The History and Romance of Crime
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY
[Illustration: Decoration]
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
LONDON
[Illustration: _Armour of Ned Kelly and Manacles Worn by Prisoners in
Tasmania_
The Kelly gang of bushrangers, of which Ned Kelly was chief, wore
veritable armour, bullet-proof, made of old plough shares, iron pots and
scrap iron. They terrorised the northeastern part of New South Wales
from 1870 to 1878, and it became known as the "Kelly country."
Troublesome bushrangers also devastated Tasmania, and when captured,
were hanged or sent to the penal settlement at Norfolk Island.]
Prisons Over Seas
DEPORTATION AND COLONIZATION
BRITISH AND AMERICAN PRISONS OF TO-DAY
_by_
MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHS
_Late Inspector of Prisons in Great Britain_
_Author of
"The Mysteries of Police and Crime"
"Fifty Years of Public Service," etc._
[Illustration: Decoration]
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
EDITION NATIONALE
Limited to one thousand registered and numbered sets.
NUMBER 307.
INTRODUCTION
It will hardly be denied after an impartial consideration of all the
facts I shall herein set forth, that the British prison system can
challenge comparison with any in the world. It may be no more perfect
than other human institutions, but its administrators have laboured long
and steadfastly to approximate perfection. Many countries have already
paid it the compliment of imitation. In most of the British colonies,
the prison system so nearly resembles the system of the mother country,
that I have not given their institutions any separate and distinct
description.
No doubt different methods are employed in the great Empire of India;
but they also are the outcome of experience, and follow lines most
suited to the climate and character of the people for whom they are
intended. Cellular imprisonment would be impossible in India.
Association is inevitable in the Indian prison system. Again, it is the
failure to find suitable European subordinate officers that has brought
about the employment of the best-behaved prisoners in the discipline of
their comrades: a system, as I have been at some pains to point out,
quite abhorrent to modern ideas of prison management. As for the
retention of transportation by the Indian government, when so clearly
condemned at home, it is defensible on the grounds that the penalty of
crossing the sea, the "Black Water," possesses peculiar terrors to the
Oriental mind; and the Andaman Islands are, moreover, within such easy
distance as to ensure their effective supervision and control.
Nearer home, we may see Austria adopting an English method,--the
"movable" or temporary prison, by the use of which such works as
changing the courses of rivers have been rendered possible and the
prison edifices of Lepoglava, Aszod and Kolosvar erected, in imitation
of Chattenden, Borstal and Wormwood Scrubs. France has also constructed
in the outskirts of Paris a new prison for the department of the Seine,
and she may yet find that the British progressive system is more
effective for controlling habitual crime than transportation to New
Caledonia. In a country where every individual is ticketed and labelled
from birth, where police methods are quite despotic, and the law claims
the right, in the interests of the larger number, to override the
liberty of the subject, the professional criminal might be held at a
tremendous disadvantage. It is true that the same result might be
expected from the Belgian plan of prolonged cellular confinement; but,
as I shall point out, this system is more costly, and can only be
enforced with greater or less, but always possible, risks to health and
reason.
But prisons are only one part, and perhaps not the most important part
of a penal system. It is obviously right that they should be humanely
and judiciously administered, but they exist only to give effect to the
fiats of the law, which, for the protection of society, is entrusted
with power to punish and prevent crime. How far these two great aims are
effected, what should be the quality and quantity of the punishment
inflicted, what the amount, if any, of the prevention secured, are moot
points which are engaging more and more attention. Although great
inequalities in sentences exist in Great Britain, as in every country,
dependent as each must be upon the ever varying dispositions of the
courts and those who preside over them, the general tendency is towards
leniency. Imprisonment is imposed less and less frequently and the terms
are growing shorter. The strongest advocates of this growing leniency
claim for it that it has helped to diminish crime, and it is certainly
contemporaneous with the marked reduction in offences in the last few
years. In other words, crime has been least when punishment was least
severe. Whether this diminution is not more directly traceable to other
causes, and notably to the better care of juveniles and better measures
to rescue and reform adult criminals, it is impossible as yet to
determine. But it is beyond question that imprisonment, almost the only
form of punishment now known to the law, is just as effective as the
older and severer measures, if not more so. An ever increasing number of
judges adhere to the axiom laid down by Mr. C. H. Hopwood, Q. C., one of
the most distinguished of their number, "never to send a man to gaol if
you can keep him out of it." The wisest of modern laws dealing with the
prevention and punishment of crime is based upon it as a principle. Such
acts as the British "First Offender's Act" and "Summary Jurisdiction
Act" have done more to keep down the English prison population than all
other measures combined.
