TRANSPORTATION OF CONVICTS. (Hansard, 19 May 1840)

The Archbishop of Dublin

spoke to the following effect^*.—I have, in the first place, to present a petition on the subject of the motion I am about to make; a petition which, though very brief in itself, is long in respect of signatures, being signed by 225 respectable persons resident in London and Westminster, among whom are five or ^* Reprinted from a corrected report, entitled "Substance of a Speech," &c., published by Fellows, Ludgate Hill, with this motto, "It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of the people, and wicked condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant." —LORD BACON. 247 six merchants trading to New South Wales. The petitioners pray, in few, but expressive words, for the entire abolition of the punishment of Transportation. I regret, ray Lords, that this most important subject has not been, in the first instance, taken up by some other Member of this House, more practised as a debater than myself, and more qualified to meet the great and peculiar difficulties which pertain to it. Not, however, that the decision of the main question does appear to me to present any considerable difficulty, to those who have carefully and candidly attended to the subject; but to produce this attention—to direct men's minds to the subject, and fix them earnestly and steadily on the consideration of it,—this it is that in several years' experience, I have found to be the most difficult task. In the course of those years—not less than eleven—during which I have been engaged in repeated efforts to excite some public interest in a matter of such ital importance, I have sometimes been almost led to regret, that the subject of penal colonies has not been made a party question:—at least, to doubt whether that circumstance—advantageous as at first sight it appears with a view to its fair investigation, has not been in another point of view, a disadvantage. Party-questions are not indeed usually considered and discussed in the fairest and most dispassionate way; but at least they attract attention;—they do obtain consideration and discussion; and this is in itself at least, favourable to the cause of truth; it holds out some hope at least, of ultimately leading to a right decision. The present, on the contrary, being no party-question, has been generally, I regret to say, regarded with equal indifference by men of all parties; and that indifference has commonly been succeeded by a disgust which has still more turned aside their minds from the subject. Most persons with whom I have conversed respecting our system of transportation, have acknowleged to me, that it is a subject they had not much thought of, but of which they had a general impression that it is one attended with great difficulties, and those, of a peculiarly unpleasant character. And when so far roused to a sense of the importance of the question as to overcome their first repugnance to enter upon it at all, I have generally found them so disgusted with the painful, the shocking and loathsome details, into which the inquirer is necessarily led, as to shrink back with aversion from the investigation, and abandon all further con- 248 sideration of the subject; saying, either in words or virtually, that the whole question of Penal Legislation is difficult and disagreeable, and that they would rather have nothing to do with it. Such is the temper of mind I have too often met with in those who, in respect of other matters pertaining to the public welfare, are neither indifferent nor inactive. And when I have taken occasion to point out some measures that are imperatively called for, with a view to the immediate mitigation at least of some of the enormous and ever-growing evils of our transportation system, I have been usually met by the general answer that "there are difficulties" in every plan that has been suggested. Difficulties indeed! Why, what is all legislation—what is all Government, but a choice of difficulties? Most especially must criminal legislation be a choice of difficulties, because it is at best but a choice of evils; all punishment being in itself an evil. No one who is disposed to remain inactive, and to let all abuses take their course, need he at a loss for an excuse, if difficulties are a sufficient plea. "The slothful man saith, there is a lion in the way! a lion is in the path!" But is such a man fit to legislate or to govern? For what purpose, my Lords, do we sit here—with what professed view does any one undertake public office—except to grapple with and overcome difficulties in the way of the public welfare? But the difficulties, it is urged, are peculiarly great in the case of criminal legislation. They are so; and are greatly enhanced by the wrong course which we have so long been pursuing. If it is a troublesome and difficult task to devise and carry into effect wise measures, it, is a still harder task to undo the effects of unwise ones. To retrace our steps,—to remodel our whole procedure,—to abandon the system of penal colonies, and endeavour to remedy, in some degree, the frightful evils they have occasioned;—all this must of necessity add very greatly to the ordinary difficulties of legislating on this subject. But if the difficulties are great, is not the importance of the questions at issue even more than proportionably great? It is indeed one which is usually treated as if it were of second rate or third rate consequence; while the keenest interest is excited by questions, not unimportant indeed, but much more remotely-connected with the real end of all government and all legislation—the security of person and property, and the morality and general prosperity of the community. It 249 is by reference to these ends that the value of all laws—of all political institutions,—is to be measured. What is the use of Parliaments,—of judges,—of constitutional government altogether,—except to protect innocence and repress crime—to secure the rights, and promote the peace and good order, and the physical and moral welfare of the subjects? If these then,—the great ends of Government be unattained and unattended to, while we are earnestly devoting our attention to some subordinate and remote point of legislation,—while we are eagerly discussing, perhaps, the best mode of appointment of some government functionary, we are devoting ourselves to the means, while we disregard the end: we are acting as preposterously as an agriculturist would, who should be careful to provide agricultural implements of the best construction, and to arrange his farm-buildings on the most approved plan, while he entrusted the actual tillage of his land to the most careless and unskilful labourers, and cared nothing what seed was sown, or what crops were raised on it. The apathetic indifference of which I have been complaining, is, of late, I am happy to find, giving way to a better feeling. That frozen insensibility to some of the most important interests of the country and of the human race, which had so long prevailed, is now apparently beginning to thaw. More attention than heretofore is directed to the subject; and great, though I must think, far from sufficient, modifications of the existing system have been announced as resolved on. I most sincerely congratulate this House, and her Majesty's Ministers, and the nation at large, on this change. And some persons may perhaps have expected that I should have remained satisfied with those announcements of intended alteration, which have been lately made by Ministers in the other House: and that I should at least have waited for the result of the proposed experiments. But of the success of those experiments neither I nor, what is much more—the very proposers of them (as far as appears) entertain much hope. I am convinced, on the contrary, that those proposed modifications are not merely in themselves insufficient to fully remedy the main part of the evils which call for remedy, but that they leave the very root and principle of those evils wholly untouched. There is therefore not only no immediate accomplishment, but no tendency towards the gradual and ultimate accomplishment, of the great 250 object which we ought to aim at. The longest and fairest trial of any measure avails nothing towards an end which is not even proposed and sought for. And this is not merely my own conviction; it is also, as I have said, the conviction, apparently, even of the very proposers of the modifications I allude to. It is expressly stated in an official paper (printed last year) which your Lordships probably have seen,^* that to "send the larger proportion of transported convicts to Norfolk island—would leave the main evil of transportation in full vigour;" because "at the expiration of their sentences they will flock to the Australian colonies, and render that noxious atmosphere fouler by the addition:" and this is immediately afterwards characterized as a "fatal objection." I see no reason, therefore, for supposing her Majesty's Ministers to be so wedded to the plans now proposed,—so fully satisfied of the efficacy and the sufficiency of the projected modifications, as not to be induced—I may say, encouraged, and enabled—by a strong expression of the feeling of this House, and of the public at large, to proceed much further in the good work, and adopt effectually-remedial measures for the evils in question. I have spoken of not inducing merely, but enabling Ministers so to proceed, because it is not in the power of the Executive to take such measures as are essentially requisite for the reform of our system of secondary punishments, without the aid of Parliament. It is left to Ministers—in respect of the present question—it is for them to steer the vessel, in some degree, in the right direction: but it is the Legislature alone that can supply a strong and a favourable gale. Before I proceed to point out to your Lordships the utter insufficiency, as it appears to me, of the modifications lately announced, towards remedying the main evils of the system, I wish to remark briefly on the extremely slow progress which has hitherto been made in the enlightening of men's minds as to those evils, and as to the urgent importance of aiming at their removal. I advert to this slowness of progress, because that circumstance indicates a danger that unless a stronger expression of opinion than has yet been elicited, on the part of this, or of the other House of Parliament, be ^* Papers relative to Transportation, &c. Session 1839, No. 582. Official Note transmitted by S. M. Phillipps, Esq., to Sir George Grey, Bart., p. 6. 251 now called forth, the chief part of the evils of the system of penal colonies may remain unremedied for perhaps another half century; or we may even slide hack again into all those extremes of abuse and corruption which it is now proposed to put a stop to. Let it be remembered, then, that more than fifty years ago, when the scheme of a penal colony was first set on foot, the illustrious Howard most earnestly deprecated the measure.^* He was not a man whom any one would call an experienced speculator setting up theory in place of experience: yet it was in defiance of his deliberate judgment—of his solemn remonstrance—that the plan was adopted: and not only the authority of that great philanthropist, but the too true fulfilment of his emphatic forebodings, during a period of half a century, were, till very lately, disregarded. But I might refer much further back, and to a still higher authority, that of Lord Bacon; who expressed, in the strongest terms, his own conviction of the impolicy as well as immorality of convict-colonization. It is," said that great man, "a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people and wicked condemned men to be the ^* See Howard's Works on Prisons and Lazarettos. The labours of Howard were the principal means of urging on the Legislature the Penitentiary Act, 19 Geo. 3rd, cap. 74, which he framed in conjunction with Sir William Blackstone, and Mr. Eden (afterwards Lord Auckland). Howard was appointed one of the three supervisors of the Penitentiaries to be erected pursuant to that act, but in consequence of an unfortunate dispute among the supervisors, in regard to the site of the first penitentiary for the metropolis, Howard resigned his office, and the plan consequently did not take effect. He however never altered the decided opinion which he had formed, in favour of a penitentiary system, and against the scheme of transportation which the Government had, in 1784, unhappily determined to adopt as a secondary punishment. Some years afterwards we find Howard thus expressing himself:—Such dreadful nurseries have been a principal cause of the increased number of crimes, and the shocking destruction of our fellow-creatures. I am persuaded this would have been in a great measure prevented, if penitentiary houses had been built on the salutary spot fixed on at Islington by Dr. Fothergill and myself. The gentlemen whose continued opposition defeated the design, and adopted the expensive, dangerous, and destructive scheme of transportation to Botany Bay, I leave to their own reflections upon their conduct."—Brown's Life of Howard, p. 495. 252 people with whom you plant; and not only so, but it spoileth the plantation; for they will ever live like rogues and not fall to work, but be lazy and do mischief and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country to the discredit of the plantation."^* To colonists of such a description Lord Bacon has indeed bequeathed in vain the exhortation which follows:— Let men make that profit of being in the wilderness that they have God always and his service before eyes! It is, indeed, somewhat mortifying to reflect how little the judgments of these eminent men have been attended to: but on the other hand, there is something encouraging in finding my views supported by such authority. I have been loudly censured—I have been derided—for the part I have taken in this question: but were I much more sensitive to human applause and censure than I trust. I have ever shown myself, I could not but regard it as an honour to be censured and derided in company with a Bacon and a Howard. My own attention was forcibly called to this subject a good many years ago, from my observation of the effects of the transportation-system in my own neighbourhood in Suffolk. I perceived the every way demoralizing tendencies of the system; which were more and more forced upon my notice in proportion as I extended my inquiries. I found the relatives and former neighbours of transported convicts receiving such favourable accounts of the situation of those convicts—sometimes true, and sometimes false, but always alluring,—that the punishment (so called) of transportation had the effect of a bounty on crime, and the condition of the convict with light work, and not only plentiful but luxurious maintenance, could not but be regarded with envy by the poor labourer, who, with hard work and scanty food, was struggling, and often struggling in vain, to keep himself and his family from the parish.