1856.] STATE OF THE CONVICTS. 445 
fore, so far as I can see, Australia must ultimately depend upon 
being the centre of commerce for the southern hemisphere, 
aud perhaps on her future manufactories. Possessing coal, she 
-always has the moving power at hand. From the habiiable 
country extending along the coast, and from her English extrac- 
tion, she is sure to bea maritime nation. J 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 propor- 
tional to the length of the sentence; yet with all this, and over- 
looking 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 settlements, destroys confidence between the con- 
victs, 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 agrant cowardice: not unfrequently some become despe- 
rate, 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 Jaw can touch, yet that any moral reform should take 
place appears to be quite out of the question. I was assured by 
