SECTION XVI.

The treatment and disposal of mechanics, craftsmen, and the educated, or "specials," disturbed the equal operation of the laws.

The artizan, when not adapted for public works, was placed in the loan gang, and lent from time to time, chiefly to the officers of government, or to such settlers as were deemed worthy official patronage. They were not authorised to claim wages, but their employers prompted their industry by its usual recompense. Their value as workmen often secured them an appearance which surpassed the common means of English artificers, or they expended their earnings during paroxysms of intemperance. The power to grant the assistance of skilled workmen, and the custom of the officers to borrow them for their own service, excited unceasing murmurs. Master tradesmen complained, that their callings were followed by captains and lieutenants, whose journeymen were the prisoners of the crown, and who, beside the emoluments of office, engrossed the profits of smiths and carpenters--of tailors and shoemakers. Those settlers, excluded from participation in the loan labor, denounced the venal partiality of its distribution. Long lists were published of workmen allotted to the relatives and confidants of the Governor, to display his unwearied nepotism.

The educated prisoners occasioned still greater complaint. At an early period, many of the higher functionaries were utterly ignorant of accounts, and were glad to employ the abilities which transportation placed at their disposal. Curious anecdotes are told of the profits derived by this class of scribes, by the distribution of royal clemency: thus the indents were altered by a clerk, who charged L10 for reducing considerably the duration of a sentence. At a later date, a prisoner offered by letter L15 for his conditional pardon. The bearer gave information of its contents to another convict in office, who offered to obtain the "royal mercy" for L10, and he did so. The reliance frequently placed in the fidelity of their penmanship, sometimes modified the details of punishment.

From the report of a board appointed by Arthur, it appeared that sixty-six were employed in the various departments. The evidence is valuable, from the statements it contains respecting the condition and influence of this class. They were represented to be quick, intelligent men, and were preferred because more easily commanded--if not controlled. Their office hours usually terminating at 4 o'clock, they obtained considerable sums as book-keepers. All correspondence, except despatches to the British government, and communications with the judges, passed under their eye. They were employed in taking depositions, and received bribes for expediting indulgences. Their acquaintance with the probable demands of the commissariat, was a source of emolument: they sold information to the shopkeepers, and thus enhanced the price. Arthur professed to deplore the necessity of their employment; a practice which long survived his government.

It was, indeed, a mournful sight, to behold men of better hopes sink into habits of intemperance; and for a long series of years pass through a succession of punishments, often for trifling infractions of the penal code--to see them display the utmost facility in penmanship, and to hear at every movement the rattle of chains. Yet these prodigal sons of many a desolated house, were not so much objects of compassion, as those whose peace they had blighted with an incurable affliction. No one could imagine how many families, distinguished for rank, benevolence, and piety--known at home as the fortunate and happy--had in these regions unhappy relations, whose fate must have cast dark shadows on their own. Many, however, protected their kindred from public dishonor by the change of their names: they not unfrequently were overtaken by crime and punishment, having long left the dwellings of their fathers, whose reputation they spared by artifice and silence.

The wives of prisoners, who once moved in the higher circles, often exhibited an example of complicated virtue. What they took from the misery of their husbands they added to their own; and even by their participation rendered more intense the mental anguish they came to remove. Delicately reared, familiar with the comforts of affluence, they resolutely abandoned all. No entreaty, maternal tears, or offers of support, could change the purpose of conscience and affection. They gathered up the fragments of their shivered fortunes to venture on a lonely voyage, and encounter a rough courtesy--generous, when not brutal; to solicit commiseration from the harsh delegates of a nation's vengeance, or the hucksters of its mercy. Sad lot! fraught with anguish, with terror, and trembling: every moment passed in fear of some new fetter--of some fresh official caprice, or sudden separation! Such scenes of mental and physical martyrdom have been often known to professional men, who enter the interior of life, and watch the operations of secret sorrow. The mould of Tasmania covers many a true-hearted woman, whose constancy and self devotion are registered on high; and which, in another sphere, might command the admiration of the world!

The colonial government interdicted the connection of prisoners with the press, which, however, was not prevented or punished, when loyal to the authorities. Their writings were commonly laudatory of the officials, even when most offensive to the colonists. They were not always the most trucculent and unprincipled; although the censorship of public morals and political measures was unsuited to their civil condition.