The whole subject is one of the greatest importance and interest, and I
have endeavoured to treat it adequately in the following pages.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION 5
I. THE FIRST FLEET 13
II. THE GROWTH OF NEW SOUTH WALES 41
III. CONVICT LIFE 67
IV. A CONVICT COMMUNITY 94
V. THE PROBATION SYSTEM 116
VI. CONVICT SHIPS 138
VII. THE EXILES OF CRIME 167
VIII. THE COLLAPSE OF DEPORTATION 207
IX. GIBRALTAR 230
X. THE BRITISH SYSTEM OF PENAL SERVITUDE 248
XI. FRENCH PENAL COLONIES 277
XII. PENAL METHODS IN THE UNITED STATES 308
XIII. BRITISH PRISONS OF TO-DAY 327
List of Illustrations
ARMOR WORN BY NED KELLY, AND MANACLES
WORN BY PRISONERS IN TASMANIA _Frontispiece_
CONVICT SHIP "SUCCESS" _Page_ 162
RUINED PRISON CHURCH, TASMANIA " 222
PRISONS OVER SEAS
CHAPTER I
THE FIRST FLEET
First idea of riddance of bad characters--James I removes certain
dissolute persons--Sale of criminals as indentured servants to
American Colonies and West Indies--Prices and profits--American
Revolution closes this outlet--Discoveries by Captain Cook leads to
the adoption of Botany Bay as the future receptacle--First fleet
sails March, 1787--Settlement made at Port Jackson, christened
Sydney--Landing of convicts--Early labours--Famine and
drought--Efforts to make community self-supporting--Assisted
emigration a failure--General demoralisation of society--Arrival of
convict ships and growth of numbers--Unsatisfactory condition of
Colony.
News of the discoveries, by Captain Cook, of vast lands in the South
Seas reached England just as the scheme of Penitentiary Houses had been
projected by John Howard, the great philanthropist, to remedy and reform
the abuses of gaol administration. Why embark on a vast expenditure to
build new prisons when the entire criminal population might be removed
to a distance to work out their regeneration under another and a
brighter sky? The idea was singularly attractive and won instantly in
the public mind. The whole country would be rid of its worst elements,
the dregs and failures of society, who would be given a new opportunity
in a new land to lead a new life and by honest labours become the
prosperous members of a new community established by virtue. The
banishment of wrong-doers had long appealed to rulers as a simple and
effective means of punishment, combined with riddance.
The first actual record of transportation is in the reign of James I,
when prisoners were conveyed to the youthful Colony of Virginia, where
Cromwell had sent his political captives beyond the Atlantic to work for
the settlers as indentured servants or assigned slaves. Early in the
eighteenth century the penalty was regularly introduced into the British
criminal code. An act in that year commented upon the inefficiency of
the punishments in use and pointed out that in many of his Majesty's
colonies and plantations in America there was a great want of servants,
who, by their labour and industry, would be the means of improving and
making the said colonies more useful to the nation. Persons sentenced
nominally to death were henceforth to be handed over to the contractors
who engaged to transport them across the seas. These contractors became
vested with a right in the labour of convicts for terms of seven and
fourteen years, and this property was sold at public auction when the
exiles arrived at the plantations. The competition was keen and the bids
ran high at a date prior to the prevalence of negro slavery. To meet the
demand the pernicious practice of kidnapping came into vogue and
flourished for half a century, when it was put down by law. The price
paid according to the mercantile returns ranged at about £20 per head,
although it appears from a contemporary record that for two guineas a
felon might purchase his freedom from the captain of the ship. The
condition of these "transports" was wretched, and contractors often
complained that their cargoes of human beings were so damaged on the
voyages, and the subsequent mortality was so great, that serious
misgivings arose as to whether it was worth while to enter upon the
traffic.
Suddenly the successful revolt of the American Colonies closed them as a
receptacle for the criminal sewages of Great Britain. Another outlet
must be found, and for a time convicts sentenced or liable to
transportation were kept at hard labour in the hulks in harbours and
arsenals at home. Then Captain Cook found Botany Bay in the antipodes,
and for a long time after their inauguration public opinion ran high in
favour of penal establishments beyond the seas. "There was general
confidence," says Merivale, "in the favourite theory that the best mode
of punishing offenders was that which removed them from the scene of
offence and temptation, cut them off by a great gulf of space from all
their former connections, and gave them the opportunity of redeeming
past crimes by becoming useful members of society." Through whatever
mire and discomfort it may have waded, beyond doubt Australia has risen
to a rank and importance which entitles it to remember unabashed the
origin from which the colony sprang. It has long since outgrown the
taint of its original impurity. Another writer asserts that "on the
whole, as a real system of punishment it (transportation) has failed; as
a real system of reform it has failed, as perhaps would every other
plan, but as a means of making men outwardly honest, of converting
vagabonds most useless in one country, into active citizens in another,
and thus giving birth to a new and splendid country, a grand centre of
civilisation, it has succeeded to a degree perhaps unparalleled in
history." All this is of course indubitable. But in the process of
manufacture, Great Britain in fifty years expended eight millions of
hard cash, and remained as full of criminals as ever.
