318 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



salutary terror, transportation cannot operate as an effectual ex- 

 ample on the community at large, and as a proper punishment 

 for those crimes against the commission of which His Majesty's 

 subjects have a right to claim protection, nor as an adequate 

 commutation for the utmost rigour of the law." 



There had been a change, Lord Bathurst pointed out, from 

 the time when convicts sought to have the sentence of transporta- 

 tion commuted " even for the utmost rigour of the law," to the 

 present when men convicted of slight offences sought the punish- 

 ment of transportation which was the penalty of greater crimes. 

 Altogether the conditions of the Colony had altered. The free 

 settlers had increased, many convicts had become settled on 

 the land, population and wealth had become great. The grow- 

 ing number of convicts transported made it more difficult than 

 in earlier years to enforce discipline ; the problem of housing 

 them had become formidable. Judging by the information 

 before him in Macquarie's despatches, it appeared to Lord 

 Bathurst that this increase of numbers had made it necessary 

 to distribute greater numbers amongst the settlers, and that 

 under this system it had also been necessary to give the con- 

 victs " greater freedom than is consistent with the ends in view 

 in transporting them," an impression curiously at variance with 

 the facts of the case as Bigge afterwards saw them. 1 



While the primary object of his inquiry was to study the 

 convict establishment, Bigge was also required to report " upon 

 a variety of topics, which have more or less reference to the 

 advancement of those settlements as Colonies of the British 

 Empire ". 2 



The special subjects were the judicial establishment, the 

 social conditions, educational and religious, the economic con- 

 ditions, commercial and agricultural. 



As to the first, he had to consider whether Van Diemen's 

 Land should have a separate judicature and whether the changes 

 made by the charter of 1814 were still adequate for the judicial 

 needs of the Colony. Finally was there any necessity to 



I See Chapter V. The Government discipline was much slacker than that of 

 the settlers. 



II P.P., XIV., 1823. Instructions to Bigge, second letter, 6th January, 1819. 



