The History of Tasmania Volume II Part 14

The opinions that prevailed among the prisoners, in reference to the intentions of the British government, were adopted by Macquarie himself; he held, like them, that the colony was established for the benefit of persons convicted, and that in forming a system of political government, their social welfare was the grand design to pursue. The notion was not without support. In the nominal list of the first fleet, not more than fifty in all were banished for terms exceeding seven years.[112] To suppose that these were perpetually excluded from the immunities of British subjects, would be to attribute to expatriation a forfeiture beyond the operation of English law. The opinion was further fortified by the distribution of land, under regulations which were intended to encourage their permanent settlement, and limited only to such as, "by their good conduct and disposition to industry, should be deserving of favor, and receive emanc.i.p.ation and discharge from their servitude."[113] This opinion was still further sustained by the comparative neglect of emigration, and the selection of officers, for situations of authority and trust, from the ranks of the prisoners. A comparison of property acquired by the various cla.s.ses, in 1820, explains many anomalies[114] in their social aspect, and vindicates the policy of Macquarie himself. It is shown, that the emancipists and their children were more than five times in excess of the free; and that their property in land, trade, and commerce, exceeded by more than one-half the possessions of the voluntary settlers.

To erect the barriers of caste around so small a section, and to exclude emancipists from the common intercourse of social life, was a task no Governor could then accomplish, without danger. The changes which followed Macquarie's administration, especially the growth of a free population, enabled his successors to effect what, in 1817 to 1820, had been attempted in vain. The opposition encountered by Macquarie, and which he resented with the ardour of his character,[115] enabled his enemies to represent him as the patron of criminals. He was said to look upon their offences in the light of misfortunes, which they were to repair in the country of their exile, rather than to atone by the severities of toil and privation;[116] and that they were taught to look upon no t.i.tle to property, as so just as that which had been derived by pa.s.sing from crime to conviction; from thence to servitude, emanc.i.p.ation, and grant.[117]

The difference of opinion and feeling between the Governor and military, led to the combination of emancipists, who did not veil their former condition, but enn.o.bled it by raising it to a political interest; who adopted a designation, and formed a system of morality, to which it is useless to look for a parallel. They returned with bitterness the reproaches of the free, and insisted on the benefit of the proverb, which ascribes more virtue to the vigor of reformation, than the constancy of obedience.[118] Their advocates would ask, with exultation, whether any emigrants were found whose life would bear a scrutiny?

Whether greater crimes are not tolerated by the refinements of vice than those which are commonly visited with the vengeance of the law? or, exhibiting the doctrines of christianity in their aspect to the penitent, they thundered forth denunciations against the proud and the self-righteous! The champion of this system, Mr. W. C. Wentworth, turned the artillery of his wrath against the exclusionists: "and shall not,"

he exclaimed, in the ardour of his youth, "shall not the sole efficacious remedy be administered (the restoration of the civil rights, capacity to become magistrates and legislators), because a set of _interlopers_, in nowise connected with the purposes for which this colony was founded, wish to monopolise all the respectable offices of the government, all the functions of emolument, dignity, and power, themselves." "How can they expect pardon of G.o.d, if they withhold oblivion from their repentant fellow creatures." "Retrospection should not be pushed beyond the period of arrival, but then subsequent good behaviour should be subject to the severest tests. The re-convicted offender, branded with the _lasting_ impressions of infamy, should be rendered ever after incapable."[119]

Such was the recognised code of the emancipist: it were, indeed, easy to see that the several convictions of some small rogue might not, in their aggregation, equal the crime of him who sinks a s.h.i.+p or burns a house, or the guilt of an atrocious offence, which escapes the last penalty of public vengeance, by some legal error; but to obliterate the first stigma of those who const.i.tuted the great body of a population, and whose self-respect was their chief chance of virtue, was not unreasonable.

The evils which rose from this system of oblivion, are to be traced to the indiscretion which formed a community of criminal origin. The effects produced by their equipages, luxury, and licentiousness, on the British population, when set forth in the language of romance, were not to be charged on the local government. It is in the nature of commerce to collect wealth: the traders were nearly all expirees; they became rich, not because they were transported, but because some were industrious, others saving, and others fraudulent; and because they were in the midst of a system of expenditure, which made the Treasury of England their bank.

