The History of Tasmania Volume II Part 31

The number of females transported, until within twelve years, were about 1 to 10 men; since then, they have been about 1 to 7. The penalty has been inflicted for the lighter crimes; and in many instances the Irish courts must have been influenced rather by a vague notion of humanity than of punishing offenders. Such are often young creatures: not a few could be scarcely considered depraved.

The acc.u.mulation on the hands of the government has been usually very great, and curious expedients have been devised to dispose of the burden. The factory at Parramatta, in former times, was a mart of women.

Thither the laboring man went in search of a wife, and often, after a general survey, selected one on the spot. These marriages were not always a failure, but far the greater number ended in intemperance and prost.i.tution.

To overcome the reluctance of the settlers to employ them, Sir George Murray, when secretary for the colonies, directed the governor to compel the settlers to receive one woman with three or four men (1829). The effect of this stipulation was probably never considered. The condition of the better disposed has been one of great hazard and temptation. The last state of female degradation was often their inevitable lot. They were surrendered to solicitations and even violence: a convict constable conducted them to the houses of their master; they lodged on the road, wherever they could obtain shelter; convict servants were usually their companions,--or when their manners were superior to their cla.s.s, corrupters of a higher rank were always at hand to betray or destroy them. Reformation has been commonly deemed unattainable, and precautions useless.

The influence of such persons on the tone of society, the temper of masters, the morals of children, and even the conduct of the convict men, has proved everywhere disastrous, unless checked by incessant vigilance. Smoking, drinking, swearing, and prost.i.tution, have very commonly formed the character ever present to the tender mind. The stranger entered perhaps a splendid dwelling, and found all the advantages of opulence, except what money could not procure--a comely and honest-hearted woman servant. The eye at length became more familiar with lineaments bloated or rigid with pa.s.sion and debauch, and the ear accustomed to the endless vicissitudes of the servants' hall, which discharged and received an endless succession of the same debased, despised, and unhappily despicable beings. The writer has not forgotten, for a moment, that under the protection of a virtuous mistress, some unfortunate but not depraved females have escaped the terrible ordeal, and have found in the land of their exile the comforts of a home.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 274: Letter from Chief Justice Forbes, 1836.]

SECTION XXVI.

Lord Stanley devoted commendable and humane attention to the management of female prisoners. They were comprehended in his scheme of probation.

He resolved to establish a penitentiary, on a large scale, within twenty miles of Hobart Town. The women were to be carefully cla.s.sified and separated, and trained for the duties of domestic life. The discipline intended rather to restore than to punish: those remitted in disgrace to the government, were not to re-enter this place of reform. Instructions were forwarded to prepare the ground and collect the material (1843); but the local officers were averse to the plan. They complained that the contemplated site was remote and inconvenient, and they succeeded in postponing and finally defeating the project.

Mrs. Bowden, a lady of majestic presence and enlightened mind, who had acquired considerable experience in the management of the insane, was appointed matron. Her fertility of resource, courage, and zeal, had been greatly admired at Hanwell, where many hundreds of the unfortunate were relieved from the greatest of human calamities. The reputation of this lady recommended her to the confidence of government:[275] with her husband, Dr. Bowden, the medical officer, and a chosen staff of a.s.sistants--several only inferior to herself--she arrived in this colony with high expectations of success. As a temporary expedient, the _Anson_, a ship of war, was appropriated to the project. The decorum of the ship, and the healthy and cleanly appearance of the women, were striking to a stranger; but the early lack of employment ruined the enterprise. The government, with its usual negligence, failed in details, and thus failed altogether. Towards the close of the experiment, the making of clothing for the prisoners was more successfully attempted; but the local authorities were always hostile to the inst.i.tution. It was protected by Lord Stanley and Mr. Gladstone, but Earl Grey consented to its extinction. The results were certainly not encouraging. The women, discharged from the ship ignorant of the colony, were at once thrown into every temptation of convict a.s.sociations. They had been instructed in the principles of religion, reading and needlework, and the fruit of these labors will hereafter perhaps, appear; but whoever expects much from mere dogmatic knowledge, will be doomed to disappointment. On the death of her husband Mrs. Bowden returned to England, convinced that moral insanity is far more hopeless than the diseases of Hanwell. This lady and her friends and coadjutors, the Misses Holdich, found the women generally submissive and docile: they were haunted with all kinds of terrors, and had less than the ordinary courage of women. Mere children in understanding; some, such only in years; but their actual reformation, for the most part, only remained an object of confident expectation, while their true tendencies were repressed. The lady officers, who expected to reap a harvest in this field of mercy, began by blaming the colonists for scepticism, and after 3,000 women had pa.s.sed through their hands, they, alas! ended in becoming sceptical.

