental delirium--they see and appreciate every thing
through a false medium; and as, from long experience and close
observation, the Lieutenant-Governor is confident that a firm and
determined, but mild and consistent supervision, is the very best to be
followed, in order to remove the infirmity under which they labor, it is
the treatment he enjoins shall be uniformly observed!"--_Regulations
issued to the Roads' Department._]
[Footnote 188: "Absconding, insubordination, drunkenness, indecent
conduct, neglect or wilful mismanagement of work, neglect of duty,
indecent or abusive language, swearing, insolence, or other disorderly
conduct."]
[Footnote 189: Arthur.]
[Footnote 190: Arthur's despatch to Lord Goderich.]
[Footnote 191: It was not uncommon for four in their number to consume
one gallon of rum at a sitting. Incredible as this may appear, it stands
upon indubitable testimony; and one of the witnesses, had he been
classical, might have said--_Pars magna fui_.]
[Footnote 192: Arthur's despatch to Lord Howick, 1832.]
[Footnote 193: "Several went out with me on these very terms: and among
them one merry youth of two-and-twenty, whose father had been
transported when he was a child. His elder brother followed the fortunes
of his father by special invitation. On our arrival the elder brother
came alongside, and introduced the younger brother and father (who, of
course, were strangers to each other). 'When may we expect Jem?' was the
question put shortly after the preliminary congratulations."--_Two
Years_, &c., vol. ii. p. 259.
"I shall conclude this subject with a short anecdote, which fully
illustrates how little a convict cares for transportation, or rather how
much he prefers it. A gentleman, who came home passenger in the same
vessel with myself, brought with him a convict as a domestic. I asked
him what were his future plans? He replied, that he meant to go and see
his mother, if she was alive; but if she was dead, he, to use his own
words, would 'frisk a crib,' (_Anglice_--rob a shop) or do something to
lag him for seven years again, as he was perfectly aware that he could
not work hard enough to get his living in England."--_Widowson's present
state of V. D. Land_, 1829. p. 65.
"In order to show the opinions entertained by some of the convicts, as
regards the colony, I will give an extract from one of the sundry
letters which I have read, written by them to their friends in England,
using the writer's own language and punctuation, but altering the
spelling. He requests that his wife will come out, and bring their
children with her, and then proceeds as follows: 'I am perfectly well
satisfied with my situation thanks be to God that has placed me under
those that does not despise a prisoner. No, my love, I am (not?) treated
as a prisoner but as a free man, there is no one to say a wrong word to
me. I have good usage, plenty of good meat, and clothes with easy work.
I have 362 sheep to mind, either of our lads could do it with ease. The
best of men was shepherds. Jacob served for his wife, yea and for a wife
did he keep sheep and so will I, and my love we shall be more happy here
than ever we should be at home if happiness is to be found on the earth.
Don't fail to come out I never thought this country what I have found
it. I did expect to be in servile bondage and to be badly used but I am
better off this day than half the people in England, and I would not go
back to England if any one would pay my passage. England has the name of
a free country and this is a bond country, but shame my friends and
countrymen where is your boasted freedom. Look round you, on every side
there is distress, rags, want, and all are in one sorrowful state of
want. Happiness and prosperity has long taken their flight from Albion's
once happy isle.' He then alludes to the low price of provisions, and
adds--'Except you live in a town you have no rent to pay, for each
builds his own house, no tithes, no poor-rates, and no taxes of any
kind. And this is bondage is it?' There are some other amusing remarks
in this original composition, but the above will suffice to show that
convicts lead not always the unhappy life they are supposed to do,
unless through their own bad conduct. The writer of the above letter
bears such an excellent character that his master has sent to England
for his wife and family, with the intention of trying to be of some use
to them."--_Breton's New South Wales_, p. 281.]
[Footnote 194: Potter M'Queen's evidence before the Commons, 1831.]
[Footnote 195: _Courier_, 1831.]
[Footnote 196: May 20th, 1833.]
[Footnote 197: Stanley's despatch, August, 1833.]
[Footnote 198: February 3rd, 1834.]
[Footnote 199: _Par. Pap._: Forbes's evidence.]
[Footnote 200: 2 & 3 9th Will. iv. cap. 42.]