† The ^* Essay 33; Of Plantations. † "I question much, however," (says Mr. Cunningham,) whether many English labourers live better than our convict servant here, whose weekly ration consists of a sufficiency of flour to make four quartern loaves at least; of seven pounds of beef; two ounces of tea, one pound of sugar, and two ounces of tobacco, with the occasional substitution of two or three quarts of milk daily for the tea and sugar allowance. Numbers of the English working poor would doubtless be happy to bargain for such a diet and thus their situation 253 alluring descriptions given of the condition of the convicts, I ascertained to be in a great majority of cases, true; but in some instances very much the reverse: in both cases, however, they did give the same kind of description; and the results were the same. For it unfortunately happens that, in reference to this subject, opposite causes produce the same effects. Men wish for companions either in enjoyment or in suffering; and whichever was the convict's lot, (lot it might strictly be called, for it was generally the decision of chance)^* it was by an alluring description of it that he would be likely to induce others to join him. That these representations did produce their natural effect of leading to the commission of crimes in the hope of being transported, came to my knowledge in several instances; and these I could not but suppose to be but few in comparison of those which did not come to my knowledge. And I felt that it is no better than a mockery for any man to pray that he may not be "led into temptation" if he is in any way a consenting party to a system which thus leads his brethren into temptation. Then as to the returned convicts, all evidence from all quarters goes to show that, as a general rule, their characters are what might be expected to result from the voyage,—the life they lead in the colony,—the intermixture of might in these points be bettered, by their being placed upon an equality with convicts!" ^* ^* ^* ^* "The Irish convicts are more happy and contented with their situation on board, than the English, although more loth to leave their country, even improved as the situation of the great body of them is by being thus removed,—numbers telling me they had never been half so well off in their lives before, It was most amusing to read the letters they sent to their friends on being fairly settled on board, (all such going through the surgeon's hands,) none ever failing to give a most circumstantial account of what the breakfast, dinner, and supper, consisted of; a minute list of the clothes supplied, and generally laying particular emphasis on the important fact of having a blanket and bed to 'my own self entirely,' which seemed to be somewhat of a novelty by their many circumlocutions about it. One observed, in speaking of the ship, that 'Mr. Reedy's parlour was never half so clane,' while the burden of another was, 'Many a Mac in your town, if he only knew what the situation of a convict was, would not be long in following my example! thank God for the same! I never was better off in my life.'"— First Letter to Earl Grey, pages 71–73. ^* "Crime is not punished as crime, although certain criminals are treated with much severity. 254 all varieties of depraved characters,—and the other circumstances of their (misnamed) reformatory punishment; and that they return home usually so hardened in every vice, that I verily believe if only five out of every fifty should come back, those five would bring home with them a mass of depravity, greater, and of a more infectious kind, than the whole fifty took out with them. These views were more and more confirmed the more I extended my inquiries; which also brought under my notice the still more frightful results in respect of the penal settlements themselves, of our "shameful and unblessed" system of colonizing. It has been sometimes urged, in palliation of it, that if we had not availed ourselves of the advantage of convict labour, we should never have had such flourishing colonies as we now boast of in New Holland. Such colonies as those, we assuredly should not have had: and if the alternative had been that we should have had none at all, better—far better—would it have been that the lands of New South Wales should have remained till the end of time in their primitive wildness,—better for the mother-country,—.for the aborigines,—and for the settlers themselves,—that the whole region should have been swallowed up in the ocean, than that it should have been erected into such a monument of national folly and perversity, such a strong hold and seminary of wide-spreading and permanent moral corruption, as it now exhibits. The system,—I mean the continued adherence to the system, has been defended on the authority of Mr. Pitt,—under whose administration it was established. But I cannot see how any one is authorized to assume The question of colonial profit and loss mixes with the award of justice, A man is estimated by his capacity as a colonist, not by his crime as a felon. A clever servant is employed as a steward or butler, regardless of the fact that he has been guilty of embezzlement. At the same time a boy who has stolen a fowl from a farm yard may be subjected to cruel servitude in a remote settlement. The servitude or slavery which is comprehended under the word 'assignment,' varies and must vary as slavery does, according to the temper and character of the master to whom the convict is assigned. The worst criminal may have the best master, and the most repentant may be driven into fresh offences by the oppression of which he is the victim, and the profligacy of which he is the witness."—Papers relative to Transportation, &c. Session, 1839. No. 582. Official Note, transmitted by S. M, Phillipps, Esq., to Sir G. Grey, Bart., P. 2. 255 that Mr. Pitt, if he were now living, and had the benefit of that experience whose results are now before us, would have still adhered to a plan which has long since been proved to have completely defeated all the objects he proposed from it. That the plan he adopted was an unwise one, and unlikely to realize his hopes, and that it was adopted in disregard of the forebodings and warnings of Howard to that effect, does not warrant our concluding that the fulfilment of those forebodings would have had no effect on his mind. It was begun indeed in defiance of all reason; but it does not follow that he would have persevered in it in defiance of all experience. Forcibly struck with the frightful amount, and the continual and alarming increase of these evils, and also with the generally prevailing ignorance of their real character and extent, and the strange apathy with which they were usually regarded, I felt myself called upon to use my best exertions, however feeble, towards awakening the public mind. I wrote first an article on the subject in the London Review,^* which I afterwards reprinted in an appendix to a pamphlet in the form of a letter addressed (by permission) to Earl Grey when Premier. This was followed by a second letter on the same subject, in vindication of the views taken in the first; which were fully confirmed by the testimony of the very respondents who had undertaken to reply to them. And I subsequently made a communication in writing to the committee of the House of Commons which sat in the year 1838.† When I see, my Lords, what efforts many of my clerical brethren have made and are making for the mitigation or extinction of negro slavery, without incurring the shadow of an accusation of departing from their professional character, and intermeddling improperly in secular matters, I feel convinced that no one who has any just and adequate notions on the present subject can possibly feel it strange or indecorous that a clergyman should be warmly interested in it. Taken as a system of slavery alone, though that is but one portion of the vast and complicated mass of evils belonging to the system—as a system of slavery, it is in many points worse than negro-slavery. The master of negro-slaves, most of whom probably have ^* This review appeared in 1829, and was continued only for two numbers. It had no connexion with any other reviews which have either formerly or subsequently appeared under the same title. † Report, vol. ii. Appendix, p. 229. 256 been brought up in his family from childhood, and none of whom are necessarily tainted with crime, has every moral inducement, if he is at all capable of good feelings, to treat them well; and at any rate, from having a permanent property in them, has at least the same pecuniary interest in their well-being as in that of his cattle. The master of convict-slaves, on the contrary, has no permanent interest in them; his sympathy with them, and indulgence of them will be found greatest (as has been proved in evidence,) when he himself being a profligate character, makes them companions in debauchery or associates in crime; and the more licence and indulgence is usually shown to the more desperate ruffian where revengeful passions might be formidable. Then indeed, and when the master happens to be of a timid disposition, and his servants daring and hardened characters, it appears that, (in remote situations especially) the relation between the master and servants—the gaoler and prisoners—is often very nearly reversed. In short, though it must be admitted that a community consisting of masters and slaves is bad, and that a nation of gaolers and prisoners—of criminals I may say, and executioners—is bad, the union of the two in one system—the system of punishing criminals by assigning them as slaves to labour for the benefit of private individuals, is incomparably the worst of all. Yet this, which is but one out of the many evils of the transportation system—the one which it has been at length resolved to put an end to—continued to be carried on, in spite of all remonstrance—in spite of the fullest exposure of its noxious effects—for more than fifty years before the notorious truth was acknowledged and acted on!^* I call your Lordships' attention to the very slow ^* In many other subjects besides this, it is curious to observe how slowly and reluctantly men are induced to admit practically, and to act upon, conclusions of which their understanding has been convinced, when habit and prejudice are opposed to them. It is a long process first to effect such a conviction; and when this is accomplished, the task is but half completed: their habits of thought and of action continue, by a kind of vis inertiœ, to move in the same course, till time and frequent repetition shall have rendered familiar to their minds the conclusions which reason has established. The words which Shakespere, in mere sportiveness, puts into the mouth of Dogberry, seem in some such cases to be literally applicable: 257 progress which just notions on this subject have hitherto made, because there is much—very much—yet to be done, before a full remedy will have been applied to the abuses of our systems of secondary punishment and of colonization; and because I fear that our future progress will be no less deplorably slow, unless this House and the other branches of the Legislature are aroused to the importance of the subject, and apply to the work of reformation more energetically than heretofore. During the eleven years that I have been occupied in endeavouring to call public attention to the evils of our present system—several other persons having in that time been exerting themselves in the same cause—it was by careless apathy chiefly, and never by even any apparent refutation that our efforts were resisted. Indeed it may be fairly regarded as at least a strong presumption in favour of the soundness of my views, that from first to last no statement and no argument I have adduced has ever been met, except by attributing to me something quite different from what I really did say, and, in many instances, the very reverse. Vague, general, charges of exaggeration indeed have been thrown out, in reviews, and elsewhere, against the statements I have made; but even a slight examination will suffice to prove that I have kept on the safe side, and have made such statements as are not only borne out, but much more than borne out, both by the evidence before the committee of the other House, and even by the admission of the very advocates of the system.—With similar vagueness of assertion it has been said, that the opponents of transportation "have taken all their representations from one side." This indeed, as far as I am concerned, I must admit to be true. Nearly all the representations I have brought forward are indeed taken from one side; but that is not my own side. I was so anxious to keep clear of all danger, either of being unconsciously misled by prejudice, or of having prejudice or unfairness imputed to me, that I referred almost exclusively to the authority of persons decidedly favourable to the system. In the two tracts published in the form of Letters to Earl Grey, the principal authorities referred to it hath been proved already that you are no better than stark knaves; and it will go near to be thought so shortly. 258 in respect of matters of fact, were those of Mr. Cunningham, a surgeon of a convict-ship, who had expressed himself favourable to the system of Penal Colonies, and of Colonel (now Sir George) Arthur, Dr. Ross, and Archdeacon Broughton, now Bishop of Australia; who all wrote indefence of the system, in reply to my first letter. All these, as well as the witnesses before the committee, several of whom were by no means unfavourably disposed towards Penal-colonization, furnished the very facts on which my conclusions were based. And when any specific reply has been attempted,—anything more definite than general unsupported insinuations of exaggeration or partiality—it has invariably happened (as I have already remarked) that something quite unlike anything I ever really said has been attributed to me; and the advocate has then encountered and triumphed over a phantom of his own raising. Colonel Arthur, for instance, in replying to my first pamphlet, enters into the details of a certain plan of a penitentiary, and of the objections to it, as if it had been proposed by him.^* But in this he must have proceeded on some rumour or conjecture; for in the publication which he had before him, not only this supposed plan is not to be found, but I had distinctly stated my reason for not recommending any plan, except that of appointing a commission to make enquiries with a view to ascertain what might be most eligible. And again, very lately, a representation had appeared in the newspapers (whether originating in a mistake of the reporters, or in a hasty credence given to some baseless rumour) of my having proposed a punishment—or rather a substitute for punishment—which would in effect be a bounty on crime. I am represented,—and the report, however it arose, has been widely circulated—as proposing' that each criminal on being convicted should, instead of suffering any punishment, be presented with a sum of money sufficient for his outfit and present maintenance, and should have a free passage given him to any colony to which he may choose to go, as a free settler. And to prove that this would rather encourage than deter criminals, a good deal of unnecessary ingenuity was expended, which only placed in a stronger point of view ^* See second Letter to Earl Grey: pp. 98 —105. 