A great number of these prisoners are married. During the probation system, the local government of the colony became far less scrupulous in reference to their character, previous engagements, and means of living.

As a choice of evils this course was the least; but many of these marriages were a disguise for licentiousness, and of a very temporary character. The freed man united to a convict woman could not be detained in the colony; indeed, he was often compelled to leave it, and his wife was not permitted to accompany him. From this cause alone, infinite vice and misery has arisen; and a total disregard of ties so modified by a police regulation; which, while encouraging women to marry, subjects them to lasting desertion.

Before the introduction of Lord Stanley's probation system, several pious ladies established a committee of visitation. They entered the factories and cells, and conversed with the female prisoners. Official teachers superseded these efforts of private benevolence; and lessons, however excellent in themselves, lost the attraction of spontaneous sympathy and disinterested toil.

It is with deep regret these observations are recorded. It is not intended to a.s.sume that the reform of female prisoners is impossible. A considerable minority are probably not inferior to the lower cla.s.ses of poor and uneducated women in the cities, or more uncivilised provinces.

Re-convictions are not numerous; though, of course, many are deeply implicated with colonial crime. The law which consigns all to one penal fate, devotes all to one common ruin. Were it possible to escape the contamination of a gaol, what could be hoped, where the male population is contributed chiefly by prisons? What can be done to obviate these evils? Such is the enquiry of the philanthropist: would to G.o.d it could be successfully answered.'

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 275: _Report of Hanwell Inst.i.tutions_, 1842.]

SECTION XXVII.

Whatever details are omitted from the foregoing pages, nothing has been withheld necessary to complete a colonial view of transportation. Errors may doubtless be detected; but as they have not resulted from carelessness or haste, it is hoped they will be found both unimportant and rare.

The views expressed by various parties on the subject of transportation are modified, or even wholly suggested by their interests. The English peer rejoices that sixteen thousand miles of ocean divide him from the "wretch" who entered on his preserves, or dragged his rivers, and is at rest; the citizen is glad that one burglar less lives in his neighbourhood, and considers that transportation is indispensible to the safety of plate. The colonist farmer regards convictism as a labor power; the working emigrant as a rival labor market; while the officers in charge naturally cloak its evils and exalt its efficacy.

It is nearly impossible for a stranger to estimate the weight of testimony, so prejudiced throughout, and nearly as impossible for a writer, interested in the issue of its discussion, to preserve the unclouded judgment required to arrive at truth. But little reliance can be placed on official statistics: they give imperfect views of moral or industrial results. They have often been compiled by government for specific purposes, or by agents unworthy of confidence.

It may be proper to point out the chief difficulties which beset this branch of penal jurisprudence. Some of these have been long noticed by authorities on political philosophy. From Paley, to the latest speculators on transportation, all have noticed its inequality. They have dwelt on the uncertainty of its details--from the differing habits and original condition of those subject to its infliction; and from the absence of supervision, only to be expected where those who direct the sentence secure its observance. The convict is condemned to a penalty which may subject him to predial slavery, to capricious punishments; to brutal taskmasters, and to the antipathies of a caste; or he may be regarded with compa.s.sion, good-will, and even preference: the sting of the law may be taken away, and what was a penalty may const.i.tute a brotherhood.

Thus it happens that no uniform description is a true one. What may correctly delineate the aspect of transportation on one cla.s.s, may be false in reference to another; what may be facts one year, may be an exaggeration in the year following. This inequality has been partly the result of the law. The relation of the convict to the free has been constantly changing. He was a bond servant; he was permitted to compound his servitude by a daily payment; he was allowed to work partly for himself and partly for the crown, at the same moment. He has been restrained in government gangs; he has lodged in barracks, and worn the coa.r.s.est dress, or he has lived in his own hired house. Sometimes treated as a public enemy, chained, flogged, and over-worked; at others, petted as a favorite or soothed like a child.

