First idea of riddance of bad characters—James I removes certain dissolute persons—Sale of criminals as indentured servants to American Colonies and West Indies—Prices and profits—American Revolution closes this outlet—Discoveries by Captain Cook leads to the adoption of Botany Bay as the future receptacle—First fleet sails March, 1787—Settlement made at Port Jackson, christened Sydney—Landing of convicts—Early labours—Famine and drought—Efforts to make community self-supporting—Assisted emigration a failure—General demoralisation of society—Arrival of convict ships and growth of numbers—Unsatisfactory condition of Colony.

News of the discoveries, by Captain Cook, of vast lands in the South Seas reached England just as the scheme of Penitentiary Houses had been projected by John Howard, the great philanthropist, to remedy and reform the abuses of gaol administration. Why embark on a vast expenditure to build new prisons when the entire criminal population might be removed to a distance to work out their regeneration under another and a brighter sky? The idea was singularly attractive and won instantly in the public mind. The whole country would be rid of its worst elements, the dregs and failures of society, who would be given a new opportunity in a new land to lead a new life and by honest labours become the prosperous members of a new community established by virtue. The banishment of wrong-doers had long appealed to rulers as a simple and effective means of punishment, combined with riddance.

The first actual record of transportation is in the reign of James I, when prisoners were conveyed to the youthful Colony of Virginia, where Cromwell had sent his political captives beyond the Atlantic to work for the settlers as indentured servants or assigned slaves. Early in the eighteenth century the penalty was regularly introduced into the British criminal code. An act in that year commented upon the inefficiency of the punishments in use and pointed out that in many of his Majesty's colonies and plantations in America there was a great want of servants, who, by their labour and industry, would be the means of improving and making the said colonies more useful to the nation. Persons sentenced nominally to death were henceforth to be handed over to the contractors who engaged to transport them across the seas. These contractors became vested with a right in the labour of convicts for terms of seven and fourteen years, and this property was sold at public auction when the exiles arrived at the plantations. The competition was keen and the bids ran high at a date prior to the prevalence of negro slavery. To meet the demand the pernicious practice of kidnapping came into vogue and flourished for half a century, when it was put down by law. The price paid according to the mercantile returns ranged at about £20 per head, although it appears from a contemporary record that for two guineas a felon might purchase his freedom from the captain of the ship. The condition of these "transports" was wretched, and contractors often complained that their cargoes of human beings were so damaged on the voyages, and the subsequent mortality was so great, that serious misgivings arose as to whether it was worth while to enter upon the traffic.

Suddenly the successful revolt of the American Colonies closed them as a receptacle for the criminal sewages of Great Britain. Another outlet must be found, and for a time convicts sentenced or liable to transportation were kept at hard labour in the hulks in harbours and arsenals at home. Then Captain Cook found Botany Bay in the antipodes, and for a long time after their inauguration public opinion ran high in favour of penal establishments beyond the seas. "There was general confidence," says Merivale, "in the favourite theory that the best mode of punishing offenders was that which removed them from the scene of offence and temptation, cut them off by a great gulf of space from all their former connections, and gave them the opportunity of redeeming past crimes by becoming useful members of society." Through whatever mire and discomfort it may have waded, beyond doubt Australia has risen to a rank and importance which entitles it to remember unabashed the origin from which the colony sprang. It has long since outgrown the taint of its original impurity. Another writer asserts that "on the whole, as a real system of punishment it (transportation) has failed; as a real system of reform it has failed, as perhaps would every other plan, but as a means of making men outwardly honest, of converting vagabonds most useless in one country, into active citizens in another, and thus giving birth to a new and splendid country, a grand centre of civilisation, it has succeeded to a degree perhaps unparalleled in history." All this is of course indubitable. But in the process of manufacture, Great Britain in fifty years expended eight millions of hard cash, and remained as full of criminals as ever.

