PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
C.O.
Reference :-
·885
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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labours under in this respect-difficulties infinitely greater than can occur elsewhere. Not a soul is allowed to land on the island except its officials; not a letter can the prisoner write, not a complaint can he utter, not a single step can he take towards his extrication, without the consent of the authorities about him; and how difficult it is to obtain this I shall yet have occasion to point out. This much I know, that almost insuper- able obstacles are placed in the prisoner's way*.
3. An amount of Crime inconceivably enormous, is produced, by herd- ing together so large a body of men in such a place. I do not intend to pollute these pages with the abundant evidence of this awful fact, which, in the discharge of my duties in Norfolk Island, has been forced upon me. I would gladly escape from the horrible recollection, nor would I have referred to it, had 1, in fulfilling the task I have undertaken, dared to be silent. As a clergyman and a magistrate, I feel bound to tell your Lordship that the curse of Almighty God must sooner or later fall in scorching anger upon a nation which can tolerate the continuance of a state of things so demoniacal and unnatural. Having stated this fact. and to its literal accuracy I pledge myself, I proceed to another with which it stands intimately connected.
the
4. Convicts of every grade are indiscriminately mingled on Island. Your Lordship cannot be aware of this, or it would not so long have been tolerated. There are on the island prisoners who have been transported and re-transported, who have, after this, passed through every grade of crime and punishment, in hulks, chain-gangs, and penal stations-human beings whom I can scarcely call men, and whom, but that I would not limit the power or mercy of God, I should pronounce to be hopelessly lost. Many of these convicts I have seen removed from Norfolk Island to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, and again Batches of them continue to brought back after fresh careers of crimef. be landed in the intervals between the arrival of vessels direct from England with first-convicted prisoners. A parade of separation is kept up; but the communication is complete, and at times unrestricted: the comparatively innocent and the thoroughly degraded are thus thrown together; novices are at once initiated into the " adyta penetralia,” to learn the mysteries of crime. The fresh feelings of the English prisoners - and, my Lord, many of their histories are most touching ones-are insulted by the language and demeanour of these miscreants.
Youths
are seized upon, and become the victims of hoary and unnatural villains. There are flash-men on the island who keep it in awe, and beard the Commandant himself. With these scoundrels the English farm labourer,
•Facilis descensus averni,” &c.
Letters addressed by me to your Lordship and Sir Robert Peel, on behalf of an individual of whose innocence I felt convinced, and detailing facts which had fallen in my way as Chaplain of the island, connected with his case, I have just discovered were desained, and the chance of the prisoner's extrication has been by this illegal detention, I will not say how cruelly, delayed.
"The number of the prisoners departed from the colony in the first trip of the Lady Franklin' to the ultra penal setilenent at Norfolk Island, is nearly one hundred, and not seventy, as stated in our last. These are the most desperate and depraved offenders ever landed upon our shores, the very refuse of even the criminal part of our population-men utterly irreclaimable, and steeped in crime to the very lips.”—(Extract from Van Diemen's Land new spaper.)
Budies of men, from 70 to 100 in number, bave recently been in mutiny, opeuly refusing to work, and submitting only when terins had been arranged to their satisfaction. The island is kept tims in perpetual alarm; houses ar robbed in open day. By one of these men the Commandant was, on the 9th of November last, deliberately knocked down (his secretary had previously been tered in a similar manner), and received severe contusions from the blow. Some of the worst characters on the island were a short time since out for seventeen days, and this on an island con- taining in all about 9000 acres of land. The state of the island at this time may well awaken alarm. No moment should be lost in taking efficient steps for the prevention of a catastrophe of the most frightful kind. As a proof of the fearful demoralization resulting from this admixture, I would instance the ease of -
who came on the island direct from England, a fine manly fellow, but who, afur successive steps in crime, has recently been convicted and condemned to death for the From the last conviction, however, he has second time within two years, of unnatural offences. derived a positive advantage. His previous sentence to death had been commuted to one of trans- portation for life in chains. The next sentence, which takes effect first, is simply transportation for life, so that by a repetition of the offence he loses his chains.
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the tempted and fallen mechanic, the suspected but innocent victims of perjury or mistake, are indiscriminately herded. With them are mixed Chinamen from Hong Kong, the aborigines of New Holland, West Indian blacks, Greeks, Caffres, and Malays; soldiers for desertion; idiots, madmen, pig-stealers, and pickpockets. In open day the weak are bullied and robbed by the stronger. At night the sleeping-wards are very cess-pools of unheard-of vices. I cannot find sober words enough in which to express the enormity of this evil. During the year 1845 the ships "Agincourt," "Hydrabad," and "David Malcolm," have landed prisoners from Millbank*. I saw these men at once surrounded by the old prisoners, I watched the process of degradation; I saw very boys seized upon and lost.
I saw decent and respectable men, nay, gentlemen, who had unhappily fallen under the weight of strong temptation, and upon whose first crime detection and punishment had followed, thrown among the vilest ruffians, to be tormented by their beastialities. And I asked if this was to be allowed, if it was to continue, and I was told that there was no remedy; it was lamentable, but that it could not be avoided. Can you wonder, my Lord, that I was impatient to escape from such scenes, or that I think it right to bring them under your thoughtful consideration+?
Under this head I may as well add an abstract I lately made from the Police histories of thirty-five prisoners landed recently from Van Diemen's Land.
Nos.
No. of Offences.
Sentence.
Remarks,
A prisoner since 1826,
Notorious bushranger.
Surgeon's report very bad.
1
11
Sentence of death commuted.
2
3
Do.
3
4
Do.
4
27
Transportation for life.
5
12
Do.
6
18
7
8
8
8
Death commuted.
Do.
Ditto.
9
12
10
29
Transportation for life.
often in gaols; bushranger.
Do.
Do.
11
29
12
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Convicted in 1828.
Originally transported very young;
Prisoner since 1830.
Prisoner since 182).
I am glad of an opportunity of bearing public testimony to the general good conduct of prisoners from that institution. There is a sobered feeling about them very opposite to the bearing of most other convicts; and from the repeated conversations I have had with them on the subject, I attribute the difference to the pains taken with them by the chaplains and officers of that penitentiary. "From the opportunities I have bad of conversing with men of all dispositions, I have arrived at the conclusion that they are one and all losing that conviction of moral and religious responsibility which, in a greater or less degree, they possessed during the voyage.
"I observe the associations they form with fellow prisoners--the messmate of the voyage is forgotten, and I see them constantly apart in friendly talk with the old hands. They were new on the island, unable to eat the maize-meal ration, and could not procure better food. But the 'old hand,' versed in the ways of the island, taught the 'new chum' how to procure fresh supplies. The tyros became adepts: and when the colonial prisoners are removed from Norfolk Island, they can leave it with the fiendish satisfaction that among the English prisoners enough are still left among the *old hands to perpetuate the abominations which should make this penal settlement a bye-word in language and a curse in morals."--(Extracted from a letter addressed to me by a prisoner on the island, of exemplary character.)
H
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