The early history of New South Wales as told in the pages of Collins
reads like a romance. Captain Arthur Phillip, R. N., the first governor,
started from Portsmouth in the month of March, 1787, with nine
transports and two men-of-war--the "first fleet" of Australian annals.
Unlike the _Mayflower_, bearing its Pilgrim Fathers, men of austere
piety and worth, to the shores of New England, this first fleet carried
convicts, criminals only, and their guards. Some vessels were laden
deeply with stores, others with agricultural implements. Before the
fleet was out of the English channel a plot was discovered among some
of these desperate characters to seize the ship they were on board, and
escape from the fleet. Nearing the Cape of Good Hope a second similar
conspiracy came to light, and all through the voyage offences, such as
thefts, assaults, abscondings, attempts to pass counterfeit coin, were
numerous, and needed exemplary punishment. After a dreary eight months
at sea, broken only by short stays at Teneriffe, Rio, and the Cape of
Good Hope, the fleet reached Botany Bay in January, 1788. Never had name
been more evidently misapplied. The teeming luxuriant vegetation was all
a myth, and on closer inspection the "Botanists' Bay" proved to be mere
barren swamps and sterile sands. The anchorage though extensive was
exposed, and in easterly gales torn by a tremendous surf. Before
debarking, therefore, Captain Phillip determined to seek along the coast
some site more suitable for the new settlement. Starting with a select
party in a small boat for Broken Bay, he passed _en route_ an opening
marked upon the chart as Port Jackson, named thus from the look-out man
in Cook's ship, who had made it out from the masthead. This is known now
as one of the finest and most secure harbours in the world. Here in a
cove, where there was deep water for ships of the heaviest burden close
in shore, the foundations of the new town were to be laid. It was
christened Sydney, after the Secretary of State for the Colonies; and
thither a party of convict artificers, guarded by marines, was at once
removed to clear land for the intended settlement. When this was
accomplished, the remainder of the colonists, 1,030 souls in all, were
put on shore.
There was plenty of work to be done, and but few hands to do it.
Enlarged clearings were needed; barracks, storehouses, hospitals,
dwellings for the superior and other officers, huts for the convicts.
Although at the time when the "first fleet" sailed, many thousands of
convicts awaiting deportation crowded the various gaols of England, no
attempt had been made to select for the new colony those who, from their
previous condition and training, would have been most useful to the
young community. Of the six hundred male convicts actually embarked,
hardly any were skilled as artisans and mechanics. Nay more, though it
was meant that the colony should be if possible self-supporting, and
that every effort should be made to raise crops and other produce
without delay, few, if any, of either the convicts or their keepers had
had the least experience in agricultural pursuits. Yet with ordinary
care the whole number might have been made up of persons specially
qualified, accustomed to work either at trades or in the fields. Nor
were there among the sailors of the men-of-war many that could be turned
to useful account on shore.
Again, it had been forgotten that if the convicts were to be compelled
to work, overseers were indispensable; for laziness is ingrained in the
criminal class, and more than change of sky is needed to bring about
any lasting change in character and habits. To these retarding causes
was soon added wide-spread sickness, the result of long confinement on
ship-board, and an unvarying diet of salt provisions. Scurvy, which
during the voyage all had escaped, broke out now in epidemic form.
Indigenous anti-scorbutics there were next to none, and the disease grew
soon to alarming proportions. Many convicts died, and others in great
numbers sank under an almost entire prostration of life and energy. On
the voyage out there had been forty deaths; now within five months of
disembarkation there had been twenty-eight more, while sixty-six were in
hospital, and two hundred others were declared by the medical officers
to be unfit for duty or work of any kind.
Another difficulty of paramount importance soon stared the whole
settlement in the face. So far "the king's store" found all in food, but
the supply was not inexhaustible, and might in the long run, by a
concurrence of adverse circumstances, be almost emptied, as indeed
happened at no remote date. Famine was therefore both possible and
probable, unless in the interval the colony were made capable of
catering for its own needs. To accomplish this most desirable end it was
necessary to bring ground at once into cultivation, breed stock, and
raise crops for home consumption. The first farm was established at
Paramatta, fourteen miles from Sydney, and at the same time a
detachment under Lieut. King, R. N., of the _Sirius_, was sent to
colonise Norfolk Island, a place highly commended by Captain Cook for
its genial climate and fertile soil. "Here," says Laing,
"notwithstanding the various discouragements arising from droughts and
blighting winds, the depredations of birds, rats, grubs, and thieves to
which the settlement was at first exposed, a large extent of ground was
gradually cleared and cultivated, and the prospect of raising
subsistence for a considerable proportion appeared in every respect more
favourable than at Port Jackson."
