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vict, suffering under the sentence of the law, should ever be excluded from the hope of amending his condition by blameless or meritorious behavior, or from the fear of enhancing the hardships of it by misconduct. On the contrary, to keep alive an invigorating hope, and a salutary dread at every stage of the progress of the prisoner from the commencement to the close of his punishment, appears to us to be an indispensable part of the discipline to which he should be subjected. Further, we contemplate the necessity of subjecting every convict to successive stages of punishment, decreasing in rigor at each successive step until he reaches that ultimate stage in which he shall be capable of a pardon either absolute or conditional, though not ever entitled to demand that indulgence of right. It is, moreover, our opinion that the transition from one stage of punishment to another less severe should be withheld from any convict who, by mis conduct, may have forfeited his claim to such mitigation. On the other hand, we think that a course of meritorious or blameless conduct in any one stage should entitle the convict in any future stage of punishment to such proportionate relaxations of the severity of his condition as may be compatible with his continuance in it; and that such good conduct should ultimately have a favorable effect whenever the question of granting a pardon may be ripe for decision. To these general principles it is to be added, that in the case of certain classes of convicts sentenced to transportation for not more than seven years, her majesty's government propose that the first stage of punishment should be undergone, not in the colony, but in a penitentiary in this country; and that the convicts should, at the expiration of a given time, be sent to the colony, there to enter on such stage of penal discipline as may in each particular case be indicated by the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

I should leave unnoticed the most important of all the general principles to which the ministers of the crown look, so far as respects the convict himself and the society in which he is to live, if I omitted to add that we anticipate from a systematic course of moral and religious instruction, which the congregation of the convicts in

masses will afford, the means of applying such salutary influences as may best qualify them for entering on the temptations of an independent course of life, and may induce them to betake themselves to industrious and useful pursuits.

Secondly, such being the general principles by which her majesty's government propose to be guided, I will next consider in their order, each of the five stages through which a convict will have to pass. For the sake of distinctness, they may be described as follows: 1. Detention at Norfolk Island. 2. The Probationary Gang. 3. The Probation Passes. 4. Tickets of Leave; and, 5. Pardons.

1st. Detention in Norfolk Island will be the invariable consequence of all sentences of transportation for life; and will also be applied to the more aggravated cases of convicts sentenced to any term not less than fifteen years. Four years will be the longest period, and two years the shortest period, for which any convict will be sentenced to detention at Norfolk Island. In each case the Secretary of State for the Home Department will, between these limits, indicate the length of time for which the convict is to be detained at that place. This statement is, however, applicable only to the cases of convicts transported direct from the United Kingdom. It will be left to the discretion of the Governors of New South Wales and of Van Diemen's Land respectively, to transport convicts under similar colonial sentences, either to Norfolk Island, or to the penal settlement of Port Arthur in Van Diemen's Land, of which the regulations and discipline will be nearly similar.

Arrived at Norfolk Island, the convict will be employed at hard labor. No authority except that of the queen herself will be competent to abridge the time of his detention there. On the other hand, the misconduct of the convict in Norfolk Island may have the effect of prolonging his detention there indefinitely, within the limits of the term of his original sentence.

But although even good conduct on the part of the convict cannot abridge the duration of this part of his sentence, yet any one who, by a course of blameless or meritorious

behavior at Norfolk Island, shall have established a claim to favorable consideration, will have the benefit of that claim in the future stages of his career.

To estimate at the end of four years, or even two years, the good or the bad conduct which a convict may have observed through so long a period, would hardly be prac ticable, unless some system were adopted of daily or weekly notation of the conduct, whether meritorious or culpable, of each. At this distance, I do not propose to enter on topics so minute as these; they are more fitly matter for local regulation. But whatever regulation may be made, should have for its object to leave as little as possible to general and indistinct recollection, and to make the attestation of good or of bad conduct as much as possible a matter of cotemporary record.

Before I pass from the subject of detention at Norfolk Island, it will be convenient that I should notice in what manner it is proposed to encounter some of the difficulties which would seem to oppose this part of the general design.

