While these questions were agitated in England, Sir John Franklin
received the government of Tasmania. Captain Maconochie, already known
to scientific men, and who had enjoyed long the friendship of the
Governor, accepted the office of private secretary--a situation of not
much emolument, but highly confidential. When his destination became
public, the society for the improvement of prison discipline requested
him to examine closely the results of transportation, as exhibited in
Van Diemen's Land. To assist his inquiries, they prepared sixty-seven
questions, comprehending the details of convict management, on which
they desired a minute exposition of his views; and added, "_make such
general remarks as occur on the whole convict system of the colony, and
its effects on the moral and social state of the community: also remark
on the effect of the latter, and enter on the subject largely, making
any observation which may be useful in regard thereto_."
Captain Maconochie referred the application to Sir George Grey, who
consented, conditionally:--that all papers on the subject should pass
through the usual channel to the colonial-office, and be first placed at
his absolute disposal. The effects of this commission were momentous.
Maconochie, when he left Great Britain, professed a freedom from decided
bias, and to favor the general system of Arthur, rather than that
propounded by Archbishop Whately. The opinions he ultimately adopted, he
ascribed to his own observation, and disclaimed all prejudice against
those forms of prison discipline he was destined to subvert.
The discussions thus originated are of a deeply interesting character,
and their influence will long survive the animosity they occasioned. The
completion of Maconochie's report was exceedingly rapid, or it was very
early commenced. He had resided but three months, when he felt
authorised to pronounce the existing system of management defective, far
less in application than in principle. The course ascribed to Maconochie
was that of a prejudiced spy, seeking evidence for a case pre-judged:
that which he claimed, was the task of a philosopher, scanning facts
patent to every eye--even more striking when first seen. His conclusions
he attributed to the inevitable process by which facts are generalised,
and demonstrate systems. His style, when deliberate, is terse and
explicit: his ideas he expressed with the utmost freedom; or, as it then
seemed, audacity. The colonists he treated as an operator, who indeed
pities the sufferings of his patient, but disregards a natural outcry,
while expounding in the language of science both the symptoms and the
cure. Without circumlocution or reserve, he spoke of the officers
concerned in convict management as blinded by habit--as empirics who
could patch and cauterise a wound, but were involved in the hopeless
prejudices of a topical practice, and much too far gone to comprehend
improvements founded on scientific principles. His deviations from the
tone of philosophical discussion were not numerous, but they were
marked. The chief police magistrate he compared to the lamplighter, by
whom gas is detested. In praising that officer's administrative talent,
he observed that he belonged to the martinet school, and that his
estimate of human nature depressed it below its worth.
The representations of Maconochie, with reference to the condition of
the convicts and the character of the settlers, awakened a storm of
indignation. Transportation, he said, at a distance appeared a trivial
penalty; but when surveyed more nearly, it was found to be inhuman. The
servant was assigned to a master without his consent; his employment was
alien to his habits; he labored without wages; he was met with
suspicion, and ruled with insult or contempt. The servant became sullen,
the settler vindictive: slight offences were visited with punishments
"severe, to excessive cruelty,"--offences, often the ebullitions of
wounded feeling, and the tokens of a hopeless wretchedness.
Notwithstanding, this condition--unknown to the population at
home--afforded no warning. The victims were uncompensated--the great
majority unreformed. Thus, employers preferred new hands to those passed
through this discipline of suffering. Such as rose in society, were
seldom really respectable; they neither regretted their crimes, nor
offered atonement. But if the prisoner was injured, the colonist was not
less so. Social virtues were discouraged; all classes were contentious
and overbearing: the police, ever prying into the business of life, thus
intermixed with penal systems, filled the colony with exasperation, from
which not even the mildest spirits could escape. He did not propose to
abolish transportation, but that the government by its own officers
should both punish and reform; that the prisoners, when restored to
society, should stand in the relations of free men to all except the
crown, receiving wages at the current rate; and if restrained in their
expenditure, not for punishment, but for safety--"the chains of paternal
authority" thrown over them, "to protect them against themselves."
Maconochie sent to Sir G. Grey a Summary of his Report, containing his
opinions of existing systems: at his request it was at once handed to
Lord John Russell, who again, conveyed it to the committee then sitting
upon the subject of transportation. Although substantially agreeing with
his report, _the summary_ condensed, and therefore rendered more
flagrant, the charges against the colonists, and his description of the
condition of the prisoners still more revolting.
