individuals who from ill-reasoning on one point, though perhaps their general character may not have been bad, have been induced to destroy property. They are destroyers of barns and machinery, but their nature has not perhaps been corrupted by any great moral depravity: frequently we have proof to the contrary on the trial: but they have thought that they were carrying out a great principle of good for their class, and in order to enunciate it, they have thought themselves obliged herein following the example of many politicians of a higher grade— to occasion a lesser evil. It is impossible under any other hypothesis to explain the fact, of the entire absence of personal enmity against the farmer injured, shown in the fire cases in Suffolk lately, in the destruction of machinery in Lancashire last year, and in Kent in 1830. They are suffering great privations, they know no other means of awakening public attention to their wants, they therefore make this their voice, thinking perhaps that they are remedying at the same time some of their grievances by the means they have taken to make them known. Actual transportation is too severe a punishment for these men, excepting when the offence has been committed under aggravated circumstances; imprisonment in the mode above suggested would fail, for by a conviction for a crime of this nature such a brand is fixed on the brow of the offender that no farmer would afterwards employ him, and his lot in England would be wretched. Compulsory emigration for life is what I would propose as a penalty for crimes of this description.

For the lesser kinds of offence in this class which betoken the irregularity of youth rather than depravity of character, imprisonment with hard labor is the best punishment. It deters this species of offender; and if the numbers in the prisons are lessened, and the worst class of criminals removed, but little contamination, if any, could be apprehended, and the character of the prisoner at least would not be deteriorated.

SECTION V.

1. Other offences not included in the above classes. These, with one exception,-perjury,-are of a nature to which the concluding remarks of the last section are applicable:—for perjury, transportation should be retained. The man who wilfully gives false testimony differs but little from him who uses a false plate or die. His punishment should be the same.

I have now reviewed all the offences of which our law takes cognizance. In many of the punishments alterations have been suggested, which are put forward in the belief that they will bear the two great tests which ought to be applied to all provisions of this nature, i. e., that while they would lead to the prevention of crime, they would at the same time reform the criminal.

Hitherto, with very rare exceptions, no one has paid any attention to the general condition of offenders against the laws. Some great crime perhaps concentrates for a time a morbid interest upon the individual who has committed it, but this is the result of mere curiosity for the most part, which is soon exhausted, and no beneficial result ensues: the subject is in itself a distasteful one; no man likes to contemplate the degradation of his species, and the malefactor is, by general consent, put out of remembrance. It is only thus that the system of wholesale transportation, with all its moral evils, could have gone on so long without an attempt at any amendment: year after year thousands of wretches were removed from England to perpetrate the same or worse crimes elsewhere, and the public was satisfied. The Archbishop of Dublin at last laid open its horrors before the lords, many of whom acknowledged that they were unaware till then of what had been the state of things, and to his efforts must be attributed the present improvement in the system. To a certain degree, therefore, he has been successful, but more, much more, remains to be done.

It is not enough that the wealthy classes, like the Pharisee of old, self-satisfied in their abstinence from a

68 POSSIBLE AMENDMENT OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM.

certain set of crimes, in their compliance with the usages of society, and in their general intelligence, "thank God that they are not as so many other men are," and suppose that there is nothing to amend in a state of society which yearly condemns thousands to suffer the penalty of crimes to which that very state of society has tempted them, and against which it has provided no safeguard. Wealth and power were not given either to enable the possessors to enjoy in greater abundance the pleasures of sense, or even to sit down in quiet comfort, well pleased with themselves that they have no temptation to do evil. Riches and greatness are the talents which the lord who went on a far journey confided to his servants, to be used so as to bring him at his coming an ample return. Let the landlord at that day be able to greet his greater master with "Lord, thou gavest me abundance, and lo! I have used it to enlarge thy kingdom; here are the tenants and the laborers whom I have lived among and instructed, as well by kind words as example-they are good Christians and happy men-let them be my companions for eternity!" Let the princely merchant and wealthy manufacturer be able to reply, "Lord, I had not extensive estates confided to me, but I have had numerous dependents. I have forborne to enrich myself as much as I might have done, in order to afford to these people the instruction and the comforts without which man sinks into the brute. Here are my work people, my porters, my clerks-thy talent has gained ten!" Were such the rule instead of the exception, we should not need to build jails and workhouses. But this happy state of things cannot be expected yet, even if all were as much alive to the duties of their high station as, I thank God, many are;-for changes in society go on slowly. In the mean time it only remains that legislators do their duty too; and when they find a poor wretch steeped to the lips in misery and guilt, let them look with compassion upon him, however low he may be fallen; and for His sake in whose IMAGE he was made, endeavor to rescue him from degradation and sin, and restore the lost prodigal to his Father and theirs.

APPENDIX.

Convict Discipline. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 3 April, 1843.

COPY of a DISPATCH from Lord Stanley to LieutenantGovernor Sir John Franklin.

SIR,

Downing-street, 25 November, 1842.

I AVAIL myself of the departure from this country of the newly appointed secretary at Van Diemen's land, as the most convenient opportunity I could find for conveying to you those instructions on the subject of convict discipline, which you will for some time past have been expecting to receive. The delay which has occurred in settling a question at once so arduous and so important, has been inevitable; and even yet it is not in my power to announce the completion of the measures requisite for enabling you to carry into effect the views of the ministers of the crown. But I do not regret a postponement which has enabled me and my colleagues carefully to examine the ground we propose to occupy, aided by all the information to be drawn from the Report of the recent Committee of the House of Commons, and from the evidence on which that report proceeded; and from other channels of intelligence which have been opened to us since the close of the labors of that committee.

In proceeding to signify to you the conclusions to which Her Majesty's Government have been led by this course of inquiry, I propose to sacrifice to perspicuity every object which would interfere with it; and to that end I will state at the outset what are the topics to which I propose to address myself, and what is the order in which I am about to notice them.

First, then, I will endeavor to state what are the general principles by which Her Majesty's Government will be guided in the management of the convict population in the penal colonies.

Secondly, I will consider, in their order, each of the five stages through which a convict will have to pass from the commencement of his sentence until he shall attain (as often as it may be attainable) a pardon either absolute or conditional.

Thirdly, I will indicate what are the legal instruments to be completed, and what the official appointments and arrangements to be made before those general principles can be carried entirely into effect; and those specific rules fully executed. Hence you will readily collect to what extent this dispatch can be taken as an instruction for your immediate guidance, and how far it is to be understood as merely preparatory to the introduction of the new system of convict discipline.

Reverting to this distribution of the topics to be noticed, I shall first explain what are the general principles by which her Majesty's Government propose to be guided in the management of the convict population in the penal colonies.

You will readily anticipate that I am not about to enter into any abstract or speculative inquiries on the subject of the punishment of crime, or as to the particular form of punishment administered in our penal colonies. My object is merely to state some broad conclusions which it is necessary to premise, in order to render intelligible the objects of the more minute regulations which will follow. Her majesty's government, then, regard it as indispensable, that every convict transported, whether for a longer or a shorter period, should actually undergo that punishment without either pardon or mitigation for some predetermined period, bearing, in each case, a proportion to the length of the sentence. We further think that it should be reserved to the queen herself to make any exception from this rule; and that the royal prerogative of mercy should not be delegated to the governor of the colony in such terms as would enable him to relax it. We do not, however, contemplate a state of things in which the con