TWO VOYAGES

ΤΟ

NEW SOUTH WALES,

&.c.

CHAPTER I.

ON TRANSPORTATION.

THE frequency of capital punishment in this country has long excited a general feeling of abhorrence, not merely from the removal of a malefactor from the stage of life, but the distress produced in the display of a scene relieving the unfortunate sufferer from worldly troubles, yet leaving a too painful impression on the mind of the spectator. There is a hallowed reverence thrown around the grave of even the hardiest offender whose crimes have been expiated by his death. The execution of his sentence protects not only against insult and upbraiding, but also secures a degree of pity for his sad condition. But when

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the Royal mercy, expunging the severe sentence of the law, and obliterating the obnoxious record, bids the wretch to live and "sin no more," all the more pleasing ideas arising from seeing him restored to society and alienated from crime, are indulged by the humane. Hence arose a question of solicitude, whether the offender might not be made, in all possible cases, some way useful to society, or at least have the chance of effecting some expiation; thus securing to him the means of amendment in this life, and the hope of future mercy by a sincere repentance and sorrow for his past crimes.

In the place of Death, the punishment of Transportation to remote lands under the dominion of the British Government, at first to North America, and subsequently to New South Wales, was adopted. To these places of banishment all persons were sent whose sentence had been commuted from death for transportation, as next in degree of severity in the criminal code, which (in happy as absolute rejection of all barbarous refinement in punishment) admitted no middle term between actual removal of the offender in loss of life, and the political annihilation of all his rights as a member of the state, for the term of his natural life, or a determinate period, during which, consequently, his services were to be useless but to the Crown or its assigns; and his condition, therefore, and its comfort altogether independent of his own arbitrament and volition.

The convict was thus torn from every tie of relationship; and as even the depraved have their kindred affinities and private affections softened by some of

the endearments of life, the separation rendered the fulfilment of the sentence painful, and in this respect satisfied one intention of the law. Indeed the very worst offender seems not so divested of the character of humanity, but that the possession of life is still held by some link of nature to him of strong association.

The transport with which the condemned malefactor receives the reprieve or the news of pardon, proves the estimation in which he holds life, not more on his own account, than as it concerns his future hopes of benefiting his children or relations. With what rapturous emotion must the robber feel his bosom swell, when informed that his pardon was given because the life of the person he had robbed was spared!-that because in the career of his maddening plunder, whilst with one hand he grasped the purse, and with the other the devoted throat of his unresisting victim, a sudden thought of his own little ones flashed across his brain, and made him cast away the deadly pistol!-Grateful for the extension of life, one cannot but think he will carry with him in his exile a strong tendency to amendment, and impress on the mind of other offenders that sense of humanity which saved and opened to him so great a consolation.

The original intention of disposing of convicts by transportation was most likely to break off all existing connexions, and to estrange the mind from all former associations, so as to render the prisoner as abstracted as possible from every consideration but that of the immediate duty or discipline imposed. The expense attending their removal made it necessary that it should be repaid out of the convicts' labour; and every possible

chance of a return before their time, and all thought of home, or as much as could be, were carefully removed, that their whole time should be given for the above purpose. The punishment of exile had other terrors for the convicts themselves, which served to render their banishment a temporary slavery.

The ingenious Doctor Colquhoun gives the following on the origin of Transportation: "Parliament authorized this species of punishment in 1718, when the general plan of sending convicts to the American plantations was first adopted. This system continued for 56 years, during which period, and until the commencement of the American war in 1775, great numbers of felons were sent chiefly to the province of Maryland. The rigid discipline which the colonial laws authorized the masters to exercise over servants, joined to the prospects which agricultural pursuits, after some experience was acquired, afforded to those outcasts, tended to reform the chief part; and after the expiration of their servitude, they mingled in the society of the country, under circumstances highly bencficial to themselves, and even to the colony. Possessed in general (as every adroit thief must be) of good natural abilities, they availed themselves of the habits of industry they acquired in the years of their servitude; became farmers and planters on their own account; and many of them succeeding in those pursuits, not only acquired that degree of respectability which is attached to property and industry, but also in their turn became masters, and purchased the servitude of future transports sent out for sale."

When the American revolution prevented the fur

ther transmission of convicts to that country, the system of the Hulks and Houses of Correction was substituted. However, from the increasing num. ber of delinquents, arising not only from the increase of vice but that of population, that mode soon became inadequate to the augmented demands for disposing of the prisoners, as of course to the enforcement of that labour to which for their offences they had been sentenced. Plans were then acted upon for building extensive prisons, penitentiaries, and asylums for their reception: but the enormous expense and comparative inefficacy of those establishments, which it appears were mostly conducted in the old miserable mode of gaol discipline, the evils of which became now universally acknowledged, soon raised loud complaints against the system.

The attention of Government, still directed to this necessary and important relief of the community from those who would subvert its comforts and security, caused the coast of Africa to be explored for a fit situation for a colony: but that research proved fruitless, on account of the unhealthiness of the climate, or hostility of the natives of those situations which remained unoccupied by other European nations, rendering it imprudent to risk an establishment in that country. The discovery of the vast territory of New South Wales by Captain Cook in 1770 and 1777, opened a new field for disposing of those refractory characters. The following is recorded by COLLINS as the commencement of the present colony there:

"The Commissioners of His Majesty's Navy, toward the end of the year 1786, advertised for a certain