THE STIRRING OF POLITICAL ASPIRATIONS. 261 



as tall, loose-limbed and fair, with small features, and though 

 strong, not so athletic looking as Englishmen. They made 

 clever and daring sailors, 1 were already proud of their horse- 

 manship 2 and were willing and quick to learn any trade. It 

 was of course impossible that in one generation a new type 

 could have been evolved, and the fact was that the children of 

 the convicts, born into better conditions and growing up in 

 a healthier environment, reverted to the type of which their 

 parents were debased examples. It must also be remembered 

 that many men were at that time transported for very slight 

 offences, and that political prisoners from Ireland at the time 

 of the Rebellion and from England and Scotland in the years 

 of reaction after 1 795, gave to Australia a fine and sturdy stock. 3 

 The convict parents were in general anxious that their 

 children should grow up decent and honest, and desired them 

 to have the advantages of schooling and the ministrations of 

 the Church. 4 In cases where the parents were dissolute and 

 disreputable, their example was said to act rather as a deterrent 

 than a temptation. 5 Under Macquarie there was an increase in 

 the number of schoolmasters, and two of the chaplains sent out 

 had some training in the National Schools in London. Though 

 there were neither schoolmasters nor schoolhouses in sufficient 

 numbers to cope with the population, there were Government 

 schools of some sort in each district, and in Sydney there were 

 also several private " seminaries ". 



1 When Bigge was going from Sydney to Van Diemen's Land the ship was 

 manned exclusively by Australians in order to ensure a trustworthy crew. See 

 Report III. 



2 There were many complaints in the Gazette of reckless riding and driving. 

 A favourite trick was to drive through the town without reins. Macquarie wished 

 to raise a volunteer corps of mounted dragoons from amongst the young men. 



3 It is rather curious that the only prisoners against whose character 

 Macquarie was ever warned were five men who had been convicted of High 

 Treason and were transported in May 1820. He was cautioned against their 

 designing characters and the " wicked principles which they may attempt, if not 

 narrowly watched, to instil into the minds of others ". See letter from Home 

 Office with assignment of convicts, nth May, 1820. R.O., MS. Hunter (C. on 

 T., 1812) and Riley (C. on G., 1819) both gave very favourable accounts of the 

 Irish convicts. 



4 The Rev. Mr. Cross said that he had heard " a man who was a Catholic say : 

 ' I have been very bad myself and I don't wish my child to be as bad ; I would 

 rather he should be a Protestant than that '." Appendix, Bigge's Reports. R.O., 

 MS. 



5 See Bigge, III. and Evidence of Riley, C. on G., i8ig ; also Evidence of 

 several colonists in Appendix to Bigge's Reports. R.O., MS. 



