Prisons Over Seas / Deportation and Colonization; British and American Prisons of To-day

by Arthur Griffiths

There were frequent heartburnings in New South Wales during the reign of Governor Macquarie on account of his overstrained partiality. The discontent was heightened by his plainly spoken desire to force his own views down the throats of those nearest him in the social scale: not satisfied with openly countenancing them himself, he insisted that the officers of regiments receive emancipists as guests at mess. Bigge says on this point: "The influence of the governor's example should be limited to those occasions alone when his notice of the emancipated convicts cannot give offence to the feelings of others, or to persons whose objections to associate with them are known. The introduction of them on public occasions should, in my opinion, be discontinued. And when it is known that they have been so far noticed by the governor of New South Wales as to be admitted to his private table and society, the benefit of the governor's example may be expected to operate; and it will also be exempt from the fatal suspicion of any exercise of his authority." Again, when Mr. Bent, judge of the Supreme Court, refused to allow certain attorneys, ex-convicts but now free, to practise as solicitors, the governor complained to the home government that this judge was "interfering unwarrantably with a salutary principle which he (the governor) had been endeavouring to establish for the reformation of the convicts." Now at this very time an act was in force which deprived all persons convicted of perjury or forgery from ever again practising in the courts at home, and Judge Bent in refusing to administer the oaths to these emancipist attorneys was but carrying out the law; yet on the governor's representation he was removed from the bench.

There were other cases not less plainly marked. As a natural consequence, the antagonism was deepened between the two classes which were so widely distinct—the virtuous Pharisees, that is to say, and the thriving publicans. The former despised all who had come out "at their country's expense;" and the latter hated the settlers, as people of a lower class not seldom hate social superiors to whose "platform" they are forbidden to hope to rise. Eventually, as we shall see, after a long protracted warfare and varying successes, the free population gained the day; but not till the lapse of years had strengthened their numbers out of all proportion to their antagonists, and given them the preponderance they at first lacked.

The struggles between these two classes fill up the whole of the annals of the next years of the colony. All said, however, it cannot be denied that under the administration of General Macquarie the colony prospered. The population was nearly trebled between 1809 and 1821, and there was a corresponding increase in trade and in the public revenue. Just before this governor left the colony it contained 38,788 souls; there were 102,929 horned cattle, 290,158 sheep, 33,000 hogs, and 4,500 horses; and 32,267 acres had been brought under cultivation. The moral tone of the community, too, was slightly raised; marriage had been encouraged in place of an indifferent and disreputable mode of life which till then had been largely prevalent. "In externals, at least," says Laing, "the colony itself assumed quite a different aspect under his energetic and vigorous management from what it had previously worn."

Speaking of his own administration and his efforts to elevate the convict population in the scale of society, Governor Macquarie said for himself, as against his detractors, "Even my work of charity, as it appeared to me sound policy, in endeavouring to restore emancipated and reformed convicts to a level with their fellow-subjects—a work which, considered in a religious or a political point of view, I shall ever value as the most meritorious part of my administration—has not escaped their animadversions."

And yet, however praiseworthy his efforts, they were misdirected; and beyond doubt, in his desire to discourage the influx of free people, he committed a fatal error. It was his wish, of course, to further the development of the colony; but he could not do this half so satisfactorily by the establishment of penal agricultural settlements, as could substantial emigrants working with capital behind them for their own profit. Moreover, these agricultural settlements started by Governor Macquarie cost a great deal of money. Again, the free classes of the community would not have found themselves for a long time outnumbered had not immigration been systematically discouraged. The formation of an independent respectable society, armed with weight and influence, was, as I have said, much needed in the colony. In this respect General Macquarie had departed from the policy of his predecessors. Captain Philip was eager enough, as we have seen, to attract settlers, and had his recommendations been persistently followed the colony would have found itself the sooner able to raise grain enough for its own consumption.

Sir Thomas Brisbane, on the other hand, who came after Governor Macquarie, recognised the full importance of the principle, and his reign is memorable as marking the period when settlers in any considerable numbers first flocked to the colony. But it was no longer the humbler classes who came. None of these did the governor want, but persons who were well-to-do, who could take up larger grants and find plenty of employment for the rapidly increasing convict population. Sir Thomas Brisbane held out every inducement to attract such persons. At this period, thanks to the unceasing arrival of new drafts, the number of felon exiles on charge continued to form a serious item in the colonial expenditure. To get quit of all or any the governor was only too glad to offer almost any terms. The grants of land were raised from 500 to 2,000 acres, which any one of moderate respectability might secure, provided only he would promise to employ twenty convicts; rations also were to be given from the King's store for self and servants for the first six months, and a loan of cattle from the government herds. The newcomers therefore were mostly gentlemen farmers, younger sons of land-owners, or commercial men who had saved something from a general crash in business. Most of these people were sufficiently alive to their own advantage to realise the opportunity now held out to them. Land for nothing, food and stock till the first difficulties of settlement were overcome—these were baits that many were ready enough to swallow. Labour was also gratuitously provided by the same kind hands that gave the land.

For some years this more than parental encouragement continued, till at length the influx of settlers came to be thoroughly felt. The labour that was so lately a drug, was now so eagerly sought that the demand grew greater than the supply. The governor was unable to comply with all the requisitions for servants made by the land grantees. This at once brought about the abandonment of the agricultural penal settlements established by General Macquarie. Their success had always been doubtful: although land to a considerable extent had been cleared, timber felled, buildings erected, and farming attempted, no great results had ever been obtained. Indeed now when the land which had thus been occupied was again resumed, it was found to have been little benefited. One by one they were broken up. They were costly and unproductive. On the other hand, the settlers, old and newly arrived, were clamorous for the hands thus wastefully employed. "So steadily," says Laing, "did the demand for convict labour increase on the part of the free settlers that, during the government of Lieutenant-General Darling, there were at one time applications for no fewer than 2,000 labourers lying unsatisfied in the office of the principal superintendent of convicts."

We have now really arrived at the second stage in the history of transportation. Although from the first origin of the settlement convict servants were readily provided for any master who might ask for them, the applications, as I have said, were few and far between, amounting in 1809 to an eighth only of the total numbers available, and requiring, as late as 1821, to be accompanied by the bait of distinct and tangible bribes. But now had dawned the days of "assignment" proper, the days of wholesale slavery, where private persons relieved the state of the charge of its criminals, and pretended to act, for the time being, as gaolers, taskmasters, and chaplains, in return for the labour supplied at so cheap a rate. How far the persons thus called upon to exercise such peculiar functions were entitled to the confidence reposed in them was never in question till the last few years. Emancipists got their convicts too, and of course among the settlers many were quite unsuited for so serious a charge.

The failure of assignment as a method of penal discipline will be seen later on, when its great inherent evils had had time to display themselves. At first the chief fault was over-leniency—so much so that General Darling came out as governor charged with orders to subject the convicts to more rigorous treatment. Dr. Laing, in his "History of New South Wales," is of opinion that, about this date, much unnecessary severity was noticeable in the carrying out of the sentence of transportation. He states that convicts were now treated by the subordinate agents, who saw that severity was the order of the day, "with a reckless indifference to their feelings as men which their situation as criminals could never have warranted."