82 Voyage of the Novara. 



sea colonies in portions of the earth as yet little visited, the 

 first colonization of which is attended with local difficulties. 

 We have but to avail ourselves of the experience acquired at 

 Botany Bay, avoiding the canker under which the system 

 has hitherto been worked in the British colonies (with the 

 exception perhaps of that pattern convict settlement at Singa- 

 pore, which we have already described), and di-aw up such 

 regulations, keeping in view the sole object of transporta- 

 tion, viz. PUNISHMENT BY EXILE, AND EEFOEMATION OF THE IN- 

 DIVIDUAL THEOUGH LABOUE, as shall facilitate its being carried 

 out in an efficient manner, and suffer ourselves neither to be 

 diverted from our course by the selfish warnings of interested 

 administrators, nor by the objections of ill-advised philan- 

 thropists. 



With respect to the carrying out of a system of trans- 

 portation, such as formerly existed in the British colonies, 

 especially Australia and Van Diemen's Land, the following 

 modifications seem to be advisable : — 



1. The abandonment of the convict to the employer, i. e. 

 the " assignment system," must be entirely given up, as the 

 prisoner by such an arrangement degenerates into an article 

 for speculation, out of which it must be the task-master's 

 interest to get as much as he can, so as to be able to return 

 him upon the hands of the State so soon as his capacity for 

 labour begins to fail. The convicts who were thus " as- 

 signed " in New South Wales, stood to their employers in 

 the same position as negro slaves in the Southern States of 



