Chapter VIII: Part II (2)

It must be admitted that this state of slavery, so galling to the subjects of a free country, has been in some measure imposed on the colonists by their own imprudent extravagance. Already but too much inclined by their early habits of irregularity to licentious indulgence, the prosperous state of their affairs during the first fifteen years after the foundation of the settlement, presented the strongest inducements to a revival of their ancient propensities, which had been repressed, but not subdued. Imagining that the same unlimited market, which was then offered for their produce, would always continue, they only thought of consuming the fruits of their industry; not doubting that the same fields, which thus lavishly administered to the gratification of their desires, would amply suffice for the more moderate enjoyments of their offspring. But when once their produce began to exceed the demand of the government, and when in a short time afterwards from the want of due encouragement, all the various avenues of industry that lay open were successively filled, and the means of occupation eithergreatly circumscribed, or entirely exhausted, these people, so long habituated to unrestrained indulgence, found it difficult to support that privation, which became incumbent on their condition; and in order to procure those luxuries of which they so severely felt the want, exhausted their credit, and ended by alienating their possessions. There can be but little doubt if the colonists, instead of expending, had providently accumulated the money which they so profusely acquired during the period of their agricultural prosperity, that their actual situation would have been far preferable; for, though the gradual retrogradation, which I should imagine it must at present be sufficiently evident, that the colony has been undergoing for these last fifteen years, would by this time have greatly diminished, if not have totally absorbed their former savings, still their lands would have remained to them, nor would they have been reduced to that state of vassalage and misery, which they are this day enduring. Lamentable therefore, as is their condition, the consideration that it has thus far been occasioned by their own imprudence, is apt to detract from that unbounded commiseration which it would otherwise excite: if, on the other hand, we do not reflect in extenuation of their thoughtlessness and extravagance, that their former increased means of indulgence, were the result of their industry; that this industry was in the first instance called into activity by the encouragement of the government; that it has since been paralysed by a concatenation of unwise and unjust disabilities imposed by the same power; and that consequently their present wretched and degraded situation is not so much to be ascribed to their former improvidence as to the actual impolicy and injustice of their rulers. If we furthermore consider the short period in which this great change in their circumstances has been effected, we shall feel convinced that so sudden a transition from affluence to poverty could not be patiently endured, and that every method of rendering so unexpected and galling a burthen more supportable, would be naturally and inevitably resorted to. To prove still more satisfactorily that this state of slavery to which so large a proportion of the original settlers are reduced, has not been so much the result of their own imprudence as of the impolicy of their government, numerous instances might be adduced of persons, not indeed skilled in the arts of husbandry, whose habits have always been regular and moderate, who have been for many years stockholders as well as agriculturists, and who, notwithstanding this two-fold advantage, aided by an undeviating economy, have been unable to keep themselves free from the embarrassments in which the bare cultivators of the soil are so generally involved. To what end then, has their frugality been directed, if a few years more will engulph their possessions, and reduce them to the same state of vassalage and degradation, to which their less provident brethren are already subjected? They have, indeed, in the prospective some short period of unexpired freedom; but I doubt much whether the gradual approach of inevitable slavery be scarcely more enviable than slavery itself.