The public policy has depended on causes which have had little relation to the individual character of convicts. A mild or severe governor, or secretary of state; a great increase or decrease of numbers; the book of some literary idler, or of an angry colonist; instances of extraordinary good fortune, or an insurrection against tyranny; the fluctuations of feeling at home, sometimes wrath against crime, sometimes compa.s.sion for the criminal. Such are the causes, traced in the incessant agitation of penal transportation.

Two incompatible objects have been always professedly embraced--intimidation and reform; but while they have both animated the scheme, they have struggled for the ascendancy, and the one or the other has seemed to be the chief, if not sole, motive of government. The Australian seal expressed the design of mercy: it was to oxen ploughing--to bales of merchandise, and the various attributes of industry, that Hope pointed the landing convict, when she broke off his bonds. Fifty years after, Lord Stanley deemed many years spent in chains, a just punishment for crimes against property, or others of no deep dye.

The changes of systems have been usually based on facts and opinions, elicited during those paroxysms of reform which occur generally once in ten years. Thus the improvement of discipline; the efficiency of convict labor; the several efforts to restrain its attendant vices; have usually occurred when some old officer has been superseded; and others have devoted to their novel duties the first vigour of their zeal.

The whole spirit and apparent object of convict discipline has been revolutionised several times. In the vicissitudes of English factions a new secretary of state has had power to sift and overturn the expedients of a rival. It has rarely remained beyond a few months in one stay. For four or six years, during the governorship of Colonel Arthur, transportation reached its highest perfection. It was rendered uniform, by the imperial confidence reposed in his judgment; more so by the demand for labor, by the rapid influx of capital, and by the common interest of the government, the colonist, and the well-doing prisoner.

It would be difficult to find half that period undisturbed under any other ruler.

Many difficulties connected with transportation are created by natural and social laws: full of mercy to the human race. The sufferings inflicted by man cannot reform man: he cannot carry out the vengeance of another, for wrongs he neither endured nor saw. His heart melts at the sight of distress, and forgetting general principles, says, in the absence of accusers, "neither do I condemn thee;" or if forgetful of a common nature, he punishes with inflexible severity, while the iron enters the soul of his brother his own heart is seared. Thus, again, a nation cannot send away her criminals, and yet make their punishment exemplary; she cannot detain them in ma.s.ses, without rendering them a scourge; she cannot discharge them to live under a clement sky and amidst abundance, without meeting everywhere the reproaches of the honest poor. Thus beset on every side, she is taught that crime is not an excrescence to be cut off, but a disease to be cured; and that to increase the comparative penalty of guilt, more than liberty must be forfeited. She must offer something better to her paupers than the benefits of disgraceful exile.

In reference to practical results, almost every theory may be sustained by the records of transportation, if one cla.s.s of facts only are admitted into view. Thus it has been p.r.o.nounced by men distinguished and intelligent, as an expedient worthy an enlightened statesman, and gratifying to the most ardent though scrupulous philanthropist; but they have often omitted sections of facts which, resting on evidence not less deserving regard, excite astonishment, disgust, and horror.

Whether the judgment of Governor Arthur was correct on the main question, or not, he doubtless pointed out the great difficulty. His words are well worthy remembrance:--"Sanguine as I am of the beneficial results of transportation, and confident as I feel that it may be made to surpa.s.s any other secondary punishment, both as relates to the criminal and to the country from which he is banished,--I cannot lose sight of many imperfections of our present system, some of which are bottomed on a state of things which no human ingenuity can rectify:--'you cannot make that straight which G.o.d hath made crooked.'"[276]

A few men of the generation survive, which witnessed the departure of the first fleet of convict vessels to a country then a wilderness, and inhabited only by savages. The stranger, who lands where they first pitched their tents, will survey the scene and consider the question of transportation determined. The shipping which crowd the harbour; the public and private buildings rivaling the architecture of Europe; the s.p.a.cious churches, filled with well-dressed families; the extensive thoroughfare, thronged with business and equipages, and adorned with elegant shops and offices; the courts of law; the public markets; the London cries; the noise of the hustings; the debates of the a.s.sembly.

