78 Voyage of the Novara. 



had however been extended through custom or the favour of 

 the employers to various little articles of luxury, such as to- 

 bacco, sugar, tea, grog, &c. In particular, with the object of 

 ensuring the utmost zeal on the part of the workman during 

 the harvest season, it was almost imperative at that season to 

 show him those little relaxations and favours which at length 

 became customary, and in no slight degree enhanced the cost 

 of his maintenance. 



On the arrival of a convict sliip a crowd used to hurry 

 down to await the moment when the convicts were to be 

 allotted to applicants. As no special memoranda were made 

 during the voyage of the offence for which each man had been 

 transported, or his subsequent conduct on the voyage, the 

 administration were not in a position to make such a selec- 

 tion as should classify the prisoners, and assign them accord- 

 ing to nature of crime and subsequent behaviour to a 

 determined or a more gentle employer. Hence resulted the 

 most lamentable injustice ; the most truculent of these men 

 occasionally were assigned to the gentle masters, while a less 

 hardened criminal came under the yoke of a hard-hearted 

 task-master, and thus had an infinitely more severe lot to 

 bewail than he in fact deserved. 



Such a harsh, and in too many cases unjust, method of 

 dealing with them, drove the convicts to the commission of 

 fresh offences, or even crimes, and, in desperation at the 

 wrongs to which they were exposed, they not merely neg- 

 lected utterly the interests of their temporary masters, but 



