438 THE CONVICTS. [chap. xix. 



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 

 opportunities 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 settle- 

 ments, 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. 



