The orders of Stanley were constantly criticised by the press, and from various motives were disliked by every section of the public. All who had been prisoners, naturally sympathised with the sufferers: those who were employers, reprobated a form of punishment which, without diminishing the application of the lash, abstracted from their farms a proportion of labour. A spirit of resistance was extensively propagated, and during the year following many sad instances occurred, in which an insurgent spirit was fatal. A young man, when employed on the public works, struck at Mr. Franks with his hammer: fortunately, the blow fell lightly; but he was tried and executed. A considerable number threw down their tools and retired to the bush, whither they were pursued and retaken. One instance made a powerful impression on the public mind: a convict, named Greenwood, took from a fellow prisoner his shovel, which was better than his own. He was sent at once by the superintendent to the cells in charge of a fellow workman. In the spirit of reckless daring, he told his conductor that he could run away if he thought proper; the other replied—"no doubt of it." Thus, by a sudden impulse, in bravado or in terror of the lash, he sprang across the boundary, and threw up his hat as a signal of his flight. He appeared on the race ground, and was there discovered by the constables committing some act of petty robbery: he was pursued, drew a knife from his pocket, and wounded his captor. Being taken before a magistrate, both his absconding and his resistance were stated—the last a capital offence. To punish this man was, of course, the duty of those whose authority he had defied. As an absconder, he was sentenced to one hundred lashes, and told—in words the import of which has not been disputed, although the taunting tone attributed to the justice may possibly admit a question—that after his flogging he would be hanged! Ten days after, he was condemned to death: his execution was delayed a few more by a respite; but he went to the scaffold with his wounds unhealed! The treatment of this man called forth, and justified the strongest expressions of public indignation. True, it was within the letter of the law: either of the penalties inflicted, might have been vindicated or excused both by necessity and custom; but to torture a fellow creature shortly to make his defence against a charge affecting his life, and to send him to his last account whilst suffering the pangs of laceration, was inexpressibly revolting. Those who desired to disgrace the government, embraced the opportunity—perhaps with the eagerness of faction: pictures were exhibited of the unfortunate man, illustrative of his melancholy fate. Surely no argument can be found, in the calmest exercise of the understanding to extenuate an administration of the law, which distorted justice into cruelty.
Under circumstances far more consonant with reason, but scarcely less affecting when considered at large, was the execution of Samuel, a black man: he was transported for theft, from the Cape of Good Hope, and was remarkable for the quiet easiness of his disposition. For some violation of penal discipline he was ordered to be flogged: when approaching the triangle, he attacked one of the officers in attendance, who was slightly wounded; for this he forfeited his life—justly, had England been just; but what was his story? With his mother and sister he was stolen from Mozambique, and thus became a slave: he robbed his masters, and thus became a criminal. His fate turns justice into mockery, and might make the Briton blush for his country. His execution, however, was not without utility: Dr. Ross, who for years had attended such scenes, then adopted the conviction that no resources of language, or varieties of incident, could invest them with interest, and he resolved to attend them no more. Here, too, the reader will be willing to abandon them. Since, they have often been repeated; but happily society has adopted from reflection, what that gentle-hearted man, so powerful is habit, required years to learn—that the executioner is an officer far less useful, and the agent of a spirit far less just, than past ages have deemed.[213]
At parting, it is proper to pay the tribute of history to thememory of Dogherty, the hangman—a functionary who surpassed greatly the common character of his order; and who, while he lived, contrived to evade the detestation of his calling. There was no amateur gaiety in his manner—no harshness in his speech. He accepted office when a prisoner, to enjoy the quiet quarters of the gaol and liberation from ordinary toil: he intended to resign it with his bondage, but the number of candidates for his place, it is said, reconciled his mind to its retention. Not in the spirit of menace, but defensive retort, he would promise those by whom he was jeered, his most delicate attentions in their last emergency. He was always willing to part with his provisions: to divide his sugar and tea with the necessitous, and to perform errands of kindness in their favor. No one could wield the lash with more mercy; and it is said that once, an offender, sentenced to a public flogging, received one stroke at starting, and the cart being driven by an associate, a second at stopping. His predecessor was a different character; and overcome with the misery of his condition, he committed murder, that he might escape from life! Dogherty passed through the town without fear of vengeance; although once, certain soldiers, his countrymen, injured him, and left scars which he carried to the grave. But what character is perfect? He was addicted to intemperance, and commonly spent the day succeeding an execution in drunkenness. The incredulous are assured, that this is not the language of fiction, but the character commonly ascribed in sober earnest to this unfortunate being.
The day will come, when the sacrifice of life, made with more hesitation, will cease to be a public spectacle; when, if it is deemed requisite to cut off from the earth the shedder of blood, the dreadful doom will cease to amuse the brutal, or to offer a momentary excitement to the unreflecting. Women will be no longer seen raising their children above the crowd, to enjoy the most humiliating sight that can meet the eyes of mortals. Let no one imagine, that men are effectually intimidated by attending public executions: as the fatal moment draws nigh, crowds are indeed seen rushing towards the spot; but they wear the lineaments of insensibility, intemperance, or habitual crime. It is not the guilt of the sufferer which extinguishes their pity: they would run to witness the murder of a saint. The utility of executions is left to the judgment of statesmen, but it cannot be wrong to detest them.
