The History of Tasmania Volume II Part 26

Blanco White, a celebrated Spaniard, had suggested sentences to an amount of work rather than to an extent of years. He proposed that the tread-wheel should measure the progress of the culprit, and that every revolution should bring him nearer to liberty.

His punitive system had long been adopted by Arthur, though probably with objects somewhat distinct: it was found in every penal settlement and road gang.

Capt. Cheyne had recommended the opening of accounts and payment for probationary labor.

At Bermuda, the stimulus of present enjoyment was offered to industry: convicts were allowed 1_s._ 6_d._ per week, half of which they were at liberty to expend in fruits, vegetables, and such like comforts; the residue forming a fund, sometimes of 15 and 20, receivable at discharge. These indulgences were attended with the happiest effects, and the superintendent, Sir Thomas Usher, was so satisfied with their reformation, that he had no doubt seven-eighths were better men at the close than at the commencement of their bondage.

The idea of clubs was found in the t.i.things of the ancient Britons, which were enrolled by the authority of Alfred, and made liable for each other. Maconochie saw in the disjointed and licentious condition of that era, something a.n.a.logous to the state of convicts, and in the result that "a bracelet might be left on the highway with security," an encouragement to hope, from a similar organisation, for the same success. Capt. Maconochie quoted Hume in describing these societies, but he omitted those sentences which seem to give another aspect to the inst.i.tution; for when a member of the t.i.things was charged with a crime, the rest could purge themselves from responsibility, if acquitted on oath of connivance with the offender, or his escape: but, however innocent, the clubs of Maconochie were involved in the responsibility of the transgressor--a fundamental difference, the suppression of which was scarcely compatible with literary candour.

Bentham himself had proposed that convicts should remain at auxiliary establishments, in principle resembling the training stations of Maconochie, until they could be prepared for the full enjoyment of liberty. He also suggested mutual surveillance a.s.sociations, in which the prisoners should watch over, instruct, and a.s.sist each other.

Archbishop Whately advocated the detention of prisoners until their reformation was established.

Maconochie attributed his idea of marks to an observation of Messrs.

Backhouse and Walker on their usefulness in training the rising generation: they thought they discerned a faint image of the club system at Macquarie Harbour, where devout prisoners separated themselves into a society, and were secured from the interruption of the rest. Men from bondage, were released in the hulks, when the sum total of marks in their favor covered a certain period of their sentence.

Macarthur had recommended the employment of an officer, under the immediate direction of the home secretary of state, responsible for the full execution of a sentence, to whom the entire management of the convict department might be committed. The governors would thus be less likely to change the aspect of transportation, according to their particular theories.[224]

Captain Maconochie was preceded in this branch of penal philosophy by a gentleman, not equally celebrated, but who proposed changes as radical.

It is amusing to observe, with what different objects, and how diverse in spirit, similar mutations have been enforced. Dr. Henderson, the founder of the Van Diemen's Land Society, on returning to India, offered through the press at Calcutta a new scheme of colonisation, based on convict government. That which existed he deemed defective in its main principles, and futile in its results. The settlers he described, with some contempt, as an inferior cla.s.s, inflated with notions of liberty and equality, and debased by convict a.s.sociations; p.r.o.ne to quarrel and encroach, but distressed with the endless vexations of their lot.

Forbidden to punish the insolence of their servants; exposed to the disgrace of meeting their accusations; or when they prosecuted a charge, liable to the strictures of the magistrate, who might penetrate the secrets of their dwellings, and censure them in the presence of their exulting slaves. Thus, though the author a.s.sumed the tone of philosophical discussion, he differed from others who professed to investigate principles: he observed--"We find the convicts in the condition of slaves placed under despotic power." "It is not necessary to enquire whether it is for their benefit;" "they are not ent.i.tled to our sympathy, should they be treated with the rigour of slaves:" "they will not often labor when they are removed from the dread of punishment." "The magistrates should be relieved from forms and precedents, and punish according to the intrinsic value of offences, and for the public good." "More injury is done by the trammels of the law, than by leaving the judges to their own discretion." Such is the essence of his system, which, however, always presumed the existence of a lofty purpose and a dispa.s.sionate administration.[225] For this large discretion, however, he p.r.o.nounced the existing settlers unfit: he recommended the employment of young educated gentlemen, under a board of directors, and proposed as the primary object of discipline, neither punishment nor intimidation, but _productiveness_. Power being lodged in the hands of the superintendents, without regard to _Burns' Justice_, or written regulations, they would check offences at once, and punish according to their social and material tendency. He held, as vitally important, that all national views in reference to transportation should be subordinate to the colonial welfare. Having formed agricultural establishments, and fitted them to become the home of capitalists, the officers of government would give place to another cla.s.s of employers.