The early history of New South Wales as told in the pages of Collins reads like a romance. Captain Arthur Phillip, R. N., the first governor, started from Portsmouth in the month of March, 1787, with nine transports and two men-of-war—the "first fleet" of Australian annals. Unlike the Mayflower, bearing its Pilgrim Fathers, men of austere piety and worth, to the shores of New England, this first fleet carried convicts, criminals only, and their guards. Some vessels were laden deeply with stores, others with agricultural implements. Before the fleet was out of the English channel a plot was discovered among some of these desperate characters to seize the ship they were on board, and escape from the fleet. Nearing the Cape of Good Hope a second similar conspiracy came to light, and all through the voyage offences, such as thefts, assaults, abscondings, attempts to pass counterfeit coin, were numerous, and needed exemplary punishment. After a dreary eight months at sea, broken only by short stays at Teneriffe, Rio, and the Cape of Good Hope, the fleet reached Botany Bay in January, 1788. Never had name been more evidently misapplied. The teeming luxuriant vegetation was all a myth, and on closer inspection the "Botanists' Bay" proved to be mere barren swamps and sterile sands. The anchorage though extensive was exposed, and in easterly gales torn by a tremendous surf. Before debarking, therefore, Captain Phillip determined to seek along the coast some site more suitable for the new settlement. Starting with a select party in a small boat for Broken Bay, he passed en route an opening marked upon the chart as Port Jackson, named thus from the look-out man in Cook's ship, who had made it out from the masthead. This is known now as one of the finest and most secure harbours in the world. Here in a cove, where there was deep water for ships of the heaviest burden close in shore, the foundations of the new town were to be laid. It was christened Sydney, after the Secretary of State for the Colonies; and thither a party of convict artificers, guarded by marines, was at once removed to clear land for the intended settlement. When this was accomplished, the remainder of the colonists, 1,030 souls in all, were put on shore.

There was plenty of work to be done, and but few hands to do it. Enlarged clearings were needed; barracks, storehouses, hospitals, dwellings for the superior and other officers, huts for the convicts. Although at the time when the "first fleet" sailed, many thousands of convicts awaiting deportation crowded the various gaols of England, no attempt had been made to select for the new colony those who, from their previous condition and training, would have been most useful to the young community. Of the six hundred male convicts actually embarked, hardly any were skilled as artisans and mechanics. Nay more, though it was meant that the colony should be if possible self-supporting, and that every effort should be made to raise crops and other produce without delay, few, if any, of either the convicts or their keepers had had the least experience in agricultural pursuits. Yet with ordinary care the whole number might have been made up of persons specially qualified, accustomed to work either at trades or in the fields. Nor were there among the sailors of the men-of-war many that could be turned to useful account on shore.

Again, it had been forgotten that if the convicts were to be compelled to work, overseers were indispensable; for laziness is ingrained in the criminal class, and more than change of sky is needed to bring about any lasting change in character and habits. To these retarding causes was soon added wide-spread sickness, the result of long confinement on ship-board, and an unvarying diet of salt provisions. Scurvy, which during the voyage all had escaped, broke out now in epidemic form. Indigenous anti-scorbutics there were next to none, and the disease grew soon to alarming proportions. Many convicts died, and others in great numbers sank under an almost entire prostration of life and energy. On the voyage out there had been forty deaths; now within five months of disembarkation there had been twenty-eight more, while sixty-six were in hospital, and two hundred others were declared by the medical officers to be unfit for duty or work of any kind.

Another difficulty of paramount importance soon stared the whole settlement in the face. So far "the king's store" found all in food, but the supply was not inexhaustible, and might in the long run, by a concurrence of adverse circumstances, be almost emptied, as indeed happened at no remote date. Famine was therefore both possible and probable, unless in the interval the colony were made capable of catering for its own needs. To accomplish this most desirable end it was necessary to bring ground at once into cultivation, breed stock, and raise crops for home consumption. The first farm was established at Paramatta, fourteen miles from Sydney, and at the same time a detachment under Lieut. King, R. N., of the Sirius, was sent to colonise Norfolk Island, a place highly commended by Captain Cook for its genial climate and fertile soil. "Here," says Laing, "notwithstanding the various discouragements arising from droughts and blighting winds, the depredations of birds, rats, grubs, and thieves to which the settlement was at first exposed, a large extent of ground was gradually cleared and cultivated, and the prospect of raising subsistence for a considerable proportion appeared in every respect more favourable than at Port Jackson."