The great concussion which the agricultural interests thus sustained at the epoch when the productive powers of the colony exceeded the consumptive, and the continued shocks to which they have been exposed ever since, have not unfortunately affected the agricultural prosperity alone, but have shaken to the foundation the commercial edifice also. Unluckily both the agricultural and commercial classes seem to have been alike ignorant of the death-blow which had been struck at their welfare. The settler continued in the same career of thoughtless extravagance which his circumstances when they were even in their most flourishing state had scarcely permitted, and the merchant went on without hesitation, advancing him goods in the hope of extricating his old customer from difficulties which he only imagined to be of temporary pressure; never for a moment suspecting that they were the forerunners of deeper embarrassment and ultimate ruin. Need I state the consequences. The extended credits which the first merchants thus gave the settlers on the strength of the progressive increase of their produce, rendered them at last unable to fulfil the engagements which they had contracted with British and East India houses, and they were eventually involved in the destruction which had so suddenly overwhelmed the great mass of their debtors, on whom they were necessarily dependent for support. All of them who had been distinguished by their equitable dealings, and by their liberality of conduct, received at this moment so rude a shock in their affairs that they have been unable amidst the increasing decadence of the community at large to re-establish their credit, and after disposing of the scattered wrecks of their fortune, have not only been reduced to penury, but are still indebted to their correspondents in the amount perhaps of £100,000. These gentlemen thus driven from the commercial circle by their liberality, unwillingly inflicted a deadly wound on the credit of the colony. Foreign merchants would no longer have any account dealings with their successors; and generally ever since the commercial intercourse with England and the East Indies has been maintained without any confidence on the part of the merchants of these two countries; the money has been received in one hand, and the goods delivered in the other. This cautious system has given birth to another race of merchants, much more prudent than their predecessors, but also much less serviceable to the colony, and much less adapted to its emergencies. These in their dealings have been forced to observe the same circumspection which had been adopted towards themselves, and have given no credit but to those whose means of payment were unquestionable. As the majority of the colonists have been always in the back ground, since the epoch which I have just described, and have in consequence been unable to produce ready money, a subordinate class of traders, but still superior in their circumstances and the extent of their transactions to those little inferior dealers, who are to be found in all countries, started up, and have since acted as intermediary agents between the importers and the great body of consumers. The object of this class has been, and continues to be, not so much to realize large fortunes in money, which indeed under existing circumstances would be scarcely possible, as to acquire immense landed possessions: and their system, which, in fact, is the natural consequence of this policy, is to require of the settlers mortgage securities anterior to the supply of such articles as they may be in need of. As they are frequently unable punctually to comply with the conditions of these mortgages, their creditors eagerly embrace the opportunity, whenever it offers, of foreclosing them, and are thus gradually becoming proprietors of the finest estates in the colony; estates which whenever its capabilities shall be called into unrestrained action will ensure them and their posterity fortunes of a colossal magnitude. While this class of traders are thus becoming the most considerable landholders in this settlement, they have not only taken care not to give credit to such an extent as might occasion a diminution in their trading capital, but have even contrived to increase it very materially. This system, therefore, of buying goods, and afterwards selling them at an almost arbitrary profit, the greater part of which is thus converted into landed property, is daily gaining ground, and will infallibly in the end, unless proper measures be speedily taken to counteract it, reduce the great majority of the agricultural body to the same state of vassalage which a large proportion of its members are already enduring. And what renders the increasing wealth and power of the small number who thus profit by the embarrassments of the settlers, and make themselves masters of their persons and properties, still more odious and galling, is the consideration that in most instances they are the least deserving, and yet the only class of the community to whom the present order of things is favourable. While all the rest of the population are groaning under the aggravated pressure of toil, privation, and despair, they are fattening on the surrounding misery, and every day making rapid strides towards the attainment of immense riches, under the propitious shelter of a system which would appear to have been expressly contrived for their especial aggrandisement, at the expence of the freedom, prosperity and happiness of the whole social body besides. Like vultures, that in the midst of combats soar in safety above the destruction raging beneath, but descend at its close and tranquilly devour the mangled carcases which the exterminating engines of war have laid prostrate for their repast, these men out of the influence of the oppressive disabilities which are overwhelming all but themselves, eagerly watch the progress of the surrounding misery, and impatiently await its completion; more cruel than vultures, since covered with the aegis that has unnerved the force and paralysed the energies of their neighbours, they introduce themselves into the midst of the havoc of their own species, and prey upon the living victims who are sinking around them.

And here, it may not be inexpedient to reconcile the existence of so much distress, with so large an income, and so small a population as the colony and its dependent settlements are known to possess. The former, it has been seen, may be estimated in round numbers at £170,000, the latter at 20,000 souls: so that if the annual income were equally divided among the entire population, and they were all agriculturists, and could furnish themselves with food, (I make this supposition, because it is at their option to become agriculturists, and it is consequently a legitimate inference, that it is not the interest of such as have not embraced this alteration to do so) they would each have man, woman, and child, 8l. 10s. yearly for the purchase of articles of foreign growth and manufacture alone. This I am ready to allow, is comparatively a much larger sum than could be appropriated by the inhabitants of this country to similar purposes; and it would therefore appear on the first view, incompatible with the doleful picture of distress which I have drawn. If, however, the remoteness of the colony from England, India, and China, the three principal supplying countries, be duly considered, and the great expence of freight and insurance unavoidably attached to so long a navigation, an expence which in the first of these instances, is augmented in a two-fold degree, by the entire absence of return cargoes; if it be stated that these local disadvantages alone, render it impossible for the importers to dispose of their merchandize for less than fifty per cent. on the prime cost to their immediate purchasers, and that at least three fourths of the population are obliged from the want of ready money, to buy on long credits of these secondary agents, who fashion their prices according to the nature and extent of their customers' embarrassments, sometimes contenting themselves with a second advance of fifty per cent.; but more frequently affixing to their goods a profit of a hundred, a hundred and fifty, and two hundred per cent.: if it be recollected how far these grievous exactions are aggravated by the system of vassalage just described, a system which places all the unfortunate wretches who are reduced to it at the absolute mercy of their rapacious landlords; if the profligate and improvident habits and disposition of the generality of the colonists be taken into the estimate, and their total disregard of order and economy in their domestic arrangements; but above all, if their unfortunate propensity to the excessive use of spirituous liquors be superadded; a propensity which like Aaron's rod swallows up every other passion, and for the momentary gratification of which they willingly sacrifice every prospect of present enjoyment, and deliberately entail on themselves and their families lasting privation and want; I say if due consideration be given to all these circumstances, it will be no difficult matter to believe in the sad reality of the general wretchedness and penury which I have depicted. But it must be further evident that this equal division of the colonial revenue has been assumed merely by way of exemplification, and that it is a fiction, the realization of which is beyond the extreme verge of possibility: a fiction which never has been and never can be verified. In this colony as in every other community, there is a regular gradation of property, and perhaps there is no country on the face of the earth, except Russia, where it is so partially distributed. If then I have reconciled the probability of the wretched condition of the colonists, with the assumption of an equality of wealth, when there is, in fact, the greatest inequality, it must be evident that the picture which I have drawn, pregnant and glowing as it is with distress, is far from surcharged, and still requires both colouring and expression to convey a perfect representation of the scene.

