At this era, no one will question the integrity or benevolence of
Captain Maconochie, and it would be disgraceful in a historical work to
adopt the language of prejudice, much more the invectives of a quarrel;
but it is not less important to estimate aright both his opinions and
his plans. His description of the condition of the prisoners might be
easily illustrated by examples. There were settlers, not a few, to whose
care the prisoners were entrusted, who were unfit to govern a kennel.
Low in their origin, corrupt in their principles, and detestable in
their lives--themselves differing from felons in nothing but their
position.
The unhappy prisoner entrusted to their charge, was insulted, coerced,
and crushed. Sufficiently cunning to avoid a palpable infraction of the
orders of government, they constantly violated their spirit. Physical
weakness, or mental incapacity, they treated as evasion or contempt.
Prone to invoke the interposition of the magistracy, they drove
unfortunate beings for slight offences to a tribunal, where the
presumption was always against them. In the presence of the magistrate
they were smooth and supple; but the eye of the punished prisoner marked
the exultation of cruelty triumphant, and his course was rapid from
failings to faults, and from faults to crimes.
In the larger establishments, except where the humanity of the master
kept alive his vigilance, the men were sometimes placed in the power of
an overseer, himself perhaps an expiree; who, elated with office,
delighted in the advent of his turn to torture. On such farms the rigour
of discipline seemed essential to order: too often, the men differed but
little from slaves. Violations of rule were deemed more pernicious by
their example than their immediate inconvenience: to pass by a fault,
was thought to license its imitation. The indulgences afforded by a
small settler, whose social happiness depended on their good humour,
would have proved, where many herded together, an item of large expense.
Punishments, the readiest instruments of control, were inflicted on
calculation: there was, perhaps, no anger in the breast of the
accuser--the defaulter he would have readily forgiven, had he stood
alone; but impunity would relax the reins of authority, and the lash was
invoked because most convenient. The published documents of the House of
Commons illustrate the perseverance of masters, in repeating their
prosecutions; and the resistance and suffering of miserable men, who for
the long period of their service lived in constant warfare, and
retaliated the social wretchedness they endured. An enquirer could not
long reside in the colony, without learning that many had borne a
succession of punishments sufficient to prostrate the strength of a
giant, and which no mere animal in the creation could survive.
Yet this is not a fair estimate of the character of the settlers, or the
results of assignment; and a want of discrimination in Maconochie,
however unintentional, was a serious injustice. It was true, that the
constant vexations of a settler's life produced, too generally, a tone
and manner, striking to a stranger, because not so common under happier
circumstances. The substantial benevolence of many employers is not the
less unquestionable: a large number continued their liberated men in
their service, whom they had taught the arts of industry, brought under
the influence of moral instruction, and assisted to settle in life.
Hundreds scattered throughout these colonies, who were born in the
contagion of wickedness, were rescued from habits of crime by the long
and patient training of their masters. That many such have become
virtuous, in the highest sense, could not be affirmed without hazard;
but can this be said of the majority of mankind?
The charges of Maconochie incurred severe reproach, for their rashness.
It is true, that the prominence of evil fixes the attention, while
humanity is retiring and noiseless--as the riot of the streets conceals
rather than illustrates the sobriety and order within doors; but a
philosopher should have taken into account this facility of error, while
condemning with whatever severity the evils he might scan: lest he
should be found to set forth the exception as the rule, and the rule as
the exception.
Were persons, who have passed through assignment, to give their
testimony, a very large proportion would acknowledge that their
condition was not unhappy, or their masters unkind. In his estimate of
prisoners, Capt. Maconochie was equally deceived by a generous
confidence, or by his pity for human suffering. Some were, indeed, far
superior to their degradation: they retained in bondage the principles
they had derived from education, or the dispositions natural to their
character: offenders by accident, not habit; and some condemned by that
last calamity incident to society, the mistakes of public justice. A
much larger class were victims of early neglect: parental example, or of
the social evils which are incident to the refinement, corruption, and
selfishness of the age; but very many, whatever the cause of their
depravity, were really and recklessly depraved. The pitying eye of the
philanthropist, glancing at their history, would find his compassion in
the ascendant, and in surveying their misfortunes might forget their
crimes; but to stand in contact with them; to struggle against their
passions, to hear their profaneness, to correct their indolence, and to
thwart their peculations--these were duties and trials, in the presence
of which the highest benevolence became practical, and theory gave way
before actual experience. Nor is it easy to discover by what plan the
injustice of European society, or the misfortunes of youth, can change
the colonial aspect of depravity, or supersede the penalties provoked by
indisputable wickedness.