This _Summary_ appeared in an English newspaper. Hitherto the discussion
had been confined to official circles or to select correspondence: it
was now open to the world; and the colonists found, with astonishment,
that the reform proposed was radical, and that the opinions of the
reformer were wholly adverse to the existing systems.
In this summary, the condition of the convicts was depicted with all the
coloring of misery: they were slaves, subject to coercion; strangers to
moral impulses, save only the distant hope of liberty. They were lodged
in huts with stable roofs, damp floors, and rude furniture.[222] They
slept on truckle bedsteads, often undressed; their food was cooked in
the roughest manner; without wages, they robbed; miserable, they were
drunken. Their better qualities were unregistered: the artful escaped,
while the "careless fellow," otherwise good, was involved in a long
train of penalties. A ticket obtained, the holder could acquire no
property, and was worried by police interference; and in one night his
indulgence might be forfeited. Though some masters, generous or weak,
softened its rigour, assignment as a punishment, generally exceeded the
desert of minor offences: and its degradation, unfelt by old offenders,
was agony to men of minds more sensitive. The bad were little punished,
the good demoralised; self respect was destroyed; and men born to better
things, sacrificed by political institutions, rather than by their
personal depravity or their crimes. This state was worse than negro
slavery: the interests of the masters were less permanent; who, though
they did not fear their servants, disliked, coerced, and inveighed
against them. This slavery tainted colonial life: the colonists were
harsh and overbearing at home; they were quarrelsome neighbours, given
to reckless assertion; rapacious, envious, and disaffected. Government
was unpopular, and all governors so in succession. The police, if not
corrupt, was irksome and intrusive. Labor was wasted, emigration
discouraged. Crime and drunkenness multiplied, and what a hundred and
fifty is to one thousand, or thirteen hundred, such was the crime of
Van Diemen's Land to that of England and Scotland. Drunkenness had
risen, in ten years, from three per cent. to fourteen per cent.: in
London, such was the difference of tendencies between those meridians,
it was reduced to an imperceptible fraction.
To remedy these evils, he demanded the abolition of domestic slavery: a
separation, distinct as their natures, between punishment and moral
training; punishment, certain and appropriate--inflicted upon system,
and in seclusion; and training, not less systematic, but social and
probationary--coercion being banished, moral influence alone applied.
For punishment, Maconochie deemed the system of Port Arthur,
administered by Booth, an admirable model. For training, he suggested
stations within reach of the free community, where the convicts should
be prepared for society in parties of six, joined in a common fate, by
mutual agreement. They were to work out their redemption together: their
vigilance would detect, their interests depress disorders in the clubs;
the virtues of sobriety, diligence, decency, and industry, achieved by
each, would be rewarded for the common benefit of all; but for the fault
of one, the whole would pay the penalty; or should the partnership be
dissolved by the intolerable injustice of any, its disbanded members
would return to their starting point, and in new combinations pursue
again, and perhaps again, the first steps, until all should reach
abreast one common goal.
Such was the system of moral training and mutual responsibility, which
he deemed only a new accommodation of established principles. In his
view, it was a moral field the greatest statesman might enter with
success, and thus crown himself with immortal renown. Such in substance
was the summary, afterwards amplified by details and illustrated by
facts. In subsequent papers the more offensive passages were explained
and qualified; but at best, they appear not only an indictment of
opinions and systems, but of classes and communities.
Sir John Franklin promptly referred the queries of the _Society_ to an
official board, which consisted of the chief police magistrate of the
territory (Captain Forster), the director-general of public works
(Captain Cheyne), and the superintendent of convicts (Mr. Spode). In
reply to sixty-six of these questions they had only to refer to
undisputed facts; but the last contemplated both the theory and
practice of transportation. In the statement of facts they united; but
the proper remedies to apply to acknowledged evils, admitted of
difference--and they all differed.
The memorandum of the chief police magistrate, beside briefly describing
the practice of former times, recommended important changes for the
future. Instead of assignment from the ships, he suggested that all
prisoners should be placed on the public works, for a period to be fixed
by the judges. He proposed a new distribution of time penalties: thus
instead of seven, fourteen years, and life, to recognise by law a more
minute and proportionate sub-division. In assignment, he recommended
wages, rateable at the discretion of government; afterwards a _first
class_ ticket-of-leave, with a permission to choose employers; and a
_second class_, to include most of the privileges of freedom, voidable
only by a court of quarter sessions for specified offences. The
conditional pardon he deemed it necessary to defer a longer time than
usual; since, when released from surveillance and responsibility,
ticket-holders often relapsed into the vices from which they had
previously emerged.
