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Sir Wm. Denison,
&c. &c. &c.
འ
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
C.O.
Reference :-
• 885
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE. LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
Sir,
No. 114.
No. 116. 13 Aug. 1849. liamentary Paper, Jan. page 78.)
No. 135. 10 Sept. 1849. No. 142. 27 Sept. 1849. No. 147. 2 Oct. 1849. No. 9. 8 Jan. 1850.
Downing Street, July 25, 1850.
I HAVE had the honour of receiving your despatch
No. 142, of the 27th of September last, transmit- ting the half-yearly report of the Comptroller (Par- General of Convicts for the first six months of 1849, 1850,
The
and also your despatches, noted in the margin, relating to various questions connected with the management and discipline of convicts. important information supplied by these com- munications on the working of the system of transportation as it is at present carried on, has received the deliberate consideration of Her Ma- jesty's Government, and I now proceed to explain to you the views we have adopted on the different points to which you have called my attention, and to convey to you the instructions which seem to be required for introducing those improvements in the existing regulations which additional experience of their results has suggested.
2. Your report of the general condition of the Convict Establishment in Van Diemen's Land is satisfactory. The change for the better in the dis- cipline of the gangs in the last three years, and the benefit which has arisen from the introduction of Task-work appear to have been very remarkable. But great as is the improvement in the actual, compared with the past, state of the convicts, I do not conceive that it affords sufficient grounds for a change in the policy lately adopted by Her Majesty's Government, or renders it expedient that all the convicts who may in future proceed to Van Diemen's Land, should, as you advise, be sent to the colony when they have under- gone the first portion of their punishment (con- sisting of separate confinement), and should there pass all the periods both of compulsory labour,
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