259 the extravagance of the supposition that I, or any one in his senses, could really have made so absurd a proposal! I will now take the liberty of very briefly laying before your Lordships what I really did say. After having in all my publications dwelt earnestly on one (among many) of the great defects of the transportation-system, that it does not deter, but rather allures men, as appearing likely to put them in a better condition than that of many a poor labourer at home.^* I remarked (in the letter transmitted to the Transportation Committee) that Under a reformed system of secondary punishment (supposing transportation abolished) it strikes me as desirable, with a view to the preservation from a return to evil courses of persons released from penitentiaries, &c., after the expiry of their punishment, that such as may have indicated a disposition to reform, should be, at their own desire, furnished with means of emigrating to various colonies, British or foreign, in which they may mix, not with such men as their old associates in crime, but with respectable persons, unacquainted with their past history, and may thus be enabled, as the phrase is, to 'turn over a new leaf.' This of course implies, that they should not emigrate in a body to any one place, and as a distinct class. For juvenile offenders, the same course would perhaps be even still more suitable. The colonies which should be specially excluded, should be (at least for fifty years to come) New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land; evidently the most unfit places in the world for a half-reclaimed offender. We have surely made trial long enough of that system of moral homoeopathy, which seeks to cure a man of vice by putting him in the way of acquiring fresh vice. Surely a physician would be reckoned insane who should send a patient convalescent from ague, and in danger of relapse, into the Lincolnshire fens for the complete re-establishment of his health."† Your Lordships will observe that the whole of the suggestion here thrown out, has reference to persons "released after the expiracy of their punishment;" and that I am speaking of a special favour to such of them (perhaps 20 or 30 per cent.) as may have given proofs of "a disposition to reform." If release after punishment, and release without punishment, are the same, and if a "bounty on crime," and a bounty on reformation, be equivalent, then I am certainly guilty of the absurdity with which I have been charged. But if the reverse of this be the truth, then I must contend ^* See my first Letter to Earl Grey, pp. 3,70, 71, 136, &c. &c. † Report, vol. ii. Appendix, p, 302. 260 that it is some presumption in favour of the soundness of my views, to find the mode in which almost exclusively they are controverted, is by representing them as the opposite of what they really are. Although, however, I never was guilty of the absurdity of proposing that criminals should be rewarded, or should be left unpunished, I never undertook to decide what kind of secondary punishment should be substituted for transportation, or even that any one should be adopted in all cases alike.^* The opponents of transportation are indeed constantly met by the inquiry, "what would you substitute?" as the sole and sufficient defence of the existing system;—as if it followed as a matter of course that we are to persevere in a system which has been proved to have failed, and more than failed, in every point, and has been shown to be the very worst of all, unless some one is ready to shew which is the best of all. I did not presume to determine at once so important and difficult a question as this; but I pointed out the necessity of taking steps to have a determination made after due investigation. I well knew that those who were—from whatever causes—resolved to adhere to the existing system, and yet conscious that it could not be vindicated, would resort to the question of "what would you 'substitute!'" merely with a view to raise objections (which may always be done,) against any plan that may be proposed; there being, from the nature of the case, none that can be exempt from objections: while those again who might ask the same question in good faith, from a real wish to see the most effectual reform introduced,—these would not fail to see the importance of a regular and careful inquiry. After having shewn, therefore, by irrefragable proofs, that the existing system was defeating all the objects proposed by it,—augmenting all the evils it was meant to diminish,—and doing unspeakable mischief in various ways besides, I thought a fair case for inquiry at least had been made out; and I recommended the appointment of some kind of properly authorised commission for examining and reforming our secondary punishments. And yet it has actually been sometimes alleged as an objection to my views, that in the eight years which ^* See first Letter to Earl Grey, pp. 10, 12, 43, 44; also second letter to Earl Grey, p. 111, et seq. 261 have elapsed since my first pamphlet was published, I have never brought forward any plan for an unexceptionable system of secondary punishment: that is, that I have not undertaken to supersede such a commission, and to dispense with such an investigation as I had myself recommended, and shewn to be necessary. Something very nearly approaching to what I ventured to recommend, has, I am happy to say, been done; first in the appointment of a committee of the other House, which has brought before the public so much important information; appalling indeed and disgusting in its character, but yet valuable, as a chart of shoals and whirlpools to a mariner;—and subsequently by the appointment of the commission for inquiry respecting the constabulary force. These commissioners have of course been led to examine into all the causes which tend to the increase, or again to the prevention and suppression of crime; and I take this opportunity of observing, that as Government deserves credit for instituting that commission, so do the Commissioners, for the way in which they appear to be discharging their duty. Their first report—which most of your Lordships probably have seen, as it was published about a year ago, (and a second is, I understand, shortly to appear)—their first report seems to me one of the most important documents ever laid before the public. I cannot indeed call it an agreeable book to read; but it is interesting—painfully interesting; and not only highly instructive, but, in one respect, consolatory, in the midst of its most painful details; inasmuch as it shews plainly how great a proportion of crime is attributable to a want of those preventive measures which (as is also made evident by the same document) might easily be introduced. Let but the suggestions of the Commissioners on this point be adopted,—suggestions which indeed must occur spontaneously to every intelligent reader of the facts detailed—and we may reasonably hope for such a diminution of offences as will not only prove a vast benefit to the nation in other ways, but also greatly lessen the existing difficulties as to the disposal of convicts, both during and after their term of punishment. That prevention is better than punishment, and that punishment is justifiable only as a means of prevention, is indeed universally admitted; but I doubt whether we in 262 general sufficiently estimate the advantage in point of policy, and not merely of humanity and morality, of strict and judicious preventive measures over the denunciation of the most formidable penalties: I mean, the more effectual promotion of the ends of justice, by any measures which tend to shorten the probable career of impunity to an offender, than by the severity of the punishment in which that career terminates. The hope of even temporary impunity disarms even capital punishment of its terrors. It is the moral certainty of a speedy check that operates to deter. Dangers, however great, when they are contingent, and probably remote, have wonderfully little influence; especially on thoughtless uncalculating minds, bent on present enjoyment; which is just the description of those most exposed to the temptations to crime. When the occupation of an habitual offender is simply a dangerous one, it is so far, putting moral considerations apart—on a par with that of soldiers and sailors, and of persons engaged in many unwholesome trades. Some of these last afford the most striking illustration. The soldier, indeed, or the sailor, not unfrequently escapes through all his perils, and attains to a comfortable old age; but the Sheffield knife-grinders, and some others engaged in equally unwholesome occupations, have a moral certainty of death by a painful disease before they reach the age of thirty-five or forty; and yet for the extra ten or fifteen shillings per week wages, men are always to be found ready to expose themselves to this—not risk, but certainty—of premature death. We cannot therefore expect that any denunciation of punishment, even capital, will be effectual, as long as our preventive system is so defective, that a thief, while gaining double or treble the sum for which the Sheffield manufacturer sells his life, can calculate on a career of five or six years' impunity in towns, and probably double of that in the country.^* ^* The following passage is extracted from a private letter lately addressed to me by Edwin Chadwick, Esq.;—"In reference to any new Commission for the investigation of the available secondary punishments, I think we have investigated them as far any commission is likely to investigate them with profit. We (the Constabulary Force Commissioners) shall recommend the separate system of imprisonment. But amidst a population where the appetites for immediate indulgence are 263 It is hopeless to attempt repressing crime by any modifications of punishment, without such a systematic, well arranged and vigorous system of police, as shall cut off in a great degree the hope of escaping detection. Much however as is to be hoped from the labours of the Commissioners, if their recommendations are energetically acted on, it is plain that no other preventive measures can supersede the necessity of punishments; indeed, all other measures must be backed as it were, and supported by the denunciation of punishments as a last resort. All police regulations must proceed on that supposition. And that the secondary punishments which we do retain, should not be (whatever system we may ultimately adopt), any modification of transportation strong; where, for two, three, or five pounds, or the means of two or three days drunkenness, volunteers are found for forlorn hopes and narrow chances of escape; where, for thirty or thirty-six shillings a week wages, or ten or fifteen shillings extra to spend in drink, men will undertake such deleterious manufacturing processes as those of the Sheffield knife-grinders, with the certainty of death of a painful kind before they are thirty-six, or within a very few years—amidst such a population, where, from the absence of preventive measures, a man who can get only eighteen or twenty shillings a week by severe labour, rising early and toiling late and monotonously, may as a thief get double the sum, and enjoy a career of four or five years in towns, and probably double that extent of career and profit in the country, (as might be shown by reference to the first portions of the evidence in the Constabulary Force Report, par, 4, 6, 10, 11,) it appears to me hopeless to expect that any considerable effect is to be obtained by any probable refinement of punishment. 'You have been punished repeatedly, and in various forms; is there no hopes of your reformation?' said an acquaintance of mine in France to a thief who was about to quit a prison. 'Look you,' said the thief; 'I am by trade a tailor. As a tailor I earn three francs a day. As a thief, I keep myself within the bounds of moderation (je me range), but I get not less than thirty francs a day. Would you be honest for that?' My acquaintance was silenced by the reply. I think I have heard, that when Baxter, viewing the strength of temptation, saw a thief go to execution, he used to exclaim, 'But for the grace of God, there goes Richard Baxter.' I think we should dwell on the enormity of the daily offence of leading men into temptation' by the neglect of preventive measures. As to their practicability, see par. 198 of the First Constabulary Force Report. See also par. 65. 264 to penal colonies—of that system which for half a century has been bringing disgrace upon us, and such complicated mischiefs upon the colonies and upon other nations as well as our own, is a conclusion which I can hardly understand any man's failing to draw from the evidence, or even any twenty or any ten pages of it taken at random, which was given before the committee.