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 pa.s.sage from the bar of justice to liberty, was sometimes not longer than the pa.s.sage 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 coa.r.s.e 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 a.s.signed them according to the plan of the contracting parties, who, within twenty-four hours, had been total strangers. We may imagine the _eclat_ 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 partic.i.p.ated 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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 pa.s.s through oblivion to honor; and that, in this case, to distinguish is to stigmatise.

It was observed by Mr. Bigge, that when Macquarie made some emancipists magistrates, and professed by that dignity to restore them to the station they had lost, he forgot that they were elevated to a rank they had never filled. It was equally true, that a large number of free colonists, whose pretensions in early life were equally limited, rose by opulence to a superior station, and higher pretensions: to deny the usual appendages of their position, would be virtually to degrade them.

Whether just or not, the formal exclusion of emancipists was a supplement to the penalty of the law, and, as such, must have been taken. It is not the actual exaltation, but equal eligibility of British subjects to the highest station, which const.i.tutes that equality so grateful to Englishmen: the son of a sweep may keep the conscience of a king.

There were freed men, who were even detestable for their wealth; others, whose offences would not have excluded them from any society. Such was that of Mr. Redfern, transported when a boy, for dropping a word to the mutineers of the Nore. Society will ever make its exceptions, founded on the nature of the offence, the proofs of reformation, or the general character; but Governor Macquarie resolved to wash out the stain by authority, and to treat those as enemies who disputed his policy, or refused to share in its promotion.

The determination of the free to make no distinction between those who merited the oblivion of their offences, and emancipists atrocious in their history and character, rendered the hostility of caste more inveterate.

The measures of Macquarie were followed by years of faction: a press, representing emancipist interests and emancipist principles, and making the Governor the instrument or the object of the most violent hatred; still, on their side, the emigrants were often positive, virulent, and contemptuous.

From this, Van Diemen's Land was free: there were few whose wealth or education could pretend to rank. One gentleman so situated, Mr.

Gatehouse, by his respectability and intelligence, won the respect of all cla.s.ses: he was admitted to the table of the Governor, and was only distinguished by the colonists for his enterprise and probity. When an office of trust was in their gift, they chose him to share it with the chief merchants of the island; and thus p.r.o.nounced the judgment which good men will adopt, against both an undiscriminating ban and an unlimited admission.

The Commissioner, Bigge, joined with the anti-emancipists, in almost every prejudice or opinion. Great as were the services he rendered by his keen observation and courageous delineation of colonial society, in this, and some other instances, he overlooked those facts of its history, which gave a disastrous prominence and authority to the emancipist settlers; and enabled them to claim consideration which offended the free men, not always superior in substantial merit.

But disabilities, far more serious and unexpected, united the emancipists, and obtained the sympathy of many who could not be charged with indifference to crime. The remission of punishment was in the discretion of the Governor-in-chief: the 30 Geo. iii, authorised the granting of pardons, and the commission of the Governor, which recited this provision, was supposed to convey the power. In 1811, Macquarie declared that a long course of good conduct would be an essential preliminary; but the rule was more easily stated than enforced: and, in 1813, one day in the year was fixed for pardons. It was declared that conditional pardons could only be granted when ten years, or half sentence, had expired; or, for absolute pardons, until fifteen years, or three-fourths had been fulfilled.

Fond of dispensing mercy, he appointed a day, when those who thought themselves ent.i.tled crowded his presence. The pet.i.tions, drawn up by letter-writers, dwelt on every topic calculated to move to compliance; among which were profuse compliments to the Governor's benevolence and humanity. The concourse of suppliants was often very great--many venturing to ask, who did not hope to obtain; and whose sole claim to mercy, was the bad terms on which they lived with the law. The crowd pressed on with their (700) pet.i.tions, which the Governor read in their presence, and by one letter of the alphabet gave liberty to the impatient captives, or sent them back to merit freedom, as freedom was then merited. The _Court of Clemency_, thronged by suitors, would have afforded a fine subject to the artist--a scene unique in the history of man.

The dispensation of pardons was not regulated by any uniform principles.

The interest of superintendents was given, as the reward of task-work performed for the crown; more successful, by services rendered to themselves. Such was a common condition; but many are mentioned, who obtained their pardons on easier terms than personal labor. The loan of a horse and cart, driven by his a.s.signed servants, procured the liberation of the lender; others hired vehicles to convey his Excellency's baggage during his progresses, and thus payed in money the price of freedom. The bargain was public, and questions of national policy never entered the minds of him who granted, or those procuring the royal mercy. The grant of pardons, thus formed an important department of Macquarie's government.