At the headquarters settlement in these earlier years prospects were
poor enough. The land being less fertile needed more skill, and this was
altogether absent. The convicts knew nothing of farming--how could
they?--and there was no one to teach them. One or two instructors
expressly sent out were found quite useless. The only person in the
colony competent to manage convicts, or give them a practical knowledge
of agriculture, was the governor's valet, and he died in 1791. To add to
these troubles a lengthened drought afflicted the country during the
first year of the settlement, under which the soil, ungenerous before,
grew absolutely barren and unproductive. A man less resolute and able
than Captain Phillip might well have recoiled at the task before him.
The dangers ahead threatened the very existence of his colony. Hostile
natives surrounded him. Within the limits of his settlement he had to
face imminent starvation, and to cope with the innate lawlessness of a
population for the most part idle, ignorant, and vicious. For it soon
became plain that to look for the growth of a virtuous community, except
at some remote period, from the strange elements gathered together in
New South Wales, was but a visionary's dream.
England's social sewage was not to be shot down in Botany Bay, to be
deodorised or made pure just because the authorities willed it. It was
vain to count upon the reformation of these people in the present, or to
build up hopes of it in the future. We have seen how their natural
propensities displayed themselves on the voyage out. These, directly the
convicts were landed, developed with rapid growth, so that crimes and
offences of a serious nature soon became extremely rife. On the day the
governor's commission was read, the governor addressed the convicts,
exhorting them to behave with propriety, promising to reward the good
while he punished heavily all evil-doers. Next morning nine of the
people absconded. Within a week it was found necessary to try three
others for thefts, all of whom were flogged. Before the month passed,
four more were arraigned charged with a plot to rob the public stores,
for which one suffered death, and the others were banished from the
settlement. Yet at that time there was no possible excuse for such a
crime. When goaded by hunger and privation in the coming years of
scarcity, it was at least intelligible that desperate men should be
found ready to dare all risks to win one plenteous meal, though even
then each convict shared to the same extent as the governor himself.
Each man's weekly allowance consisted of 7 lbs. biscuit, 3 lbs. peas,
and 6 ozs. butter; 7 lbs. salt beef, or 4 lbs. salt pork. But in the
first year the rations were ample, and inherent depravity could alone
have tempted these convicts to rob the common store.
About this time another convict offender was pardoned on condition that
he become the public executioner. Both "cat" and gallows were now kept
busy, yet without effect. "Exemplary punishments," says Collins, "seemed
about this period to be growing more necessary. Stock was often killed,
huts and tents broken open, and provisions constantly stolen about the
latter part of the week; for among the convicts there were many who knew
not how to husband their provisions through the seven days they were
intended to serve them, but were known to have consumed the whole at the
end of the third or fourth day. One of this description made his week's
allowance of flour (8 lbs.) into 18 cakes, which he devoured at one
meal. He was soon after taken speechless and senseless, and died the
following day at the hospital, a loathsome, putrid object." Here again
was felt the want of overseers and superintendents of a class superior
to that of the convicts, through whom discipline and interior economy
might be maintained and regulated. Naturally those selected felt a
tenderness for the shortcomings of their fellows, and it was more than
difficult to detect or bring home offences to the guilty. A common crime
was absence. Many, undeterred by fear of starvation, or savage natives,
went off to the woods. One remained there nineteen days, returning to
the settlement at night to lay his hands on food. In some cases the
absentees were murdered by natives, and their bodies found sometimes
with their heads pounded to jelly, but always mutilated, speared or cut
in pieces. There were other crimes quite new, as were the punishments
meted out to them. One impostor pretended to have discovered a gold
mine; but it was proved that he had fabricated the gold dust he produced
from a guinea and a brass buckle, and he was condemned to be flogged and
to wear a canvas dress decorated with the letter R, "to distinguish him
more particularly from others as a rogue." This same offender being
afterwards caught housebreaking, suffered death, but not before he had
betrayed his accomplices--two women who had received the stolen
property. One of these was also executed, while of the other a public
example was made. In the presence of the assembled convicts the
executioner shaved her head, and clothed her in a canvas frock, on which
were painted the capitals R. S. G.--receiver of stolen goods. "This was
done," says Collins, "with the hope that shame might operate, at least
with the female part of the prisoners, to the prevention of crime; but
a great number of both sexes had been too long acquainted with each
other in scenes of disgrace for this kind of punishment to work much
reformation among them."