Of the whole colonial income about £100,000 annually may be considered as arising from the labours of the agricultural body. This is undoubtedly that portion of the colonial wealth which gets into most general circulation; but even _it_ is far from undergoing that minute subdivision and universal diffusion which are requisite for the maintenance of a constant internal circulating medium. Created in the first instance by the government in payment of the grain, meat, etc. furnished by the settlers, it is immediately handed over by them to the traders to whom they may be indebted, and from these again passes to the importing merchants, on whom they may be dependent for their supplies of merchandize, who in their turn eventually transmit it to their foreign correspondents. It may consequently be perceived that the purchases and sales which must be incessantly occurring, besides those to which this part of the colonial income is thus devoted, such as the sales of provisions in the markets, the payment of wages, and, in fine, the infinite transactions to which the wants or the whims of society are eternally giving birth, and to which a common medium of determinate value is essential are but little, if indeed at all facilitated by a sum of money, which after passing through a few hands, disappears from the colony for ever. To prevent, therefore, the interchanges and activity of the community from being brought to a stand, it became necessary to create some other circulating medium; and as the government took no part in this highly important affair, the whole burden of the arrangement fell upon the inhabitants. The arrangement itself was, in consequence, such as might have been expected from their circumstances and situation: the whole of them who had any real, or apparent pretensions to responsibility, became with one accord bankers; issuing small promissory notes to provide for their minuter occasions, merely on the strength of their credit, and frequently in anticipation of their means. This "Colonial currency," as it was termed, soon experienced that depreciation in the market, compared with the government, or sterling money, which it was natural to expect from the doubtful circumstances of many of its issuers. In a short time government money could not be had for it under a discount of fifty per cent.; still the drawers of these promissory notes were compelled by the decisions of the court of civil jurisdiction to pay them at par, whenever they were presented; so that all the persons of real responsibility, who had been induced in the first instance from necessity to adopt this system, withdrew their bills from the market, and naturally preferred purchasing with government money the notes of others at this depreciated rate, to the issuing at the same rate notes of their own, which they would be eventually obliged to take up at par. The consequence was that all the subsequent issuers of these notes were needy adventurers, who possessing little or no property adopted this method of supplying their extravagance, or entering into desperate speculations that could hardly succeed, in violation of every principle of honesty, and at the expence of the industrious and responsible part of the community. This subsequent currency, therefore, encountered a still further depreciation; and when government money could be at all obtained for it, it was only at a discount of 100, 150, and even 200 per cent. Such, however, has been the necessity for a circulating medium of some sort or other, that the public, as if by a general implied consent, without any expressed convention, have permitted the existence and increase of this worthless substitute, and have thus affixed a kind of nominal value to that which is in reality worth nothing.

To any one, who has not fully considered the difficulty attending the exchange of one commodity for another, and the impossibility of apportioning at all times, what one man may have to dispose of to the exact value of what another man may have to offer in return, an impossibility that would frequently prevent the exchange altogether, and thus subject the parties to mutual inconvenience and distress, the rude system of barter would appear preferable to so vile a common standard of value as the existing currency. Its badness, indeed, has been the means of introducing the system of barter as far as it was practicable; but as the entire introduction of this system would be hardly compatible with the first imperfect elements of society, the civilization of the colonists has imposed a limit to it, and prescribed a necessity for the toleration of the present circulating medium, which nothing but the creation of a better can supersede. Two attempts were made to remedy this evil, but they both in the event proved abortive; the richer class of the inhabitants on these occasions formed combinations and entered into resolutions not to receive in payment the bills of any individuals who had not been admitted into their society. To prevent a recurrence of the loss, which the original responsible issuers of currency had sustained by its depreciation in the market, they affixed to it themselves a specific depreciation, promising in the body of their notes to pay them on demand in government money at a discount, in the first of these instances, of twenty-five per cent., and in the last of fifty per cent. But it must be evident that a currency of this nature, payable on demand, became of equal value with the sterling money of the government, to those who took it at the stipulated depreciation; and it was accordingly no sooner in circulation, than it got into the hands of the importing merchants, and was presented to the drawers for payment. It was thus too good for its intended purpose; and the old worthless currency, which had been for a while proscribed, gradually returned into circulation. The present governor, sensible of the advantage which the colony would derive from its supercession, and from the substitution of another of intrinsic value in its stead, caused ten thousand pounds worth of dollars to be sent from India, and had a piece struck out of the middle of each, to which he affixed by proclamation, the value of fifteen pence, and to the remainder that of five shillings, making the whole dollar worth six shillings and three pence. This money he caused to be given in payment of the various articles of internal produce received into the king's stores; but as they were exchanged every month, if presented to the commissariat department, for bills on the lords of the treasury, in the same manner as the government receipts had been exchanged previously, they have not realized the hopes of abolishing the currency, with which they were issued. Some few of them, indeed, have from time to time eluded the grasp of the merchants and traders, and got in consequence of the minuteness of their separate value into temporary circulation; but the use of the original currency has neither been superseded nor diminished.