At the headquarters settlement in these earlier years prospects were poor enough. The land being less fertile needed more skill, and this was altogether absent. The convicts knew nothing of farming—how could they?—and there was no one to teach them. One or two instructors expressly sent out were found quite useless. The only person in the colony competent to manage convicts, or give them a practical knowledge of agriculture, was the governor's valet, and he died in 1791. To add to these troubles a lengthened drought afflicted the country during the first year of the settlement, under which the soil, ungenerous before, grew absolutely barren and unproductive. A man less resolute and able than Captain Phillip might well have recoiled at the task before him. The dangers ahead threatened the very existence of his colony. Hostile natives surrounded him. Within the limits of his settlement he had to face imminent starvation, and to cope with the innate lawlessness of a population for the most part idle, ignorant, and vicious. For it soon became plain that to look for the growth of a virtuous community, except at some remote period, from the strange elements gathered together in New South Wales, was but a visionary's dream.

England's social sewage was not to be shot down in Botany Bay, to be deodorised or made pure just because the authorities willed it. It was vain to count upon the reformation of these people in the present, or to build up hopes of it in the future. We have seen how their natural propensities displayed themselves on the voyage out. These, directly the convicts were landed, developed with rapid growth, so that crimes and offences of a serious nature soon became extremely rife. On the day the governor's commission was read, the governor addressed the convicts, exhorting them to behave with propriety, promising to reward the good while he punished heavily all evil-doers. Next morning nine of the people absconded. Within a week it was found necessary to try three others for thefts, all of whom were flogged. Before the month passed, four more were arraigned charged with a plot to rob the public stores, for which one suffered death, and the others were banished from the settlement. Yet at that time there was no possible excuse for such a crime. When goaded by hunger and privation in the coming years of scarcity, it was at least intelligible that desperate men should be found ready to dare all risks to win one plenteous meal, though even then each convict shared to the same extent as the governor himself. Each man's weekly allowance consisted of 7 lbs. biscuit, 3 lbs. peas, and 6 ozs. butter; 7 lbs. salt beef, or 4 lbs. salt pork. But in the first year the rations were ample, and inherent depravity could alone have tempted these convicts to rob the common store.

About this time another convict offender was pardoned on condition that he become the public executioner. Both "cat" and gallows were now kept busy, yet without effect. "Exemplary punishments," says Collins, "seemed about this period to be growing more necessary. Stock was often killed, huts and tents broken open, and provisions constantly stolen about the latter part of the week; for among the convicts there were many who knew not how to husband their provisions through the seven days they were intended to serve them, but were known to have consumed the whole at the end of the third or fourth day. One of this description made his week's allowance of flour (8 lbs.) into 18 cakes, which he devoured at one meal. He was soon after taken speechless and senseless, and died the following day at the hospital, a loathsome, putrid object." Here again was felt the want of overseers and superintendents of a class superior to that of the convicts, through whom discipline and interior economy might be maintained and regulated. Naturally those selected felt a tenderness for the shortcomings of their fellows, and it was more than difficult to detect or bring home offences to the guilty. A common crime was absence. Many, undeterred by fear of starvation, or savage natives, went off to the woods. One remained there nineteen days, returning to the settlement at night to lay his hands on food. In some cases the absentees were murdered by natives, and their bodies found sometimes with their heads pounded to jelly, but always mutilated, speared or cut in pieces. There were other crimes quite new, as were the punishments meted out to them. One impostor pretended to have discovered a gold mine; but it was proved that he had fabricated the gold dust he produced from a guinea and a brass buckle, and he was condemned to be flogged and to wear a canvas dress decorated with the letter R, "to distinguish him more particularly from others as a rogue." This same offender being afterwards caught housebreaking, suffered death, but not before he had betrayed his accomplices—two women who had received the stolen property. One of these was also executed, while of the other a public example was made. In the presence of the assembled convicts the executioner shaved her head, and clothed her in a canvas frock, on which were painted the capitals R. S. G.—receiver of stolen goods. "This was done," says Collins, "with the hope that shame might operate, at least with the female part of the prisoners, to the prevention of crime; but a great number of both sexes had been too long acquainted with each other in scenes of disgrace for this kind of punishment to work much reformation among them."