A decision of the Court of King's Bench, Bullock _v._ Dodds, where the plaintiff was an emancipist, seemed to peril their freedom and property.

The defendant, when sued in England on a bill, pleaded the attaint of the plaintiff, who had received the pardon of Macquarie. The validity of these remissions, which affected great numbers, was thus brought to the test. The Chief Justice, Abbott, declared that an attainted person was, in law, as one _civiliter mortuus_: he might _acquire_, not because he was ent.i.tled _to hold_ any possession, but because a _donor_ could not make _his own act_ void, and reclaim his _own gift_. Thus, a person giving or conveying property, could not _recall_ it, but the convict attaint could not _hold_ it; and it pa.s.sed to the hands of the crown, in whom the property of the convict vested. This being the law, any ticket-of-leave holder, or any person whatever standing on the pardon of the Governor, was liable to be deprived by the crown, or obstructed at any moment in attempting to recover by suit at law.

The practice of the Sydney Supreme Court had long virtually rejected such distinctions. The mixed considerations of convenience and equity induced the judges to allow the witnesses and plaintiffs the same privilege, whether under attainder or not. Judge Field[126] declared, that while the crown did not interfere, the court would not touch the property of the convict: nothing but an attested copy of conviction, would be admitted as evidence of conviction. Nor would the proof of transportation, of itself, as the law then stood, prove the incompetence of a witness. His time might have expired; his expatriation might have been the condition of his pardon, or his offence might have been a misdemeanour, and not involve the corruption of blood;[127] and, except for perjury or subornation of perjury, the King's pardon might restore his competency to give evidence, or hold property. On these grounds the courts of New South Wales were enabled to evade the plea of attainder in bar of a just action.

But the decision of the King's Bench discovered a serious omission in the forms of pardon issued by Macquarie, and further enquiry even threw doubt on his power to grant them at all. The Act of Parliament empowered the crown to delegate the _authority to remit_ a sentence of transportation, to the Governor of New South Wales; but the commission of Macquarie said nothing of this power, except the criminals were colonially convicted, when he could grant reprieves and pardons. His _instructions_ authorised the pardons to British offenders, and those instructions were warranted by _parliamentary enactment_; but the royal commission gave _no such power_: and thus all his pardons were legally void.

Another essential condition was neglected: to give effect to the pardon of the Governor, it was required that he should transmit to the Secretary of State the names of the persons whose sentences he remitted, to secure their insertion in the next list of general pardons. This course had never been taken: no list of remissions had been furnished to Downing-street.

Among the extraordinary omissions of the government at home, was in many instances the place of trial, and even the sentence of the transports; to save the labour of penmans.h.i.+p, "ditto," was sometimes the sentence found under another name, in the line of which 7, or 14, was written; not at full length, but in numerals. Some "indents" exhibited erasures: in one, a sentence of seven years had been converted to "life." More strange than all, some were sent without even their names, and others without any sort of information of their crime or sentence; and the authorities felt justified in gaining by artifice, from the unsuspecting prisoners themselves, what the ministers had neglected to furnish.

An Irishman, who could give no information, was suited to a sentence by a process of a.n.a.logy: he was set down, in compliment to his comrade, for "life."[128] The regular transmission of this kind of information was neglected, chiefly, by the Irish executive; ever slow to perceive the obligation of reason and justice. The longevity of abuses is among the most instructive lessons of history. The first fleet left their lists with the owners of the transports: soon after their arrival, several prisoners declared their sentence was completed; this, the government was unable to affirm or deny, and therefore did nothing; but one of the claimants, having expressed his discontent in a manner disrespectful to the Lieutenant-Governor, received 600 lashes, and six months in irons![129] Such atrocious neglect of the first principles of equity, is a sad set-off against the license of indiscriminate pardons. The Roman judge was a far better casuist: "For it seemeth to me unreasonable, to send a prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid against him."[130]

A quarrel between Mr. Justice Field and Mr. Eagar, an emancipist attorney, displayed more forcibly the effect of the decision of the English Chief Justice. Judge Field presided at a session of magistrates at Parramatta, when Eagar attempted to act as counsel: this was prevented by the court; and the judge, as chairman, expressed himself, in reference to Eagar, in terms of severe disapprobation and contempt, stigmatising him as a common _barrator_, or mover of quarrels, whom the Governor might justly prosecute for sedition, or banish from the colony.