A close examination of the records in the police-office, not only proves
the revolting severity of our penal administration, but by preserving
the original character and colonial career of the prisoners, illustrates
the depth, continuity, and recklessness of their guilt. It was in this
department of his investigation Maconochie dropped into serious errors.
He entertained the conviction that the far greater number were wicked,
because they were unhappy: nor did he sufficiently perceive, that in a
large mass of offenders the principles which debase them had become
constitutional by habit; and that nothing, short of divine power, could
change the current of their passions, or the course of their lives. From
such a view of human nature the feeling mind revolts, and the
philanthropist may justly cherish those animating hopes which instances
of reformation may save from the charge of folly; but a philosopher,
constructing a system, cannot disguise facts with impunity: and nothing
is more certain than that he whose expectations are disappointed, feels
a dangerous reaction, and passes from unlimited confidence to
undiscriminating suspicion. The administration of the criminal laws,
both in Great Britain and the colonies, presents a series of
alternations between rigour and laxity, which have proceeded from the
alternate ascendancy of conflicting ideas, that can never settle into
harmony.
Maconochie delighted to trace the better qualities of prisoners: how
even the most daring are moved by tenderness, and when kindly spoken to,
melt into tears. Unhappily these characteristics too often exist in
combination with passions which render them useless. It is, however, the
duty of all to endeavour to elicit and nourish them; for though they but
slightly relieve the depravity with which they are not incompatible,
they afford a nucleus round which the social virtues often gather, and
prevent the total despondency of those who labor for the welfare of the
weak, the wicked, and the miserable.
Sir John Franklin made a last effort to save the system of assignment.
He defended the colonists from the imputations of Captain Maconochie,
and exhibited statistics, which proved their anxiety to promote the
spiritual welfare of the population. He maintained that the surveillance
of the government was active, the distribution of labor usually
impartial; the protection of the prisoners from injustice
secured by law, by the press, and by the constant scrutiny of the
lieutenant-governor. He argued that the quiet submission of the
prisoners was not ensured so much by military power as the consciousness
that they were treated with justice. In his view assignment, by its near
resemblance to the ordinary combinations of social life, prevented the
worst consequences of penal degradation, and tended to rouse the
sympathies which crime might have rendered dormant; he, however,
disapproved of assignment in towns, and for domestic service.[226]
The abuses of assignment were prominently exhibited in the instance of
Clapperton, a man greatly trusted by his master, Mr. Alfred Stephen. He
was guilty of embezzlement to a large extent: he was tried by Captain
Forster, and sentenced to fourteen years transportation; but Clapperton
was famous as a clever cook, and as such was desired by the colonial
secretary, who, however, judged it right first to enquire whether his
services would be in demand for the kitchen of the governor. The private
secretary waived the precedence, and Clapperton was accordingly sent to
the residence of Captain Montagu. On the way to his destination he
called at the house of his old master, to acquaint the servants with the
favorable turn in his fortune: this became known to Mr. Alfred Stephen,
who found that, by the prosecution he had instituted, he had conferred a
favor upon an official friend. He immediately appealed to Sir John
Franklin, who was evidently unconcerned in the arrangement: he recalled
the man, and sent him to labor on the roads. The public discussion of
this case excited a strong sensation: it illustrated the system, which
sent one man to toil on the chain, and another to wear the livery of the
second officer of the government.
Fifty gentlemen presented a requisition to the sheriff, to call a
meeting, to discuss the abuses of transportation: this, however, he
declined, and the requisitionists permitted the matter to drop, lest an
exposure should endanger assignment altogether. It could only suggest to
the British parliament new arguments for abolition, when it was found
that a doubly convicted offender was sent a few miles, into an opulent
establishment, to enjoy the dominion of the larder, to romp with the
maids, traffick with the tradesmen, and command the means of vicious
gratification; while a simple rustic, fresh from his first
transgression, was subject to all the hardships of predial bondage.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 226: Despatch lo Lord Glenelg, October, 1837.]