Thieving continued on all sides, and the hangman was always busy.
Repeated depredations brought one man to the halter, while another, for
stabbing a woman, received seven hundred lashes. Scarcely any of the
convicts could be relied upon, yet many, in the scarcity of honest
freemen, were appointed to posts of responsibility and trust. Generally
they abused the confidence reposed in them. The case is mentioned of one
Bryant, a seafaring west-country man, who was employed to fish for the
settlement. Every encouragement was held out to this man to secure his
honesty: a hut was built for him and his family, and he was allowed to
retain for his own use a portion of every taking. Nevertheless he was
detected in a long continued practice of purloining quantities of fish
which he sold for his own gain. But he was too useful to be deprived of
his employment, and he was still retained as official fisherman, only
under a stricter supervision. Even this he eluded, managing a year or
two later to make good his escape from the colony, together with his
wife, two children, and seven other convicts. Having for some time laid
by a store of provisions, and obtaining from a Dutch ship, in the port
of Sydney, a compass, quadrant, and chart, together with information to
help him in reaching Timor and Batavia, he stole one of the government
boats and made off. Bryant and two of his convict companions being well
trained in the management of a boat, and having luck upon their side, in
due course reached the ports for which they steered. Others were less
fortunate in their attempts to escape; like those who tried to walk to
China northward through the Australian continent. Nor did much success
wait upon the scheme laid by the convicts at Norfolk Island to overpower
their guards, seize the person of the governor, and decamp. Although too
wild and preposterous a plot to raise serious alarm, the very existence
of this serves to prove the treacherous, untrustworthy character of
these felon exiles. Some years later, indeed, in the reign of Governor
King, an outbreak somewhat similar, but planned with secrecy and
judgment, came actually to a head, and for the moment assumed rather
serious proportions. In this, several hundred convicts combined "to
strike for their liberty." They had pikes, pistols, and several stands
of arms. The insurrection broke out suddenly. Two large bodies marched
upon Paramatta, but were closely followed by an officer, Major Johnson,
with forty men of the New South Wales Corps, who brought them to an
action at Vinegar Hill, and in fifteen minutes dispersed them with great
loss.
It is abundantly evident from these and other instances, that the
convict population could only be ruled by an iron hand. But I think
Governor Phillip would have forgiven them much if they had but been more
industrious. Everything hung upon their labour. The colony must continue
to be dependent on the mother country for the commonest necessaries of
life, until by the work of these felon hands sufficient food was raised
to supply subsistence, whenever the public store should grow empty or
come altogether to an end. Yet the convicts by no means exerted
themselves to the utmost; they foolishly conceived that they had no
interest in the success of their labours. Task work had been adopted as
the most convenient method of employing them; a certain quantity of
ground was allotted to be cleared by a certain number of persons in a
given time.
The surplus gained was conceded to them to bring in materials and build
huts for themselves. But few cared to take advantage of the privilege,
preferring to be idle, or to straggle through the woods, or to visit
surreptitiously the French warships lying in Botany Bay. Indeed, the sum
total of their efforts was to do just enough to avoid immediate
punishment for idleness. Moreover, as time passed, the numbers available
for work dwindled down, till at the end of the first year, in January,
1789, that is to say, only two hundred and fifty were employed in the
cultivation of land. Many were engaged at the wharves and storehouses,
but by far the greater portion were utterly incapacitated by age or
infirmity for field labour of any description.
The evil days that were in store did not long delay their coming.
Throughout the latter part of 1789, and the early months of 1790, the
colony saw itself reduced to terrible straits for food. Relief was daily
expected from England, but daily unaccountably delayed. Emptier and more
empty grew the King's store. In the month of February, 1790, there
remained therein not more than four months' provisions for all hands,
and this at half rations. To prepare for the worst, the allowance issued
was diminished from time to time, till in April, that year, it consisted
only of 2 lbs. of pork, 2 lbs. of rice, and 2½ lbs. of flour per head,
for seven days. More than ever in the general scarcity were robberies
prevalent. Capital punishment became more and more frequent, without
exercising any appreciable effect. Garden thefts were the most common.
As severe floggings of hundreds of lashes were ineffectual to check this
crime, a new penalty was tried, and these garden robbers were chained
together in threes, and compelled to work thus ironed. "Any man," said,
years and years afterwards, one of these first fleet convicts who had
reached affluence and comfort at last--"any man would have committed
murder for a month's provisions; I would have committed three for a
week's. I was chained seven weeks on my back for being out getting
greens and wild herbs." No doubt in those days of dire privation and
famine the sufferings of all were grievous; but the statements of these
people must be accepted with the utmost caution, even when divested of
half their horrors. The same old convict said that he had often dined
off pounded grass, or made soup from a native dog. Another old convict
declared he had seen six men executed for stealing twenty-one pounds of
flour. "For nine months," says a third, "I was on five ounces of flour a
day, which when weighed barely came to four. The men were weak," he goes
on, "dreadfully weak, for want of food. One man, named 'Gibraltar,' was
hanged for stealing a loaf out of the governor's kitchen. He got down
the chimney, stole the loaf, had a trial, and was hanged next day at
sunrise."