The house, the servants, and the cleared ground, would be disposed of by the crown; the convicts, gradually trained, exalted into a free population, and with their families would form a peasantry. The sale of these estates would repay the original outlay; and thus, without further drafts on the treasury, the process could be renewed in an endless succession. The lash, Dr. Henderson was far from rejecting as an instrument of correction--"cheap and expeditious:" in short, his was a plan of slavery, and which conveyed semi-magisterial powers to the overseers, and gave them a profit on the labor they might exact.

Henderson had become sultanised by living in India: he was attached to the spirit of its government; the legal formalities, which delight an Englishman, seemed to him the degradation of rank, and a pernicious license to inferiors. In his imaginary commonwealth, he saw but two cla.s.ses, which, in the language of the East, he distinguished as the "head and the hand." He thought the judges should be required to aid the governors by their interpretations of the law; who, at the close of their administration, might be tried by their peers, and, if found wanting, handed over to everlasting shame! Thus, his plan embodied the spirit of caste, of orientalism, and of the India House. He had no simpering tenderness for the prisoner, while he attributed to the upper cla.s.ses an innate rect.i.tude and self control, such as the British records of the East will hardly sustain. His speculations are worth remembering, for the contrast of their _animus_ with those of Maconochie, and for the a.n.a.logy in their details.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 221: The pet.i.tion to the Commons prayed an enquiry into the efficacy of transportation to New South Wales as a secondary punishment: whether it should be continued, and under what alterations of the present system; or, if discontinued, in what manner, &c.--_Pet.i.tion_, 1836.]

[Footnote 222: It was not much better in England: the Rev. J. Clay stated, that in Preston there were 422 dwellings, inhabited by 2,400 persons, sleeping in 852 beds; that is an average of five and a fractional part as follows:--84 cases 4 in a bed; 28 cases 5, 13 cases 6, 3 cases 7, 1 case 8; one family of 8 on bed frames, covered with a little straw.--_Health of Towns Commission_, 1844.]

[Footnote 223:

_Dr._ _Cr._ A. 3 marks for getting drunk. | B. 1 mark for punctual at C. 2 marks for losing part of his | church.

Sunday clothes. | D. 2 marks for general E. 5 marks for wantonly a.s.saulting F.| steadiness and obedience.

-- | F. 3 marks for self command 10 | under grievous provocation.

6 | -- -- | 6 4 loss; falling one-half on those who obtained the entire stock of credit.]

[Footnote 224: _Macarthur's Present State, &c._ pp. 47, 49.]

[Footnote 225: "They should have increased the barriers between him and the convict; and in those investigations they should have leaned towards him (the master), even at the expense of legal justice: his character should have been rendered sacred in the eyes of the convict."--_Henderson's Observations_, p. 12.]

SECTION XX.

At this era, no one will question the integrity or benevolence of Captain Maconochie, and it would be disgraceful in a historical work to adopt the language of prejudice, much more the invectives of a quarrel; but it is not less important to estimate aright both his opinions and his plans. His description of the condition of the prisoners might be easily ill.u.s.trated by examples. There were settlers, not a few, to whose care the prisoners were entrusted, who were unfit to govern a kennel.

Low in their origin, corrupt in their principles, and detestable in their lives--themselves differing from felons in nothing but their position.