^* I cannot but hope, therefore, that is not the deliberate and fixed resolution of Ministers to stop at the abolition of the assignment-system, and to persevere in a plan which is acknowledged even in the official document which recommends it, to "leave the main evil of transportation in full vigour," the plan of transporting convicts to Norfolk Island and Tasman's peninsula, and at the termination of their sentence, when they are (as is fully proved in evidence, and indeed admitted in the very same document,†)—far more incurably har- ^* It has been urged, in favour of the system, that the French are designing to adopt it. That nation certainly are sometimes in danger of being led into ill-considered measures by their eagerness for "ships, colonies, and commerce;" but in the present case they are more to be excused for concluding that we should not have so long persevered in a system that was not beneficial, than we are, for having thus persevered against experience. And we deserve additional blame for having thus set a bad example to others; whose rash imitation of it may perhaps (besides the evil done to themselves and to the rest of the world) be eventually the means of leading to a war between the two countries. Some French writers, however, there are, who, having made the needful inquiries, have perceived and exposed the erroneousness of the system of penal colonies. See, for instance, De Beaumont & De Tocqueville, Du Systême Pénitentiaire aux Etats-Unis, &c., Appendix: Des Colonies Pénales, chap, 1, 2, 3. † The evidence taken by the Committee fully establishes the fact that the dread of Norfolk Island has not deterred from crime,—that many have returned there very shortly after discharge,—that it has had no reformatory effect, but has operated rather as the reverse of a preventive of crime. See Examinations of Dr. Ullathorne, Rept. vol. ii. p. 14; Major Wright, do. p. 130; the Right Rev. Dr. Polding, Rept. vol. ii. App. p. 266, and the Rev. H. T. Stiles, do. p. 267. The last-mentioned witness thus sums up his opinion;—"The effect, then, of banishment to Norfolk Island, as a preventive of crime in this colony, I conceive to be of the least assignable value possible. One reason why these effects are no greater than they are is 265 dened and corrupted than they were originally, to let them loose on the Australian colonies, so as to keep up a continual stream of fresh pollution flowing into a community which we have already so shockingly contaminated. To persevere, I say, knowingly and deliberately in thus creating a profligate nation, and by continual fresh supplies making and keeping it from generation to generation the most hopelessly corrupt community that ever the sun shone upon, would be a national crime and folly which I do trust there is too much good feeling and good sense among us to endure. To enter into all the details of the particulars which shew what sort of a population that of a Penal colony is, would be no less superfluous than tedious; as these are already before the public in the minutes of the evidence heard by the committee. But a tolerably correct notion may be formed, by simply referring to some of the population returns which have been made. It appears that in 1836 the population of New South Wales was 77,000; of which about 28,000 were actual convicts under sentence, and about 17,000 emancipists, that is, convicts whose terms had expired; so that there were only about 32,000—little more than two-fifths of the whole population, who had not been convicts; and even of these a considerable proportion are, of course, the children of convicts. But further, when we remember that the population return of 77,000 is inclusive of children, and that all the convicts and emancipists are adults, the real state of society will appear still more shocking, for supposing that of the 77,000 about 17,000 were children, and considering that the free emigrants are in a great part young married people, the adult po- sufficiently obvious. The punishment is not visible in this colony, and therefore does not operate very powerfully in terrorem. My own district affords me an illustration of this truth. Two or three young men from the currying have within no very long space of time been transported to Norfolk Island; one of them is named Allsop, and was sent for cattle-stealing; but the same crime is, to say the least, as common in the district as ever; it is committed without reflecting upon Allsop's case, for he being out of sight, is also out of remembrance." The testimonies above cited, taken together, go far to confirm the expression quoted in the official paper, p. 9, "When a man comes to this island be loses the heart of a man," &c. 266 pulation will be reduced to 60,000, of which 45,000 are either convicts, or emancipists—so that a community is thus exhibited, of which three-fourths have been convicted felons! And when to this is added the circumstance that it appears the proportion of males to females among the convicts is six to one, and in the back settlements of the colony, seventeen to one, the consequences are such as may be faintly conceived, but cannot be, in this place described. The unutterable licentiousness prevailing among both sexes, as may be collected from many parts of the evidence, exceeds, if possible, even what might have been anticipated from the collection together of such a multitude and variety of profligate characters, so much outnumbering the sounder parts of the population. In bringing forward, on several occasions these facts—painful facts certainly, but, since facts they are, most important to be pressed on the attention both of Government and of individual, I have been accused of calumniating the colonists—of casting injurious imputations on their character, on slight and insufficient grounds. But let it be observed, that I have never spoken but of the general character of the society, which I have described as it is represented by the testimony—the uncontradicted testimony—of numerous eye-witnesses. I have never cast any censure on individuals. I have never expressed—I have never had—any doubt that there are individuals in those colonies of perfectly unblemished character, who have preserved—and it is greatly to their honour—themselves, and what is much more still, their families, untainted by the surrounding neighbourhood—by what Sir Francis Forbes, no unfriendly witness, describes as "the most contaminating community in the world."^* It is of that community, and of its general tone of morals and manners, † that I have always been speaking. That it contains ^* Evidence, vol. i. p. 89. † The moral state of society in the penal colonies is described by the Transportation Committee under the fourth head of their inquiry. See Report, pages 23 to 33. See also Evidence of Mr. John Russell, vol. ii. p. 49–62. of John Barnes, esq. vol. ii. p. 46–49; of Dr. Ullathorne, vol. ii. p. 14–24, &c. Also Captain Mackonochie's separate Report on Van Dieman's Land, and Mr. Justice Burton's Charge, Appendix to Transp. Report, vol. i. p. 289. These witnesses, without citing more, will be found fully sufficient 267 worthy and truly respectable individuals, I never doubted; and what is more, I am perfectly confident that all the individuals in the colony of that description, be they many or few, will, instead of being displeased, be gratified by the course I am I pursuing. Although, therefore, I should not shrink from that course, though it were to be censured by all the colonists, or by all mankind, I am convinced that the truly respectable settlers, and all who have the best interests of the colonies at heart, must concur with me in this matter. I say this, because it is evident from the very nature of the case. There may indeed, be men who are what is called "respectable," in point of fortune or station, who may be influenced by views (though to me these seem mistaken views, even in respect of pecuniary profit and loss) of their own immediate interest, to wish for a continued importation of convicts. But for a man, respectable in point of real moral worth, to wish for a continuance of the system which has already made the community he lives in the most contaminating community in the world, would be a contradiction in terms. Such a man cannot but wish, on the contrary, for its purification, by the stoppage of that foul stream, and the influx of emigrants of good character in their stead. And it is manifest that there cannot be a greater impediment, in every way, both to the emigration of honest labourers, and to the influence of those who do arrive on the tone of society, than continual fresh additions of people of tainted character. It is, therefore, I say, impossible but that all the really worthy,^* pure and upright individuals in the colonies, be they many or few, must prefer a moral to an immoral popu- to show how truly Sir F. Forbes characterised the state of society. ^* In some of the newspaper reports, the word "wealthy" was, by mistake, substituted for "worthy," The difference is of no small importance in all countries, but in none, perhaps, more important than in the colonies in question. It is well known that among the emancipated convicts are to be found individuals who have accumulated very large fortunes, and the transportation report gives an account of one who possessed 40,000l. per annum. See evidence of Dr. Lang, Report. vol. i. p. 254; and of Mr. Mudie, ditto, p. 112. The means by winch the wealth was in this instance acquired, were principally by keeping a public-house, to which dissolute emancipist farmers were enticed, and where 268 lation, and must consequently be disposed rather to thank than to blame me, for labouring to put a stop to the evil from which the character of their community has suffered so grievously, But documents have lately been produced emanating from persons, some of them holding high stations in the colony of New South Wales, advocating the continuance of the assignment-system, and representing the state of society as totally the reverse of what I have described, and what has hitherto been generally believed: and on the strength of these documents, (without any reference whatever to the evidence before the committee, or any notice of of such a committee having ever sat) I have been held up to censure as rashly bringing injurious and groundless charges against the colony. And what is truly astonishing, I have been spoken of as having hastily given credence to some unknown private informant, nobody knows who! My Lords, I need hardly repeat that I have all along referred and appealed to the evidence given—the evidence of about twenty-four persons—before a committee of the other House;—to the report of that committee, and to sundry other printed and published documents containing the testimony, among others, of some of the principal persons who now come forward to give an opposite representation.^* The language of reprobation in which I have spoken is certainly in itself strong, but much, very much stronger language would have been fully justified by the evidence adduced; as any one may easily see by even a slight glance at that evidence. But if we are to believe the documents brought forward of late (too late, it may well be said) by the defenders they were in the habit of remaining for days together in a state of intoxication. On recovering their senses, the farmers found themselves charged sums exceeding their means of payment. Thus they fell into the power of their host, and were obliged to return to his house, from time to time, till the debts became such as to enable him to dispossess them of their estates, and he had thus actually become the proprietor of a great portion of the cultivated land of the colony. In this sort of way, it appears that not only the emancipist referred to, but many others, have acquired great wealth, ^* See particularly the charge of Mr. Justice Burton to the jury of the supreme court at Sydney, Transp. Report, vol. i. Appendix p, 289. 269 of the system, we must conclude all that evidence given in 1837, and again in 1838—by persons of various stations and professions, and of various opinions also as to the subject in question—we must conclude all this concurrent testimony to have been from first to last a series of falsehood and misrepresentation. This is rather a strange supposition, but far more strange, that if this were so, all this evidence should have remained for so long a time unrefuted and uncontradicted. The committee sat first in 1837; the evidence was published, and must have found its way to Australia—to the very place from which materials for refutation, had there been such, might have been supplied. It sat again in the following year; a fresh body of evidence was published, and subsequently a report referring to that evidence—all this has been before the public for nearly two years, and great part of it much longer; yet in all that time, not even an attempt has been made to invalidate the testimony of the witnesses. But now, at the eleventh hour, without any disproof, or even any notice at all of that testimony, statements and descriptions utterly at variance with the whole of it are boldly produced, and unhesitating assent to them demanded. If the severest censure would have been due to me, as it certainly would, for rashly and on slight grounds making such representations as I did make, what censure do those deserve (if there were any such persons) who knowing or believing that all the evidence given was a tissue of fabrication and calumnious misrepresentation, yet left it undetected, unrefuted, uncontradicted? Month after month, and year after year, all this evidence was before the public; and yet those who now assume that the whole of it is a mass of falsehood, and pass heavy censures on any one who has given credit to it, never offered themselves as witnesses—never brought forward witnesses before the committee—never, when the evidence was published, put forth any attempt at disproof or denial of the testimony given, though some of them must have seen their own written statements cited as part of that testimony. But in fact no one of common sense can doubt that the evidence would have been disproved long since, had it been capable of disproof; and that all who are really well acquainted with the facts are well aware that it is perfectly true. And when they 270 reproach and stigmatize as a libeller one who states what that unimpeached evidence has proved to be the truth, let any fair-minded man judge against which party the charge of calumny will lie.^* I have met with some persons, however, who set light by all such evidence, and who seem to take for granted that a Parliamentary committee must of course be partial, and that all their examinations and the testimony of all their witnesses, must flow down the current of that partiality. And accordingly, in the present case, because the committee was called for by persons having a bias unfavourable to transportation, and the hon. Baronet who sat as chairman was disposed to disapprove of the system, it is assumed that all the evidence taken is to be regarded as ex-parte evidence—as designed to make out the best possible case against penal ^* "It is about four years (viz. in 1834) since the article appeared in the London Review, on (he second edition of Mr. Cunningham's book. Other evidence to the same effect had been still longer before the public. Why then did no one, long ago, step forth to denounce these witnesses as pernicious slanderers; which they must be, if their statements are untrue? Why did those who had the best opportunities of knowing the truth, suffer such malicious misrepresentations to circulate all that time, uncontradicted? The answer is obvious, because the inferences from these had not from the first been insisted on, and pressed on the public attention. As soon as the conclusions are drawn, then it is that it is found out, for the first time, that the premises are false. The evidence, it seems, might have remained for ever uncontradicted, had not I and others pointed out the obvious deductions from it. And why, again, is there even now no disproof offered of this evidence?—no attempt to impugn it except by bare unsupported denial? The obvious answer is, because it is true—too true to be disproved; and yet too conclusive to be admitted.—Second Letter to Earl Grey, pp. 65, 66. And let it be remembered, that three years subsequent to the publication of the above passage (during which interval no attempt at refutation was made) the first committee of the House of Commons was appointed, thus giving a new opportunity and call to those who might be willing and able to impugn what had been alleged. But instead of any thing of this kind all that came out before that committee tended to confirm those allegations. Yet, after the lapse of another interval of three years, the advocates of penal colonies are not ashamed to come forward, in the face of all evidence, and of their own tacit admissions, to censure me as bringing rash and unfounded charges. 