The acquisitions of men, who had been prisoners, with great absurdity and forgetfulness, were attributed to the laxity of the local governors. Even now, many who are dextrous, shrewd, and persevering, acquire considerable properties: their prosperity awakens no alarm, because they are lost amidst a dense population, and are surrounded by emigrants, who by similar vices or virtues are not less opulent, but far more numerous.
The first sound that fell on the ear of the prisoner, when he stood before Governor Macquarie, tended to animate his confidence: having enquired of his treatment through the voyage, he then informed him that the past was left to oblivion, and that the future would determine his condition,[120] This was often no vain promise: the sentiments he expressed were, more or less, recognised by the preceding Governors. The Commons, in 1812, gave his policy their sanction, and Earl Bathurst, though with more reserve, favored the same opinion. Macquarie never disguised this system of mercy.[121] When transportation only contemplated the establishment of a colony, this system of oblivion was useful; but the passage from the bar of justice to liberty, was sometimes not longer than the passage from England: and those who rose to wealth, by their character and career, gave to public retribution the aspect of grimace.
On the appointment (1814) of H——, as superintendent of convicts, an office then of greater real power than any other in the penal department of the British empire, Macquarie, says Bigge, gave an enumeration of his merits; and continued frequently to publish in the Gazette eulogies on his character. This is slily sketched by the Commissioner himself, and with more precision by Dr. Reid, who was on the spot at the time. Mr. H—— was a convict, and was placed in office at Sydney, but breaking into the King's stores, either in person or by deputy, and taking away a bale of slops, he was re-transported to Norfolk Island, where he won the government notice by his diligence as a dealer in pork, and was recommended by the commandant to Macquarie. This man exercised his functions in the Turkish style: he rigorously depressed all unseasonable attempts at virtue; but nothing was impossible to those who were able and willing to pay, for whom he was accustomed to act as banker. His manners were coarse to loathsomeness, and he addressed the prisoners in language which outstripped their own;—"eclipsed them in wickedness, and in revolting filthiness." Nor was his domestic position more respectable: his wife was one of two, too bad for endurance, who were forced from the colony, and sent to England for reformation.[122] Such was the man entrusted with more than magisterial power.
While the female prisoners were landed, his clerks became
brokers for masters, friends, and husbands. When ships arrived, boats crowded round them, and the visitors chose, among the female prisoners, a wife, or such other relative as might answer to their prior engagements.[123] Having sworn to these ties of kin, the superintendent assigned them according to the plan of the contracting parties, who, within twenty-four hours, had been total strangers. We may imagine the eclât with which so clever a device would be appeared to the correspondents of the fortunate transport.
Those, whose appearance or dullness excluded them from these resources, were taken to the factory. On their arrival, "according to custom," they were met by a body of men, who, having satisfied the constables, spread before these women the spirits and provisions provided for the feast of welcome: what followed need not be told. The connivance of the superintendent, with the most of these excesses, might be expected from his character; and although he displayed considerable tact in subjecting the prisoners to his control, his appointment and prerogatives almost justified, and they fully accounted for, the rancour with which his patron was opposed and condemned.
Thus Macquarie did not exercise the caution requisite to preserve his generous designs from parliamentary censure: imprudent efforts to give effect to his conviction, involved him in a contest which hastened his recall, and it is said, shortened his life.[124] He raised to the bench, and invited to his table, several emancipists of wealth, and made their social reception the condition of his favor. When elevating to offices, he sometimes violated his own rule of forgetting the past, by basing his eulogy on the reformation of the person he delighted to honor. The details of their character, furnished by the indignant or malicious, cast an air of ridicule on their public reception. The subalterns of the army refused to join their superior officers in entertainments, at which emancipists were guests. The resentment of Macquarie aggravated the quarrel, until the differences divided the colony into factions, and finally originated the emancipist party; and by provoking observation, tended to increase the severity which fell on their successors.
In those times of despotism, many were transported for political offences, which in Great Britain leave no moral stigma, and when forgiven by the crown, close no social circle.[125]
The prosperity of New South Wales—founded on the government expenditure, so vast as to excite the most serious complaints, but so subtle as to elude imperial censure—was but slightly participated by Van Diemen's Land. Its later occupation, the low character of the first settlers, and the subordinate station of its ruler, afforded no room for fashion. Many emancipists in Sydney had become wealthy by the vices of the less cunning and thrifty, and created a social state, without a precedent. They could command the most expensive luxuries; and, compared with them, the highest officers of the government were poor. They looked for the honors of opulence, and did not perceive that an emancipist must pass through oblivion to honor; and that, in this case, to distinguish is to stigmatise.