The unhappy prisoner entrusted to their charge, was insulted, coerced, and crushed. Sufficiently cunning to avoid a palpable infraction of the orders of government, they constantly violated their spirit. Physical weakness, or mental incapacity, they treated as evasion or contempt.

p.r.o.ne to invoke the interposition of the magistracy, they drove unfortunate beings for slight offences to a tribunal, where the presumption was always against them. In the presence of the magistrate they were smooth and supple; but the eye of the punished prisoner marked the exultation of cruelty triumphant, and his course was rapid from failings to faults, and from faults to crimes.

In the larger establishments, except where the humanity of the master kept alive his vigilance, the men were sometimes placed in the power of an overseer, himself perhaps an expiree; who, elated with office, delighted in the advent of his turn to torture. On such farms the rigour of discipline seemed essential to order: too often, the men differed but little from slaves. Violations of rule were deemed more pernicious by their example than their immediate inconvenience: to pa.s.s by a fault, was thought to license its imitation. The indulgences afforded by a small settler, whose social happiness depended on their good humour, would have proved, where many herded together, an item of large expense.

Punishments, the readiest instruments of control, were inflicted on calculation: there was, perhaps, no anger in the breast of the accuser--the defaulter he would have readily forgiven, had he stood alone; but impunity would relax the reins of authority, and the lash was invoked because most convenient. The published doc.u.ments of the House of Commons ill.u.s.trate the perseverance of masters, in repeating their prosecutions; and the resistance and suffering of miserable men, who for the long period of their service lived in constant warfare, and retaliated the social wretchedness they endured. An enquirer could not long reside in the colony, without learning that many had borne a succession of punishments sufficient to prostrate the strength of a giant, and which no mere animal in the creation could survive.

Yet this is not a fair estimate of the character of the settlers, or the results of a.s.signment; and a want of discrimination in Maconochie, however unintentional, was a serious injustice. It was true, that the constant vexations of a settler's life produced, too generally, a tone and manner, striking to a stranger, because not so common under happier circ.u.mstances. The substantial benevolence of many employers is not the less unquestionable: a large number continued their liberated men in their service, whom they had taught the arts of industry, brought under the influence of moral instruction, and a.s.sisted to settle in life.

Hundreds scattered throughout these colonies, who were born in the contagion of wickedness, were rescued from habits of crime by the long and patient training of their masters. That many such have become virtuous, in the highest sense, could not be affirmed without hazard; but can this be said of the majority of mankind?

The charges of Maconochie incurred severe reproach, for their rashness.

It is true, that the prominence of evil fixes the attention, while humanity is retiring and noiseless--as the riot of the streets conceals rather than ill.u.s.trates the sobriety and order within doors; but a philosopher should have taken into account this facility of error, while condemning with whatever severity the evils he might scan: lest he should be found to set forth the exception as the rule, and the rule as the exception.

Were persons, who have pa.s.sed through a.s.signment, to give their testimony, a very large proportion would acknowledge that their condition was not unhappy, or their masters unkind. In his estimate of prisoners, Capt. Maconochie was equally deceived by a generous confidence, or by his pity for human suffering. Some were, indeed, far superior to their degradation: they retained in bondage the principles they had derived from education, or the dispositions natural to their character: offenders by accident, not habit; and some condemned by that last calamity incident to society, the mistakes of public justice. A much larger cla.s.s were victims of early neglect: parental example, or of the social evils which are incident to the refinement, corruption, and selfishness of the age; but very many, whatever the cause of their depravity, were really and recklessly depraved. The pitying eye of the philanthropist, glancing at their history, would find his compa.s.sion in the ascendant, and in surveying their misfortunes might forget their crimes; but to stand in contact with them; to struggle against their pa.s.sions, to hear their profaneness, to correct their indolence, and to thwart their peculations--these were duties and trials, in the presence of which the highest benevolence became practical, and theory gave way before actual experience. Nor is it easy to discover by what plan the injustice of European society, or the misfortunes of youth, can change the colonial aspect of depravity, or supersede the penalties provoked by indisputable wickedness.