Mr. Spode concurred with the chief police magistrate, though with
serious reservations: especially, he deprecated any delay of
assignment--a state he deemed most conducive to reform, and highly
useful to the colony. Mr. Forster had declared that female prisoners
"_were not available subjects for prison discipline_." Mr. Spode
recommended solitary confinement, or marriage. In the meantime,
Maconochie having drawn up his report, submitted it to Captain Cheyne,
and made a proselyte.
Captain Cheyne took the colony by surprise. Not only did he denounce
assignment, but spoke of the settlers with still less tenderness: he
asserted that a great proportion of those entrusted with convicts "were
dissolute in their habits, and depraved in their principles." That there
"existed a fearful degree of depravity, unparalleled in any age;" that
assignment was the great source of crime and caste: for the convict "no
man cared;" few were exempt from contemptuous and brutal treatment--few
escaped punishment. Such opinions could only usher in a system radically
new. Thus Captain Cheyne proposed to divide the prisoners into gangs of
two hundred each, and the adoption of task work proportioned to physical
strength. He proposed wages to be paid to the road parties, to be
expended in the purchase of comforts, or reserved for a future day. On
introducing the prisoners into society, he recommended a graduated scale
of indulgence, not greatly dissimilar from the propositions stated
already.
The papers of Maconochie and Cheyne were referred to the members of the
executive council, and were generally condemned. Captain Montagu urged
the great danger to the public peace, from the propagation of an opinion
that the laws were unjust, the masters oppressive, and the government
cruel. Were it intended to test Maconochie's theory, he demanded a large
increase of military force. He, however, complained that gentlemen, who
possessed such slight practical knowledge, should venture to assail
established systems. His remarks chiefly related to the colonial
influence of their ideas, and he exaggerated the danger to the public
safety. The most dispassionate examination of this report was given by
Archdeacon Hutchins. It was far more copious in its admissions in
reference to the existing system. Little work was done; the prisoners
were very slightly reformed, and the agents often unfit. But by what
means labor could be exacted, or a "millennial age of righteousness"
supersede the past, he declared himself uncertain. He was sceptical that
it was possible to obtain men of science, prudence, and equity, to
administer a system so complexed, and requiring such discretion.
Mr. Gregory, the colonial treasurer, adopted a less grave form of
criticism. He soothed, by his humour, the colonial wrath, and among the
lesser gods excited unextinguishable laughter. The charges of Maconochie
and Cheyne against the colonists, he described as loose and random
shots, fired by inexperienced hands. In reducing the plan of clubs to
practical details, he insisted they were unequal, and even impossible.
The minute appraisement, both of good and evil; reckoning up the diurnal
merits of the men--the balance of which was to furnish their capital
stock, to discharge their fines, to find them food and clothing, and
liberty--he described as a gigantic scheme of finance.[223] He amused
himself by supposing the number of chances which might intervene before,
of ninety-six men, the whole should be divided into clubs of six, and
by the separate agreement of all combine their fortunes, and risk joint
forfeitures: each man settling into partnership with five others whom he
could trust, and by whom he could be trusted. He figured also the
embarrassment of the protectors, who every evening, ledger in hand, must
make up their debtor and creditor account for the three hundred
probationers.
The summary, Capt. Maconochie had enclosed, under seal of the Governor,
to Sir George Grey, without however fully explaining its contents to Sir
John Franklin, or intimating its serious and formal nature. When the
journal containing it was placed in his hands, he uttered an exclamation
of astonishment, and instantly dismissed its author, but did not
withdraw his friendship. Maconochie represented that it was a private
document, intended for private use--its sudden appearance not less
unexpected than embarrassing. That he had not submitted this paper to
the Governor, he ascribed to the irritation caused by the difference of
their opinions; and that he did not delay its transmission, he imputed
to its overwhelming importance and its pressure on his mind. How the
spirit of the Governor was extolled by the colonists need not be
formally stated, or how his discarded secretary was accused of rashness,
perfidy, and falsehood. Maconochie did not himself disdain to
acknowledge, that in error of judgment he had forwarded too early, and
in a manner seemingly clandestine, a report so decided. The imputation
of duplicity was unjust: Franklin was not wholly ignorant of the
contents of the packet. Although not, perhaps, aware that he was
franking a system, yet by the same vessel he wrote to the minister that
he had not read, and could not answer for the _summary_. It was,
however, strange for the ministers of the crown to rely on a private
report; and especially upon the truthfulness of an analysis, which gave
opinions, but deferred the evidence on which they were said to rest.