Such are the alleged results of transportation: as if by some vast effort the people of an old country had transferred the seat of empire, and were collecting all that art could devise and wealth could bring.

Should the visitor extend his enquiries, he will find vessels trading to many neighbouring and kindred cities. They all owe their existence to that first fleet. Sometimes they repudiate their origin; but they bear evidence that their giant youth has learned from the experience, and risen in part under the auspices of the great convict country. Should the traveller extend his travels to Van Diemen's Land, he will hear the same tale of penal transportation, and its wondrous effects in former times. He will pa.s.s over a road made after scientific plans, and bridges of costly structure. He will see orchards, in which mingle the blossom of the cherry, the apple, the pear, and the peach; and gardens green with British vegetation. This successful spread of the English name, language, commerce, and power, has required less than the life of man.

Many survive, who were born when the first sod of Australia was turned by the hoe of a banished Briton. The man even now seen sauntering along, chained and moving sullenly to labor, is but a continuation of that army who first broke in on the solitude of a new world; laid the first foundation, and planted the first field.

Should the traveller still extend his enquiry, his astonishment and delight will not be diminished. The swarms of children rushing from a village school partic.i.p.ate the blood of men, some of whom were once a terror to society, or of women who were its reproach. In the lists of religious societies, commercial companies, jurors, magistrates, will be found traces of their lineage. What could hope have antic.i.p.ated beyond these realities!

But the connection between these successes and transportation, is rather co-incidental than of cause and effect. Were it supposed that seventy years would have elapsed prior to the occupation of these countries, but for transportation, the advantage must be calculated not by actual achievements but the value of that advanced starting point, which colonisation now possesses. It is not improbable that colonisation would have commenced at a much earlier date: the first ships of free settlers would have been more intelligent; their attention to the resources of the country more earnest. The second quarter of a century had half expired, when the Blue Mountains ceased to be a barrier to the colonists of New South Wales. The dawning of a new world must have attracted the national mind, had not an unexampled society, abandoned to vice and crime, appeared to the people an object of dread and horror.

The progress of the colonies, until 1830, cannot be considered rapid.

The first settlers were, individually, prosperous: many emancipists were wealthy; but for the rest, their houses were mean, their commercial arrangements pedling and insignificant; their public buildings generally miserable. It is from the date of emigration that progress has been conspicuous: and that date is but recent--a progress in a ratio vastly greater than any previous cycle. The great colonies of Port Phillip and South Australia, before that time, were hardly in existence.

If, indeed, no capital had been introduced; no whalers collected the treasures of the deep; no free emigrant arrived; no free colonies erected; then the improvements of this quarter of the globe might be ascribed to penal laws; but they have the same relation to its present prosperity as the numerous parts of an edifice have to each other--not such as of the oak to the acorn. When, therefore, it is stated that transportation has been the making of these colonies, it should be rather said it was the cause of their establishment. The outlay of the crown, although great, has been small compared with the outlay of the people. The chief settlers of the convict colonies were capitalists; they gave themselves to cultivation, which, in most instances, has involved them. Agriculturists are poor: it is the shepherd prince who is rich. He may be benefited a few score pounds by labor artificially supplied; but nature is the great patron of his house.

The chief connexion between transportation and progress is in the government outlay; but that has been less than apparent; it has often been the mere difference between an English and a colonial price; it has been attended with great consumption without equal re-production. It has sometimes had no other effect than foreign commerce on the places of depot and transit. The price of labor, when labor was chiefly supplied by transportation, was often very high. Thus a farmer found one man with rations and clothing; but a person, working in the same field, received 30, 40, or even 60 per annum. The price of labor was therefore often, on the whole, sufficient to absorb the capital of the employer.

There are many wealthy landowners, who are, however, the sole representatives of those numerous fortunes lost by London firms in these colonies. The court of insolvency made that which was foreign, colonial property. The rich freights sent from Europe, when not wasted by an extravagant consumption, were really exchanged for land improved, and finally disappeared from the ledger of the merchant. It remains--not as the result of convict labor, but as the dividend of an expenditure which shews more loss than gain.

