324 NEW SOUTH WALES. [CHAP. xrx. 



on account of the drought, can never succeed on an extended scale : 

 therefore, so far as I can see, Australia must ultimately depend upon 

 being the centre of commerce for the southern hemisphere, and perhaps 

 on her future manufactories. Possessing coal, she always has the 

 moving power at hand. From the habitable country extending along 

 the coast, and from her English extraction, she is sure to be a maritime 

 nation. I formerly imagined that Australia would rise to be as grand 

 and powerful a country as North America, but now it appears to me 

 that such future grandeur is rather problematical. 



With respect to the state of the convicts, I had still fewer oppor- 

 tunities of judging than on the other points. The first question is, 

 whether their condition is at all one of punishment: no one will 

 maintain that it is a very severe one. This, however, I suppose, is of 

 little consequence as long as it continues to be an object of dread to 

 criminals at home. The corporeal wants of the convicts are tolerably 

 well supplied : their prospect of future liberty and comfort is not 

 distant, and after good conduct certain. A "ticket of leave," which, 

 as long as a man keeps clear of suspicion as well as of crime, makes 

 him free within a certain district, is given upon good conduct, after 

 years proportional to the length of the sentence ; yet with all this, and 

 overlooking the previous imprisonment and wretched passage out, 

 I believe the years of assignment are passed away with discontent and 

 unhappiness. As an intelligent man remarked to me, the convicts 

 know no pleasure beyond sensuality, and in this they are not gratified. 

 The enormous bribe which Government possesses in offering free 

 pardons, together with the deep horror of the secluded penal settlements, 

 destroys confidence between the convicts, and so prevents crime. As 

 to a sense of shame, such a feeling does not appear to be known, and 

 of this I witnessed some very singular proofs. Though it is a curious 

 fact, I was universally told that the character of the convict population 

 , is one of arrant cowardice : not unfrequently some become desperate, 

 and quite indifferent as to life, yet a plan requiring cool or continued 

 courage is seldom put into execution. The worst feature in the whole 

 case is, that although there exists what may be called a legal reform, 

 and comparatively little is committed which the law can touch, yet 

 that any moral reform should take place appears to be quite out of 

 the question. I was assured by well-informed people, that a man who 

 should try to improve, could not while living with other assigned 

 servants ; his life would be one of intolerable misery and persecution. 

 Nor must the contamination of the convict-ships and prisons, both 

 here and in England, be forgotten. On the whole, as a place of 

 punishment, the object is scarcely gained ; 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 hemisphere, into active citizens of another, and thus giving 

 birth to a new and splendid country a grand centre of civilization it 

 has succeeded to a degree perhaps unparalleled in history. 



January so/A. The Beagle sailed /or Hobart Town in Van Diemen's 