A close examination of the records in the police-office, not only proves the revolting severity of our penal administration, but by preserving the original character and colonial career of the prisoners, ill.u.s.trates the depth, continuity, and recklessness of their guilt. It was in this department of his investigation Maconochie dropped into serious errors.

He entertained the conviction that the far greater number were wicked, because they were unhappy: nor did he sufficiently perceive, that in a large ma.s.s of offenders the principles which debase them had become const.i.tutional by habit; and that nothing, short of divine power, could change the current of their pa.s.sions, or the course of their lives. From such a view of human nature the feeling mind revolts, and the philanthropist may justly cherish those animating hopes which instances of reformation may save from the charge of folly; but a philosopher, constructing a system, cannot disguise facts with impunity: and nothing is more certain than that he whose expectations are disappointed, feels a dangerous reaction, and pa.s.ses from unlimited confidence to undiscriminating suspicion. The administration of the criminal laws, both in Great Britain and the colonies, presents a series of alternations between rigour and laxity, which have proceeded from the alternate ascendancy of conflicting ideas, that can never settle into harmony.

Maconochie delighted to trace the better qualities of prisoners: how even the most daring are moved by tenderness, and when kindly spoken to, melt into tears. Unhappily these characteristics too often exist in combination with pa.s.sions which render them useless. It is, however, the duty of all to endeavour to elicit and nourish them; for though they but slightly relieve the depravity with which they are not incompatible, they afford a nucleus round which the social virtues often gather, and prevent the total despondency of those who labor for the welfare of the weak, the wicked, and the miserable.

Sir John Franklin made a last effort to save the system of a.s.signment.

He defended the colonists from the imputations of Captain Maconochie, and exhibited statistics, which proved their anxiety to promote the spiritual welfare of the population. He maintained that the surveillance of the government was active, the distribution of labor usually impartial; the protection of the prisoners from injustice secured by law, by the press, and by the constant scrutiny of the lieutenant-governor. He argued that the quiet submission of the prisoners was not ensured so much by military power as the consciousness that they were treated with justice. In his view a.s.signment, by its near resemblance to the ordinary combinations of social life, prevented the worst consequences of penal degradation, and tended to rouse the sympathies which crime might have rendered dormant; he, however, disapproved of a.s.signment in towns, and for domestic service.[226]

The abuses of a.s.signment were prominently exhibited in the instance of Clapperton, a man greatly trusted by his master, Mr. Alfred Stephen. He was guilty of embezzlement to a large extent: he was tried by Captain Forster, and sentenced to fourteen years transportation; but Clapperton was famous as a clever cook, and as such was desired by the colonial secretary, who, however, judged it right first to enquire whether his services would be in demand for the kitchen of the governor. The private secretary waived the precedence, and Clapperton was accordingly sent to the residence of Captain Montagu. On the way to his destination he called at the house of his old master, to acquaint the servants with the favorable turn in his fortune: this became known to Mr. Alfred Stephen, who found that, by the prosecution he had inst.i.tuted, he had conferred a favor upon an official friend. He immediately appealed to Sir John Franklin, who was evidently unconcerned in the arrangement: he recalled the man, and sent him to labor on the roads. The public discussion of this case excited a strong sensation: it ill.u.s.trated the system, which sent one man to toil on the chain, and another to wear the livery of the second officer of the government.

Fifty gentlemen presented a requisition to the sheriff, to call a meeting, to discuss the abuses of transportation: this, however, he declined, and the requisitionists permitted the matter to drop, lest an exposure should endanger a.s.signment altogether. It could only suggest to the British parliament new arguments for abolition, when it was found that a doubly convicted offender was sent a few miles, into an opulent establishment, to enjoy the dominion of the larder, to romp with the maids, traffick with the tradesmen, and command the means of vicious gratification; while a simple rustic, fresh from his first transgression, was subject to all the hardships of predial bondage.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 226: Despatch lo Lord Glenelg, October, 1837.]

SECTION XXI.

But Sir W. Molesworth had roused opposition to the prevailing system.

