JB_116_133_002.xml

Title: [26 June 1802 B. 5 N. S. Wales 18 1]

Description: 26 June 1802 B. 5 N. S. Wales 18 1

But I must not run on yet to causes: I have not

spoken yet of

consequences.

OnTurning over the Journal of the Judge Advocate, I observe

trains of

may be seen a number of Ordinances 68 or thereabouts issued

between 1787 and October 1796 in the compass of about

more: nine years. These Ordinances were legal or illegal

according to the quality of live

live persons

descriptions of persons — those on whose active faculties

the obligation was respectively imposed by them and

those whose passive faculties were wrought upon and

assisted by them.

1. They may have been legal so far as the party bound and the party affected

by them were the same or though different both belonging to included

in to the class of unemancipated Bondsmen

2. They may have been legal in so far as both parties being of

appertaining to the class of level officers or subordinate

Agents of Government under the Governor the obligation in both ways

was confined within the sphere of subjection marked out by the nature

and duties of their respective offices.

3. They may have been legal within the same

translations in the case of Officers of the Military class

Sea

as well as land service included — supposing the powers

received from the Governors commission to have stretched to that

extreme.

To save

enquiry

description I will take these legality for granted in the case

of the commanders and crews of foreign vessels — and even

in the case of the Commanders and crews of private vessels such

as those in which the Convicts or +

or other or goods for the use of the Colony were

imported into the Colony brought out by contract so long as

they continued on board, or so far as the refusal of

permission depended on the promise of to come or

upon the land.

JB_116_446_001.xml

Title: [Collinc Extracts Marg. Contents I]

Description: Collinc Extracts Marg. Contents

I Reformation General testimonies of depravity

Oct r 1796 Most atrocious crimes frequent.

Convicts dissipated, turbulent, and abandoned.

2

Oct r 1796 Far too many incorrigibles. Rowdy

jail gang.

3.

Oct r Reformation dispaired of by the

Governor.

4

Feb. 1797. Independent Expirees 600: - so many

enemies to public security.

5.

Oct. 1797 Crimes increase.

6.

March 1798. The Colony a nest of villains -

punishments produce no effect - lenity as little.

Importation of good characters, non-importation of bad, the sole

resource observations.

7.

Apr. 1798. Settlers without distinction undeserving.

8.

Oct. 1798. Reformation more & more hopeless

every day, notwithstanding the strictness of the police.

9.

Feb. 1799. Future punishments generally disregarded.

10.

May 1799. Convict Rob t Lowe emancipated for

good behaviour on ships board, & trusted with stock embezzles

it Backsliding general.

I Reformation General testimonies of depravity.

July 1799 Night Robberies increase Watchmen and Constables

negligent or accomplices. subscriptions for rewards for

evidence and associations for vigilance produce little

effect.

12.

Dec. 1799. Wishes for the future but without hopes.

13.

June 1800. Crimes still increasing notwithstanding increase of

executions.

II. General depravity in Females. 1.

July 1798. Females lazy idle and insolent their vices their

children an excuse for laziness.

2.

Aug. 1798. Women far worse than the men.

3.

Oct. 1798. Spirits and women the two irresistible temptations.

4.

Women refractory & disobedient, complaints of these

incessant.

5.

July 1798. Women far worse than the men - recognized so in public

orders. are at the bottom of every crime.

6.

Nov. 1799. Women through indulgence to their sex escape doing

service.

7.

Feb. 1800. Women corrupt the Soldiery - driven to desperation by a

bad women a good soldier destroys himself.

8

Apr. 1800. Cargo of Women Convicts spoken of as a bad cargo.

I Reformation III Depravity - particular exemplifications

1.

Oct 1796. Five murders in one year evidence unobtainable.

2.

Jan. 1799. Burglary in the Commissary House.

3

Jan. 1799. Several hundred poundsworth stolen lately by a nest of thieves.

observations no particular crimes noticed

except incendiarism.

IV - Exemplifications continued - Incendiarism.

1

Jan. 1797 Stack of Government wheat burnt - other stacks saved by

the exertions of a Jail Gang bought by a universal pardon.