The value of convict labor has been generally overestimated. "The day that sees a man a slave, deprives him of half his worth." The employers, as a cla.s.s, are uniformly poor. Slave labor in America is dearer than free, although it implies no moral degradation.[277] What then could be expected from bondmen of the same colour as their lords; whose resentment and indolence combined to prevent their usefulness. It may be safely affirmed, that the employer who gained by his servants, not only watched, but paid them.[278] Instances may be found in opposition to this conclusion: the great employers, who reduced their men by an unrelenting pressure, were few in number; and their advantages were of brief duration.[279]

The ordinary settlers purchased convict labor at great sacrifices, which they never estimated. They lived in woods, often without religious instruction, medical attendance, and in want of those refinements which can be realised only when the stern features of the wilderness are softened by neighbourhood and civilisation. Who can value the toil and time, and wear and tear of life, in bringing the stubborn, ignorant, and vicious to drive the plough and reap the harvest. Other colonists, in other lands, with less capital, but with free labor, have thriven faster; and attained a prosperity far less compromised by debt, and far more durable.

A very great quant.i.ty of property has been destroyed by crime and vice.

It is commonly said that theft merely changes ownership, and does not detract from the aggregate of wealth; but the thief is not only idle, his expenditure is reckless; he wastes more than he consumes.

Many colonists of former years spoke of the arrival of prisoners with gladness, and seemed to regard the punctual supply of a certain but increasing number as a boon. The minds of these persons usually dwelt solely on the advantage of coercive labor, of military and prison expenditure, and the prisoner was regarded as a "productive power."

When ashamed of sordid calculation, they discovered a defence in the blessedness of expatriation to the offender. His food was greater in quant.i.ty, and better in quality, than he could obtain by industry in a crowded country. His liberty restored, fortune became often auspicious, and the temptation, to rude roguery ceased. He took his side with the laws; he married, and educated his children; he attended the house of G.o.d, and became serious; he rivalled his master in liberality and public spirit. Mult.i.tudes died in hospitals and in prisons; but they were forgotten, and the fortunate only were conspicuous.

The public works performed by convict labor, though sometimes extensive and important, will appear inconsiderable, if compared with the imperial or colonial cost. The deep cuts and ma.s.sive bridges, which please the eye, are yet disproportionate to the traffic, and produce no adequate return. The proportion between free and bond labor, is as 2 and 3 to 1.

Task labor has been commonly found incompatible with discipline, or liable to favoritism and official dishonesty: the overseer "approximates" or guesses, when not inclined to reckon. Day work is still less satisfactory: the pick is slowly uplifted, and descends without effect. The body bends and goes through hours of ineffectual motion; or if the rigour of discipline renders evasion penal, the triangles disgrace a civilised nation, and the colony is filled with violence and vengeance. Yet convict labor has, generally, been deemed important to an infant settlement; to secure a combination, without which preliminary stages of colonisation are slowly pa.s.sed. Such has been its undoubted use; but who, with the prodigies of modern enterprise before him, will a.s.sign to bond labor a peculiar efficacy, or doubt that well directed capital can ensure all that force can effect.

The industrial enterprises of the crown have been utterly unsuccessful: they have been the laughter of the colony. Examples might be given in abundance; but it is needless to prove what has been never disputed.

Convicts have been employed by the authorities as ship-builders, masons, hop-growers, and cultivators; but the general results would have involved any less opulent proprietor in ruin.

Nearly 120,000 prisoners have landed in these colonies; of these, the major part have pa.s.sed into eternity. Thousands have died in chains; thousands and tens of thousands perished by strong drink. Their domestic increase, compared with equal numbers of free persons, is insignificant--partly by the effects of vice, and in part by the impracticability of marriage: they melt from the earth, and pa.s.s away like a mournful dream. In every parochial burial-ground there is a large section of graves, where not a tomb records who slumber there.

The nursery is the natural hive of arts and agriculture. The sons of the farmer, when they commit him to the dust, occupy his fields, and the little one becomes a thousand. There are several families in this colony, more than were the sons of Jacob when he lodged in Goshen; but convicts, for the most part, die childless.