That the colonists should have been thus forced during so long a period, in spite of all their efforts, and contrary to the desire of their government, to tolerate a medium of circulation possessing no intrinsic value whatever, and dependent solely on a general, constrained, and tacit consent for its support and duration, is, I should apprehend, one of the most forcible proofs which it is in the nature of things to adduce, in illustration of their present poverty and wretchedness. It is impossible to offer a more satisfactory demonstration of the inferiority of their means to their necessities. Important under every point of view as is the establishment of a safe currency, such is the irresistible pressure of their debts, so much is their expenditure superior to their revenue, that they can devote no portion of it to the most urgent purpose of domestic economy: the whole is absorbed, and does not suffice to procure those articles of foreign supply, which are absolutely indispensable to civilized life.

By the last intelligence from the colony it appears, indeed, that a company has undertaken the establishment of a colonial bank, and obtained a charter for this purpose from the governor; but I should imagine they cannot possibly succeed in creating a permanent medium of circulation. The constant run that their bills will have on them for payment, in consequence of the imports of the colony being so much greater than its income, will soon occasion them to exchange the whole of their capital for the mortgage securities on which they at present issue it; and although this circumstance will not perhaps detract from the profits of this institution, it will render the toleration of the existing currency, if not of undiminished, still of indispensable necessity.* The introduction, therefore, of a safe and sufficient medium of circulation may be still pronounced a desideratum, and one of the first importance to the general prosperity of the colonists. The government in their present distressed situation, is perhaps the only power competent to the accomplishment of this beneficial object, and it is to be hoped that they will no longer delay effecting such a great and substantial amelioration.

[* This is an event which the colonists do not appear to anticipate. It is the general belief that the colonial currency has been crushed for ever; but I am greatly mistaken if that vile medium of circulation will not again revive before the expiration of another twelve-month, unless either the capital of the bank be greatly increased, or its operations be in future confined to the discounting of bills at a short date, to the utter exclusion of the system of advancing money on mortgage securities.]

Amidst the numerous deplorable consequences that have been attendant on this constant state of embarrassment, none perhaps is more deeply to be lamented than the great check which this difficulty of finding a profitable occupation for labour has proved to the progress of population. Mr. Malthus, who has immortalized himself by his essay on this branch of political economy, has so satisfactorily shewn that the increase of population is proportioned to the facility of procuring subsistence, and administering to the various wants of a family, that it is quite unnecessary for me to repeat arguments with which every one ought to be familiar, to prove that this colony has not been exempt from the destructive influence of causes whose operation has been steady and invariable in all ages and in all countries. The inference that this difficulty has been a preventive to marriage, and to the consequent progress of population is self-evident: to be understood it only requires to be stated. But the numerical increase of the colony has been checked in a still greater degree, perhaps by the constant returns from its shores which are daily occasioned by the same causes. What inducement, in fact, exists for any person to remain there who has the power of quitting it? Who would voluntarily become an inhabitant of a country where he has no rights, no possessions, that are sacred and inviolable? And where to this insecurity of person and property are superadded the greatest impediments to the extension of industry? A country of this kind, it may be easily imagined, possesses no allurements for those who have ever breathed a freer atmosphere; and it is not to be wondered at, that hundreds of convicts on the expiration of their several terms of transportation should be continually leaving a country, where the freeman and the slave are alike subjected to the uncontrolled authority of an individual; where the trial by jury is unknown, and an odious military tribunal substituted in its stead; and where there is no representative body to protect them in the enjoyment of their rights, and to secure them either from the imposition of arbitrary and destructive taxes, or from the influence of unjust and impolitic laws.