271 colonies, by exaggerating on the one side and suppressing on the other. That the very reverse of this is the fact, I can bear testimony, from having not only read the evidence, but been present at several of the examinations; and any who has looked into even a portion of the published documents is competent to confirm my testimony. Not only were several witnesses examined who were evidently anxious to give as favourable an impression as possible of the existing system, but several members of the committee exerted themselves (I am far from blaming them for it, for I think their exertions were laudable) as advocates for the penal colonies; endeavouring to elicit everything that might place them in a favorable point of view, and to detect any exaggerations or misstatements on the opposite side. That the result was to expose the whole system and every part of it, as a complete and most lamentable failure, is to be attributed solely to the irresistible force of truth when brought to light by open investigation. The system was proved at once to be incapable of vindication, as soon as the facts were made known. But as to the committee, whatever bias there existed in it, as a body, was rather on the opposite side. Of this any one may satisfy himself by inspecting the report. It is, as a whole a clear, well written, and masterly document, exhibiting the natural results of the evidence taken based on and arising out of that evidence, and resting all its conclusions and all its recommendations, with one or two exceptions, on the facts elicited, and not on gratuitous assumptions or unauthorized conjectures. The exceptions I allude to are, the recommendation to encourage the emigration of free labourers to the penal colonies while still receiving annual supplies of convicted felons;^* and again, the recommendation of continuing to maintain penal establishments in the colonies.† If any will take the pains to compare with the evidence given, the report generally, and also these particular portions of it, he will plainly see, that while the general tenor of it is fully in accordance with the facts proved, and is logically deduced from them, these particular recommendations on the contrary are quite unwarranted by the evidence, and, indeed, wholly at ^* Report, p. 35. † Report, pp. 43, 44. 272 variance with it. Now, these portions of the report were introduced, against the judgment, as is understood, of the chairman, but, of course, in conformity with that of the majority of the committee; whose bias, therefore, as far as there was any bias, was manifestly not towards the conclusions which the evidence tended to establish. Let any one, I say, but compare the two documents together, and he will be struck with the contrast between the two portions of the report I have been alluding to. The one part,—the main body of the report—seems to spring naturally out of the evidence like a tree growing from its own roots: the other part looks like a graft, with totally different foliage and fruit, brought from elsewhere, and inserted into the stock:— Miraturque novas frondes, et non sua poma. I have said that the recommendation of sending out free emigrants into the penal colonies, while they are continually receiving from Norfolk Island, or elsewhere, fresh supplies of emancipated convicts, is not borne out by the evidence, but is directly at variance with the conclusions that evidence would naturally dictate. To prove as fully as might be done the truth of this assertion, would be to cite the greater part of each witness's testimony. They almost entirely concur in giving such a representation of the moral condition of that community, as to shew, that even if the importation of criminals be stopped from this day forward, still the task of regenerating such a society by the infusion of better materials, would be a most delicate and difficult task; requiring to be undertaken with the most deliberate and systematic care, lest in addition to a failure in the object proposed, we should increase the very evil to be remedied;—lest, instead of improving the colony, we should contaminate the emigrants. But if into a society in so unsound a state, and on which, "with all appliances and means to boot," it is so difficult to effect a moral cure, the seeds of fresh disease are to be continually brought, by the annual importation of a new set of liberated criminals, then, to think of bringing the colony into a healthy state by enticing honest labourers to settle there, does seem most preposterous. As well might any one think to purify one of the London sewers through which a continued stream of filth is flowing, by pouring in from time to time some cupfulls 273 of pure water, Yet I have been by some I persons severely censured, and even taxed with inconsistency, for complaining of the bad state of society in the penal colonies, and yet discouraging the emigration thither of respectable persons; which is the only mode, I have been told, of what is called "swamping the felonry,"—of giving a new character to the society—of converting, one might say, into sound wine, a cask full of vinegar by adding a little souud wine to it. And hopes and expectations have been expressed that the advice I have given to those who have consulted me as to the place to which they should emigrate, will not be listened to. Perhaps my efforts may prove unsuccessful. Some persons indeed have been influenced by my advice; but neither in this nor in any other point, can I expect to prevent all the evil, and accomplish all the good, that I could wish. At all events, however, I shall have cleared my own conscience, by the endeavour; nor will I ever while I live, relax my endeavours, at any man's bidding. For how could I have enjoyed a clear conscience,— how could I have lain down peaceably in my bed, if I had incurred the responsibility of inducing an emigrant of good character to expose himself, and, perhaps, a family of innocent children, to the frightful risks of such a moral pestilence? What ought I to have said, when my advice was asked by persons disposed to emigrate? Should I have described the state of things in a penal colony in their true colours, and still recommended emigration to such a colony? Should I have told them in plain terms, go by all means, to settle in such a neighbourhood as in any part of Europe would blast a man's character if he were known to have lived in it;—one, compared with which the foulest haunts of debauchery and crime in this metropolis are decent and respectable: to go to a country in which three-fifths of your neighbours, including some of the wealthiest, will be convicted criminals, and a considerable portion of the remainder, the children of such; and into which an annual reinforcement of hardened villains is poured by hundreds and by thousands: where you will have around you thieves and ruffians, and the vilest of prostitutes, such characters being not at all confined to the meanest situations; but a large proportion of rich tradesmen and farmers, inn-keepers, policemen, jurymen, schoolmasters, being convicted felons; where such monstrous 274 licentiousness as in this country could not be spoken of, from its being too horribly disgusting, is among them hardly spoken of, perhaps from its being too common to be noticed; where the servants you may engage, besides plundering you of property, will be likely to combine,—the males and the females,—to corrupt your innocent children^* in a way too shocking to describe; your children, who will also be early familiarized in every other way to such language and such scenes as are the most polluting to the youthful mind, and who will probably receive the rudiments of education from some convicted swindler? Should I have told these plain truths (for they are established, and much more than established by the evidence), and still have advised the emigrant to go, as a forlorn hope, as it were, against this strong hold of depravity, and to sacrifice himself by way of helping to fill the ditch before the fortress, while fresh supplies of depraved characters are incessantly pouring in from another quarter? No; that would not have been a promising course for alluring settlers. I ought rather, I suppose, to have imitated the proceedings of some agents, who, I am sorry to say, are going about the country distributing tracts that profess to describe these colonies, and circulating in every way such accounts as are likely the most to entice men to emigrate thither.† I should have dwelt, I ^* See evidence, vol. ii., p. 55, 66, (Mr. Russell's.) See also vol. i., p. 96, for an account of the horrible fate of Captain Waldron. If I were knowingly to recommend any one to take as a servant a man whom I believed likely to assail his master with the knife of the midnight assassin, I should be deemed almost an accessary to the murder. But it would have been meritorious, it seems, to recommend a man to settle in a neighbourhood where hardly a servant can be found who could in this country obtain a character;—where a master is torn to pieces by his female servants at noon-day! † One of these tracts printed at Exeter, and industriously circulated by an emigration-agent there, after mentioning several other colonies, all of which are greatly disparaged in comparison of New South Wales, proceeds to describe this last in glowing colours, not only in respect of soil and climate, but in all that pertains to its literary, moral, and religious character, and its "manners and customs," which are, it is remarked, "the same as in England;" and then sums up a most alluring description by adding (what certainly is more than could be said with truth of England) that "the wild dogs are the only source 275 suppose, on the fertility of the soil,—or the salubrity of the climate,—or the ample wages paid for labour; and have suppressed all notice of anything objectionable in the moral condition of the population! For such, I grieve to say, is the character of the tracts I have alluded to: such are the delusive arts by which innocent females and honest and industrious labourers have been entrapped, and well-meaning and benevolent, but incautious persons among the gentry have been drawn in to countenance and aid the scheme. An attempt was made a few years since, under the patronage of several most respectable and well-intentioned individuals, to remedy the evils arising from the frightful disproportion between the sexes in those colonies, by sending out an entire ship-load of young women of unblemished character. Care was taken to receive none but such as brought certificates of good conduct from the ministers of their parishes, or some other responsible person; like the garlands with which the Hindu adorns the human sacrifice when just about to perish in the flames. I earnestly deprecated the plan, foreseeing and foretelling the deplorable results. We have it in evidence,^* that, as might have been expected, nineteen-twentieths of these unfortunate creatures were swept down the strong current of licentiousness which prevails in those regions, and which no ordinary strength can be expected to resist. All attempts of this kind, as long as criminals shall continue to be poured into these colonies, must be not only hopeless as regards the object proposed, of reforming the vicious, but positively mischievous also, by corrupting the innocent. It is bad enough to preserve and perpetuate vice, by crowding together depraved characters, and making them the progenitors of a new nation,—in the course of a century probably a very numerous nation—formed, as if on purpose, of annoyance!" Perhaps there may be in the term "wild dogs," some hidden meaning according to which the description may be nearly true; but in the literal sense, it does seem (in the face of such evidence as is before the public), one of the boldest assertions that ever was hazarded. Well did Cicero remark, "Qui semel verecundiœ fines transierit, eum oportet bene et gnaviter esse impudentem." ^* See Evidence of Peter Murdoch, Esq., Report, vol. ii., p. 113; of Mr. John Russell, do. p. 59; of Dr. Ullathorne, do. p. 22; and of Mr. John Marshall, do. p. 90. 276 of the worst possible materials; but it is yet an aggravation of the absurdity to add to this the moral ruin of those who were originally, and might have remained, untainted characters, by throwing them, along with fresh importations of villainy, into this sink of corruption. So long," says a witness^* by no means hostile to the system, "as it is deemed expedient to banish British criminals to this colony, so long must the amount of depravity in it be such as to make it the most contaminating community in the world. The only possible mode of overwhelming the evil,—of regenerating such a community,—is by first stopping at once the polluted stream now flowing into it by the continual introduction of fresh criminals, and then taking measures for sending over honest and uncorrupted settlers in large bodies at once;—not by hundreds, or by thousands, but by tens of thousands: so that they may at once exert a preponderating influence, and form a public opinion among themselves. A great pile of green wood thrown all at once upon a fire, may perhaps extinguish it: but if the same quantity be cast on by a few billets at a time, these will be kindled and consumed, and will increase the fire; more especially if at the same time you continue to pour oil on the flames. Under the proposed system therefore, as well as that hitherto pursued,—under any system which continues the importation of persons who have been convicted of crime, all the efforts this country may make for the advantage of those colonies, will tend only to increase and extend the mischief; because the more such a colony flourishes in respect of worldly prosperity,—the more its population increases (as it is likely to do most rapidly, with a practically boundless extent of territory),—and the more of commercial and political importance it acquires,—the more will its evil tendencies be developed,—the more widely and the more powerfully will it diffuse its pestilential taint; till it become a most portentous curse, as well as disgrace, to this nation, and to the world at large. But the real state of the case is one so painful to contemplate, and the remedies called for involve so much forethought, care, and trouble, as well as firmness in coping with difficulties, that ^* Sir Francis Forbes: Evidence, vol. i., p, 73. 