Country universally combustible.

Cause of burning wheat, the hope of selling wheat to replace

it.

Evidence unobtainable.

2.

Dec. 1797. A settler being in debt sees his crop burnt & is

beaten by unknown enemies with blackened faces.

I Reformation IV Exemplifications continued - Incendiarism.

3.

Dec. 1797. House burnt by unknown incendiaries - universal

combustability.

4

Oct 1798. Church, used also as a School, burnt to avoid

attendance.

5

Oct r 1798. Hospital

burnt.

6

Jan 1799. Sydney Gaol burnt. Evidence generally unobtainable.

7.

Dec. 1799. Parramatta Gaol burnt. Evidence unobtainable - spite of

rewards.

V. Prevalence of Sloth.

1.

Feb. 1797. Convicts pay 1/3 of their grain to save the trouble of

grinding.

2.

June 1797. Convicts deserting to avoid work return half starved.

The sight prevents not other desertions from the same

cause.

3

March 1799. Daily bread produce no exertions: spirits given as

a reward the utmost exertions. Settlers - their sloth

renders them mostly a dead expence to government.

I. Reformation V. Prevalence of Sloth.

4

Dec. 1799. Vagrancy preferred to 5 s/ a day

and provisions.

5.

Aug. 1801. General sloth an insufferable obstacle to good

management.

VI. Prodigality and Improvidence

1.

Feb. 1797. Settlers run in debt for spirits to the value of their

farms.

2.

March 1798. Settlers run in debt £868.

3.

Want of market for buying. Trifling luxuries purchased and farms

left destitute. Governors exhortations contra 22 s for cup & saucer.

governor spirit

4.

Want of market for buying hence monopolies and excessive

prices.

5.

Corn begged for seed then sold for spirits.

6.

Convicts prodigal and improvident.

Settlers d o

Non-Convicts, as well as Convict Expirees.

7.

Bond Street finery imported and sold Colony drained of cash by an

Irish Ship from England & Rio de Janeiro.

I Reformation VII Remedies unavailing temporal Rewards and Punishments

1.

October 1796. Evidence unobtainable in murder.

2.

Dec. 1797. Evidence unobtainable in Incendiarism - (private wheat

stack) Spite of rewards (freedom on the ground) and Governor's

exhortations.

See Incendiarism N o-

3.

May 1798. Evidence unobtainable in Bull calf stealing spite of

rewards.

4.

Oct r 1798 Evidence unobtainable in Church

burning Rewards £30 and free return.

5.

Jan. 1799 Executions numerous - police vigilant - Magistrates and

Governor active- yet depravity unabated.

6.

Oct. 1799 Evidence unobtainable in ox stealing reward free

return.

7.

Dec. 1799. Evidence unobtainable in incendiarism (Parramatta Gaol)

rewards as before.

8

July 1800 Executions still unavailing.

9

March 1797 No travelling without a passport- to be inspected in

each district - discipline thus galling ineffectual.

I Reformation

VIII. Remedies unavailing Spiritual.

1.

Oct r 1796 Church attendance compelled.

Sabbath better observed than for some time past.

2.

September 1797 Steeple first built the Church to come

afterwards.

3.

Aug. 1798. Religion scoffed at Church attendance

(scoffers women officers to Church attendance) compelled Gen

shops shut during service.

4.

Oct r 1798. Church burnt to

escape attendance storehouse fitted up in lieu.

5

Nov r 1799 Church attendance again

enforced - women particularly.

6.

Aug. 1800. Church attendance Superintendants, Constables &

Overseers to enforce it on pain of dismission.

IX.- Preventive Police unavailing Functionnaries corrupt.

1.

Nov. 1796. Houses at Sydney numbered. watchmen chosen - 3 for each

of its four divisions besides the officer for the military

division. For the result see infra N o

2.

Dec. 1797. Constables chosen - v. N o G-

when they permit escapes For the result see N o9.

I. Reformation. IX.- Preventive Police unavailing

Functionnaries corrupt.

3.

Nov 1797 Clergyman robbed by false key - by his Convict

servant. formerly his school fellow.