How far these two great checks to population which I have just mentioned, have operated, may be best ascertained from the last census taken in the colony in the month of November 1817. At that time it appears that the population of all the settlements, whether in New Holland or Van Diemen's Land, amounted only to twenty thousand three hundred and seventy-nine souls. It is not in my power to obtain returns of all the convicts who have been landed at various times in this colony; but as it is now about thirty years since the period of its foundation, very little doubt can be entertained that the total of them must have nearly equalled the amount of the actual population.* The number transported thither for some years past cannot be estimated at less than two thousand annually; yet notwithstanding this vast yearly numerical accession, notwithstanding the unparalleled salubrity of the climate, and the consequent small proportion which the number of deaths bears to the number of births, the population of the colony has been found to advance at a comparatively slow pace. It cannot be supposed that it could ever have been in the intention of the government, that those persons whom the sentence of the law had exiled to these remote shores, should thus be incessantly returning to those scenes, which had witnessed their former irregularities and condemnation. However sincere their reformation, it must be evident that with a blemished character, the difficulty of obtaining employment and procuring an honest livelihood, would be almost insuperable. It has been accordingly found that these unfortunate persons have generally renewed their ancient habits, and ended their career either by falling sacrifices on the scaffold to the often violated laws of their country, or by imposing on the government a necessity for the second, and in many instances for the third time of re-transporting them to this colony, where, if sufficient encouragement and protection had been afforded them in the first instance, they would have gladly remained, and have continued good and useful members of society.

[* This conjecture has been verified by a publication which has lately appeared from the pen of the Honourable Henry Grey Bennet, M. P. intituled, "A Letter to Lord Viscount Sidmouth on the Transportation Laws; the State of the Hulks, and of the Colonies in New South Wales." From this it appears that from May, 1787, to January, 1817, the number of convicts transported thither amounted to seventeen thousand; so that the entire increase which has taken place in the population in the course of thirty years, both from emigration and births, cannot be estimated at more than four thousand souls, so numerous have been the returns of convicts after the expiration of their sentences.]

It is here but candid to confess, that one of the leading causes why so many of this class are continually quitting the colony, has been their desire to rejoin their wives and families. This motive, however, no longer exists; since in a dispatch from the noble secretary of state for the colonial department, to Governor Macquarie, of which the receipt has been for some time past acknowledged, it was directed that "returns should be occasionally sent home of such convicts as may have applied for permission for their wives to join them; and that it should be therein stated whether such persons have the means of maintaining their wives and families, in the event of their being allowed to proceed to the colony." Measures have been already taken to carry the humane intention here manifested by his majesty's government into effect; and many hundreds who would otherwise have quitted the colony, will now remain there, and thus both the permanency of their reformation will be guaranteed, and the march of colonization greatly accelerated. Generous Britain, not more renowned in arts and arms, than in mercy and benevolence; may thy supremacy be coeval with thy humanity! Or if that be impossible; if thou be doomed to undergo that declension and decay, from which no human institutions, no works of man appear to be exempt, may the records of thy philanthropy hold the world in subject awe and admiration, long after the dominion of thy power shall have passed away! May they soften the hearts of future nations, and be a shining sun that shall illuminate both hemispheres, and chase from every region of the earth the black reign of barbarism and cruelty for ever!

While the existing system of government is thus rapidly undermining the general prosperity and freedom, and presenting the greatest checks to the progress of colonization, it is but natural to conclude from the pertinacity with which it is maintained, that it is at least productive of some beneficial results to the power to which it owes its origin and existence. It were a species of political anomaly to suppose that any order of things diametrically opposite to the interests of the governed, should be persisted in, unless it were attended with some positive advantage to the governors. Ridiculous, however, as in every case perhaps but the present such a supposition would be, it is verified in the instance of this colony; since the system pursued there, is not only destructive of the vital interests of the inhabitants at large, but at the same time, burdensome to this country, and contraventory of the very intentions with which this settlement was established. This assertion I shall shortly prove, and then leave it to more sagacious politicians than myself, to demonstrate the consistency of what appears to me the most absurd and incongruous paradox that is to be met with in the history of governments. And first that the present system is burdensome to this country, and what is worse, must become every year still more so, is evident from the gradually progressive augmentation which has taken place in the expenditure of this colony. From 1788 to 1797, the total expence was £1,037,230, or £86,435 per annum; from 1798 to 1811, it amounted to £1,634,926, or £116,709 per annum; and from 1812 to 1815, both inclusive, to £793,827, or £198,456 per annum. In 1816, the expence was £193,775 10s. 8¾d. and in 1817 it was £229,152 6s. 3¼d. being nearly treble the annual amount in the year 1797. This estimate, indeed, includes the cost of transportation; and the rapid increase that has taken place of late years in the sum total, has been in a considerable degree occasioned by the great increase in the number of criminals sent out to the colony; but still that there has been a regularly progressive augmentation to the internal expenditure is quite incontrovertible.

