oo2 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, ETC., 



made applications to the Board, are in waiting ; they of course know 

 nothing of the character of the convicts, and, as I learned from a good 

 source, no record is kept, or sent with the convicts themselves. The 

 Board is entirely ignorant of their character or crimes, and thus can 

 exercise no discrimination in assigning the convict to the hands of a 

 good or of a hard master. The greatest villains may, therefore, fall 

 into kind hands, while one who is comparatively innocent may suffer 

 much more than he deserves. 



The punishment of transportation must continue very unequal until 

 a classification be resorted to. Many convicts, by bad treatment are 

 confirmed in their vices. 



For any misbehaviour, they are, as has been seen, subject to severe 

 castigation upon their master's making oath before a magistrate. This 

 not unfrequently drives the culprit or convict to further crime, and in 

 revenge for these wrongs, he either neglects his master's interest, or 

 has been known to set fire to his harvest when gathered. 



The present system appears fitted to entail evil and misery on the 

 colony, and there are few disinterested men who do not view it as 

 calculated to prevent any moral improvement. Murders, robberies, 

 and frauds are brought about by it, for which extreme punishments 

 are of such frequent occurrence that it is a matter of astonishment 

 that a stranger should remark that an execution had taken place. 

 The day before our arrival five criminals had been hung, and more 

 were to suffer in a few days. 



These executions take place without causing any unusual excite- 

 ment, There is little doubt that the convict population contains 

 among its members many of the most abandoned wretches, and I am 

 also aware that the Governor and Council are making every exertion 

 to put a stop to the immorality and vice which so generally prevail ; 

 yet I am satisfied that the convicts who are assigned are, in some 

 cases, goaded on to crime by the treatment they receive from their 

 masters, who hold them as slaves, and degrade them to the level of 

 the beast with whom they are forced to labour. 



Although Great Britain has a right to assume a proud pre-emi- 

 nence in her exertions to emancipate the blacks, yet it behooves her 

 to look to her penal settlements, and examine into the tyranny and 

 degradation that a large number of her subjects are suffering there, 

 many of them for slight crimes. 



Few except those who have visited this colony can be aware of the 

 extent to which the lash is administered, and oftentimes on the mere 