277 one may find many persons content to turn off the subject with the consolatory reflection that, after all, crimes are committed,—vices exist, in all colonies—in all communities—and of course, in penal colonies among the rest:—and that abuses have taken place in prisons, and must be expected to occur occasionally under any system of secondary punishment that ever was or can be adopted. And the conclusion practically drawn amounts, in plain terms, to neither more nor less than this:—that since no human institution or system can be exempt from imperfections and evils, therefore all that is alleged and proved respecting the especial imperfections of the punishment of transportation—the peculiar evils of penal colonies should be disregarded, and go for nothing. On such a principle, equally futile are all questions about laws universally, since none can claim perfection:—about governments; since cases of abuse may be made out under every government, about the healthiness, or unhealthiness of different climates; since men are liable to disease and to death, both in Siena Leone and in England, &c. In short, all the most momentous questions that ever were discussed, might be got rid of at once by this summary mode of arguing. But men never do proceed on such absurd arguments in cases where they are really in earnest; that is, when their own interest and immediate welfare are concerned. In fact, any man who did so proceed in his private affairs, would be deprived by a court of justice of the management of his own property; he would be pronounced of unsound mind, if in those transactions of life which are justly supposed to call forth what powers of mind a man does possess, he should so set all computation at defiance,—should appear not to understand what is meant by proportion, or by quantity. For instance there are crimes, and there are convictions for crime, in New South Wales; and so there are in England, and in all countries; where then is the difference? Why, that murders, attempts to murder, and other crimes of like magnitude are as common as petty larcenies in England;—that if in this country there had been, in the course of the last year, 7,000 persons executed, besides 10,000 more capitally convicted, and 120,000 convicted of minor felonies, then (in proportion to the population) this country 278 and the penal colonies would be on a par in respect of crimes and punishments:—that there are there as many capital convictions (in proportion) in one year as in Ireland—a country not celebrated for obedience to the laws,—in three centuries:—that putting out of account all the convicts under sentence, and all the emancipists, who are three-fifths of the population, and taking only the soundest part of it, the free emigrants, and natives, it appears that the proportion convicted of various offences among these persons alone,—this select portion, who are likely, we have been told, to be more strict in their morals than the population of the mother-country,—is nearly three times as great as in this country; and finally, that those most favourably disposed towards the interests and the credit of the colony of New South Wales, admit it to be "the most contaminating community in the world." There is vice—there are infamous characters—at home, as well as in those colonies, and what is the difference? Why this: that if in the British Islands there were 12,000,000 of convicted felons, many of them among the wealthiest members of the community, then the state of society here would be on a par with what exists in those colonies! Is all this to be practically overlooked, and passed over with the general, sweeping remark, that there are vices and Crimes in all countries? Am I not borne out in saying that a man would be pronounced insane who should, in his private concerns, manifest such a total incapacity of estimating the comparative magnitude of two evils;—who should be utterly insensible to the most monstrous disproportion between two objects? And would it not be almost insanity for us to persevere in acting on such principles and plans, after the absurdity of them, as well as their noxious tendency, have been so long and so fully exposed? We have as it were founded, and endowed, and patronized a "University of Wickedness:" it would surely be inexcusable to go on cherishing and supporting it, and supplying it with continued reinforcements of criminals and free settlers thrown together,—the teachers as it might be expressed, and the learners, of villainy and profligacy;—till the whole shall have grown up into a numerous and powerful nation, exhibiting on a great scale a strange and appalling specimen of the 279 lised: such views, though inconsistent with reason and with experience, are at least not inconsistent with themselves. But then, when any one points out the superior advantages of having our penitentiaries nearer home, instead of at a distance of four months' voyage, with a view of avoiding both the heavy cost, and, much more, the corrupting effects, of a long-voyage, and especially, for the sake of being able to exercise a vigilant and ready superintendence, then rises the cry of alarm, what is to be done with the criminals when discharged from penitentiaries at home? How will it be possible to live in the country if such a multitude of miscreants are let loose upon society? The same penitentiary discipline, it seems, which would, in Australia, send forth reformed characters, would, in Europe, send forth none but intolerable pests of society: the discharged convicts who would there be so well-conducted as to be a blessing to the community, would here prove an unconquerable and unbearable pollution! This is as if one should maintain that a bucket-full of some filthy or noxious substance, which, if thrown into the Thames, would pollute and poison the whole river from its source to its mouth, would have no ill effect at all, if cast into a small well. Then again, if any proposal is made for the establishment of penitentiaries in this country, or near our own shores, a clamour is immediately raised against the apprehended expense to be incurred; and we are told of the abuses that are likely to take place in penitentiaries, and what a strong case may be made out against them; but if the penitentiaries are to be established in the southern hemisphere, the case, it seems, is altered for the better; the estimates are lowered, though all circumstances are manifestly such as to enhance expenses;—we are no longer to feel apprehension of abuses, and of difficulties of management; all is to go on well, so the penitentiaries are but established at 16,000 miles' distance. And on several other points^* be- not only to the wretched beings themselves, but the colony of New South Wales at large, are dreadful to contemplate."—Papers Relalative to Transportation, &c. Session 1839, No. 582, p. 9. ^* "Each objection, as soon as brought forward, is eagerly met by such statements and representations as the case may seem to call or, supported as strongly as bold and vehe- 280 sides those which I have been adverting to, I have found opposite statements made, opposite reasonings resorted to, opposite principles maintained,—according as each might serve a present purpose,—might vindicate the measures of selfish policy, or of temporary ease and convenience. Now, what man of common sense and of candour can fail to perceive the inconsistency—I may say the disingenuous inconsistency—of this procedure;—of pretending to be actuated by reasons and by motives which are instantly discarded whenever it suits our purpose? The fact is, that distance is especially favourable to those who wish to prevent, not the existence of abuses, but the knowledge of them. Actual complaints are diminished by the very cause which increases the just grounds of complaint. To those who are thinking only of keeping up appearances, the ten-fold aggravation of evils in a distant colony is as nothing, so long as they are less forced upon public attention. But those who would perform the office of wise and honest legislators must not shrink from grappling effectually with difficulties near at hand,—must not satisfy themselves with merely keeping them out of sight, or letting their apparent magnitude, like that of the heavenly bodies, be diminished by distance from the unreflecting spectator; must seek not to evade detection, but to provide remedies. If we look to the real magnitude of difficulties—the actual ment assertions can support any thing; and then the advocates seem to calculate on the reader's not only being perfectly satisfied with what is said, but immediately afterwards forgetting the whole of it; so as to be prepared to receive from the same pen representations the most opposite to the foregoing, calculated to meet some different objection. At one time we find the situation of the convict painted in the most favourable colours, as one of considerable present comfort, and full of cheering confidence of speedy and complete restoration (on the supposition of tolerably good conduct) to a respectable place in society, with such advantages in respect of worldly prosperity, as the individual could not elsewhere have hoped. This is to shew the utility of the system as a mode of reformation. Then, to shew its utility as a mode of deterring from crime by terror, the picture is reversed, and the same convict is represented as undergoing the most galling and degrading slavery—as suffering the most unmitigated misery, and branded with the most indelible disgrace."—Second Letter to Earl Grey, pp. 41, 42. 281 utmost point to which the human race can be degraded and depraved by a system,—apparently, and as it would strike a bystander—devised designedly and most ingeniously contrived for that very purpose:— By curse Created evil, for evil only good: Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds Perverse, all-monstrous, all-prodigious things, Abominable, unutterable, and worse Than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceiv'd. But if such mischiefs result, it is often urged,—from turning loose on society those who have been convicted of crimes, it is the more important that we in this country should secure ourselves from that evil, by getting rid of such characters, and settling them permanently in a distant land. Now, if all who are transported were sentenced to exile for life, instead of being allowed to return, as it is well known they frequently do, almost always, more hardened and more accomplished villains than before, and if the punishment of transportation should be so regulated as not only to be in reality severe, but to be a terror, instead of what it has oftener been hitherto, an encouragement to offenders,—so as no longer to raise up a fresh stock of criminals,^* in place of those who are thus, as it is called, "got rid of;" then, there would be at least an apparent policy in such a course,—a specious plea of present selfish expediency, involving no inconsistency at least with the principle of looking only to our own benefit, with an utter and avowed disregard of all justice and humanity,—with an entire carelessness how great evils we might inflict on others, so we could avoid a far smaller inconvenience to ourselves—with an unblushing contempt not only for the welfare of the rest of mankind in general, but of the rest of the British empire. But disgusting as is an open and undisguised selfishness, there is something still more offensive in the inconsistency of professing a sedulous care for the welfare of the very parties whom we unscrupulously sacrifice on the altar of our own apparent self-interest. It seems to be an adding of insult to injury, when we thus pretend to be seeking alike the good of the colony and of the mother country, and yet apply totally opposite ^* See first Letter to Earl Grey, pp. 76,77, 282 principles to the one and to the other. For example, when statements are made unfavourable to the character of the society in those colonies, an outcry is raised by some persons against these alleged "libels upon our fellow-subjects,"—our beloved brethren: when it is proposed to deprive them of the supposed benefit of convict-labour, or to dissuade emigrants from going thither, then forsooth, the colony is a portion of the British empire,—a jewel in the Sovereign's Crown,—a flourishing, and promising, and deserving community, whose rights and interests ought to be as dear to us as our own. But again, when any one points out the cruelty of overwhelming a small and infant community with the outpourings of all the scum and impurity of this great empire, and the moral ruin which in so limited a society such a preponderance of vicious ingredients must produce, then, it seems, the case is quite altered: then, the cry is, let us not have these bad characters let loose upon ourselves; let us get rid of them at all events; send them to a distance,—to an Australian colony; they are too bad to be kept at home, but they are good enough for New South Wales. Our dear brethren at the Antipodes—our esteemed and honoured fellow-subjects, are not worth a thought, when any advantage or convenience to ourselves is at stake! But again, we are told that the severe system which is henceforward to be carried on at Norfolk Island, will reform the convicts, who are to be then carried to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, where they will prove a great advantage to those colonies, in their new character of steady, honest, industrious labourers. This is at least conceivable and intelligible, how much soever it may be at variance with probability: we have only to cherish the sanguine hope that the discipline of the Government-chain-gangs, as they are called, will from henceforth produce effects the very opposite to what they have always hitherto produced,^* and the picture may be rea- ^* That as a place for the reformation of criminals it is worse than useless, is unhappily a fact too notorious to be contradicted; and if it be true, as no doubt it is, that our present statutes propose the reformation of the offender as well as his punishment, then "this place is of all others the least calculated to produce so desirable a result; and in a moral and religious point of view, the consequences, 283 amount of mischief,—and not, merely, to the impression produced on men's minds at home, we shall see at once that the difference between the mother-country and a distant colony is precisely the reverse of what the advocates of transportation assume it to be. It must be, of course, an evil to any community to have discharged convicts thrown loose on society; but in a penal colony it must be, from the nature of the case, incomparably a greater evil than in this country. Such a colony is the worst possible place for the liberated convicts; and they are the worst possible settlers. In this country,—in almost any country except a penal colony, the discharged offender finds himself in a society, the general current of which runs counter to such conduct as he has been suffering for: the wealthiest persons, and those filling respectable situations, are (if not honest men) at all events not convicted criminals, but persons at least pretending to unsullied character: he has therefore the strongest inducement, from example, and from interest, to seek to obtain and to preserve a good character: and he has generally the opportunity of fixing himself apart from his former associates, where his former delinquency is not known; and is thereby encouraged, as the phrase is, to turn over a new leaf. And under such an improved police-system as any one may see from the published Report of the Constabulary Force Commission to be both practicable and much needed, there is every reason to hope that not only the number of such characters will be greatly diminished, but also that they will be, in many instances, led to betake themselves to honest courses; especially if they shall have been subjected to the discipline of a well-regulated penitentiary on the separate system, which, even where it fails to reform, at least produces no fresh corruption,—introduces a man to no fresh associates in vice. This is not, I am happy to say, a mere conjectural speculation,—a sanguine anticipation; but, I may almost say, a fact which has been experienced. A result at least strongly illustrative of what I have been saying, took place at the time of the late reform of the English poor-laws. Your Lordships may remember what multitudes of men were at that time out of work, ostensibly from want of demand for their labour, but, in truth, from their preferring to eat the bread of idleness;—living on parish allowance, disorderly, slothful, and, 284 not seldom, engaged in smuggling, poaching, and pilfering.