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about the country for a fortnight-neglecting his own affairs and troubling his neighbours-returns to his farm, and finds that his convict-servants have been very idle during his absence. He talks to them on the subject, and his choler rises as he talks; and he curses and swears at them as if he had taken his degree at Billingsgate, instead of being a free landed proprietor in His Majesty's colony of New South Wales. One of the convicts a man who has perhaps seen better daysreplies in no measured terms; and the master immediately exclaims, with the highest indignation, "You convict-scoundrel, do you speak to me at this rate?" and, taking the overseer to witness that the man has spoken insolently to his master, he forthwith hies, both overseer and man to the nearest magistrate, who perhaps resides ten miles off, and gallops after them himself an hour or two afterwards. On arriving at the magistrate's, the settler, who is a remarkably good Protestant, kisses the book,* and swears. that the man spoke to him insolently. The overseer, who is a staunch Roman Catholic, confirms his master's deposition by kissing the same book on the other side, on which the worthy magistrate-who knows that the Bible was sent him for kissing and not for reading-has religiously

* If the reader is an Episcopalian or a Roman Catholic, he will doubtless consider the practice of kissing the book, in taking an oath, a very rational and a very scriptural one; but as a Scots Presbyterian, accustomed to see an oath taken by lifting up the right hand solemnly to Heaven, after scriptural example, I confess I can see as little reason or scripture for it as for eating a piece of a dead chief's body, like the savages of New Zealand. The latter, indeed, is a harmless practice; I wish I could only say as much for the former.

pasted a bit of whity-brown paper, cut with a pair of scissors, in the form of a cross. When this religious ceremony has been gone through, the magistrate, assuming a very grave aspect, sentences the convict to receive twenty-five lashes for insolence to his master, and he is accordingly delivered over to the scourger of the district. In the mean time, the farm is deprived of the superintendence of the master, the exertions of the overseer, and the labour of the convict; while the other convicts, disheartened and disgusted at the obvious injustice with which their fellow-labourer has been treated, do just as little as possible.

As soon as the man who has been flogged is fit for labour, he is ordered to the plough; but perceiving that a thick strong root crosses the furrow at a particular point, he contrives the next time the bullocks reach that point to run the plough right against the root and snap it asunder. "You did it on purpose, you scoundrel!" says the infuriated settler, who has indeed good reason to be angry, for the season for ploughing is perhaps nearly over, and two or three days must elapse before the plough can be repaired, as there is no blacksmith within fifteen miles. The man, to whose corrupt nature revenge is so delicious that he does not deny the charge, but who is perhaps the best ploughman on the farm, is accordingly hied off immediately to his worship again, and, after the same pious ceremony of kissing 'the calf's-skin binding of the desecrated book, and the whity-brown paper-cross has been re-acted, is sentenced to "three months' hard labour on the roads, to be returned to his master at the expiration of that period."

The man returns accordingly at the expiration of his sentence; but being addicted, as most convicts are, to the use of colonial tobacco, he allows a spark to fall from his tobacco-pipe, on his way to his labour, very near his master's largest wheat-stack, at a time when the latter happens to be off the farm; and in less than a quarter of an hour thereafter the stack is observed to be on fire. One would naturally suppose that in such a case of emergency, all the men on the farm would immediately run to extinguish the flames. Such a supposition, however, would be very far from the truth. The convicts are so conscientious, forsooth, that they will not do any thing which their master has not particularly told them to do; and he has never told them to extinguish the flames when any of his stacks should accidentally catch fire. Besides, they have a task assigned them which they must not leave. In short, nothing gives them greater pleasure than to see their master's stack burning; for they know he must give them the regular ration, procure it where he may, or send them back to Government, in which case they will have a chance of being assigned to a better master. By and bye, the master returns at full gallop, in time enough to see where his stack stood. He has reason to suspect that a conspiracy has been formed against him by his men ; but, to save him the trouble of bringing any of them to justice, four of them immediately take to the bush, i. e. become bushrangers, subsisting on plunder. In a month or two thereafter, two of them are apprehended for robing a settler's cart on the highway, and tried, and convicted, and condemned to death; and the wretched

men assure the minister who may happen to visit them in the gaol or attend them on the scaffold-(I have received such information in such circumstances myself when it was too late to falsify)-that it was the arbitrary and unfeeling conduct of their master alone, that brought them to an untimely end.

I

may be told, perhaps, that this is a supposititious case, and that all of these circumstances have not occurred in any single instance. It is immaterial, however, whether they have or not, as I can testify right well where and when they have all occurred singly.

Some settlers think it necessary, forsooth, to humble their convict-servants and to make them fear them. An instance of this kind I have heard of in the colony with indignation and horror. A settler, requiring some office of a very disagreeable and offensive character to be performed about his premises, ordered one of his convictservants to perform it, instead of adopting the much more efficacious mode of offering him a small reward on his doing it—a piece of tobacco, for instance, or a little wine. The man had perhaps seen better days, and therefore, feeling indignant at being set to such an employment, flatly refused. The master coolly ordered him off to a magistrate, who sentenced him to receive either twenty-five or fifty lashes for disobedience. The man returned to his master, who gave him the same order a second time, which the man a second time refused to obey. He was again taken before the magistrate, and sentenced to be flogged as before; and it was not till this degrading and brutalizing operation had been repeated a third time, that the spirit of the miserable

convict was sufficiently broken to allow him to obey the mandate of his relentless tyrant.*

That there are incorrigible characters whom neither kindness nor severity can overcome, I am quite willing to allow; but that kind and judicious treatment will render the great majority of convicts peaceable, industrious, and contented, is, I conceive, equally indubitable. One of the best-regulated farms or rather estates in the colony, is that of Colonel Dumaresq, a brother-inlaw of His Excellency General Darling, and a resident landholder on, Upper Hunter's River. The law on Colonel Dumaresq's estate is the law of kindness, and incitements to industry and good conduct are rewards, and not punishments. The convict-labourers or farm-servants reside in white-washed cottages, each having a little garden in front; and prizes are regularly awarded to those who keep their cottages in the best order. Divine service is performed by the Colonel every Sabbath at twelve o'clock, agreeably to the forms of the Church of England; all the farm-servants being required to attend, and the hour of meeting being intentionally late that the men may not have time for any extensive excursion after dinner. The result of such a system is just what might be expected.—The men are sober, industrious, and contented. ́

Man is essentially a tyrant: it is education-I use the word in its widest sense that makes him humane in any instance. Whatever arrangement of society, therefore, invests ány man with such power over the person and happiness of his fellow-creature, as is possessed by the master of a convict or the holder of a slave, is essentially evil, and ought doubtless to be deprecated as indicative of an unhealthy state of the body politic.

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