have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Go to; let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city."

It has hitherto been the practice of the Government of New South Wales to pursue the same uniform system of treatment in the case of all convicts arriving in the colony from the mother country, without regard to the various degrees of their previous criminality.* The forger, the betrayer of trust, the highwayman, the thief, the pickpocket, the burglar, are all treated in precisely the same way as the Whiteboy from the bogs of Ireland, who has probably been sentenced to transportation under the provisions of the Irish insurrection-acts. In short, there has never been any attempt in the colony to classify the convicts according to the various degrees of their transmarine criminality.

This has surely been a great error in the penal system of the colony, and its evil tendency has been apparent in three different ways. In the first place, it has tended to reduce to the same level in iniquity those whom the

There have been two or three solitary instances of atrocious criminals being forwarded at once to a penal settlement, on their arrival in the colony, in consequence of express orders to that effect from home; and Sir Robert Peel, I believe, when Secretary of State for the Home Department, directed the literary or educated convicts to be sent to the penal settlement of Wellington Valley in the interior. These however have been but rare exceptions to the general rule.

law had improperly visited with the same punishment, without regard to their respective demerits. In the second place, it has tended to blunt the moral sense of the prison-population of the colony, in regard to their power of discriminating between the lighter and the darker shades of criminality. And finally, by placing before the free portion of the community cases of individuals whose punishment had apparently exceeded their crimes, it has given rise to a sort of morbid sympathy on the part of no inconsiderable portion of the colonial community,—a feeling which regards the state of a convict as the result of misfortune rather than of misconduct.

The colonial government, however, has not been so much to blame in this matter as the reader may perhaps imagine for if the criminal courts of the mother country have sentenced one individual to fourteen years' transportation, for a crime of much inferior enormity to that of another who has been sentenced only to transportation for seven years, it is not for the colonial government to attempt to remedy the acknowledged defects of the penal system of Great Britain, by ordering a new apportionment of punishment in New South Wales. The root of the evil is to be sought for in the penal code of the empire, the defects of which are great and obvious, and ought forthwith to be remedied. Besides, it very frequently happened in the earlier years of the colony, that no record of the convict's guilt was transmitted along with him to the land of his banishment. The convicts were landed from the transport-ship, like a herd of cattle, on the shores of Port Jackson,-one for

seven years, another for fourteen, and a third for life; but the why and the wherefore they were so landed on these distant shores could be learned only by inspecting the records of the Old Bailey at the other extremity of the globe, or by searching the ponderous registers of Newgate and Kilmainham.

When a convict-ship arrives in Sydney harbour, it is the practice of Government to reserve as many of the convicts, whether labourers or mechanics, as are required for the public service.* The rest are assigned to persons who have previously transmitted duly attested applications for convict-servants to a Board appointed for the purpose; regard being generally had to priority of application, and newly-arrived emigrants being usually supplied in the first instance. The Board at present consists of the principal Superintendent of Convicts and the Colonial Treasurer. One pound sterling is paid to Government for each convict so assigned, as the price of his bedding and slop-clothing, which he carries along with him to his future master's. If the master resides in Sydney, he is employed in the various menial capacities in which house-servants are employed in Europe. If he resides in the country, as is much more frequently the case, he is employed in tending sheep or cattle, or as a farm-servant.

The convict-servants on the different farms of the

*The public works in the colony, with the exception of roads and bridges, and other works of a similar kind, requiring mere labour and not mechanical skill, are now uniformly performed by contract,-very much to the benefit of the public. The convicts reserved by Government are consequently very few in number, comparatively, now.

colony are usually lodged in huts formed of split-timber, and thatched with long grass or straw, at a little distance from the proprietor's house. Two of these huts, with a partition between them, form one erection; and each of them is inhabited by four men. A large fire-place is constructed at one end of the hut, where the men cook their provisions, and around which they assemble in the winter evenings, with a much greater appearance of comfort than the sentimentalist would imagine. Rations, consisting of ten and a half pounds of flour, seven pounds of beef or four and a half pounds of pork, with a certain proportion of tea, sugar, and tobacco, are distributed to each of them weekly; and they receive shoes and slop-clothing either twice a year or whenever they require them. Pumpkins, potatoes, and other vegetables, they are allowed to cultivate for themselves.

On my brother's farm at Hunter's River—and I believe a similar system is pursued on most of the large farms throughout the colony-the overseer rises at daybreak, and rings a bell, which is affixed to a tree, as a signal for the men to proceed to their labour. The greater number follow the overseer to the particular agricultural operation which the season requires; the rest separate to their several employments, one to the plough, another to the garden, and a third to the dairy, while a fourth conducts the cattle to their pasture. The bell is again rung at eight o'clock, when the men assemble for breakfast, for which they are allowed one hour; they again return to their labour till one o'clock,

when they have an hour for dinner, and they afterwards labour from two till sunset.

The condition of a convict in New South Wales depends greatly on the character of his master. It is in the power of the latter to render his yoke easy and his burden light; it is equally in his power, however, to make him superlatively miserable. In general, the lot of a convict in the colony is by no means a hard one. For the most part, he is better clothed, better fed, and better lodged, than three-fourths of the labouring agricultural population of Great Britain and Ireland; while, at the same time, his labour is beyond all comparison much less oppressive. In a great many instances, indeed, the object of the convict evidently is to get as much, in the shape of allowances, and to do as little, in the shape of hard labour, as possible.

The grand secret in the management of convict-servants is to treat them with kindness, and at the same time with firmness; to speak to them always in a conciliating manner, and at the same time to keep them constantly employed: and it is nothing less than absolute blindness to his own interest, and a want of common sense amounting to downright infatuation, that can lead any master to treat them otherwise. It must be acknowledged, however, that such infatuation has prevailed in New South Wales to a lamentable extent; and has greatly retarded the advancement of the colony on the one hand, and occasioned much misery on the other.

A free emigrant settler, who has perhaps been riding