^* But when these men found that they were no longer to subsist as drones, at the expense of the industrious, the far greater part of them sought employment with a sincere wish to make themselves serviceable; and, in consequence, almost all of them found it; and have been long since absorbed into the labouring population, and generally without even finding it necessary to change their abode. Now this affords good ground to hope for the reclaiming even of discharged convicts, in a well-ordered community. But in the penal colonies, nearly all these favourable circumstances are totally reversed. The emancipated convict, there, finds a society in which three-fifths of the total population are tainted with crime, and above a third of the free population,—including most of the wealthiest emancipists like himself. And a large portion of the remainder also being the offspring or kindred of criminals, this preponderance of known and avowed criminality gives, of course, as the evidence too plainly shews, a complete character of its own to the society. Not only is every kind of profligate example to be found everywhere close at hand, but a debased and depraved public opinion is established. The current sets, as it were, against temperance, against purity of life, against integrity, and virtue in general. In such a community, the moral standard being lowered, it may be expected that such persons as would be in very low repute in most parts of Europe, will be regarded as highly respectable characters; because, in every society, those will be so considered who are considerably above the average, and belong to "the better sort," as compared with the generality. And again, persons of eminent firmness of character may resist altogether the contagion of the surrounding immorality. But this surely is not to be looked for in the discharged felon, even though he should be one not incapable, under favourable circumstances, of being reformed. He is placed in circumstances ^* It is but fair to remark in this place, that what I here say does not apply to Ireland. The people there had no parish-pay to tempt them to idleness: the want of employment, which, in England, was artificial, or a pretext is, in Ireland, real. Whether the same remedy is likely to be equally salutary in two such different cases, remains to be proved.—See Report of Commission of Inquiry into the State of the Poor in Ireland. 285 every way the most unfavourable, when not only surrounded with every variety of bad characters, but also fully aware that they are acquainted with his delinquency, and conscious that he knows theirs. Such men, so circumstanced, are fully qualified to keep each other in countenance in everything that is evil. They may be said to be, in a certain sense, irreproachable characters; since each of them, however depraved, is surrounded by his neighbours who cannot fairly reproach him for it;—who serve as mirrors to reflect the image of his own vices. Discharged convicts, even when partially reformed in character,—and not, as appears to be invariably the case with the Norfolk Island convicts, incurably hardened and depraved,—when thus thrown together, may be compared to I half-quenched firebrands, which, is scattered abroad, are soon extinguished, but if piled into a heap, will kindle each other into a blaze. In such a society accordingly, one might expect to find just that state of things which, the evidence proves but too fully, we do find. There is, as it were, a continual conjugating and declining of villainy and profligacy, through every mood and tense,—every person, gender, and number: it is, "I am a rogue: you are a rogue; he is a rogue; she is a rogue; we are rogues; they are rogues; we have been rogues; we shall be rogues; be thou a rogue;" &c. &c. And terms far more abominable than "rogue" might with equal truth, I fear be superadded.^* In such a community, with a fresh stream of pollution continually pouring into it, to expect that free settlers of ordinary good character will remain uncontaminated, or reformed offenders be confirmed in good conduct, and not relapse into vice, would be most extravagantly sanguine: but to expect that the vicious will be reclaimed, the unreformed convict become a virtuous character, in the midst of every encouragement and temptation to vice, would be downright infatuation. That such a colony therefore is, as I have said, the worst possible place for discharged felons, is as manifest as that they are the worst possible settlers—the most unfit materials for raising up a new nation; and still more especially noxious to such a colony, as is labouring ^* "How can you be surprised," says the Bishop of Australia, "that we have a corrupt population, when you consider the torrents of vice that have been poured in upon us. 286 under the very evil which they will continually aggravate. Then, again, in respect of penitentiaries, of whatever kind, all the objections that are brought against them, apply with incomparably greater force to such institutions at a distance of sixteen thousand miles. The expensiveness of the penitentiary system is much dwelt on: and in that point of view, such an institution in a remote colony must be far more objectionable. To Norfolk Island, building materials must be brought at least nine hundred miles; and the transport of the convicts themselves, and of the soldiers who are to guard them, becomes, in the case of a four months' voyage, a very heavy item.† I am almost ashamed, my Lords, to dwell so much on pecuniary considerations, in a case where so much more important interests are at stake—the suppression of crime, the efficiency of the laws, the temporal and eternal interests of many thousands of our countrymen, the character to all succeeding generations of what will one day probably be a mighty nation, and a blessing or a portentous curse to nearly the whole world. But pecuniary considerations have a great—in the present question—an excessive weight. The imagined cheapness (for after all it is but imaginary) of the transportation system has been, I conceive, a principal inducement to many persons to shut their eyes to the enormity of its evils; and it seems still to operate in no small degree, even now that the abandonment of the assignment-system has destroyed whatever recommendation on the score of economy the penal colonies ever could boast. A considerable portion of the expense of the system has been kept out of sight, by not estimating adequately the large share of the military and police establishments of the colonies which belong to them as penal colonies, ^* Any foreigner visiting Ireland, and finding the island in a course of being studded over with workhouses for the residence and safe custody of those in distress, including able-bodied men out of work, would not suppose us to be parsimonious in our expenditure for public objects. He might, indeed, perhaps wonder why our procedure was not reversed—why, instead of shutting up honest labourers at home, and sending out criminals to found a new nation in the colonies, we did not rather shut up the criminals at home, and people our settlements with the honest men. But he could not suspect us of unduly sparing expense. 287 being beyond what would be necessary except for the convicts. Taking the very lowest possible computation of this and of the other items, it appears that at the proposed establishment in Norfolk Islnd the cost of each convict's punishment (taking four years as the average term) will be not less than 145l. Now in a penitentiary in this country, on the separate system, as recommended by Howard, by Hanway, and by the commissioners now engaged in the inspection of the prisons of Great Britain, the expense, on the most liberal computation, does not appear likely to amount to one half of this. The expense of the building is estimated by competent judges at from 100l. to 120l. per head; the interest of which last mentioned sum (and this is the fair way of computing) for four years, at as high a rate as five percent, would be 24l.: and the maintenance of the prisoners, Mr. Brebner, the intelligent and experienced governor of the Glasgow bridewell assures me, has cost in his prison, on an average of the last ten years, less than 5l. per head annually, including the amount of salaries and all other incidental expense?. Taking, however, the double of this, to allow for all possible increase of cost for maintenance, this would amount to 40l. for the four years; which, with the addition of the above-mentioned 24l., would make the total cost 64l. instead of 145l, as the total cost per head of the punishment of convicts. Even, however, if this computation were reversed—if the Norfolk Island system were as much the cheapest of all modes of secondary punishment as it is in fact the most costly, still I should say that the impossibility of exercising that vigilant superintendence which is nowhere more called for than in the case of a prison, would alone outweigh all other considerations. Let any one but reflect attentively on the great and multifarious difficulties connected with prison discipline—on the care requisite for the safe custody of the prisoners, their health, their morals; on the danger, on the one side, of making the prison a desirable abode, and of cruelty or neglect, on the other—let him reflect on the various abuses that have taken place in prisons and penitentiaries of every description, and which have been, strangely enough, brought forward and dwelt on by the advocates of the present system, that is, of the system of having such establishments 288 removed to the other hemisphere; (where to be sure the abuses, though likely to be actually much greater, are less likely to be heard of here,—let him but reflect I say on all this, and the conclusion will surely be, that even a school, a farm, a manufacture, in short any other kind of institution rather than a penitentiary, should be conducted at the distance of half the globe—that this, above all others, requires the prompt transmission of directions, the speedy remedy of defects or abuses, the immediate appointment, whenever vacancies occur, of well-selected governors, as well as the immediate removal of the unfit;^* and in short that continual active ^* "In order to carry this proposal into effect, a prison will require to be erected, capable of holding as many convicts as can be conveniently and profitably employed in the island, and so arranged as to facilitate the adoption of the most effectual means of enforcing an improved system of discipline; and that for this purpose, as no correct estimate can be formed here of the expenses to be incurred in the erection of such a prison at Norfolk Island, I have to desire that you will at your earliest convenience, transmit to me such an estimate, together with a plan of the proposed building. In my predecessor's circular despatch, of the 21st of October, 1837, he transmitted to you a volume, containing extracts from the second report of the inspectors of prisons in this country, containing plans of prisons; and I now transmit to you a subsequent volume on the same subject, which will afford you the requisite information on this subject. In the mean time you will consider yourself authorized to incur such expenses as may be necessary for the temporary accommodation of an increased number of convicts in that island; and of those who shall arrive in New South Wales from this country in the course of the present year, you will send as large a portion to Norfolk Island as you think can be properly received there. The convicts themselves may be advantageously employed in making this temporary accommodation. A small increase in the military guard will probably be required, which you will send from the troops now stationed in New South Wales. The general principles which are to guide the future management of transported convicts are,— 1st. That a fixed period of imprisonment should, in the first instance, be allotted for the punishment of the crime of which the prisoner has been convicted. 2d. That the actual period of imprisonment should be liable to a subsequent abridgment, according to the previous 289 and watchful superintendence and control, which is the very reverse of what can be exercised when it takes about three quarters of a year to make an enquiry and receive the answer. But it is urged that, at any rate, the proposed system must be adopted for the present; transportation to a penal colony must be to a certain extent continued, at least till proper penitentiaries can be built. In answer to this objection, I will venture to throw out a suggestion which was made not long since by my lamented friend Mr. Drummond. I am happy and proud to call him such; for I had, of course, for some years, much intercourse with him, and our mutual esteem and regard was, I believe, continually increased during that intercourse. Not long before the nation was deprived by an untimely death of his valuable services, he was conversing with his usual intelligence on the present subject, and after remarking on the extreme impolicy of removing to such a vast distance an establishment which above all others requires vigilant superintendence, he added, "Why not make Dalkey Island, Norfolk Island?" Dalkey is a small rocky island, the property of the Crown, lying at a short distance from Kingstown. The suggestion evidently was, that either that, character of the prisoner, the nature of his crime, and his conduct during his punishment. 3d. That when allowed to leave Norfolk Island, he should not be assigned to any individual in Australia, but should enjoy advantages at least equal to those of a ticket of leave. No prisoner is to be detained in Norfolk Island longer than fifteen years. In order fully to carry these regulations into effect, it is desirable that, as far as possible, Norfolk Island should be appropriated to convicts from the United Kingdom, and that persons convicted of offences in New South Wales should be confined in some other part of the colony, or employed on the roads. In order to carry the new system fully into effect, the superintendence of it should be entrusted to an officer, on whose qualifications for the duty the best reliance can be placed; he should feel a deep interest in the moral improvement of the convicts, and be disposed to devote his whole energies to this important object. The opposite faults of over severity and over indulgence should be carefully avoided, as alike destructive of any good effect on the prisoners'"—Papers relative to Transportation, &c. Session 1839, No. 582, p. 17. 