Eagar, not daunted by the philippic of the judge, resolved to sue him in a secondary court for slander, and to recover back fees paid in the Supreme Court, and which he alleged the judge had levied illegally; but Judge Field ordered his solicitor to file an affidavit of his belief that Eagar was under attainder, and prayed for time to obtain an office copy of his conviction: this course was allowed, and the action defeated.

Not long after, Eagar attempted to recover certain penalties imposed by the Act of Charles II. on foreign merchants trading in the British plantations: the penalties were enormous, and the law was obsolete. The particular object of Eagar was, to suppress the compet.i.tion in the sale of tea, which the superior trading connection of Messrs. L. Mestre and Co. enabled them to offer. The French merchant very fairly pleaded the attaint of the plaintiff, and Judge Field, in giving judgment, insisted on the obvious injustice of the suit; that men, whose trading was permissive--themselves the creatures of indulgence--and who, by connivance, were allowed to become wealthy and prosperous--should endeavour to rouse forgotten and restrictive statutes, to put down useful commerce, and abuse privileges conceded by the clemency of the court; to force the court to become the instrument of oppression: he therefore allowed the plea of the merchants to bar the action of the plaintiff.

All this, on the face of it, was just; but the emancipists saw that it gave to the judge a discretion which laid them helpless at his mercy: the same plea might be offered, to cover a fraudulent debtor, or deprive a large majority of traders of legal protection. Nor was it a competent answer, that the policy of the colony had been of an opposite description: to stand on suffrage, was to stand in peril.

Prompted by this feeling, the emancipists formed themselves into committees at all the settlements, and obtained the countenance of the Governor to a plan for moving the British legislature, to correct the anomalies of the law. At a public meeting, Mr. Redfern presiding, the administration of Governor Macquarie was the subject of their glowing eulogy. They predicted, that his name would be immortalised by the grat.i.tude of their descendants, who would remember his policy with veneration. Against this meeting the judges protested, and professed to foresee great peril to the dignity of their tribunals, and to the public safety; but the calm and guarded proceedings of the emancipists avoided the scandal, and gained their cause some support. The indignation of the judges was unreasonable: in the administration of justice they had usually protected the equitable rights of the emancipists; but it was no reason for astonishment, that a large trading interest felt uneasy in holding by indulgence privileges of so great importance, and were anxious to obtain, by a declaratory statute, the remedy of their grievances. Mr. Eagar was nominated secretary to their body, and instructed to obtain parliamentary support: in this he was successful.

In the discussions of the Commons, the discontent of the emancipists was condemned by the tories, and vindicated by the whigs. Peel charged Macquarie with culpable neglect, in omitting to forward the lists; but he observed, no general pardon had been issued for fifty years: what it meant, was unknown! The Act required the Governor to send home the names, and the Secretary to insert them in a general pardon; but he could not tell in what manner to perform this duty. This was, he said, of no practical moment: an individual might sue out a pardon, under the great seal, without cost. He strongly opposed vesting by law in the Governor, a power to grant absolute pardons--an interference with the prerogative royal, and dangerous to public justice. To sustain this opinion, he instanced the case of a man who had been transported for forging a t.i.tle to an estate, and who, under such a pardon, had returned to Scotland to pursue his claim.

The zeal of Eagar in the cause of the emancipists, provoked the animadversion of ministers: they hinted that he was liable to be treated as a felon at large, and was indebted to the lenity of the executive for his safety; but Sir James Mackintosh, who gave respectability to the cause he espoused, vindicated the claims of the emancipist with great warmth, and excused the earnestness with which the confirmation of his t.i.tle to liberty had been sought. That great and good man displayed, in every debate, the generosity of his temper: always the enemy of despotism, every form of oppression called him into action, and the emancipists were largely indebted to his eloquence. After long delay, this agitating question was settled, but with a reservation of serious moment. The new law[131] confirmed all the pardons granted in New South Wales, with the rights they included; rendering them of full effect when they should be ratified by the crown. It further provided that no future pardon should be held valid until allowed by the Secretary of State, and then only within the colony of New South Wales and its dependencies--a serious drawback from the attractions of the boon, as understood before; but which was no barrier to the further extension of the royal clemency.

