XIX 
STATE OF THE CONVICTS 
4 73 
convict servants. I am not aware that the tone of society has 
assumed any peculiar character ; but with such habits, and 
without intellectual pursuits, it can hardly fail to deteriorate. 
My opinion is such, that nothing but rather sharp necessity 
should compel me to emigrate. 
The rapid prosperity and future prospects of this colony are 
to me, not understanding these subjects, very puzzling. The 
two main exports are wool and whale-oil, and to both of these 
productions there is a limit. The country is totally unfit for 
canals, therefore there is a not very distant point, beyond which 
the land-carriage of wool will not repay the expense of shearing 
and tending sheep. Pasture everywhere is so thin that settlers 
have already pushed far into the interior ; moreover, the 
country farther inland becomes extremely poor. Agriculture, on 
account of the droughts, can never succeed on an extended scale : 
therefore, so far as I can see, Australia must ultimately depend 
upon being the centre of commerce for the southern hemisphere 
and perhaps on her future manufactories. Possessing coal, she 
always has the moving power at hand. From the habitable 
country extending along the coast, and from her English 
extraction, she is sure to be a maritime nation. I 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 proportional to the length of the sentence ; yet 
with all this, and overlooking the previous imprisonment and 
wretched passage out, I believe the years of assignment are 
passed away with discontent and unhappiness. As an in¬ 
telligent man remarked to me, the convicts know no pleasure 