290 or some of the other numerous barren and nearly uninhabited islands (such as Lundy Island, for instance, in the Bristol channel) on the British or Irish coasts, the voyage to which would take about as many hours as to Norfolk Island it takes months, should be allotted to this use, as at least a temporary expedient. I do not think the Norfolk Island system a good one, even if it could be thus brought about 16,000 miles nearer home; but the change would be in all respects a manifest improvement as far as it went; and as an immediate and temporary expedient, would be both practicable and unexceptionable. And if there is any advantage in the name of "transportation" there can be no reason it should not be continued. For in all that I have said respecting transportation, I mean, of course, what is now commonly understood by that term, viz.: transportation to a colony. But then it would be necessary, I have heard it urged, to erect buildings on the island that might be selected; and this would be a work of time. Why such temporary accommodations as were erected in Norfolk Island and the other places where Government chain-gangs have been stationed, when convicts were first sent to them,—such as these could be provided in less than half the time that the voyage to Norfolk Island occupies: so that if it were determined that from this day no more convicts should be sent to a colony, the persons under sentence of transportation, if detained in prison or on board of a ship till due preparation was made for receiving them in one of those islands on our own coasts, and then transported thither, would actually reach their ultimate destination much sooner than if conveyed all the way to Australia. I have said that I do not consider the system as a good one. The confinement and restraint of prisoners by a wall of flesh and blood,—by a rampart of bayonets, and the crowding of them promiscuously together, and then endeavouring to guard against the ill effects of this by the constant presence of severe overseers, must, as experience has proved, have a corrupting effect upon both parties,—must tend to harden and brutalize both the convicts and the soldiers. But as long as we are compelled to resort to such means, that is, till proper restraint by means of stone walls can be provided, it would be a manifest improvement as far 291 as it goes, to get rid at once of one great part of the evil,—a long and costly voyage to a spot far out of the reach of proper superintendence.^* The only shadow of argument I have ever heard adduced in favour of a remote penal establishment, is the supposed terror, to some minds, of a very distant place of exile. "Omne ignotum pro mirifico" has been cited as applicable to this case. The imagination, it has been said, enhances the dread of sufferings whose nature, from the remoteness of the place, cannot be accurately known. That the opposite effect is full as likely to take place, is not only a reasonable conjecture, but a fact of which we have abundant experience. It is admitted on all hands that unduly favourable ideas of the condition of the transported convict have been, in a vast number of instances, conveyed to this country. It may be that this will be effectually prevented in future, by the uniform severity to be exercised on all convicts in Norfolk Island. But even then, that this punishment should be exaggerated by the imagination,—that its severity should be believed greater than it really is,—seems neither needful nor possible. If it be, as we are assured by official documents,† in reality a punishment so much worse than capital, that men have been known to commit crimes on purpose to escape from it by death, one does not well see how an over-estimate of its severity can be formed by the imagination. ^* One advantage which such an island as Dalkey or Lundy would possess over Norfolk Island, would be that there would be no vines or orange-trees to eradicate. This may sound strange to any one who is not aware that Norfolk Island,—one of the most favoured spots in the whole world for soil and climate,—has been made almost a garden of Eden by the fruit trees, which, sprung from seeds left by voyagers, have naturalized themselves and overrun the island. It has, therefore, been judged right, first to select this lovely spot as the abode of the worst of criminals, and then, for fear it should be too agreeable, to spoil it as far as possible, by destroying the fruit trees! † The Catholic chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Ullathorne, corroborated by other authorities, represents that the convicts are driven to despair; that they have been known to commit murder for the sake of ridding themselves of life; and according to the expression used by one of the convicts himself, "When a man come to this island he loses the heart of a man, and gets the heart of a beast."—Papers relative to Transportation, &c, Session 1839. No. 582 5 p. 9. 292 When the actual infliction is so shockingly severe that the people of this country, who can hardly be brought to tolerate capital punishment, would far less tolerate one which is beyond capital, if they once had their attention roused to it,—in such a case, I say, whatever uncertainty and indistinctness there may be respecting the convict's condition, may operate to extenuate but never to aggravate the terror of the punishment. Supposing however, the reverse of this to be true,—supposing—contrary to all reason and all experience—that the punishment of the transported convict was never underrated, and was sometimes overrated in the imagination; and that consequently a distant place of exile, was, to some minds, a distinct source of salutary terror, without any counterbalancing effect of the opposite kind on other minds;—still the price is so enormously disproportionate at which this supposed benefit is to be purchased, that I think no one who will sit down and dispassionately count the cost, could have a moment's hesitation on the question. For the sake of retaining a system which to some particular minds, it is supposed, may hold out the additional terror of distant exile, we are to send criminals at a heavy cost to a penal establishment, which is completely out of the reach of all vigilant inspection;—an establishment in which, instead of being reformed, they are debased and degraded, and hardened to the utmost possible degree. It was observed to me lately by Sir Edward Parry^* as the result of several years' experience on the spot, that "he believed it impossible a convict could be sent to Norfolk Island without coming back a double-distilled villain." Then, after four years' (on the average) preparatory training in this university of depravity, they are to be let loose, to the amount of 4,000 annually,—or perhaps, under the proposed mitigation of the system, 2,000 or 1,000,—on the Australian Colonies, as free labourers and settlers. This precious importation is to consist, yon will observe, entirely of men; (of males I should rather say; for the other term would be hardly appropriate) no woman, as far as I can understand, being henceforth to be sent out as convicts. So that a community already overwhelmed with such unspeakable horrors from the shocking disproportion of the sexes, is to ^* See his Evidence, Report, vol. ii. p. 62. 293 be annually inundated with a fresh torrent of pollution, by the influx of hundreds or thousands of the most abandoned profligates, exclusively males! And it is thus that a new and flourishing nation is to be created and cherished in its growth;—a nation flourishing in numbers and in wealth, but already of such a character as to have been described by one of the witnesses before the Committee by the concise and emphatic expression of "Sodom and Gomorrah." All sacrifices are to be made—no cost spared—to increase the extent and to keep up the odious character of such a community: a conspicuous and lasting monument of England's shame and guilt: a monument such as I suppose was never before erected by any people, Christian or Pagan, of combined absurdity and wickedness. But even this is not all: if the proposed system be adopted and persevered in, the other colonies also in the southern hemisphere will be contaminated by the same polluted stream. The colonies already infected indeed,—New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land,—are such as some might think fitting subjects of any experiment however wild; or incpable of receiving, morally, either injury or benefit from any; and incapable (though I cherish better hopes), of being regenerated, even by perseverance in wise measures. But to taint not only these, but also the rising colonies of Swan River, South Australia, and New Zealand, by an influx of discharged felons, would be doubly unpardonable. The convicts, it has been suggested, at Norfolk Island and Tasman's Peninsula, on the expiration of their sentence, are to be conveyed to the neighbouring colonies, generally, (without any limitation to those which have been hitherto penal colonies,) and there let loose; and thus each of these rising communities is to be from its early infancy distorted and diseased by the depravity of these "double-distilled villains." Now the free-settlers in New South Wales indeed, cannot complain of this as an unexpected hardship; (except indeed, such emigrants as have been deluded from their country by the false accounts given in tracts such as those I have alluded to) but to expose to this moral pestilence those who have settled in the other colonies, under the express understanding, that their settlements were not to be thus polluted, is manifestly as unjust and treacherous as it is impolitic and inhuman. In- 294 deed there is an express Act of Parliament^* forbidding the introduction of convicts into South Australia; an act under which the settlers there have felt themselves secure from the evil it was meant to guard against;—an evil from which they will be secured, if there be any sense of honour in the British Government. For it would manifestly be an invasion of the act, to send thither the refuse of our jails, after having undergone their period of punishment and of debasement in Norfolk Island, on the plea that these men are not transported, but only conveyed ("convey, the wise it call"), and I hat they are not convicts, but merely persons who had been convicts, and whose term has expired: they are not precisely the same description of persons as we have promised not to send to South Australia,—convicts under sentence; but differ from them somewhat as a wild beast loose, does from a wild beast chained! Such are the results,—I may almost say the acknowledged and foreseen results,—to be expected from our persevering in the ^* 4 & 5 Will. iv. c. 95. According to the South Australian Register, dated 25th January last, it appears that the influx of criminals into that colony from the penal settlements has already become a very serious source of annoyance.—"No precautions (says the Register) have been adopted to prevent the importation of escaped convicts or ticket-of-leave men from the neighbouring penal settlements; and the consequence is, that South Australia is overrun with persons of these descriptions, and the police find constant employment in apprehending them. That crime has been seriously increased by the unchecked importation of this class of bandits, may be gathered from the fact that out of the thirty prisoners tried at the last gaol-delivery, there was only one convicted who had come to the colony direct from England; and among the twenty-five prisoners now awaiting their trial for different offences, there are but five English emigrants; the remaining twenty being either escaped convicts, ticket-of-leave men, or emancipists from New South Wales or Van Diemen's Land. Now, we know not what orders have been issued to the port-officer with regard to the crews and passengers of vessels arriving from the penal settlements; but this we do know, that not the slightest attention is paid to the subject, either at Glenelg or at the port, and that a ship-load of escaped convicts could at any time be landed without remark or remonstrance. Again, there is no check upon the overland arrivals, and it is notorious that some of the worst desperadoes of New South Wales have found their way hither by that route. 295 transportation system, even under a modified shape and to a diminished extent. They may be called acknowledged and foreseen results, because the statements and principles on which I have been arguing are mostly drawn, not from conjectures or observations of my own,—not even merely from uncontradicted testimony, or from the report of a Parliamentary Committee,—but from Government documents,—from descriptions and remarks, not merely admitted, but spontaneously and prominently set forth, in official papers. That a convict "in Norfolk Island loses the heart of a man and gets the heart of a beast," that "as a place for the reformation of criminals it is worse than useless,"—that "the proposal of allowing them to flock to the Australian Colonies at the expiration of their sentences, would render that noxious atmosphere more foul by their addition," and would therefore be open to a "fatal objection," as "leaving the main evil of transportation in full vigour,"—all this being, in so many words, acknowledged and foreseen, leaves me at a loss for arguments against the scheme I am deprecating. It seems of itself to plead guilty, as it were, to every charge brought against it. I know of no terms in which to condemn it more strongly than it stands self-condemned. I do cherish a hope therefore, that her Majesty's Ministers will be induced to follow out fully the principles which have been thus admitted, and to apply a thorough remedy to evils which have been so thoroughly exposed. If some system good in itself had been pushed to a faulty excess, a moderated continuance of it would be all that we could desire: if abuses had crept into such a system, it would be enough to remedy the abuses: but when a system has been shewn to be in itself an abuse,—to be radically and fundamentally bad, we ought not to be satisfied with a mere diminution of the evil. Those who introduced and who carried on for above fifty years the transportation system with the expectation of doing good, have been doing unspeakable mischief; but if we, without that expectation, continue the system, though in a mitigated degree, and satisfy ourselves with merely doing rather less mischief, but that, with our eyes open, and knowing what it is that we are doing, we shall be incomparably more to blame than our predecessors. From that blame, 296 my Lords, I have exonerated my own conscience; and I call on this House,—on the Legislature,—and the British Nation,—not lightly to cast from them the consideration of this question, merely because there is no party contest about it; but to weigh well its importance to the credit and welfare of this country,—to the welfare of almost every nation, civilized or uncivilized, throughout the world. And I hope for such a strong expression of the opinion of this House and of the public at large, as shall induce and enable Ministers to take effectual measures for putting an end not to a part only, but to the whole, of the present most pernicious and indefensible system, and for removing from this country one of the foulest stains that ever blemished our national character. The Resolution, my Lords, which I have to move is, "That the System of Transportation ought to be immediately, completely, and finally abolished."^*