“ Inducements were especially offered to persons possessed of capital to assist in the development of the country. Assignment developed rapidly; soon eager competition arose for the convict hands that had been at first so reluctantly taken. Great facilities existed for utilizing them on the wide areas of grazing land and on the new stations in the interior. A pastoral life, without temptations and contaminating influences, was well suited for convicts. As the colony grew richer and more populous, other than agricultural employers became assignees, and numerous enterprises were set on foot. ”

“ It was speedily echoed in England, and particularly by Archbishop Whately, who argued that transportation failed in all the leading requisites of any system of secondary punishment. Transportation exercised no salutary terror in offenders; it was no longer exile to an unknown inhospitable region, but to one flowing with milk and honey, whither innumerable friends and associates had gone already. The most glowing descriptions came back of the wealth which any clever fellow might easily amass ”

“ The British legislature, making a virtue of necessity, discovered that transportation to the colonies was bound to be attended by various inconveniences, particularly by depriving the kingdom of many subjects whose labour might be useful to the community; and an act was accordingly passed which provides that convicts sentenced to transportation might be employed at hard labour at home. ”

“ But not only were the convicts idle; they were utterly depraved. It was soon found that the system which kept large bodies always together had a most pernicious effect upon their moral condition. “The congregation of criminals in large batches without adequate supervision meant simply wholesale, widespread pollution,” as was said at the time. These ever-present and constantly increasing evils forced the government to reconsider its position; and in 1846 transportation to Van Diemen’s Land was temporarily suspended for a couple of years, during which it was hoped some relief might be afforded. ”

“ When the influx increased, difficulties as to their employment arose. Free settlers were too few to give work to more than a small proportion. Moreover, a new policy was in the ascendant, initiated by Governor Macquarie, who considered the convicts and their rehabilitation his chief care, and steadily discouraged the immigration of any but those who “came out for their country’s good.” The great bulk of the convict labour thus remained in government hands. ”

“ They came and went, and amused themselves after working hours, so that Sydney and all the large towns were hotbeds of vice and immorality. The masters as a rule made no attempt to watch over their charges; many of them were absolutely unfitted to do so, being themselves of low character, “emancipists” frequently, old convicts conditionally pardoned or who had finished their terms. No effort was made to prevent the assignment of convicts to improper persons; every applicant got what he wanted, even though his own character would not bear inspection. ”

“ A further and more systematic development of the system of transportation took place in 1617, when an act was passed by which offenders who had escaped the death penalty were handed over to contractors, who engaged to transport them to the American colonies. These contractors were vested with a property in the labour of the convicts for a certain term, generally from seven to fourteen years, and this right they frequently sold. Labour in those early days was scarce in the new settlements ”

“ The natural growth of a prosperous colonial community made no advance, and convict labour did little to stimulate it, the public works, essential for development, and construction of roads were neglected ”

“ Portugal also has tried deportation to the African colony of Angola on a small scale with some success, and combined it with free emigration. The settlers have been represented as well disposed towards the convicts, gladly obtaining their services or helping them in the matter of security. ”

“ The stage which transportation was now reaching and the actual condition of affairs in the Australian colonies about this period do not appear to have been much understood in England. Earnest and thoughtful men might busy themselves with prison discipline at home, and the legislature might watch with peculiar interest the results obtained from the special treatment of a limited number of selected offenders in Millbank penitentiary. ”

“ It meant too often transfer to a new world under conditions more favourable to success, removed from the keener competition of the old. By adroit management, too, convicts often obtained the command of funds, the product of nefarious transactions at home, which wives or near relatives or unconvicted accomplices presently brought out to them. It was easy for the free new-comers to secure the assignment of their convict friends ”

“ He was strongly of opinion that the penitentiary should be built by convict labour. Howard withdrew from the commission, and new members were appointed, who were on the eve of beginning the first penitentiary when the discoveries of Captain Cook in the South Seas turned the attention of the government towards these new lands. The vast territories Australian penal settlements.of Australasia promised an unlimited field for convict colonization, and for the moment the scheme for penitentiary houses fell to the ground. ”

“ The agricultural enterprise was a complete failure. The wrong sites for cultivation were chosen, the labourers were unskilled and they handled very indifferent tools. Want amounting to constant starvation was a constant rule ”