Food, food, all for food! In its imperious needs hunger drove the
unprincipled to brave every danger, and the foolish to excess not less
terrible. Collins tells another story of a woman who devoured her whole
week's allowance in one night, making up a strange compound of cabbage
and flour, of which she ate heartily during the day, "but not being
satisfied, she rose again in the night and finished the mess," and died.
Throughout these trying times, Governor Phillip maintained a firm front.
It is told of him, that seeing a dog run by he ordered it to be killed
at once,--as a mouth that was useless, it could not in these days be
entitled to food. Then, to ease the mother settlement, a large number of
persons were drafted to Norfolk Island, where, thanks to the presence
of numbers of wild birds, supplies were more plentiful. In transit, H.
M. S. _Sirius_--the only ship left in the colony--was wrecked in full
view of the settlement.
Relief came at length, but in driblets. At the time of greatest need,
more mouths arrived instead of more barrels of pork and flour. In
February, as I have said, there were but four months' provisions in the
stores; yet on the third day of June, two hundred and twenty-two women
arrived--"a cargo," says the chronicler, "unnecessary and unprofitable;"
while H. M. S. _Guardian_, which came as convoy and carried all the
stores, was lost at sea. Another store ship, the _Justinian_, happily
turned up about the 20th of June.
Later in this month, eleven sail, composing the "second fleet," came
into port. In this second fleet the arrangements made were about as good
as in slave ships from the Guinea Coast. The mortality on the voyage out
had been absolutely frightful. One thousand six hundred and ninety-five
male convicts and sixty-eight females were the numbers embarked, and of
these one hundred and ninety-four males and four females had died at
sea; while such was the state of debility in which the survivors landed
in the colony, that one hundred and sixteen of their number died in the
Colonial Hospital before the 5th of December, 1791. It seemed that the
masters of transports were paid head-money for each convict embarked,--a
lump sum of £17 9s. 6d. each. The more, therefore, that died, and the
sooner, the less food was consumed, and the greater the consequent
profit. Even to the living, the rations were so much reduced below the
allowance stipulated by the governor, that many convicts were actually
starved to death. In most of the ships very few were allowed on deck at
the same time. Crowded thus continually in a foetid atmosphere below,
many peculiar diseases were rapidly engendered among them. Numbers died
in irons; and what added to the horror of such a circumstance was that
their deaths were concealed, for the purpose of sharing their allowance
of provisions, until chance and the offensiveness of a corpse directed
the surgeon, or some one who had authority in the ship, to the spot
where it lay. In one of the ships a malignant fever had prevailed during
the latter part of the voyage, to which the captain, with his first and
second officers, had succumbed; while in another, the usual plot to take
the ship was discovered, and had to be checked with severe repressive
measures, which increased the tribulation of these hapless wretches.
Colonel Collins, in his "Account of New South Wales," gives but a sorry
picture of the condition in which these ill-fated exiles of the second
fleet arrived at New South Wales. "By noon," he says, "the following day
the two hundred sick had been landed from the different transports. The
west side afforded a scene truly distressing and miserable: upwards of
thirty tents were pitched in front of the hospital, the portable one not
yet being put up, all of which, as well as the hospital and the
adjoining huts, were filled with people, many of whom were labouring
under the complicated diseases of scurvy and dysentery, and others in
the last stages of either of those terrible disorders, or yielding to
the attacks of an infectious fever. The appearance of those who did not
require medical assistance was lean and emaciated. Several of these
people died in the boats as they were rowing on shore, or on the wharf
as they were lifted out of the boats; both the living and the dead
exhibiting more horrid spectacles than had ever been witnessed in this
country. All this was to be attributed to confinement of the worst
species, confinement in a small space and in irons--not put on singly,
but many of them chained together."
The years immediately subsequent witnessed a repetition of what had
already occurred. The colony found itself again and again brought to the
lowest ebb; and then, when in the last stage, starvation stared it in
the face, there came more convicts and more salt meat. All through, the
health of the inhabitants continued indifferent, in spite of the natural
salubrity of the climate. This was partly due to the voyage out; also to
the diet, insufficient and always salt; and not a little to the gloomy
outlook for all concerned in this far-off miserable settlement. Yet,
through all vicissitudes, the governors who in turn assumed the reins
bore up bravely, and governed with admirable energy and pluck. They
were all--at least for the first twenty years--captains of the Royal
Navy, trained in a rough school, but eminently practical men. Their
policy was much the same. They had to bring land into cultivation,
develop the resources of the colony, coerce the ill-conditioned, and
lend a helping hand to any that gave earnest of a reform in character.
