NEW SOUTH WALES. <J 499 



Scriptures they have neglected, nay even des- 

 pised them. The actions of their lives form 

 but one dreadful chain of events, only con- 

 nected by a series of uniform depravity, which' 

 no admonitions could repress, no laws restrain, 

 and no punishment reform. 



The regulations adopted by the Government, 

 either for the general good of the settlements, 

 or even for the particular benefit of the con- 

 victs themselves, have not only been neglected, 

 but prevented being carried into effecl. Even 

 the restrictions the convicts were wished to 

 observe, as to confining themselves within a 

 given space, though it concerned the safety of 

 their own lives, they by no means regarded, 

 notwithstanding examples frequently met their 

 eyes, of those who paid for their rashness with 

 their lives. The various escapes attempted 

 and effected in spite of every regulation, every 

 danger, or every fatal instance of those, who 

 by such vain endeavours fell sacrifices to their 

 folly, had no beneficial effect on the miuds of 

 the depraved inhabitants. But this certainly 

 arose from that detestation of labour, which 

 nearly all so uniformly inherited, and which 

 there seems even yet to be no very efficient 

 means of overcoming : for at this period even 

 the garden grounds allowed to many of the 

 convicts are not cultivated, as they prefer 

 rather wasting the time allowed them for that 

 purpose, than to make a proper use of it. 13ur, 

 probably, as the decent members of society in* 