Thieving continued on all sides, and the hangman was always busy. Repeated depredations brought one man to the halter, while another, for stabbing a woman, received seven hundred lashes. Scarcely any of the convicts could be relied upon, yet many, in the scarcity of honest freemen, were appointed to posts of responsibility and trust. Generally they abused the confidence reposed in them. The case is mentioned of one Bryant, a seafaring west-country man, who was employed to fish for the settlement. Every encouragement was held out to this man to secure his honesty: a hut was built for him and his family, and he was allowed to retain for his own use a portion of every taking. Nevertheless he was detected in a long continued practice of purloining quantities of fish which he sold for his own gain. But he was too useful to be deprived of his employment, and he was still retained as official fisherman, only under a stricter supervision. Even this he eluded, managing a year or two later to make good his escape from the colony, together with his wife, two children, and seven other convicts. Having for some time laid by a store of provisions, and obtaining from a Dutch ship, in the port of Sydney, a compass, quadrant, and chart, together with information to help him in reaching Timor and Batavia, he stole one of the government boats and made off. Bryant and two of his convict companions being well trained in the management of a boat, and having luck upon their side, in due course reached the ports for which they steered. Others were less fortunate in their attempts to escape; like those who tried to walk to China northward through the Australian continent. Nor did much success wait upon the scheme laid by the convicts at Norfolk Island to overpower their guards, seize the person of the governor, and decamp. Although too wild and preposterous a plot to raise serious alarm, the very existence of this serves to prove the treacherous, untrustworthy character of these felon exiles. Some years later, indeed, in the reign of Governor King, an outbreak somewhat similar, but planned with secrecy and judgment, came actually to a head, and for the moment assumed rather serious proportions. In this, several hundred convicts combined "to strike for their liberty." They had pikes, pistols, and several stands of arms. The insurrection broke out suddenly. Two large bodies marched upon Paramatta, but were closely followed by an officer, Major Johnson, with forty men of the New South Wales Corps, who brought them to an action at Vinegar Hill, and in fifteen minutes dispersed them with great loss.

It is abundantly evident from these and other instances, that the convict population could only be ruled by an iron hand. But I think Governor Phillip would have forgiven them much if they had but been more industrious. Everything hung upon their labour. The colony must continue to be dependent on the mother country for the commonest necessaries of life, until by the work of these felon hands sufficient food was raised to supply subsistence, whenever the public store should grow empty or come altogether to an end. Yet the convicts by no means exerted themselves to the utmost; they foolishly conceived that they had no interest in the success of their labours. Task work had been adopted as the most convenient method of employing them; a certain quantity of ground was allotted to be cleared by a certain number of persons in a given time.

The surplus gained was conceded to them to bring in materials and build huts for themselves. But few cared to take advantage of the privilege, preferring to be idle, or to straggle through the woods, or to visit surreptitiously the French warships lying in Botany Bay. Indeed, the sum total of their efforts was to do just enough to avoid immediate punishment for idleness. Moreover, as time passed, the numbers available for work dwindled down, till at the end of the first year, in January, 1789, that is to say, only two hundred and fifty were employed in the cultivation of land. Many were engaged at the wharves and storehouses, but by far the greater portion were utterly incapacitated by age or infirmity for field labour of any description.

The evil days that were in store did not long delay their coming. Throughout the latter part of 1789, and the early months of 1790, the colony saw itself reduced to terrible straits for food. Relief was daily expected from England, but daily unaccountably delayed. Emptier and more empty grew the King's store. In the month of February, 1790, there remained therein not more than four months' provisions for all hands, and this at half rations. To prepare for the worst, the allowance issued was diminished from time to time, till in April, that year, it consisted only of 2 lbs. of pork, 2 lbs. of rice, and 2½ lbs. of flour per head, for seven days. More than ever in the general scarcity were robberies prevalent. Capital punishment became more and more frequent, without exercising any appreciable effect. Garden thefts were the most common. As severe floggings of hundreds of lashes were ineffectual to check this crime, a new penalty was tried, and these garden robbers were chained together in threes, and compelled to work thus ironed. "Any man," said, years and years afterwards, one of these first fleet convicts who had reached affluence and comfort at last—"any man would have committed murder for a month's provisions; I would have committed three for a week's. I was chained seven weeks on my back for being out getting greens and wild herbs." No doubt in those days of dire privation and famine the sufferings of all were grievous; but the statements of these people must be accepted with the utmost caution, even when divested of half their horrors. The same old convict said that he had often dined off pounded grass, or made soup from a native dog. Another old convict declared he had seen six men executed for stealing twenty-one pounds of flour. "For nine months," says a third, "I was on five ounces of flour a day, which when weighed barely came to four. The men were weak," he goes on, "dreadfully weak, for want of food. One man, named 'Gibraltar,' was hanged for stealing a loaf out of the governor's kitchen. He got down the chimney, stole the loaf, had a trial, and was hanged next day at sunrise."

