474 
VAN DIEMEN'S LAND 
CHAP. 
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 convicts, 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 
arrant cowardice ; not unfrequently some become desperate, 
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 law can touch, yet that any moral reform 
should take place appears to be quite out of the question. I 
was assured by well-informed people that a man who should 
try to improve, could not while living with other assigned 
servants ;—his life would be one of intolerable misery and 
persecution. Nor must the contamination of the convict-ships 
and prisons, both here and in England, be forgotten. On the 
whole, as a place of punishment, the object is scarcely gained ; 
as a real system of reform it has failed, as perhaps would every 
other plan ; but as a means of making men outwardly honest, 
—of converting vagabonds, most useless in one hemisphere, 
into active citizens of another, and thus giving birth to a new 
and splendid country—a grand centre of civilisation—it has 
succeeded to a degree perhaps unparalleled in history. 
30 th .—The Beagle sailed for Hobart Town in Van 
Diemen’s Land. On the 5 th of February, after a six days’ 
passage, of which the first part was fine, and the latter very 
cold and squally, we entered the mouth of Storm Bay ; the 
weather justified this awful name. The bay should rather be 
called an estuary, for it receives at its head the waters of the 
Derwent. Near the mouth there are some extensive basaltic 
platforms ; but higher up the land becomes mountainous, and 
is covered by a light wood. The lower parts of the hills 
which skirt the bay are cleared ; and the bright yellow fields 
of corn, and dark green ones of potatoes, appeared very 
luxuriant. Late in the evening we anchored in the snug cove, 