It requires no great portion of discernment to foretel that while the present prohibitory system remains in force; while the colony is alike prevented from profiting by its natural productions, and from calling into life the artificial ones of which it is capable, that it must continue an increasing burthen and expence to the power on which it is dependent for support, and which thus unwisely restrains its exertions. If the consideration of the benefits which this country might eventually derive from encouraging the growth and exportation of such products as this colony might furnish; if the prospect of finding at no very remote period in a part of our own dominions, various raw materials essential to the fabrication of some of our staple manufactures, and for which we are at present wholly dependent on foreigners; if, in fine, the certainty of extending, instead of destroying, a market for the consumption of those manufactures themselves, be not motives of sufficient weight and cogency to draw the attention of his majesty's ministers to the impolitic and destructive order of things, which prevents the accomplishment of these desirable ends; it is at least to be hoped in these times of universal embarrassment, when the cry of distress is resounding from one end of the kingdom to the other, that the desire of effecting a retrenchment in this part of the public expenditure, which has swelled to so enormous an amount, solely from ignorance and mismanagement, will at length excite inquiry, and give rise to a system that will unfetter the colonists, and by gradually enabling them to support themselves, no longer render them an unproductive and increasing burden to this country. It is useless, and indeed absurd, for the government to be sending out incessant injunctions for economy, and to be eternally insisting upon the necessity of effecting retrenchments, which their own impolitic restrictions render impossible. The addition which is annually made to the population of the colony must occasion a corresponding expenditure on the part of the colonial government. The convicts, who are transported thither, were maintained at a great expence while in this country, and cannot be supported without cost there. So long as the avenues to industry and enterprize are closed, it is ridiculous to imagine that the colonists can undertake the maintenance of a body of men, for whose labour they can find no profitable occupation. The expence, therefore, of supporting the great mass of convicts who are constantly arriving in this colony, must necessarily increase in spite of all the exhortations of the government, and all the efforts of the governor, whoever he may be, to carry them into effect. The present governor, indeed, has contrived in some measure to comply with these recommendations of retrenchment with which he has been harrassed; but his obedience has been attended with the adoption of a most pernicious and indefensible system, that of granting too promiscuously tickets of leave to convicts, before sufficient time had elapsed for ascertaining the reality of their reformation, and their title to so important an indulgence. This privilege, which exempts them from the public works, and enables them to seek employment in every direction throughout the colony, it may be perceived, turns loose a set of men, who had been solemnly pronounced to be improper and dangerous members of society; and affords them an unrestrained opportunity of preying upon the industrious and deserving, and of committing fresh enormities, before they have made the atonement affixed to their original offences, and required not more to uphold the distinction which ought always to be drawn between virtue and vice, than from a due regard to their future welfare and regeneration. It is principally to the introduction of the ticket of leave system that the considerable reductions which have been effected of late years in the expences of the colony are to be ascribed. How far this most pernicious and immoral system has been carried, may be seen by reference to the colonial expenditure for the four years anterior to 1816. In 1812 it amounted to £176,781; in 1813 to £235,597; in 1814 to £231,362; and in 1815 it had fallen to £150,087. In the two following years, indeed, it has been seen that there has been a considerable increase of expenditure; but still such has been the extension of the ticket of leave system that notwithstanding four thousand six hundred and fifty-nine convicts were transported between January, 1812, and January, 1817, the expences of the colony for this latter year were £6445 less than for the year 1813; those of 1817 only amounting to £229,152, while those of the year 1813 were £235,597. This violent and unjustifiable mode of retrenchment, however, has not been put into such extensive practice with impunity: it has been attended with its natural and inevitable results, a proportionate increase of demoralization and crime. The proof of this assertion I shall rest on the following government order:--

"Sydney, 30th August, 1817. In consequence of the frequent robberies which have been of late committed between Sydney and Paramatta; his Excellency the Governor deems it expedient earnestly to recommend to persons in general to travel only during the day time, and particularly to those who have the charge of loaded carts, to set out from Sydney and Paramatta respectively so early after sun-rise as to be enabled to reach the place of their destination before sun-set. And with a view to afford all possible protection to travellers, his Excellency directs the principal superintendant of police at Sydney from and after Wednesday the 3d of September next, to order two constables from thence to patrole the road every night between Sydney and Powell's Half-way House; and in like manner the principal magistrate at Paramatta to order two constables from that place to patrole the road every night between Paramatta and Powell's Half-way House. The duty of such constables to commence at sun-set and cease at sun-rise, until further orders. "The magistrates are _particularly enjoined not to grant passes to convicts either having tickets of leave or otherwise, excepting on actual duty, or in cases of real emergency where the object is satisfactorily explained to the magistrate_."

This injunction to the magistrates not to grant the ticket of leave-men passes except under particular circumstances would afford the public very little additional security against their depredations; since their total exemption from public or individual employment, places them out of all restraint except such as may arise from the surveillance of the police, which even in Sydney is badly organized, because not sufficiently numerous, and to which in the interior towns and districts it would be a farce to apply the name of "Police" at all.