Among those thus employed was Savary, once an opulent sugar baker at Bristol, who in 1824 was convicted of forgery, and his life spared by an exercise of mercy then novel. Happier far, had he died! He wrote for the press--on the right side. On the accusation of a colonist, his ticket-of-leave was withdrawn; but he was spared the usual penalty of banishment by the kindness of his patrons, who granted him another form of liberty. This man was followed by his wife; but on her arrival, her affection was seduced, or exhausted, and she returned to England. Savary attempted suicide, recovered, and again fell into crime: he was tried by Judge Montague, convicted of a colonial forgery, and afterwards died at Port Arthur--an awful instance of the effects of transgression; and of the proneness of men to repeat a crime they have once committed.

It having been resolved to abandon Macquarie Harbour (1832), the government fixed on Port Arthur, on the east coast, as the site of a settlement where the rigour of discipline might be preserved. This district is situated on a peninsula within a peninsula, and contains about 100,000 acres of woodland--barren, but not repulsive. A neck of 450 yards broad, divides Tasman's and Forrestier's Peninsulas: there lamps are set on posts, to which fierce dogs are chained; and to close the passage by the shore, when opened by the recession of the tide, others are kennelled on a floating platform. Sentinels, guard-boats, and telegraphs, are the precautions employed to prevent escape; which few have attempted, and fewer still accomplished.

The first commandant was Surgeon John Russell; an office subsequently confided to Captain O'Hara Booth, a gentleman whose administration has been the subject of great eulogy. A minute code of government regulations defined the duties of all on the station. Hither all convicted of colonial crimes, or of more serious misconduct as assigned servants or in the road gangs, or who were separated to more than ordinary punishment by the secretary of state, or of the educated class, were sent. The degrees of punishment were, however, varied; and the more severe was exhausting and dangerous. The carrying gang, with a massive balk on the shoulders, resembled a huge centipede. The laborers, sometimes thirty together, groaning beneath a weight of many tons, obtained no respite from toil. The slippery and inclining ground exposed them to terrific perils: when they complained of inability to bear their burden, they were flogged, taken back, and compelled, by supernatural effort, to raise the load they had laid down. The numerous orders were enforced without momentary relaxation, and the scourge was the chief agent of control.

When the settlement was new, the men suffered from scurvy; they were not, subsequently, unhealthy: diseases of the heart formed a large proportion of their maladies. Many instances of great hardship have been authenticated; and several committed murder to be removed from misery by a public execution. The possession of a piece of tobacco was penal, and for this offence alone multitudes were flogged; but its use was only limited by the supply: many men would have risked the rack, rather than rejected this valued indulgence. A wesleyan missionary was accustomed to reward his servant with the luxury, until he found that being distributed, others were involved in punishment. Visitors usually carried tobacco, which they dropped on the tramway by which they were conveyed; and even when the prohibitions were most severely enforced, money would procure a supply.

The effect of Capt. Booth's administration was soon visible: the stoutest hearted gave way. Inexorably just, according to the system he represented, the accused might plead, but were never pardoned. The gentlemen convicts, clad in a prison dress, were employed in lighter labor and worked together; but were transferred to more penal gangs, for the least disorder. It is said that the terrors of Port Arthur were preventive of crime; that its rigour controlled and reformed, for the time, such as were sent there; but, both by those who vindicated, and those who condemned its severity, it is admitted that relapses were usual; that it operated on the will by mechanical force, but debased the soul.

However heavy the hand of authority, it was not capricious. The overseers and constables were less brutal than at the road parties and previous penal stations. Compared with every other settlement of its class, Port Arthur, during Booth's management, was more humane because more equal and impartial. Constantly exhibited as a place of profound misery, it carried the vengeance of the law to the utmost limits of human endurance.

It would be improper to withhold the common testimony in favor of this officer, of whom the writer never heard a prisoner speak with reproach: he was detested only as the personification of unimpassioned severity. He gave all the weight of his example to promote the success of the missionary, and paid him respect in the sight of the prisoners. Time softens all things, and Captain Booth, on calm reflection, deserves to be remembered with respect, as an officer who took no pleasure in the sufferings he inflicted--who was as prompt to reward as to punish. A further detail is needless, and would add no new illustration of transportation.

The interest which Arthur took in the settlement which bears his name, may be inferred from his frequent visits, and the large promises which he offered in reference to its future prosperity. He thought seven thousand men might be sent there, to be detained six months on an average; and that the large consumption and expenditure would be repaid by the produce of their labor. From an early date, Port Arthur possessed the advantage of schools and ministerial attendance. A church, of handsome exterior, was erected.

