OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 223 



pretence of unruly and bad behaviour to their masters, or for the most 

 trivial offences. So many facts of this sort were stated to me by 

 persons in office, and of the highest respectability, that there cannot 

 be a doubt of their correctness. The following extract from a report 

 of the Committee of Transportation in 1835 will show it in its true 

 light. 



"In 1835, the number of convicts in the colony of New South 

 Wales was above twenty-eight thousand, and the summary convic- 

 tions in that year were estimated at twenty-two thousand. In one 

 month in 1833, two hundred and forty-seven convicts were flogged, 

 and nine thousand seven hundred and eighty-four lashes inflicted, 

 which would make for the whole year two thousand nine hundred 

 and sixty-four floggings, and about one hundred and eight thousand 

 lashes. This amount does not embrace one-third of the convicts 

 convicted summarily, but only those sentenced to be flogged, and 

 there yet remains those to be added who were sentenced to other 

 degrees of punishment ; male convicts to the iron-gangs, and tread- 

 mill, and females to the solitary cells of the factory." 



The inquiries that I made in relation to the native-born inhabitants, 

 were universally answered by all in favour both of their morals and 

 habits. Judge Burton bears testimony that the free emigrants and 

 native colonists are as exempt from the commission of crime as the 

 inhabitants of any other country. 



The defect in the female assignments is equally obvious. They 

 are assigned only to married settlers who are considered respectable. 

 They are accompanied by their children from the mother country, but 

 immediately upon arriving the assignment takes place, and as the 

 party to whom the convict is assigned does not wish to be encumbered 

 with her offspring, they are at once separated. The child is not unfre- 

 quently removed from the mother when at the breast, and taken to the 

 factory at Paramatta, where convicts' children are nursed and brought 

 up. The mother is thus severed from her progeny for months, and, 

 perhaps, for ever. The scenes that occur at these separations are often 

 heart-rending, and ought to condemn the whole system. The feelings 

 of the poor creatures may be more readily conceived than described. 



Connected with the convict system, are the convict prisons, where 

 the road and iron-gangs are lodged for safe keeping. There is one 

 on the hill at Sydney, which, like most of the buildings at Sydney, 

 bears the name of Governor Macquarie, 1817. In it are shown the 

 guard-room, the working and eating-rooms, and dormitories, all of 



