VII Escapes

N o 5. (p. 159) April 1791. Information given by the government to

the convicts "that none would be permitted to quit the colony

"who had wives and children incapable of maintaining themselves

and likely to become burdensome to the settlement, until 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 wretch

this circumstanced could be able to find any security at all.

The occasion of this ordinance is curious enough. Notions

were current among the convicts that the marriages of such

as 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.

In the case of a wife married in New South wales, and

whose term of punishment was unexpired, finding such security

was unprofitable. By marrying a woman so circumstanced a

man could neither remitt to her bondage nor forfeit his

own freedom.

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

burdensome to the people. Such accordingly is the law in England.

When in England a man deserts his family he flies from home.

But in the case in question, the flight, if not obstructed, would

have been a flight homeward, and from a place in which no

authority there could detain a man without a crime. That the innocent