PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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man's condition, that I would in that case make a voyage to England for the purpose of doing so; for the thought perpetually haunts me, that Barber is undeservedly undergoing the fate of a convict in Norfolk Island, and I cannot shake off the distress it occasions mc. He is the most unhappy man upon this wretched island. From the caprice of the Commandant, he has been subjected to many unnecessary degradations and hardships*. His patient endurance of them, the deference paid to him by the other prisoners, his own correct and gentlemanly behaviour, first excited my attention, and his evident suffering and invariably con- sistent conduct, have since secured my warmest sympathy in his behalf.
The confessions of the real criminals, the exculpatory memorial, the exertions of his friends, may all be passed lightly by. As the law now stands, there is no possibility of claiming attention, and hope, which comes to all, comes not where this victim of intrigue now is. There he must pine, unless death releases him from his torture; for there is no appeal from a sentence once passed upon a criminal. It may be shown that judges have misdirected in civil actions, or that juries have returned doubtful verdicts. It may be proved, that some facts were suppressed, that others were pervented, that witnesses were perjured or documents falsified; a thousand ways are thrown open for the recovery of a man's money, but none to save his liberty or his life.
My Lord, I have glanced at some few of the defects to be found in one section of the field where penal labour is wasted; and surely there is enough in them to show the necessity of some radical change. But in all ! have stated, I have made reference to details rather than principles. After an experience of upwards of ten years, I may be allowed in conclusion to hint that the whole thing is wrong; that British money has been wasted, British sinews sadly misapplied, the recovery of British criminals woefully overlooked; and, worse than all, if worse there can be, the penal policy of the British nation deservedly execrated by the world at large for her slovenly attempts at penal colonization.
At this moment, one half of this hemisphere is morally ruined by the pest of neglected convicts; and very soon the subject will assume an intense importance, and from a thousand quarters the question will reach
"What is to be done with your convicts?”
you,
When that moment does come, my Lord, perhaps you or those who may succeed you, may be induced to try a wiser course-one which will far less expensively promote the good of the convict, while it will attain. more efficiently all the legitimate objects of punishment. The principle upon which such a system should be based, is a very simple one: but it would work a change in every feature of the present mode of dealing with convicted offenders.
Let the criminals of England whether employed at home in national works or transported to other regions, be required to repay the injury they have done to the community not by undergoing a sentence measured by time alone, but one to be determined by a fixed amount of indus- trial labour, assisted by good conduct. In other words, commute the sentence of a term of years into a proportionate amount of useful labour. You will thus inflict a penalty upon crime far more dreaded than the present one; and you will secure a guarantee that the offender is prepared for society by a habit of self-control before he can enter it again.
Let a man feel that he is the arbiter of his own fate, and he will soon cease to think and act as a slave. Give him a definite prospect of
• From Barber's first landing to the present hour, he has been subjected to unusual sufferings. When exempted by the medical officer from field-work, he was by a refinement of cruelty employed in labour of the most revolting kind. I am astonished that he has survived a tenth part of the wretchedness he has undergone. Nothing but a consciousness of innocence could have supported him under the monstrous tyranny of which he has been the victim. But as far as I have seen, the reckless and daring prisoners have succeeded in obtaining indulgences, while the inoffensive ones have been but too happy if they only escaped notice.
The last thing I heard about poor Barber was, that in order to prevent his troubling the Com- mandant with his case, he has been ordered, under pain of corporal punishment, to cease to write a word more about his extrication; and yet at this moment Fletcher, it will scarcely be credited, is an overacer, in medical charge of the station at Cascade, with many consequent indulgences.
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liberty to be earned by his own exertions, and you will change the whole current of his motives and emotions. If he feels that the duration of his ignominy depends upon himself,-that it will be lengthened or diminished as the balance of good or evil preponderates, that industry and virtue bring to him an hourly recompense,-if he but once feel this, that which was begun perhaps in hypocrisy or mere selfishness, will acquire the strength of habit, and be engrafted within him as a virtue; for he will have passed through a training which can scarcely fail to restore him to society a better and more useful man.
You will, by such a change, require less coercion, less police, less expenditure in any way. You will make this description of labour remu- nerative. The minds and hearts of men undergoing such a reformatory process will be more approachable by the ministers of religion; and if the incorrigibly idle and profligate are left upon your hands, the deserving will escape from their contamination; and you and your successors in office will escape the reproaches of people outraged by the crimes of the present race of convicts.
Make the trial fairly, my Lord, and be sure of success; for it has a foundation resting upon the assurances of eternal truth: "Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all other things shall be added unto you." Seek primarily and honestly the good of man, and the rest will follow. It is not a vindictive system, but one of gentleness;-it will be to the idle and dissolute one of terror;-but it will give hope and exertion to the penitent.
Living now in the "far west" of Australia, I have no opportunity of entering upon the details of such a system; they would, however, be very simple ones. I am certain that a self-supporting Penal Station might even be formed of convicts, to whom their wives and families might after a short time be sent. Make the trial of this principle, however, my Lord, in any way. Send out, if you will, 2000 or 3000 convicts, to make rail or other roads in this country, under sentences thus commuted ;-place them under proper management—the colonists would ration them,-and the amount of labour they would perform, and the benefit they would confer upon a country kept back only by want of the means of inter- communication, would astonish you as much as would the diminished cost and increased morality of the convicts themselves.
At all events, my Lord, you must do something. Norfolk Island can- not remain the plague-spot it is much longer. I shall take the earliest opportunity I can secure, of showing you that the present state of convict discipline is both in principle and practice, as wrong as it well can be in every other sphere of its operation, and in the meantime,
I am, &c., (Signed)
My Lord,
No. 4.
T. BEAGLY NAYLOR.
Governor Reid to Earl Grey.
Bermuda, September 17, 1846.
WITH reference to your Lordship's despatch No. 3, 14th July, 1846, I have to reply to the question by which you require my opinion, whether it would be expedient, under any modification, to give another trial to the peculiar system of convict management which, under the superintendence of Captain Maconochie, was for a short time adopted in Norfolk Island.
After having given the most attentive consideration in my power to the printed papers which accompanied your Lordship's despatch, I am of opinion that it would not be desirable, even in a modified form, to try again Captain Maconochie's system. As a Separate System I consider it impracticable; and if it were practicable to carry it out, even to the fullest extent of his own wishes, I have not the same hope that he has of the ultimate results.
K