The resemblance which may be traced between the system propounded by
Maconochie, and the suggestions which have been offered at various times
by writers on this subject, will not deprive him of the credit of
originality. Hazarded by their authors without much reflection, the
boldness of a reformer was required to adapt them. It may, however, be
interesting to trace the details which he combined, or the sources of
those ideas which he comprehended in his scheme.
Sidney Smith suggested "new gradations of guilt to be established by
law, and new names to those gradations; a different measure of good and
evil treatment attached to those denominations--as rogues, incorrigible
rogues," and so forth.
Mr. Potter M'Queen recommended a division of offenders, some of whom
should be punished in gangs, and others subject to a process simply
reformatory.
Blanco White, a celebrated Spaniard, had suggested sentences to an
amount of work rather than to an extent of years. He proposed that the
tread-wheel should measure the progress of the culprit, and that every
revolution should bring him nearer to liberty.
His punitive system had long been adopted by Arthur, though probably
with objects somewhat distinct: it was found in every penal settlement
and road gang.
Capt. Cheyne had recommended the opening of accounts and payment for
probationary labor.
At Bermuda, the stimulus of present enjoyment was offered to industry:
convicts were allowed 1_s._ 6_d._ per week, half of which they were at
liberty to expend in fruits, vegetables, and such like comforts; the
residue forming a fund, sometimes of L15 and L20, receivable at
discharge. These indulgences were attended with the happiest effects,
and the superintendent, Sir Thomas Usher, was so satisfied with their
reformation, that he had no doubt seven-eighths were better men at the
close than at the commencement of their bondage.
The idea of clubs was found in the tithings of the ancient Britons,
which were enrolled by the authority of Alfred, and made liable for each
other. Maconochie saw in the disjointed and licentious condition of that
era, something analogous to the state of convicts, and in the result
that "a bracelet might be left on the highway with security," an
encouragement to hope, from a similar organisation, for the same
success. Capt. Maconochie quoted Hume in describing these societies, but
he omitted those sentences which seem to give another aspect to the
institution; for when a member of the tithings was charged with a crime,
the rest could purge themselves from responsibility, if acquitted on
oath of connivance with the offender, or his escape: but, however
innocent, the clubs of Maconochie were involved in the responsibility of
the transgressor--a fundamental difference, the suppression of which was
scarcely compatible with literary candour.
Bentham himself had proposed that convicts should remain at auxiliary
establishments, in principle resembling the training stations of
Maconochie, until they could be prepared for the full enjoyment of
liberty. He also suggested mutual surveillance associations, in which
the prisoners should watch over, instruct, and assist each other.
Archbishop Whately advocated the detention of prisoners until their
reformation was established.
Maconochie attributed his idea of marks to an observation of Messrs.
Backhouse and Walker on their usefulness in training the rising
generation: they thought they discerned a faint image of the club system
at Macquarie Harbour, where devout prisoners separated themselves into a
society, and were secured from the interruption of the rest. Men from
bondage, were released in the hulks, when the sum total of marks in
their favor covered a certain period of their sentence.
Macarthur had recommended the employment of an officer, under the
immediate direction of the home secretary of state, responsible for the
full execution of a sentence, to whom the entire management of the
convict department might be committed. The governors would thus be less
likely to change the aspect of transportation, according to their
particular theories.[224]
Captain Maconochie was preceded in this branch of penal philosophy by a
gentleman, not equally celebrated, but who proposed changes as radical.
It is amusing to observe, with what different objects, and how diverse
in spirit, similar mutations have been enforced. Dr. Henderson, the
founder of the Van Diemen's Land Society, on returning to India, offered
through the press at Calcutta a new scheme of colonisation, based on
convict government. That which existed he deemed defective in its main
principles, and futile in its results. The settlers he described, with
some contempt, as an inferior class, inflated with notions of liberty
and equality, and debased by convict associations; prone to quarrel and
encroach, but distressed with the endless vexations of their lot.