I am aware that the governor has been induced to this measure in compliance with positive instructions, rather than in conformity with his own judgment. But a system in such direct violation of every principle of justice, morality, and expediency, can never be long tolerated. Its continuance, in fact, would soon annihilate all industry, and convert the colony into a den of thieves and murderers, unfit for the abode of virtue and honesty, and dangerous to the government itself which had authorized it.--It is an extreme which cannot endure, and which is of so violent a nature that it will beget a remedy for itself, and compel the government to recal into its employment, and reduce under salutary restraint, a set of persons, who ought never to have been freed from it till the expiration of their sentences, or, at most, till they had given the clearest proof of a sincere reformation. This system, therefore, of granting tickets of leave to convicts shortly after their arrival, though undoubtedly attended with a considerable saving to the government, is of too immoral and dangerous a tendency to be carried to any considerable extent; so that the expences of the colony great, unnecessarily great as they are, must infallibly increase with the progress of transportation, so long as the grievous disabilities and impolitic restrictions under which the colonists are groaning, remain unrepealed.

Having thus shewn that this colony has hitherto been an increasing burthen to this country, and that it must necessarily continue so under its present unwise constitution, I proceed in the next place to prove that its existing system of government is also contraventory of the philanthropic intentions which gave rise to its foundation. The principal object which the government of this country had in view was undoubtedly the reformation of the thousands exiled to these distant shores. The punishment which it thus inflicted, in banishing them from their native country, and separating them from their friends and connexions, was not the end itself, but the means which it employed to effect this humane and laudable purpose. Has then the colony in any one point of view realized this comprehensive and philanthropic scheme of morality and regeneration? It has, indeed, proved a receptacle for those whose crimes rendered them unfit for the community which rejected them from its bosom, and in so far has been of some utility to the public; but have the restraints to which they have been subjected; has the system, in fact, by which they have been governed during their exile, generally revived that morality and virtue, the absence of which propelled them in the first instance to the commission of crime, and will always continue them in the same career of vice and punishment? Have those, who have expiated their original offence, by undergoing the penalty which the law annexed to it, experienced a reformation in their principles and conduct? And are they generally qualified either to return to the country that banished them, or to become good and useful citizens in the one by which they have been adopted; and which, since it has constantly witnessed their deportment, can best appreciate the reality and extent of their merits? The records of the several courts of criminal judicature are the surest criterion by which to judge of this important particular, and will be found decidedly confirmatory of the alarming augmentation of immorality and crime, which distinguishes every succeeding year, and that too in a proportion far exceeding what would be naturally consequent on the increase in the population.

On reference to the Sydney Gazattes for the year 1817, I find that there were in all ninety-two persons tried by the criminal court. The offences with which they were charged were as follow: 1st, For murder eleven; four of whom were convicted and executed: two were adjudged only guilty of manslaughter; and five were acquitted. 2dly, For burglaries, eight, five of whom were capitally convicted, but their sentences afterwards commuted into transportation to the Coal River for life; five were transported thither for fourteen years, one for seven years, and one was acquitted. 3dly, For highway robbery, one, who was transported to Newcastle for fourteen years. 4thly, One incendiary, transported for life. 5thly, One for cutting and maiming, acquitted. 6thly, Nine for cattle stealing; of whom two were capitally convicted, their sentence afterwards commuted into transportation for life; five were originally sentenced to the same punishment, one transported for fourteen years, and one was acquitted. 6thly, Three for sheep stealing; all capitally convicted, but their sentences commuted into transportation for life. 7thly, Two for horse stealing; one of whom was capitally convicted but not executed, the other sentenced to solitary confinement. 8thly, One for rape, but acquitted. 9thly, Twenty-seven for privately stealing in dwelling and out-houses; two of whom were transported for fourteen years, nine for seven years, one for four years, four for three years, two for two years, one sentenced to solitary confinement, and six acquitted. 10thly, Two for forgery, found guilty, but sentence deferred. 11thly, Two for receiving stolen goods, one of whom was sentenced to the pillory and to four years transportation, and the other to transportation alone for the same period. 12thly, Five for pig stealing; of whom two were transported to Newcastle for fourteen years, one was flogged and put in the pillory, one transported to Newcastle for two years, and one acquitted. Lastly, Nineteen for petty larceny; of whom one was sent to Newcastle for four years, one for three years, fourteen were sentenced to various terms of solitary confinement, and three acquitted.