It will be seen that so far the colony of New South Wales consisted
entirely of two classes, the convicts and their masters. In other words,
it was a slave settlement--officials on the one hand as taskmasters; on
the other, criminals as bondsmen who had forfeited their independence,
and were bound to labour without wages for the State. The work to be
done in these early days was essentially of a public character. It was
for the common good that food should be raised, storehouses erected; the
whole body of the population benefited, too, by the hospitals, while the
building of barracks to house the guardians of order was also an
advantage to all. But such preliminary and pioneer works once fairly
started, the next step towards a healthy and vigorous life for the
colony was the establishment therein of a respectable middle class--a
body of virtuous and industrious settlers to stand between the supreme
power and the serfs it ruled. People of this kind were wanted to give
strength and stability to the settlement, to set an example of decorum,
and by their enterprising industry to assist in the development of the
country. But they must come from England; they were not to be looked for
"among discharged soldiers, shipwrecked seamen, and quandam convicts."
Governor Phillip at once admitted this, and from the first strongly
urged the home government to encourage free emigration by every means.
The distance from England was, however, too great to entice many across
the seas, and the passage out would have swallowed up half the capital
of most intending settlers. Several free families were therefore sent
out in 1796 at the public expense, receiving each of them a grant of
land on arrival and free rations for the first ensuing eighteen months.
But this assisted emigration was carried out in a very half-hearted,
incomplete fashion, so much so that for a long time--till years after
the peace of 1815--says Heath in his "Paper on Secondary Punishments,"
"a large proportion of the free settlers are described as of a low
character, not very superior to that of the convicts." Their numbers
were very small, being recruited indeed from the three sources above
mentioned--the soldiers, the sailors, and the convicts themselves.
Naturally, as time passed and sentences lapsed, the last mentioned
supplied a very numerous class. Every effort was made to give them a
fair start on the new road they were expected to follow. They received
grants of land, varying from ten to sixty acres, with additional slices
for children or wife. Pigs, seed-corn, implements, rations and clothing
were served out to each from the King's store; and, thus provided for,
straightforward industry would soon have earned for them an honest
competence. But in comparatively few instances did these convict
settlers thrive. They formed a body of small proprietors of the worst
class, ruining their land by bad farming, and making those who were
still convicts far worse by the example they set of dissoluteness and
dissipation.
Society now, and for years to come, presented a curious spectacle. Its
most conspicuous features were its drunkenness and its immorality. The
whole community might be divided into those who sold spirits and those
who drank them. Everything went in drink. The crops were no sooner
gathered than they went for spirits. Any hope of raising the general
tone of society was out of the question so long as this unbounded
intemperance prevailed. Besides this, there was neither marrying nor
giving in marriage. In Governor Bligh's time two-thirds of the births
were illegitimate. Bands of robbers, the first bushrangers, infested the
country, levying blackmail, and, entering the homes of the defenceless
settlers in open day, committed the most fearful atrocities.
This general recklessness and immorality was fostered by the monopoly of
sale possessed by the officers of the New South Wales Corps. These
gentlemen, who came out in 1792 as officers of this local regiment, were
for very many years a thorn in the side of the constituted authorities.
Bound together by _esprit de corps_ and unity of interest, they were
constantly at war with the governor, and generally successful.
Everything was made subservient to them. They had become by degrees
engaged in commercial operations, and in time they alone had permission
to purchase all cargoes of merchandise that came into port. These goods
they retailed at an enormous profit, so that the small farmers were
nearly ruined by the prices they had to pay for such necessaries as they
required. "Hence," as Laing says, "they (these small farmers) lost all
hope of bettering their circumstances by honest industry, and were led
into unbounded dissipation." The figure cut by officers who wore the
king's uniform in thus descending to traffic and peddle is not
over-dignified. Nor were they always over-scrupulous in their dealings.
As my narrative is concerned rather with the convict element and the
vicissitudes of transportation than with the general history of the
colony, it would be beyond my scope to enlarge upon the well-known
"rebellion," in which this New South Wales Corps played the prominent
part. In a few words, this amounted to the forcible ejectment from
office of the King's representative, Governor Bligh, by those who were
themselves the guardians of the King's peace. It would be tedious to
argue here the two sides of the question; but, even allowing that both
sides were to blame, it seems clear that the rebellious troops were most
in the wrong. Eventually this New South Wales Corps ceased to exist as
such, and becoming a numbered regiment, the 102nd of the line, was
removed from the colony.