At present, the whole convict discipline of Norfolk Island is under the charge of an officer engaged in the trial of a series of experiments suggested by himself. For reasons in no degree incompatible with the respect due to that gentleman, it is proposed to relieve him from that charge. An officer to be called the superintendent or commandant of Norfolk Island, will proceed to that place as soon as may be practicable, and will be the bearer of detailed instructions for his guidance in the discharge of his official duties.

This officer will, however, be placed under the immediate authority of the Governor of Van Diemen's Land. For that purpose the island will be detached from the Government of New South Wales, and annexed to the Van Diemen's Land Government.

To make clear room for the commencement of the new system at Norfolk Island, it will be necessary to remove from that place to Van Diemen's Land a large proportion of the prisoners who are already in confinement there. Such of them as were convicted in the United Kingdom should be thus disposed of, together with so many of

those convicted in New South Wales or Van Diemen's Land as Captain Maconochie, from his knowledge of their characters and conduct, may deem entitled by such a transfer, to be relieved from the severer discipline which will hereafter be introduced in Norfolk Island. When arrived at Van Diemen's Land, the present convict popu lation of Norfolk Island should either be sent to Port Arthur, or placed in such one of the classes of convicts at Van Diemen's Land as may be most appropriate to the case of each person.

A proper military force will be stationed at Norfolk Island, and the convicts there will be employed under the direction of an officer of the Ordnance, in any necessary repair or enlargement of the barracks for the recep tion of that force. They will also be employed in preparing the necessary lodging for the reception of the total number of convicts whom it is intended to place on the island. Agricultural labor for their own subsistence will, of course, be an occupation which must be deemed of primary importance.

Norfolk Island must be regarded exclusively as a place of confinement. No person must be permitted to dwell there except the convicts, the persons employed in the superintendence of them, the families of those persons, and the military. The commandant must be armed with summary power to remove all persons who are not either convicts undergoing their sentence, or military in charge over them, reporting of course, to the Governor of Van Diemen's Land for his sanction, every such proceeding. These powers must be imparted to the commandant by law, and for that purpose an enactment must be proposed to the Legislative Council of Van Diemen's Land.

I anticipate that the total number of convicts who will be annually sent from this country to Norfolk Island will not exceed 1000, and that the total number of such convicts who will be ever resident there at any one time will not much exceed 3000. Some addition may be made by convicts sent to Norfolk Island from New South Wales or Van Diemen's Land. The number will not probably be large. But although any such Australian convicts may be detained at Norfolk Island until they shall have become

entitled to the probation pass, hereafter described, they must, on becoming so entitled, be removed to undergo the subsequent stages of punishment, the Van Diemen's Land convicts in New South Wales, and the New South Wales convicts in Van Diemen's Land.

The second stage of punishment is that of the proba tion gangs. These gangs will be assembled in Van Diemen's Land. They will be composed first of convicts who have passed through the period of detention at Norfolk Island, and secondly of convicts sentenced to transportation for a less term than life, who may be indicated by the Secretary of State for the Home Department as proper to be placed in this class. The probation gangs will be employed in the service of the Government, and, with rare exceptions, in the unsettled districts of the colony. No convict placed in the probation gang will pass less than one, or more than two years there, except in case of misconduct. Here, as in the case already mentioned, a cotemporary record should be preserved of the good or the bad conduct of the convict. Of good conduct the reward would be earned in the ulterior stages of his punishment. His bad conduct would be followed by the penalty of detention for a proportionate period in the probation gang.

The probation gangs will be employed in hard labor. But the labor of all should not be equally hard. Every gang should be broken into two or three divisions, distinguished from each other by such mitigations of toil or other petty indulgences as may be compatible with the condition of criminals suffering the punishment of their offences. By transference of the men from one of these divisions to the other, an effective system of rewards and penalties might be established, of which the enjoyment or the terror would be immediate. This system appears to be already in operation in Van Diemen's Land, and the regulations generally, in which, of course, modifications may from time to time be made by the local authorities, seem well adapted to their object.

An officer hereafter to be more particularly mentioned, who would have the title of Comptroller of Convicts, will have the general superintendence of the probation gangs,

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