Thus far having delineated the broad features of the system known as the "certain and severe," it will be proper to explain the changes which it ultimately produced in the practical working of transportation. Simultaneously, a new theory of colonisation was promulgated. Land ceased to be granted: the funds accumulated by its sale were available for emigration,—and thus to decrease the rate of wages, and to enable the government to dispense with the services of convicts as writers, overseers, and mechanics. To assist this project, it had been determined to levy a tax on prison labor; but the protest of the colonists and the remonstrance of Arthur, led to its abandonment. The despatch which explained his views, dwelt on the inconvenience, vexation, and loss, to which the settlers were subject. He informed the Secretary of State, that his lordship could not understand, except by experience, how much and how often the colonists were fretted by the misconduct of their servants, and despoiled by their peculation: however perfect the discipline established; although the roads were safe, and violence infrequent; though many prisoners were reformed and useful, still the existing social state was charged with every form of domestic annoyance and mortification. Trivial thefts were constantly passed over, because punishment was attended with greater loss. Thus, two hundred men arrive—they are distributed: their masters pay down money for their clothing; but before they reach their home, their clothes are destroyed or sold—or, perhaps, they are committed for felony to gaol. At first the settler repines, but his difficulties are inevitable: he is silent, because his trials have long lost the interest of novelty, and all around him are fellow-sufferers. The settlers who submitted to the impertinence and unwillingness of pickpockets, he thought certainly entitled to the benefit of their services without any other tax than might be levied by their fingers. This earnest protest was not without success; but it became, afterwards, a potent weapon in the hands of those who pronounced transportation a failure.[214]
The arrival of many hundreds, whose previous habits were far from respectable, increased the difficulties of penal government. The former marked division of classes was confounded: the emigrant laborer was the companion of the prisoner of the crown; but, in law, the equal of the prisoner's master. This addition was greatly deplored, both by the Governor and the press. It was perceived that great organic changes must follow the influx of free men, whose interest would run in a direction entirely opposite to penal institutions. Thus, almost instantly, a change became perceptible: the high value of prison labor was reduced, and employers hostile to the government could afford to defy its power. The emigrant laborers formed an intermediate class, which detested the espionage and insolence of a convict constabulary, and was disposed to resent the haughty spirit which slavery has ever generated in the ruling classes.
In 1835, the feeling in opposition to transportation was strongly expressed by certain portions of the people. A meeting was called, under the auspices of Messrs. Kemp, Gellibrand, Hackett, Thomas Horne, and others, which complained that the hope entertained, that the colony might ultimately be freed from its penal character, had been disappointed, and that the colonists "were made materials for the punishment of British offenders;" were considered only as the "occupants of a large prison;"—phrases of Arthur—and that "this penal character had recently increased; thus violating the feelings of the adult, and barbarising the habits and demoralising the principles of the rising generation." This meeting, at which the sheriff presided, called by public advertisement, was perhaps de jure a meeting of the colony; but the sheriff refused to attach his signature, lest the petition should be taken as that of the settlers in general, whose opinions it certainly did not then represent.
Arthur, in his despatch, endeavoured to neutralise its possible influence, at the same time intimating that he had "long foreseen that abolition would become a popular question." He, however, maintained that the emigrant, knowing the object of the settlement, had no right to complain; and that for the quarter of a century succeeding it would become increasingly adapted for the enforcement of penal discipline. He advised the ministers to stop the current of emigration, which, if continued, would render "convicts less valuable to the settlers," or to confine it to female emigrants, or such artificers as carpenters and masons.[215] Two hundred and sixty persons, in the Launceston district, repudiated the following passage of the petition:—"Your Majesty's humble petitioners most respectfully pray your Majesty to be pleased in your paternal goodness to remove from the colony of Van Diemen's Land the degradation and unspeakable evils to which it is subject on account of its penal character."
It would be amusing to contrast the sentiments expressed by various persons during the first formal agitation of this subject, with those that have latterly prevailed. It must, however, be remembered, that there were two political parties. Some opposed transportation as the last indignity which could be offered to Arthur, its zealous patron; while others desired its continuance only because no other labor was at hand. The paupers sent from the parishes did not create a strong feeling of preference for free servants, many of whom were profligate, intemperate, and otherwise worthless. Nor is it honest to conceal the disastrous influence of power on the moral perceptions of the mind. It is justly observed by Franklin, the philosopher, that "it is one of the worst features of human nature, yet one with which it is too generally impressed—the love of power; whereby all men prefer to be served by slaves, over whom they have absolute dominion, than by free men, who have rights as well as their masters." These motives, mingled and corroborated by the practice of many years, contributed to strengthen the views of the local government, and to reduce to a small minority the advocates of abolition. Yet such are the singular conjunctions of affairs: though derided and rejected on the spot, they were afterwards quoted with respect by a committee of British legislators, when the subject of transportation again engaged the attention of parliament.