The opponents of Macquarie argued, that the profusion of mercy had not been followed by reformation: the emancipists, they alleged, were unchanged in principle, and never abandoned their habits of crime. This view was sustained by Mr. Wentworth's representations, which were intended to subserve another end. He attempted to prove that financial oppression had driven back the expiree on his former course, which the anti-emancipists maintained he had never forsaken.[132] It was, however, the universal opinion, that atrocious crimes were diminished, and misdemeanours increased.

The penal statistics were swollen by the extensive jurisdiction of police: by the cognizance of acts which, in other countries, are left to opinion. The distribution of public money, annually increasing towards a quarter of a million, placed within the reach of all the pleasures they were accustomed to obtain, without the risks of crime. A closer inspection does not, however, exalt our opinion of their moral worth; of 4,376 emancipists, reported by the chaplains, 369 were tolerable, but 296 only were respectable.[133] Nor was the accusation without force, that the proof of reform, admitted by Macquarie, was the possession of money; that to thrive, by whatever means, within the letter of the statute, was to honor the law, and to deserve well of the crown.

The administration of Macquarie was attacked with great vehemence, and every detail of his scheme called in question. The British government never had a system: the ministers treated every difficulty as a thing apart from all others; and thus to arrest one form of mischief, they released another. They directed the establishment of separate settlements, and thus occasioned the vast expenses of their control. They then approved the concentrated labor of Macquarie, and when its cost became severe, advocated dispersion. Every parliamentary discussion terminated in the abandonment of some principle, or the establishment of some novelty. Always affected by the pa.s.sing aspect of transportation, the people of Great Britain never acquire a connected view of the causes which alter its results; and have thus condemned or applauded the local officers, for events casual or inevitable.

To diminish the pressure of the prisoners on the British treasury, Macquarie granted tickets-of-leave: the holders, without employment and without capital, became robbers. Then he turned his thoughts to public works of permanent utility, and requiring continued labor: these projects gradually absorbed his attention, and perhaps perverted his judgment. Inspired by an able architect, whom the chances of public retribution had thrown in his way, his erections greatly surpa.s.sed the simple constructions of his predecessors. The settlement a.s.sumed the aspect of a large building establishment, such as were seen in the ancient world, when captives were subject to task-masters, and generals were chief masons. The more skilful the mechanic, the greater his value to the works, and the smaller his chance of liberty: yet, to reconcile him to his lot, he was mostly permitted to choose his own abode, and was enabled, by his surplus time, to obtain all the comforts and luxuries of the colony. But the expenditure, which added to the opulence of the settlers, enabled them to build also: they looked with envy on the government which detained so large a proportion of the mechanical power: they forgot that the unproductive employment of large numbers created the demand for their crops, without which no dollar had been theirs to spend. Their outcries rung in the ears of the Commissioner: he blamed the improvidence of the Governor, who had rejected their applications, and threw some ridicule on his architectural ambition. The Commissioner only saw a gaol, but Macquarie believed, that when he erected an edifice he was forming a model; and that in aiming at symmetry and refinement, he was fixing the taste of a people.

The difficulty of reconciling adverse elements in penal colonisation, has been ever visible. The modern principles of colonisation demand concentration: the establishment of so many branch settlements was considered, from the beginning, a great economical error; and by those unaware of its justification, was the subject of strong and pointed condemnation. No sooner, it was observed, had the settlers landed their boxes, than they started a division for Norfolk Island; and others, in rapid succession, broke off into fragmentary colonies. The same bridges, schools, and courts, would be sufficient for ten thousand united people, but must be multiplied with the separate settlements. It was urged that the concentration of labor would decrease the expense of its supervision, and extend the resources of the community, by varying its industry. Such were the doctrines of political writers,[134] but when they were adopted they were found to produce unforeseen practical results.

The dispersion of the first era was necessary to safety: in the time of Macquarie the public was in no apprehension of rebellion or famine, and thus prisoners could be combined; but the aggregation of bad men will always exhibit an appalling and disgusting aspect: and the excesses, sufferings, and debas.e.m.e.nt connected with the public works, the peculation of the officers and the indolence of the men, brought again in view the evils of a.s.sociated labor; and reinforced the arguments for dispersion. The men, when together, became dealers, and indulged in all the vices of cities; scattered, they became savage, and filled the colonies with crimes.

