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©J.Fawcett 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003,

NB.This article is designed to assist in giving an overview of the convict system. It is a newspaper report and the information should be verified from official sources.

"At the termination of the assizes or sessions, the keepers of
the various gaols throughout the kingdom are required to transmit
to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, a list of 
prisoners who have received sentence of transportation, and
an order is then forwarded,directing to which of the hulks they
are to be conveyed.

On their arrival, they are immediately stripped and washed,
clothed in coarse grey jackets and breeches, and two irons
placed on one of the legs, to which degradation everyone must
submit, let his previous rank have been what it may.

They are sent out in gangs of a certain number to work on shore,
guarded by soldiers. A strict account is kept of the labour
performed by each gang, there being a scale by which it is 
calculated,and out of each shilling earned for the Government 
by the prisoner, he is entitled to a penny, which is carried
to his credit; but of this he recieves only one third part weekly,
the remainder being left to accumulate until the expiration
of the term which he is doomed to serve; thus it sometimes
happens that a man who has been six or seven years on board 
the hulks, on his discharge is put in possession of ten or twelve
pound, and is also supplied with an addition sum of money to
defray his travelling expences home.

The strictest discipline is maintained, and extreme cleanliness
enforced in the vessels. The diet daily allowed is a pound and
a quarter of bread; a quart of thick gruel,morning and evening; 
on four days of a week, a piece of meat weighing 14 ounces
before it is cooked; and on the other three days in lieu of meat,
a quarter of a pound of cheese, also an allowance of small beer;
and on certain occasions, when work peculiarly fatiguing and
laborious is required, a portion of strong beer is served out;
no where [except in the Colonies] does a good behaviour meet
its reward more than at the hulks. 

A chronicle is kept of the conduct of each, and the Captain and 
Chaplain have the privilege of recommending annually a certain
number as fit objects for a mitigation of punishment, so that
it frequently occurs that a man sentenced to seven years trans-
portation, serves only three years and a half  or four years;
there are also other inducements to orderly conduct, such as 
having the irons lightened and being promoted to little
appointments which relieve from severe labour.

Besides those who are retained to serve out their term of 
transportation in England, thousands are every year sent to these
colonies, upon an average about six transports arrive annually
in Van Diemen's Land; and about twelve in New South Wales.
AMongst others who are actually transported to the Colonies,
such are invariably selected as are known to be old offenders,
and those who appear to be incorrigible.

One ship, the Bellerophon, at Sheerness, is appropriated
exclusively to a reception of boys, not exceeding 16 years of
age,most of whom are not expatriated, but are taught various
trades, such as shoemaking, tailors work, bookbinding and etc.
The morals of these youthful delinquients, some of whom are
not more than ten years old,are very carefully attended to;
it is, however, a lamentable fact, that not withstanding the
severe lessons taught by the discipline of the hulks, very 
many instances occur of prisoners who have been discharged,
again returning to habits of dishonesty, and, again incurring
the penalty of transportation,eventually banished to these Colonies.

The Penitentiary,at Millbank, was erected in order to serve
some measure as a substitute for the hulks or exportation,
but it is sufficiently notorious that this gigantic establishment
which has cost the Mother County near a million of money, has
hitherto most lamentably disappointed the expectation of its
projectors, both in a moral and political point of view.
About two years back, when much sickness prevailed in the 
penitentiary,an Act of Parliament was passed, to enable His 
Majesty to remove the prisoners from thence to the Hulks,
and a certain number were draughted to each ship.
These are said to have exhibited little symptons of reformation,
but,on the contrary,were generally found to be the most refactory.

We have drawn this statement ,and we place it before the Public
to convince them of the difference between the usage of American
prisoners, and those subjected to a penal bond in the Colonies we
inhabit; and we are the more eagar to do so at the present period,
from the influx of prisoners from England and the penal settlements,
otherwise we should not have been induced to have entered thus fully 
into this subject."

Source - CT Sept 1 1826