CO885(1-2) — Page 658

7

TRANSPORTATION.

CONTENTS.

ortation up to the establishment in 1848 of the present system EN'S LAND

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1

1

1 new fields for the reception of Convicts, JTH WALES

'E

AUSTRALIA..

AND resumed

ERATIONS:

of Transportation

tions stated and examined

n the Colonies

e discoveries of Gold

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of a new Penal Settlement to meet the difficulties of the case 26

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference

C.O.

885

COPYRIGHT

2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

Colonial Office,

November 1852.

Transportation.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O. 8

Reference -

885

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

FOR upwards of sixty years transportation, has been employed by this country as the principal means of secondary punishment. Convicts were sent to New South Wales and to Van Diemen's Land, which settlements were formed, it must be borne in mind, at a great cost, expressly for the reception of offenders.

By degrees the emancipated convicts prospered, and became possessed of independent means, and free settlers also proceeded to these colonies, as they began to offer a favourable field for enterprise.

The convicts used to be assigned to the colo- nial proprietors as servants. This system had two great advantages: it dispersed the convicts over the face of the country at a distance from one another, and it gratified the settlers by giving them the benefit of free labour; but it consti- tuted a very unequal punishment, and was open also to some very objectionable abuses. In the hands of tyrannical masters it was liable to be made very oppressive; other employers, looking only to their own interests, endeavoured to stimulate the industry of the convicts by indul- gences far from consistent with the object of punishment for which they had been transported; and some would encourage the convicts to bad courses by allowing them entire freedom, on con- dition of their, from time to time, bringing home a share of any money they could gain, Another evil

of these abuses was, that the deterring effect of transportation as a punishment was impaired or destroyed.

Hence the system was condemned by the Com-