As the settlement improved, a tramway formed of hard wood, crossed a space of five miles, and thus connected the opposite bays. On this road, travellers were conveyed by human labor, a large proportion of the distance being, however, overcome by spontaneous locomotion.

The denizens of Port Arthur would furnish a curious collection of biography: the muster would be a living calendar. Among the more celebrated were, Ikey Solomon, the receiver, whom they made constable: the chartists--men, in whose fate millions have publicly expressed an interest. There was Collins, the mad sailor, who threw a stone at the last king; May, who murdered the Italian boy; and Cohen, a jew, who resigned himself to despair, and refusing sustenance, died: they now rest in the "Isle de Mort."

The establishment at Point Puer was intended to reclaim and control, rather than to punish, the unfortunate youth submitted to its discipline. Until a very late period, boys had been transmitted to the colonies in company with the men, and were treated without much discrimination: some at an age to understand crime only as a trick, or to deserve aught except pity and correction. Thus at Preston, a child, only seven years old, was transported for life. A boy, three years older, perhaps the same, called by his fellow prisoners, "King John," after three years imprisonment, arrived in this colony (1829) with sixty other lads; of whom, on their embarkation, not one in twenty could repeat the Lord's prayer. It was stated by a Lord Mayor of London, that nothing could be kinder than to transport juvenile offenders to a country where their labor would be useful and their prosperity sure. It may be presumed, that in this spirit a girl and two boys were committed to take their trial for stealing some wood, valued at twopence, the property of the crown. These acts of severity forcibly contrast with the happier fortunes of other classes. It is said of George III, that he arrested two Eton boys in the act of poaching: they took him for a keeper, and offered their pocket-money as a bribe. He threatened to inform their master; but next day sent them a present, requesting them to cease their depredations. They were peers when the monarch told the story, and he observed that they were most rigorous preservers of their game--"according to the old proverb, set a thief to catch a thief," said the king! A better authenticated anecdote was given by Lord Eldon, of his juvenile adventures; such as a rigorous magistrate might have turned to a very different account. By what construction of equity the poor man's son, or the orphan, could deserve to be branded with an indelible stigma for no heavier crimes, it would be in vain to ask. Infractions of the law cannot be tolerated in any age, yet its administration has been often both partial and unmerciful.

Most of these young convicts had been first imprisoned a short period, and then turned on the world to obtain, by greater crimes, more lasting protection; or sometimes accused, but not convicted, they waited amidst moral pestilence the long delays of justice. A lad, fourteen years of age, was charged with stealing a hat: twelve months after, he was acquitted. What wonder that, dismissed a hardened criminal, he returned to be transported for life. Such was the education of many, who might fairly adopt the language of Howard to the German emperor--"It is not in the power of your majesty to make reparation for the injury they have suffered." No subsequent care could atone for the long slumber of protective justice.

It is refreshing to find that kindness and coercion were united in the discipline of Point Puer: an oasis in the desert of penal government--unless viewed from the woolsack. Captain Booth was prompt in subduing rebellion and enforcing industry: the meals were regular, and habits of devotion and cleanliness were promoted. But when the boys were submissive and diligent, they were not forbidden to be happy: they were made tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, boat-builders, masons, and gardeners. Some became acceptable apprentices, were lost sight of as prisoners, and are now known only as respectable men. Such boys, however, were protected from contamination, from the moment of conviction. Those who mingled indiscriminately with the prisoners, surpassed them in mischief and wickedness. When landed they were placed in the barracks: some, not more than ten years old, blended the trickery of boyhood with the villainy of age, and had scarcely arrived a week, before they were tied up to the triangles and punished with the cat. Lord John Russell, yielding to humane suggestions, collected a cargo of juveniles from the various prisons, and appointed a surgeon-superintendent, who never lost sight of their moral welfare. The care was not unavailing: Captain Booth reported that a large proportion passed through his hands without incurring even magisterial correction, notwithstanding the most trivial disorders were punished. The reformation of adults may admit of scepticism, and be tolerated as a topic of ridicule: but children, taught to steal earlier than to speak; who received the first lessons of crime on the lap of a mother; who never heard of God, but from the lips of blasphemers--or of right, but as the fair distribution of spoil, were surely entitled to compassion. The sympathies of man cast penal science to the winds, and scorn to preserve the inexorable temper of legal vengeance, to save the rich from peculation, by the moral immolation of infant robbers. They are orphans cast upon a nation's mercy; for though nature gave them the claims of children, she did not secure them an interest in a parent's heart.

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