Forbidden to punish the insolence of their servants; exposed to the
disgrace of meeting their accusations; or when they prosecuted a charge,
liable to the strictures of the magistrate, who might penetrate the
secrets of their dwellings, and censure them in the presence of their
exulting slaves. Thus, though the author assumed the tone of
philosophical discussion, he differed from others who professed to
investigate principles: he observed--"We find the convicts in the
condition of slaves placed under despotic power." "It is not necessary
to enquire whether it is for their benefit;" "they are not entitled to
our sympathy, should they be treated with the rigour of slaves:" "they
will not often labor when they are removed from the dread of
punishment." "The magistrates should be relieved from forms and
precedents, and punish according to the intrinsic value of offences, and
for the public good." "More injury is done by the trammels of the law,
than by leaving the judges to their own discretion." Such is the essence
of his system, which, however, always presumed the existence of a lofty
purpose and a dispassionate administration.[225] For this large
discretion, however, he pronounced the existing settlers unfit: he
recommended the employment of young educated gentlemen, under a board of
directors, and proposed as the primary object of discipline, neither
punishment nor intimidation, but _productiveness_. Power being lodged in
the hands of the superintendents, without regard to _Burns' Justice_, or
written regulations, they would check offences at once, and punish
according to their social and material tendency. He held, as vitally
important, that all national views in reference to transportation should
be subordinate to the colonial welfare. Having formed agricultural
establishments, and fitted them to become the home of capitalists, the
officers of government would give place to another class of employers.
The house, the servants, and the cleared ground, would be disposed of by
the crown; the convicts, gradually trained, exalted into a free
population, and with their families would form a peasantry. The sale of
these estates would repay the original outlay; and thus, without further
drafts on the treasury, the process could be renewed in an endless
succession. The lash, Dr. Henderson was far from rejecting as an
instrument of correction--"cheap and expeditious:" in short, his was a
plan of slavery, and which conveyed semi-magisterial powers to the
overseers, and gave them a profit on the labor they might exact.
Henderson had become sultanised by living in India: he was attached to
the spirit of its government; the legal formalities, which delight an
Englishman, seemed to him the degradation of rank, and a pernicious
license to inferiors. In his imaginary commonwealth, he saw but two
classes, which, in the language of the East, he distinguished as the
"head and the hand." He thought the judges should be required to aid the
governors by their interpretations of the law; who, at the close of
their administration, might be tried by their peers, and, if found
wanting, handed over to everlasting shame! Thus, his plan embodied the
spirit of caste, of orientalism, and of the India House. He had no
simpering tenderness for the prisoner, while he attributed to the upper
classes an innate rectitude and self control, such as the British
records of the East will hardly sustain. His speculations are worth
remembering, for the contrast of their _animus_ with those of
Maconochie, and for the analogy in their details.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 221: The petition to the Commons prayed an enquiry into the
efficacy of transportation to New South Wales as a secondary punishment:
whether it should be continued, and under what alterations of the
present system; or, if discontinued, in what manner, &c.--_Petition_,
1836.]
[Footnote 222: It was not much better in England: the Rev. J. Clay
stated, that in Preston there were 422 dwellings, inhabited by 2,400
persons, sleeping in 852 beds; that is an average of five and a
fractional part as follows:--84 cases 4 in a bed; 28 cases 5, 13 cases
6, 3 cases 7, 1 case 8; one family of 8 on bed frames, covered with a
little straw.--_Health of Towns Commission_, 1844.]
[Footnote 223:
_Dr._ _Cr._
A. 3 marks for getting drunk. | B. 1 mark for punctual at
C. 2 marks for losing part of his | church.
Sunday clothes. | D. 2 marks for general
E. 5 marks for wantonly assaulting F.| steadiness and obedience.
-- | F. 3 marks for self command
10 | under grievous provocation.
6 | --
-- | 6
4 loss; falling one-half on those who obtained the entire stock of
credit.]
[Footnote 224: _Macarthur's Present State, &c._ pp. 47, 49.]
[Footnote 225: "They should have increased the barriers between him and
the convict; and in those investigations they should have leaned towards
him (the master), even at the expense of legal justice: his character
should have been rendered sacred in the eyes of the convict."--_Henderson's
Observations_, p. 12.]