4.

Apr. 1798 Convict servants careless of the horses & c

under their care- change no remedy- all alike.

5.

Apr. 1798 Storekeepers buy grain of none but those

particularly connected with them: who thereby purchase it of

other at half price.

6.

May 1798. Superintendants are well as superintended

neglect the public concerns for their own private ones -

Sawyers working hours fixed.

7.

Nov r 1798 Governor's steward a freeman

corrupted by convict company & detected shoots himself

8

Dec 1798. Stephenson a convict emancipated & made store keeper

- a singular instance of fidelity dies.

9.

Dec 1798 Constables frequently corrupted permit escapes - v. N o 2.

10

Jan. 1799. Commissaries house robbed- the thieves find a ready

market for the stolen goods among the Ship's crews.

I. Reformation IX - Preventive Police unavailing

Functionnaries corrupt.

11.

May 1799. Convict emancipated for good behaviour on ship board -

and trusted with livestock embezzled it. Backsliding

general.

12.

July 1799. Storekeepers buy stolen hogs- Governor's remedy seller

to sign voucher stating of whom bought and what.

13

Oct. 1799. Ship crews and Masters help Convicts to escape -

special prohibitions notwithstanding. Femal Convict retaken from

the Hunter (for Bengal) the crew resisting. Several convicts

retaken out of the Hillsborough (for England) and Seamen

punished. 30 Convicts afterwards. Master of the Hillsborough

tried for it: acquitted for want of evidence of the

conviction.

14.

Aug. 1801. Clerks shorten the transportation terms of Convicts for

£10 or £12 a piece.

JB_116_325_001.xml

Title: [Note 9 July 1802 + 12 13 N. S Wales]

Description: Note 9 July 1802 + 12 13 N. S Wales

N o

5 (p.159.) April 1791. Information given by the Governor

to the Convicts "that never would be permitted to quit the Colony who

had "wives and children incapable of maintaining themselves and

"likely to become burthensome to the settlement, untill

they had "found sufficient security for the maintenance of such

wives

or children. "as long as they might

continue after them."

What would be deemed sufficient security is not stated.

It could only be

in here and there an instance that a watch thus circumstanced

could be able to find any security at all.

The occasion of this ordinance is curious enough:

Notions were currant

among the Convicts that the marriages of each of them as had been married

in the Colony were not binding.

Such is the reason given for

confining to the Colony all men whatever who had

either wives or children there, whether

the marriage had been celebrated since their arrival in the

Colony or before. ]

+1

+1 In the case of a wife married in South

Wales and where term of punishment was unexpired, finding such

security was impossible. By marrying a woman so circumstanced, a man could

result to lose her bondage, nor

forfeit his own

freedom.

to everyone married in law

Justice — or at least a semblance of it is so interwoven in this

case with injustice, that it is no easy matter to disentangle them. As an

abstract proposition, it is but reasonable, that a man should be prevented

from leaving his wife or children from being burthensome to

other people. Such accordingly is the law in England. When in this

country

England a man deserts his family, he flied from home. But in the case in question, the flight, if not

obstructed, would have been a flight

homewards, and from a place in which no authority

there could detain a man without a crime. That the inocent wife

or inocent children having, under a mistaken confidence in the

justice and humanity of government, suffered themselves to be transported

to this unhuman

region, should, by the

improvidence, and injustice and inhumanity and

improvidence of men in , see themselves confined then

perhaps for life, is indeed a melancholy state of things: but it will be

difficult to say that the injustice, done to any number

of individuals thus circumstanced would be redressed, by adding to it

another of the same kind. — +2

+2 The solution of the difficulty is not

difficult: to those who sent those innocents thither, belongs in

justice the care and the expence of sending them back

again.

The more

doubtfull, the course most proper to

be taken on this occasion, the clearer the abominathness

of the system and the improvidence and incapacity of those by whom it

was contrived: +3

+3 contrived without any known ,

and afterwards itself magnified, in the

bulk of convictions,

into a pretense a pretense for relinquishing a system

, without spot clear of those

and

this as well as all other abominations.