Results of the Parliamentary Inquiry on Transportation

"The last two sessions of Parliament, so unsatisfactory in most respects,
produced a valuable inquiry into the subject of criminal transportation.

Under an act of Charles the Second, convicts were first sent to the North
American Planters; to whom they became bondsmen, or slaves .Many colonies
were unwilling to receive them, but in others, the advantage of combined
labour in cultivating the soil, doubtless reconciled the landowners to the
character of the population thus forced upon them. When the American war
of independence broke out,an attempt was made to establish the penitentiary
system in England; but, unhappily, it was finally resolved to continue 
transportation; and in 1787, the first cargo of criminals was dispatched
to found the convict colony of New South Wales.

New south Wales may rank among the fairest portions of the earth; but, as 
has been said of Naples, with far less truth as regards its inhabitants,
"it is a paradise inhabited by devils'. The convicts,under the Transportation
Act of 5th George 1V., c.84, are made over to the Governor of the Colony as
his property; and he may transfer them to any individual for any
time he chooses to fix, within the limit of the sentence. They are
transferred for the most part,to settlers in New South Wales and Van Diemen's
Land,as domestic servants, mechanics, or field labourers. Some are employed 
by the Government on the roads and in public works. The convicts assigned
to individuals become the slaves of their masters; who upon the slightest 
offence, real or fancied, may order them to be cruelly flogged, or to be
put to labour in chains on the roads.Hence it frequently happens that the 
condition of the convict is perfect misery. The criminals who have been
domestic servants in England, generally have the same occupation in the 
colony; and it frequently happens that they receive £10 to £15 a-year in
wages, and are allowed illegal indulgences by their employers.

The condition of the shepherds and goatherds, of whom there were 8,000 in
New South Wales in 1837, is inferior to that of domestic servants and
mechanics.Neither are those employed by Government on the roads so well
off as the classes first mentioned. Thus, the better-informed felons, the
more accomplished rogues,men and women,whose temptation from need to break
the law is less than that of the others, receive in fact minor punishment,
and often, with good wages, are under only trivial restraint. 

That punishments are frequent and severe, however, appears from the fact, 
that in one month in the year 1833, 247 convicts were flogged in New South
Wales, and 9,784 lashes inflicted: which is at the rate of 2,964 floggings
and 108,000 per annum. These were chiefly for insolence, insubordination, 
and neglect of work.

In Van Diemens Land, the punishments were more frequent and severe.Good 
conduct entitles the well-behaved convicts to tickets of leave,or licences,
to work for themselves before the expiration of their sentence. They are
frequently employed at good wages in places of trust; and the system had
generally answered well.Some of these ticket of leave men have become clerks 
to bankers,and tutors in private families; and the real editor of the 
'leading journal' in New South Wales was one of this class.

Those who have been pardoned, or whose term of sentence has expired, are 
called Emancipists or Expirees. Some of them have made immense fortunes-
one even as much as £40.000 a-year. This man was transported for stealing
geese of a common in Yorkshire. He first saved money be selling his rations
of rum; afterwards he married a female Emancipist with a little property,
he set up a shop near Windsor,in a district where other Emancipists had 
obtained grants of land; these came to his shop,continued drinking for days
and weeks, and to pay their score gave mortgages on their property; the
interest was allowed to accumulate till they could not pay it, and then 
Overreach took possession of their land and houses. 
The greater part of the Emancipists are laborers and shopkeepers, and in 
charaacter are most profligate.

The conduct of the female convicts is described as being "as bad as any
thing could well be". So great is the danger and dread of contamination to
the children from these wretched creatures, that it is a common practice
to employ men in domestic duties which in this country women always perform,
and to dispense with servants altogether as much as practicable.

Among the gross abuses of the system of assignment,is mentioned a practice
of transferring convicts to their own wives, or relatives who have followed
them to the colony, and with the proceeds of the very crimes for which the
offenders were transported, have set up a profitable business and realised
large fortunes.

Transported clerks have been employed in Government offices; and as clerks
to the Attornies, have been allowed free access to prisoners in jails. Even
the Attorney General's clerk was a convict, and managed all his master's
business.