The secondary settlements have been often the theatres of great iniquity and oppression, and the commandants have dared injustice, which no supreme authority would venture: to these meaner, and sometimes contemptible agents, the prisoners must be subjected, on the principle of dispersion. Such practical difficulties start up at every instant, and thus expose the policy of the government to perpetual oscillation.

An instance, of later date, will demonstrate the danger of minute sub-divisions, which exclude a public press and a public opinion. A commandant resolved the seduction of the daughter of a prisoner: he crept into her father's house, and offered violence. The father wrote to the Governor (Brisbane); his letter pa.s.sing, of course, through the office of the commandant; who read the complaint, and ordered the aged parent to the triangles. The doctor, knowing the nature of the offence, refused his sanction, on a plea of health. The tyrant still insisted; but the obstinate humanity of the surgeon prevailed. What then? The father was sent from the station, and, after a while, the daughter was thrown on Sydney, a prost.i.tute. This officer had an accomplished wife: she detected improper company in her room, and her exasperated husband broke her arm to repress her outcries! It is to such hands that the prisoner has been too often entrusted: to men, only known for their vices--broken down by debt and dissipation--who have taken refuge, with the wrecks of their fortune and reputation, in a military command.

The obligation of this history to the Reports of Mr. Bigge, renders it proper to explain the origin, nature, and operation of his commission.

The representations of several colonists, that the administration of Macquarie was subversive of public justice and favorable to crime; that his expenditure was lavish, and his projects ridiculous, had reached the house of parliament. To these charges the Rev. Samuel Marsden, chaplain and magistrate, added the full weight of his authority. This person, from his long residence, had a.s.sumed a prominent place among the magistrates. By his connection with two great societies for the propagation of Christianity (the Church, and the London), he commanded large influence in the religious world. Nothing can be more opposite than the estimates of his character, given by the partisans of the emancipists, and those furnished by his ecclesiastical a.s.sociates.

Soured by the vices rampant around him, and perhaps deteriorated by the administration of justice, when it was hard to distinguish the magistrate from the executioner, he does not always appear to have merited the unmeasured eulogies of his friends.[135] He was, however, celebrated for his attention to the islands of the Pacific, whose welfare he promoted with exemplary diligence: his house was the home of the missionaries who touched at Port Jackson; whose letters spread through Europe the reputation of his benevolence. In reference to his ultimate intentions, their apprehension of his character was probably just; but the magisterial office is rarely compatible with the duties of an ecclesiastic--least of all, when punishments were discretionary, and inflicted on the spot. The servant, charged with a misdemeanour, he flogged; who then took to the bush, and re-appearing, charged with a capital crime, was hanged; and the magisterial divine attended him on the scaffold. This was not peculiar; most clergymen were magistrates.

But Marsden was warm and sensitive--perhaps, resentful. The punishments he inflicted were distinguished for their severity: his opposition to vice, his unsuccessful struggle to prevent it, and some methods of coercion, not then uncommon, but which now look like torture, exposed him to the hatred of the prisoners. The differences between Macquarie and this resolute clergyman, were frequent--they ended in open rupture; and at length became so personally offensive to the Governor, that Marsden was dismissed from the commission of the peace.

Mr. Henry Grey Bennet, member of parliament for Shrewsbury, addressed a letter to Earl Bathurst, founded on the material furnished by Mr.

Marsden. This publication delineated a great variety of abuses, and charged Macquarie with ignorance, rashness, and oppression. Having thus prepared the way, a motion was made in parliament, which led to the issue of the Commission of Enquiry, entrusted to John Thomas Bigge, Esq., a relative of Mr. Bennet, and by profession a barrister. The Commissioner was attended by Mr. Hobbs Scott, formerly a wine-merchant, and afterwards Archdeacon of New South Wales; on whom the prosecution of the enquiry devolved, in the event of the Commissioner's death. The appointment of this commission was extremely painful to Macquarie: it expressed distrust in the government, or the ascendancy of his opponents in parliament. Nor was it difficult to foresee, that an enquiry conducted by one individual, who must depend on the statements of factions, and colonial factions, of all the least scrupulous--always liable to many serious errors--must become a formidable instrument in the hands of one or other of the parties struggling for supremacy.