LAND, LABOUR AND COMMERCE. 127 



-embraced any proposition that had a tendency to exempt them 

 from individual exertion, and in which no other or greater de- 

 gree of risk or expense was to be incurred than that of paying 

 the salary of the superintendent and the subsistence of a certain 

 number of convicts." * 



The uncertain conditions of labour due to the convict system, 

 which raised a difficulty in this case, affected every kind of 

 colonial enterprise. Yet the existence of a supply of servile 

 labour was considered in England to be one of the great ad- 

 vantages of emigration to New South Wales. 2 Convict ser- 

 vants were held out to intending settlers as a kind of bait, not 

 only those servants for whose keep the Government made them- 

 selves responsible during a short period for the benefit of new 

 settlers, but also the convict servants whom they were allowed to 

 receive at any period under conditions laid down by the Governor. 



Owing partly to these conditions, and partly to the bad 

 qualities inherent in all forms of servile labour, convict labour 

 was not a success. The whole tendency of this branch of 

 Macquarie's policy was to raise the status of the assigned ser- 

 vant to that of a free labourer, but he could not alter the legal 

 condition of prisoner or the moral irresponsibility of forced 

 labour. In 1820 there were 8,864 men an d 587 women who 

 were still prisoners. Of the women there is little to be said. 

 About 250 worked in the Government wool factory at Parra- 

 matta and the remainder either went into domestic service, 

 married, 3 or lived with convicts or free men in Sydney or the 

 other districts. Some of them were joined by their husbands 

 from England and started with them in trade, usually as licensed 

 victuallers. 4 In accordance with Government Orders female 

 convicts were assigned as domestic servants only to married 

 men, and the master had to enter into indentures to keep the 

 servant three years, to clothe and feed her suitably, and pay 

 her wages amounting to 7 a year. 5 For the most part they 



1 Bigge's Report, III. 



2 See, e.g., Westminster Review, April, 1825, Article on Emigration. Also 

 Wentworth's Account of Australia, first published 1819, 3rd ed., 1824, p. 92. 



3 li they married they were usually given tickets-of-leave, sometimes pardons. 

 There were 270 women with tickets-of-leave in 1820. 



4 These also usually received tickets-of-leave. 



5 The cost of clothing appears to have been deducted from the 7. 