Meanwhile the convicts continued to pour in. Between 1795 and 1801,
2,833 arrived; 2,398 from 1801 to 1811. In the years between the comings
of the first and second fleets, attempts had been made to improve the
arrangements for sending them out. As soon as the hulks at home were
full, and convicts began to accumulate, vessels were chartered for New
South Wales. Each carried 200 with a guard of 30 soldiers. The men
selected for transportation were always under fifty, and were taken from
those sentenced for life or fourteen years. When these were found
insufficient to provide the necessary draft, the numbers were made up
from the seven-year men, and of these the most unruly were chosen, or
those convicted of the more atrocious crimes. The females were sent
indiscriminately, the only provision being that they must be under fifty
years of age. Lists accompanied them out in all cases. These lists were
deficient in all useful information--without particulars of crimes,
trades, or previous characters; points on which information had to be
obtained from the convicts themselves. The transport ships were supposed
to be well found in all respects: clothes, medicines, and provisions for
the voyage and for nine months afterwards were put on board at the
public expense. The owner supplied a surgeon, and the admiralty laid
down precise instructions for his guidance. The master, too, was bound
over to be careful of his living cargo. On arrival his log-book was
submitted for inspection, and the governor of New South Wales was
empowered to reward him a special gratuity on the one hand, or on the
other to mulct and prosecute him, according to his behaviour on the
voyage out.
On arrival at Sydney the convicts were either disposed of as servants to
settlers, or retained in government hands. We have here the system of
assignment, though as yet quite in embryo. While settlers of any wealth
were few, there was little demand for convict labourers, except as
simple servants; although in the case of some of the leading officials,
who had already considerable grants of land under cultivation, as many
as forty were, even in these early days, assigned to the same master.
The great mass of the convicts were therefore retained by the
government. They were fed, clothed, and lodged by government, and
organised in gangs. Each gang was under an overseer--an old convict--who
was certain to err either on the side of culpable leniency towards his
charges, or of brutal cruelty. Stories are told of an overseer who
killed three men in a fortnight from overwork at the sawmill. "We used
to be taken in large parties," says the same old hand that I mentioned
before, "to raise a tree. When the body of the tree was raised, old
---- (the overseer) would call some of the men away, then more. The men
were bent double, they could not bear the weight--they fell, and on them
the tree, killing one or two on the spot. 'Take them away: put them in
the ground.' There was no more about it." Another overseer was described
as "the biggest villain that ever lived. He delighted in torment, and
used to walk up and down rubbing his hands when the blood ran. When he
walked abroad the flogger walked behind him. He died a miserable death:
maggots ate him up. Not a man could be found to bury him." A third
overseer was sent to bury a man who, though weak and almost insensible,
was not dead. "For God's sake," cried the poor wretch, "don't cover me
up. I'm not dead." "You will be before night," replied the overseer.
"Cover him up" (with an oath), "or we shall have to come back again to
do the work a second time." On the other hand, it was known that
overseers connived at irregularities of every description. The men were
allowed to work as little as they pleased; many left their parties
altogether to rob, and returned at nightfall to share their plunder with
the overseers. Naturally the work accomplished for the public service
did not amount to much. The hours of labour were from 6 A. M. to
3 P. M., after which the rest of the day belonged to the convict to be
spent in amusement or labour profitable to himself. Even in these days
the punishment of transportation fell most unequally on different men.
While the commoner classes of offenders were consigned to the gangs or
drafted off to be the slaves of the low-bred settler, persons who had
held a higher station in life, or who had been transported for what came
to be called "genteel crimes," forgery, that is to say, embezzlement,
and the like, were granted tickets-of-leave at once, which exempted them
from all compulsory labour and allowed them to provide for themselves.
To them the only hardship entailed by their crimes was the enforced
exile.
So far we have had to deal only with the difficulties encountered by the
young colony and the steps taken to combat them. It is too soon to speak
of the consequences that were entailed by forming a new settlement from
the dregs of society. I will only state in general terms what was the
actual state of affairs. A governor at the head of all with full powers
nominally, but not nearly autocratic; next to him, as the aristocracy, a
band of officials not always obedient, sometimes openly insubordinate,
consistent only in pushing forward their own fortunes. Between these and
the general body of the colonists a great gulf; the nearest to the
aristocracy being the settlers--passing through several gradations--from
the better class, few in number, to the pensioner or convict newly set
free; at the very bottom, the slave or serf population--the convicts
still in bondage.
This was the first stage in the colony's existence. With the breaking
up of the power of the New South Wales Corps and the appointment of
Governor Macquarie a new era opened; and to this I devote the next
chapter.