The History of Tasmania , Volume II

by John West

Blanco White, a celebrated Spaniard, had suggested sentences to an amount of work rather than to an extent of years. He proposed that the tread-wheel should measure the progress of the culprit, and that every revolution should bring him nearer to liberty.

His punitive system had long been adopted by Arthur, though probably with objects somewhat distinct: it was found in every penal settlement and road gang.

Capt. Cheyne had recommended the opening of accounts and payment for probationary labor.

At Bermuda, the stimulus of present enjoyment was offered to industry: convicts were allowed 1s. 6d. per week, half of which they were at liberty to expend in fruits, vegetables, and such like comforts; the residue forming a fund, sometimes of £15 and £20, receivable at discharge. These indulgences were attended with the happiest effects, and the superintendent, Sir Thomas Usher, was so satisfied with their reformation, that he had no doubt seven-eighths were better men at the close than at the commencement of their bondage.

The idea of clubs was found in the tithings of the ancient Britons, which were enrolled by the authority of Alfred, and made liable for each other. Maconochie saw in the disjointed and licentious condition of that era, something analogous to the state of convicts, and in the result that "a bracelet might be left on the highway with security," an encouragement to hope, from a similar organisation, for the same success. Capt. Maconochie quoted Hume in describing these societies, but he omitted those sentences which seem to give another aspect to the institution; for when a member of the tithings was charged with a crime, the rest could purge themselves from responsibility, if acquitted on oath of connivance with the offender, or his escape: but, however innocent, the clubs of Maconochie were involved in the responsibility of the transgressor—a fundamental difference, the suppression of which was scarcely compatible with literary candour.

Bentham himself had proposed that convicts should remain at auxiliary establishments, in principle resembling the training stations of Maconochie, until they could be prepared for the full enjoyment of liberty. He also suggested mutual surveillance associations, in which the prisoners should watch over, instruct, and assist each other. Archbishop Whately advocated the detention of prisoners until their reformation was established.

Maconochie attributed his idea of marks to an observation of Messrs. Backhouse and Walker on their usefulness in training the rising generation: they thought they discerned a faint image of the club system at Macquarie Harbour, where devout prisoners separated themselves into a society, and were secured from the interruption of the rest. Men from bondage, were released in the hulks, when the sum total of marks in their favor covered a certain period of their sentence.

Macarthur had recommended the employment of an officer, under the immediate direction of the home secretary of state, responsible for the full execution of a sentence, to whom the entire management of the convict department might be committed. The governors would thus be less likely to change the aspect of transportation, according to their particular theories.[224]

Captain Maconochie was preceded in this branch of penal philosophy by a gentleman, not equally celebrated, but who proposed changes as radical. It is amusing to observe, with what different objects, and how diverse in spirit, similar mutations have been enforced. Dr. Henderson, the founder of the Van Diemen's Land Society, on returning to India, offered through the press at Calcutta a new scheme of colonisation, based on convict government. That which existed he deemed defective in its main principles, and futile in its results. The settlers he described, with some contempt, as an inferior class, inflated with notions of liberty and equality, and debased by convict associations; prone to quarrel and encroach, but distressed with the endless vexations of their lot. Forbidden to punish the insolence of their servants; exposed to the disgrace of meeting their accusations; or when they prosecuted a charge, liable to the strictures of the magistrate, who might penetrate the secrets of their dwellings, and censure them in the presence of their exulting slaves. Thus, though the author assumed the tone of philosophical discussion, he differed from others who professed to investigate principles: he observed—"We find the convicts in the condition of slaves placed under despotic power." "It is not necessary to enquire whether it is for their benefit;" "they are not entitled to our sympathy, should they be treated with the rigour of slaves:" "they will not often labor when they are removed from the dread of punishment." "The magistrates should be relieved from forms and precedents, and punish according to the intrinsic value of offences, and for the public good." "More injury is done by the trammels of the law, than by leaving the judges to their own discretion." Such is the essence of his system, which, however, always presumed the existence of a lofty purpose and a dispassionate administration.[225] For this large discretion, however, he pronounced the existing settlers unfit: he recommended the employment of young educated gentlemen, under a board of directors, and proposed as the primary object of discipline, neither punishment nor intimidation, but productiveness. Power being lodged in the hands of the superintendents, without regard to Burns' Justice, or written regulations, they would check offences at once, and punish according to their social and material tendency. He held, as vitally important, that all national views in reference to transportation should be subordinate to the colonial welfare. Having formed agricultural establishments, and fitted them to become the home of capitalists, the officers of government would give place to another class of employers. The house, the servants, and the cleared ground, would be disposed of by the crown; the convicts, gradually trained, exalted into a free population, and with their families would form a peasantry. The sale of these estates would repay the original outlay; and thus, without further drafts on the treasury, the process could be renewed in an endless succession. The lash, Dr. Henderson was far from rejecting as an instrument of correction—"cheap and expeditious:" in short, his was a plan of slavery, and which conveyed semi-magisterial powers to the overseers, and gave them a profit on the labor they might exact.

Henderson had become sultanised by living in India: he was attached to the spirit of its government; the legal formalities, which delight an Englishman, seemed to him the degradation of rank, and a pernicious license to inferiors. In his imaginary commonwealth, he saw but two classes, which, in the language of the East, he distinguished as the "head and the hand." He thought the judges should be required to aid the governors by their interpretations of the law; who, at the close of their administration, might be tried by their peers, and, if found wanting, handed over to everlasting shame! Thus, his plan embodied the spirit of caste, of orientalism, and of the India House. He had no simpering tenderness for the prisoner, while he attributed to the upper classes an innate rectitude and self control, such as the British records of the East will hardly sustain. His speculations are worth remembering, for the contrast of their animus with those of Maconochie, and for the analogy in their details.