Food, food, all for food! In its imperious needs hunger drove the unprincipled to brave every danger, and the foolish to excess not less terrible. Collins tells another story of a woman who devoured her whole week's allowance in one night, making up a strange compound of cabbage and flour, of which she ate heartily during the day, "but not being satisfied, she rose again in the night and finished the mess," and died. Throughout these trying times, Governor Phillip maintained a firm front. It is told of him, that seeing a dog run by he ordered it to be killed at once,—as a mouth that was useless, it could not in these days be entitled to food. Then, to ease the mother settlement, a large number of persons were drafted to Norfolk Island, where, thanks to the presence of numbers of wild birds, supplies were more plentiful. In transit, H. M. S. Sirius—the only ship left in the colony—was wrecked in full view of the settlement.

Relief came at length, but in driblets. At the time of greatest need, more mouths arrived instead of more barrels of pork and flour. In February, as I have said, there were but four months' provisions in the stores; yet on the third day of June, two hundred and twenty-two women arrived—"a cargo," says the chronicler, "unnecessary and unprofitable;" while H. M. S. Guardian, which came as convoy and carried all the stores, was lost at sea. Another store ship, the Justinian, happily turned up about the 20th of June.

Later in this month, eleven sail, composing the "second fleet," came into port. In this second fleet the arrangements made were about as good as in slave ships from the Guinea Coast. The mortality on the voyage out had been absolutely frightful. One thousand six hundred and ninety-five male convicts and sixty-eight females were the numbers embarked, and of these one hundred and ninety-four males and four females had died at sea; while such was the state of debility in which the survivors landed in the colony, that one hundred and sixteen of their number died in the Colonial Hospital before the 5th of December, 1791. It seemed that the masters of transports were paid head-money for each convict embarked,—a lump sum of £17 9s. 6d. each. The more, therefore, that died, and the sooner, the less food was consumed, and the greater the consequent profit. Even to the living, the rations were so much reduced below the allowance stipulated by the governor, that many convicts were actually starved to death. In most of the ships very few were allowed on deck at the same time. Crowded thus continually in a foetid atmosphere below, many peculiar diseases were rapidly engendered among them. Numbers died in irons; and what added to the horror of such a circumstance was that their deaths were concealed, for the purpose of sharing their allowance of provisions, until chance and the offensiveness of a corpse directed the surgeon, or some one who had authority in the ship, to the spot where it lay. In one of the ships a malignant fever had prevailed during the latter part of the voyage, to which the captain, with his first and second officers, had succumbed; while in another, the usual plot to take the ship was discovered, and had to be checked with severe repressive measures, which increased the tribulation of these hapless wretches.

Colonel Collins, in his "Account of New South Wales," gives but a sorry picture of the condition in which these ill-fated exiles of the second fleet arrived at New South Wales. "By noon," he says, "the following day the two hundred sick had been landed from the different transports. The west side afforded a scene truly distressing and miserable: upwards of thirty tents were pitched in front of the hospital, the portable one not yet being put up, all of which, as well as the hospital and the adjoining huts, were filled with people, many of whom were labouring under the complicated diseases of scurvy and dysentery, and others in the last stages of either of those terrible disorders, or yielding to the attacks of an infectious fever. The appearance of those who did not require medical assistance was lean and emaciated. Several of these people died in the boats as they were rowing on shore, or on the wharf as they were lifted out of the boats; both the living and the dead exhibiting more horrid spectacles than had ever been witnessed in this country. All this was to be attributed to confinement of the worst species, confinement in a small space and in irons—not put on singly, but many of them chained together."

The years immediately subsequent witnessed a repetition of what had already occurred. The colony found itself again and again brought to the lowest ebb; and then, when in the last stage, starvation stared it in the face, there came more convicts and more salt meat. All through, the health of the inhabitants continued indifferent, in spite of the natural salubrity of the climate. This was partly due to the voyage out; also to the diet, insufficient and always salt; and not a little to the gloomy outlook for all concerned in this far-off miserable settlement. Yet, through all vicissitudes, the governors who in turn assumed the reins bore up bravely, and governed with admirable energy and pluck. They were all—at least for the first twenty years—captains of the Royal Navy, trained in a rough school, but eminently practical men. Their policy was much the same. They had to bring land into cultivation, develop the resources of the colony, coerce the ill-conditioned, and lend a helping hand to any that gave earnest of a reform in character.