All these abuses the Committee declare to be inherent in the system of
assignment. The convicts in Van Diemens Land are generally those who 
have been returned by settlers to Government as unfit for service; and they
are most employed in road-making. Some are selected for policemen, messengers
and constables.


The punishment of convicts for crimes committed in the penal colonies are
horrible. in 1834, 1,000 persons were employed in the chain gangs of New
South Wales; and in 1837, 700 in those of Van Diemen's Land.  The soldiers
employed to guard these chain gangs frequently find their own friends and 
relations among them, and themselves become drunken and vicious in the
extreme.
For crimes of the greatest magnitude, not punishable by death, convicts 
are transported to Norfolk Island, Moreton Bay, and Port Arthur. 
Port Arthur is on a small and barren peninsula, connected with Van Diemens
Land by a narrow strip of land. 
Norfolk Island is a beautiful volcanic island, about 1,000 miles from the
Eastern shores of Australia, and except in one place inaccessible to boats.
This lovely spot has been converted into a perfect hell. The condition of
the convicts is one of unmitagated wretchedness. To escape from it men 
have chopped off the heads of their fellow prisoners with hoes, knowing
they should be immediately sent to Sydney to be tried and hanged! Attempts
at mutiny have not been uncommon at Norfolk Island. In 1834, the mutineers
took possession of the island, and killed some guards; they were subsequently
overpowered and eleven were executed.To Judge Burton, who tried them, one of
these men observed, in a manner which the Judge said "drew tears from his
eyes and wrung his heart" - "Let a man be what he will, when he comes here 
he is soon as bad as the rest; a man's heart is taken from him, and there is
given to him the heart of a beast!". 
At Port Arthur, men commit murder "in order to enjoy the excitement of being
sent up to Hobart Town" to be tried and executed. Macquarrie Harbour (now 
abandoned) was a penal settlement in Van Diemens Land, of the same description
of Norfolk Island and Port Arthur; and an account is given of the fate of the
convicts who attempted to escape from it, between the 3rd January 1822, and
the 16th ofMay ,1827. Of 116 who absconded, 75 perished in the woods; one was
hanged for murdering and eating his companion: two were shot; eight 
were murdered, and six  by their comrades; 24 escaped to the
settled districts; 13 were hanged for bushranging, and two for murder; making
altogether 101,out of the 116, who came to an unthinkable end.


On the whole, the Committee think that transportation , though so very unequal
and uncertain punishment, is more severe than the accounts sent home by settlers
and criminals, would lead ill-formed persons to suppose. It is a fact, however,
that in this country transportation is not more dreaded than simple exile by
a large portion of the classes whose habits and crimes render them most likely
to experience its realities.  It is more feared in the country than in London,
were it inspires little apprehension.

In Van Diemens Land in 1837, the convicts were 18,000, and the free population
28,000; and the number of persons brought before the police amounted to 17,000.
One seventh of the free population were fined for drunkeness. 

In New South Wales the number of convictions for highway robbery alone exceeds
the total number of convictions for all manner of offences in England, taking
the difference of population into account.

Murders, and attempts at murder, are as common in New South Wales, as petty
larcenies in England. Burglaries and robberies are committed in Sydney in the
middle of the day. The drunkeness,idleness and carelessness of a large portion
of the population, and the want of continuity in the buildings affording easy
access to the backs of shops and houses, and the means of escaping from the
police, give great facilities to plunderers.And even when offenders are taken,
they are generally tried by juries composed chiefly of Emancipist shopkeepers.

The quantity of spirits annually consumed in New South Wales amounts to four
gallons a head. In Sydney, with a free population of 16,000, there were,in
1837, 219 licensed public houses, and an immense number of unlicensed spirit-
shops. These tippling places were kept and frequented by the most abandoned
wretches. This disproportion of the sexes occasions crimes, which to quote
the words of Captain Maconochie, make "the blood curdle". 

And this amount of sin and misery is annually increased by the direct 
operation of the laws of England, framed, forsooth, for the punishment
and preventio of crime!: 
The philanthropists who rail at American slavery should turn their attention
to New South Wales: The vice and wretchedness produced by negro slavery are
absolutely of small account when contrasted with the atrocities of the
transportation system. - Spectator