The Commons' committee examined twenty-three gentlemen, whose testimony would be without novelty to the reader of these volumes. The greater part concurred in the inexpediency of a.s.signment, and in the usefulness and importance of transportation. These witnesses were charged by Maconochie with a general indifference to the moral welfare and personal improvement of the prisoners. A colonist would, however, easily distinguish substantial benevolence from sentimental opinions; and they knew, by the trials of experience, how toilsome are the most generous efforts to correct habits not to be softened by the tears of compa.s.sion, and which do not yield to the wand of the magician.

The committee recommended that transportation to New South Wales, and the settled districts of Van Diemen's Land, should be discontinued: that establishments abroad should be limited to places where no free settlers were allowed to enter; that the abridgment of a sentence should be determined by fixed rules; that at its close, encouragement should be offered, to such as might merit the favor, to go to some country where support could be more easily obtained, and character recovered; and, finally, that no convict should be permitted to remain at the place of his punishment after its termination.

Such were the recommendations of this famous committee, which were carried into effect only so far as suited the convenience of the ministers; who, however, stopped transportation to New South Wales, and revoked the order in council by which that country was const.i.tuted a penal settlement. "On the 1st of August, 1840," said Lord John Russell, "transportation to New South Wales will cease for ever."

In van Diemen's Land, a.s.signment was abolished: first in domestic service, then in the towns; and the opinion was intimated by Lord John Russell, that he inclined to the views of Archbishop Whately, with limitations and exceptions.[227]

Among writers upon the subject, who most strenuously maintained the policy of transportation, may be enumerated Bishop Broughton, Dr. Lang, Dr. Ross, of Hobart Town, Sir George Arthur, Sir John Franklin, Messrs.

Macarthur, David Burns, and Captain Wood. They united in vindicating the colonists from the imputation of profligacy and cruelty. Governor Bourke was alone, among influential persons, a secret advocate of total abolition. In writing to the secretary of state, he intimated his conviction that, however strong the prejudice of the colonists in favor of penal labor, they were losers by the bargain; and that the social mischief gathering around them would soon demand a total cessation.[228]

In the voluminous productions, which for more than twenty years teemed from the colonial press, the idea of total abolition was scarcely suggested; except, indeed, in the year 1826, a colonist, under a fict.i.tious signature, hinted in modest language that free labor might prove the cheapest in the end. The notion was tolerated, while the country was ravaged by bushrangers, but it was only treated as a curiosity and a dream.[229]

Towards the close of 1839, a meeting was held in the Mansion-house at Dublin, to promote emigration to New Zealand. A resolution was pa.s.sed, on the motion of Dr. d.i.c.kenson, the chaplain of the Archbishop of Dublin, which exhibited a frightful portraiture of the Australian colonies.[230] Dr. d.i.c.kenson dwelt upon the social corruption, and declared that it was in vain to imagine a colony, so composed, could ever become respectable. The natural conclusion from the proportions of the census, the amount of crime, and the character of the expirees, was unfavorable to the colonies; but the imputation of general vice and juvenile depravity, were made most frequently by projectors of rival settlements, and were tinged with selfishness. The object of the arch-bishop and his chaplain warped their judgment, and their lofty tone induced the public to believe that they were right; yet when they described the colonies as vast brothels--as the dwelling of banditti, rank with the crimes and ripening to the ruin of Gomorrah--they were guilty of injustice. Many, who labored to civilise the brutish, and to reform the vicious, read with just indignation the statements of persons, whose station gave weight to their accusations, when they told the world that the children of the settlers surpa.s.sed, by the precosity of their depravation, the dreams of misanthropy. Against these sweeping opinions, Major Macarthur, then on the spot, earnestly protested. Dr.

Broughton, on this side the globe, made an energetic remonstrance, and a.s.serted that the report of the transportation committee could be taken only as the collection of facts, which were spread over a long period of time, and were descriptive only of a base and dishonored fraction. He a.s.serted that a series of the _Times_ newspaper contained a succession of atrocities which, if combined, would exhibit Great Britain as the most worthless of nations.