It will be seen that so far the colony of New South Wales consisted entirely of two classes, the convicts and their masters. In other words, it was a slave settlement—officials on the one hand as taskmasters; on the other, criminals as bondsmen who had forfeited their independence, and were bound to labour without wages for the State. The work to be done in these early days was essentially of a public character. It was for the common good that food should be raised, storehouses erected; the whole body of the population benefited, too, by the hospitals, while the building of barracks to house the guardians of order was also an advantage to all. But such preliminary and pioneer works once fairly started, the next step towards a healthy and vigorous life for the colony was the establishment therein of a respectable middle class—a body of virtuous and industrious settlers to stand between the supreme power and the serfs it ruled. People of this kind were wanted to give strength and stability to the settlement, to set an example of decorum, and by their enterprising industry to assist in the development of the country. But they must come from England; they were not to be looked for "among discharged soldiers, shipwrecked seamen, and quandam convicts." Governor Phillip at once admitted this, and from the first strongly urged the home government to encourage free emigration by every means. The distance from England was, however, too great to entice many across the seas, and the passage out would have swallowed up half the capital of most intending settlers. Several free families were therefore sent out in 1796 at the public expense, receiving each of them a grant of land on arrival and free rations for the first ensuing eighteen months.

But this assisted emigration was carried out in a very half-hearted, incomplete fashion, so much so that for a long time—till years after the peace of 1815—says Heath in his "Paper on Secondary Punishments," "a large proportion of the free settlers are described as of a low character, not very superior to that of the convicts." Their numbers were very small, being recruited indeed from the three sources above mentioned—the soldiers, the sailors, and the convicts themselves. Naturally, as time passed and sentences lapsed, the last mentioned supplied a very numerous class. Every effort was made to give them a fair start on the new road they were expected to follow. They received grants of land, varying from ten to sixty acres, with additional slices for children or wife. Pigs, seed-corn, implements, rations and clothing were served out to each from the King's store; and, thus provided for, straightforward industry would soon have earned for them an honest competence. But in comparatively few instances did these convict settlers thrive. They formed a body of small proprietors of the worst class, ruining their land by bad farming, and making those who were still convicts far worse by the example they set of dissoluteness and dissipation.

Society now, and for years to come, presented a curious spectacle. Its most conspicuous features were its drunkenness and its immorality. The whole community might be divided into those who sold spirits and those who drank them. Everything went in drink. The crops were no sooner gathered than they went for spirits. Any hope of raising the general tone of society was out of the question so long as this unbounded intemperance prevailed. Besides this, there was neither marrying nor giving in marriage. In Governor Bligh's time two-thirds of the births were illegitimate. Bands of robbers, the first bushrangers, infested the country, levying blackmail, and, entering the homes of the defenceless settlers in open day, committed the most fearful atrocities.

This general recklessness and immorality was fostered by the monopoly of sale possessed by the officers of the New South Wales Corps. These gentlemen, who came out in 1792 as officers of this local regiment, were for very many years a thorn in the side of the constituted authorities. Bound together by esprit de corps and unity of interest, they were constantly at war with the governor, and generally successful. Everything was made subservient to them. They had become by degrees engaged in commercial operations, and in time they alone had permission to purchase all cargoes of merchandise that came into port. These goods they retailed at an enormous profit, so that the small farmers were nearly ruined by the prices they had to pay for such necessaries as they required. "Hence," as Laing says, "they (these small farmers) lost all hope of bettering their circumstances by honest industry, and were led into unbounded dissipation." The figure cut by officers who wore the king's uniform in thus descending to traffic and peddle is not over-dignified. Nor were they always over-scrupulous in their dealings. As my narrative is concerned rather with the convict element and the vicissitudes of transportation than with the general history of the colony, it would be beyond my scope to enlarge upon the well-known "rebellion," in which this New South Wales Corps played the prominent part. In a few words, this amounted to the forcible ejectment from office of the King's representative, Governor Bligh, by those who were themselves the guardians of the King's peace. It would be tedious to argue here the two sides of the question; but, even allowing that both sides were to blame, it seems clear that the rebellious troops were most in the wrong. Eventually this New South Wales Corps ceased to exist as such, and becoming a numbered regiment, the 102nd of the line, was removed from the colony.

