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In the beginning of 1847, Earl Grey, in concert with Sir George Grey, announced the plan of the new Government. It was, that transportation, as it had hitherto been carried on, should be discou- tinued; that every prisoner should undergo, first, a period of solitary confinement; secondly, a course of labour on some public works at home, or in Bermuda or Gibraltar; and, thirdly, removal from this country as an "exile," that is to say, a pardoned man subject to the sole condition that he was not to return to the United Kingdom or to the place (if be was convicted abroad) in which he received his
sentence.
Plan of Lord Grey and Sir George Grey in 1847 and 1848.
Sir Geo. Grey, January 20, 1847: Lord Grey, February 5, 1847; Parl. Paper, February 1847.
Debates in the Lords, March 1847. Debates in the Commons, June
1847.
Before the commencement of the following year some important occurrences had taken place. A Committee of the House of Lords, after examining several of the judges and other witnesses of high authority, had reported decidedly in favour of the deterring effects of the punishment of removal from this country, and strongly deprecated its discon- tinuance. This was a representation which the Government considered that it could not with pro- priety disregard. Satisfactory accounts had been received of the working of the new course of disci- pline in the English prisons, as far as it had yet been tried. Both at Bermuda and Gibraltar the conduct of the prisoners was well spoken of, and gratifying accounts were received of the conduct of the large
Sir W. Denison conveyed this opinion in a numbers of exiles who had been sent to Port Philip, despatch of July 10, 1847; Parl. Paper, May Some officers, however, of experience and other 1848, p. 88. It would also appear from allu- authorities intimated opinions in favour of sending Fitzroy, dated September 3, 1847 (Parl. Paper sions in a despatch of Lord Grey's to Sir C out the convicts rather as holders of tickets-of-leave May 1848, p. 7), to have been expressed by Lieutenant-Governor Latrobe and by than actually in possession of conditional pardons.
Mr. Hampton, the Comptroller-General. It was Such having been the principal events since the likewise signified in the report of a Committee correspondence between the Home Secretary and of Legislative Council, New South Wales. dated October 31, 1846 (Parl. Paper, April
the Secretary for the Colonies in the beginning of 1847, p. 11). 1847, Lord Grey in a despatch to the Governor, Parl. Paper, May 1848, p. 132. dated the 26th April, 1848, intimated the intention of the Government, that for the future no convicts should be at large in the United Kingdom during the period of their sentences, but that after one term of separate imprisonment (such as that at Pentonville), and another of employinent on public works (such as those at Portland, the Dockyards, Bermuda, or Gibraltar), they should be forwarded to Van Diemen's Land with tickets-of-leave. Lord Grey added that each convict was to repay the cost
Vide despatch to Sir Charles Fitz- roy, December 12, 1848, p. 57, of Paper on Convict Discipline, by command, February 1849.
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Measures in latter part of 1848 and 1849,
Endeavours to open new fields for the reception of Convicts.
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of his conveyance, which has since been assumed at 157., and that the proceeds should be applied, not
to diminishing the cost of transportation, but to supplying the colony with free labourers as 3 coun- terpoise to any evil apprehended from the intro- duction of men who had been found guilty of offences against the law. No conditional pardon
was to be granted to a ticket-of-leave man until he had repaid the cost of his introduction; but it was proposed that such a pardon should be granted immediately afterwards to men under seven years' sentence, if their behaviour had been otherwise satisfactory, and that in the case of men under longer sentences, those repayments should be accepted as strong evidence of industry and good conduct.
Whilst these measures were believed to be the best that could be adopted for the discipline of the convicts, it was remarked that the colony would gain the advantage of not losing altogether a gra- tuitous supply of labour; that the reformed-men to be sent out were very different from those who used to be transported; that the payments obtained from them, as above stated, would go towards free emigration; that for encouraging the same object, the Treasury would relinquish its claim to the land revenue; and finally, that whenever half the esti- mated expense of sending out the wives and families of convicts were contributed by the convicts or from any other private source, they would be sent to the colony at the public charge.
These instructions, subject to some alterations of detail, remained until the end the basis of the system of management pursued in Van Diemen's Land.
The plan of discipline in this Colony being thus provided for, the whole course of the measures of the Government in the latter part of 1848, and in 1849, may be said to have been aimed at the object of ascertaining whether other Colonies would not accept a share of convicts.
Van Diemen's Land, it cannot be denied, had previously suffered much from having become sud. denly the sole receptacle for all offenders transported from the United Kingdom. The total number of male convicts who arrived in the five years ending 1840 was 7,942; the number in the five years ending 1845 was 17,637. Every place for their
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