From this statement, therefore, it appears that during the year 1817, out of the ninety-two persons who were tried for various offences, which it will be seen were for the most part of a heinous nature, no fewer than seventy-three were convicted, fifteen capitally, four of whom were executed, the remaining eleven had their sentences commuted into transportation to the Coal River for life; that there were six others originally sentenced to the same punishment; that there were five transported for fourteen years, ten for seven years, and that the remaining thirty-seven were either transported for terms under seven years, or were punished by solitary confinement. Appalling, however, as this catalogue of crime must be acknowledged, when compared with _that_ which could be produced in any other community of similar extent, it would still appear on the first view to argue well in favour of the reformatory influence of this colony: since Governor Bligh in his examination before the committee of the House of Commons, in the year 1812, presented a document purporting to be a list of criminals tried between August, 1806, and August, 1807, from which it appears that one hundred and seventeen* persons were arraigned before the criminal court during this interval. If we were therefore to abide by the records of the criminal court alone, we should draw the most satisfactory conclusions with respect to the progress of reformation in the morals and habits of the people since that period. The comparison, indeed, between the catalogue of crime in the years 1806 and 1817, would be most gratifying; as notwithstanding that the population of the colony rather more than doubled itself since the former year, the latter presents a decrease in the number of criminals of twenty-five, or in other words, crimes would appear to have diminished in the ratio of about 9/4 to 1. If the records, therefore, of the criminal court were decisive on the subject, it would be impossible not to confess that the system pursued in this colony has fully answered the humane intentions for which it was founded. But unhappily these records are no standard by which to judge of the reformatory tendency of the system. During Governor Bligh's administration, all offenders except those who were charged with the most trifling misdemeanors, were tried by the criminal court. He was a second Draco, who considered the smallest offence deserving of death: and wo to the wretch whom the criminal court doomed to this punishment, for he invariably carried its sentence into execution. His successor, however, has acted on more merciful principles; and, besides, crimes have so rapidly multiplied of late years, that the judge advocate would not have sufficient time for presiding in the two civil courts of which he is the head, were he obliged to dispose of all the culprits that might be arraigned in the criminal court. But it is well known to those who are at all conversant with the state of the colony, that but a very small portion of the offences which are committed there, are now brought under the jurisdiction of this court. The majority of the criminals who are now tried by it are either free persons, or such as have obtained emancipations; i.e. those whom the various governors have made free in the colony, but who are not at liberty to quit it. The benches of magistrates, and the superintendent of police, are delicate of deciding on charges in which the members of these two free classes are implicated; but they dispose of offenders already under the sentence of the law in a summary manner, either by transporting them to the Coal River, by putting them in the gaol gangs, by sending them (if they happen to be females) to the factory, or by simply ordering them corporal punishment, unless they are charged with murder, or some capital felony; and even in this latter case they frequently inflict some summary punishment. With respect to the first of these summary modes of punishment, transportation to the Coal River, it has already been stated that the population of this settlement amounted in the year 1817, to five hundred and fifty souls: of these not more than one hundred, including the civil and military establishments, and the settlers and their families on the upper banks of the river, were free. The remaining four hundred and fifty, therefore, were persons who had been convicted of crimes either by the criminal court or by the magistracy, and retransported thither for various periods. Those few, it has been seen, who are condemned to this punishment by the criminal court, are for the most part sentenced to long terms of transportation; but as nine-tenths of the criminals at this settlement are sent thither either by the benches of magistrates, or by the superintendent of police, who seldom transport for a longer period than two years, and more frequently for one year, or six months, the population may at a very moderate calculation be considered as undergoing a complete change every two years, or in other words, it may be concluded that two hundred and twenty-five persons are annually transported thither by way of punishment. We must therefore add this number to the culprits convicted before the court of criminal judicature, and we shall then have a total of three hundred and eighteen persons annually convicted of crimes in the colony. This is of itself an alarming sum of criminality; but we must not stop here, since it only conducts us to the second of the summary modes of punishment which I have enumerated; viz. the gaol gangs. There are upon an average about fifty persons in the gaol gang at Sydney, and about the same number in the gaol gangs belonging to the other towns and districts in the colony. These are criminals convicted of smaller offences than those who are transported to the Coal River; they are worked from sunrise to sun-set, and are locked up in the prisons during the night. This mode of punishment is seldom inflicted for a longer term than four months. It may therefore be safely computed that these gaol gangs are changed once in this period, or in other words, that three hundred persons annually pass through this ordeal. This further addition to the formidable catalogue of crimes already made out, increases the total to six hundred and eighteen persons, yet only leads us to the third mode of summary punishment, viz. labour at the factory at Paramatta. The number of women sentenced to this mode of punishment may be averaged at one hundred and fifty, and as the average term of their sentences does not exceed six months, we have a farther number of three hundred to add to the above estimate. This increases it to nine hundred and eighteen persons; but we have still one other mode of punishment in petto, corporal punishment simply; and I have no doubt that the numbers on whom it is annually inflicted will at least swell the grand total of persons convicted of various criminal offences during the year 1817, either by the criminal courts, by the benches of magistrates, by the superintendent of police, or by the district magistrates to one thousand. We may now draw some sort of a comparison between the amount of crime in the years 1806 and 1817. I should imagine, on the highest calculation, that not more than one hundred persons in addition to those tried by the criminal court during that year, could, from the system then in practice, have been summarily dealt with by the magistracy; but allowing even that there were two hundred, and that the whole number of persons stated by Governor Bligh to have been tried by that court were found guilty, a most improbable supposition, the year 1806 will only then give a total of three hundred and sixteen offenders, i.e. not one third the amount of those who were convicted in the year 1817. Crime therefore has been trebled, while the population has only been doubled, or in other words, the increase of the former has been to the increase of the latter as three to two.

[* Page 42 Appendix to the Report of the House of Commons in 1812.]