Meanwhile the convicts continued to pour in. Between 1795 and 1801, 2,833 arrived; 2,398 from 1801 to 1811. In the years between the comings of the first and second fleets, attempts had been made to improve the arrangements for sending them out. As soon as the hulks at home were full, and convicts began to accumulate, vessels were chartered for New South Wales. Each carried 200 with a guard of 30 soldiers. The men selected for transportation were always under fifty, and were taken from those sentenced for life or fourteen years. When these were found insufficient to provide the necessary draft, the numbers were made up from the seven-year men, and of these the most unruly were chosen, or those convicted of the more atrocious crimes. The females were sent indiscriminately, the only provision being that they must be under fifty years of age. Lists accompanied them out in all cases. These lists were deficient in all useful information—without particulars of crimes, trades, or previous characters; points on which information had to be obtained from the convicts themselves. The transport ships were supposed to be well found in all respects: clothes, medicines, and provisions for the voyage and for nine months afterwards were put on board at the public expense. The owner supplied a surgeon, and the admiralty laid down precise instructions for his guidance. The master, too, was bound over to be careful of his living cargo. On arrival his log-book was submitted for inspection, and the governor of New South Wales was empowered to reward him a special gratuity on the one hand, or on the other to mulct and prosecute him, according to his behaviour on the voyage out.

On arrival at Sydney the convicts were either disposed of as servants to settlers, or retained in government hands. We have here the system of assignment, though as yet quite in embryo. While settlers of any wealth were few, there was little demand for convict labourers, except as simple servants; although in the case of some of the leading officials, who had already considerable grants of land under cultivation, as many as forty were, even in these early days, assigned to the same master.

The great mass of the convicts were therefore retained by the government. They were fed, clothed, and lodged by government, and organised in gangs. Each gang was under an overseer—an old convict—who was certain to err either on the side of culpable leniency towards his charges, or of brutal cruelty. Stories are told of an overseer who killed three men in a fortnight from overwork at the sawmill. "We used to be taken in large parties," says the same old hand that I mentioned before, "to raise a tree. When the body of the tree was raised, old ---- (the overseer) would call some of the men away, then more. The men were bent double, they could not bear the weight—they fell, and on them the tree, killing one or two on the spot. 'Take them away: put them in the ground.' There was no more about it." Another overseer was described as "the biggest villain that ever lived. He delighted in torment, and used to walk up and down rubbing his hands when the blood ran. When he walked abroad the flogger walked behind him. He died a miserable death: maggots ate him up. Not a man could be found to bury him." A third overseer was sent to bury a man who, though weak and almost insensible, was not dead. "For God's sake," cried the poor wretch, "don't cover me up. I'm not dead." "You will be before night," replied the overseer. "Cover him up" (with an oath), "or we shall have to come back again to do the work a second time." On the other hand, it was known that overseers connived at irregularities of every description. The men were allowed to work as little as they pleased; many left their parties altogether to rob, and returned at nightfall to share their plunder with the overseers. Naturally the work accomplished for the public service did not amount to much. The hours of labour were from 6 A. M. to 3 P. M., after which the rest of the day belonged to the convict to be spent in amusement or labour profitable to himself. Even in these days the punishment of transportation fell most unequally on different men. While the commoner classes of offenders were consigned to the gangs or drafted off to be the slaves of the low-bred settler, persons who had held a higher station in life, or who had been transported for what came to be called "genteel crimes," forgery, that is to say, embezzlement, and the like, were granted tickets-of-leave at once, which exempted them from all compulsory labour and allowed them to provide for themselves. To them the only hardship entailed by their crimes was the enforced exile.

So far we have had to deal only with the difficulties encountered by the young colony and the steps taken to combat them. It is too soon to speak of the consequences that were entailed by forming a new settlement from the dregs of society. I will only state in general terms what was the actual state of affairs. A governor at the head of all with full powers nominally, but not nearly autocratic; next to him, as the aristocracy, a band of officials not always obedient, sometimes openly insubordinate, consistent only in pushing forward their own fortunes. Between these and the general body of the colonists a great gulf; the nearest to the aristocracy being the settlers—passing through several gradations—from the better class, few in number, to the pensioner or convict newly set free; at the very bottom, the slave or serf population—the convicts still in bondage.

This was the first stage in the colony's existence. With the breaking up of the power of the New South Wales Corps and the appointment of Governor Macquarie a new era opened; and to this I devote the next chapter.