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perintendent of convicts, and the fellows to whom he confides the secondary concerns of his office, are never at a loss to cultivate the opportunities to which such lessons tend; and as they all are or have been convicts, they dexterously keep up an intercourse ramifying through all that vast fraternity; and a marriage is contracted without difficulty or delay, doubtlessly very much to the happiness of the female, as well as the edification of the community!

One of the greatest evils, in my opinion, attending imprisonment, is when the character of the turn y and the other persons in authority about a gaol is corrupt or villainous. In the best constituted prisons in England, this is a subject of painful note, which even the utmost vigilance of the most upright and excellent Governor cannot always rectify. Persons formerly of infamous character are often selected for that situation, from a mistaken notion of prudential policy,-"Set a thief to watch a thief;" for, while their official care is directed to secure the person of the prisoner, his mind too often is sunk more deeply, and confirmed in depravity by their wicked agency or connivance. This is best illustrated by fact.

On visiting the gaol in Sydney, the morning after the prisoners had been landed, I found that many of them spent the night in noise and indecent revelry, occasioned by beer and spirits which had been introduced, and that could not have been done without the knowledge of the keepers. Here then is a lamentable source of mischief to the convict on the very threshold of her exile. In the population of such a town as Sydney, the mass of which is formed of persons trans

ported for their crimes, much moral turpitude may be supposed to prevail, which not all the existing regulations, however excellent they be, even were they maintained with exactness, are sufficient to repress. The number of houses licensed for the sale of beer and spirits, besides those where the like are vended clandestinely, by feeding the bad passions with dangerous incentive retard the growth of moral reserve, and that rectitude of principle necessary to the existence of a well-ordered community.

Hence, therefore, derives a constant flow of licentiousness; and the consequences will, it is feared, long continue to characterize the infant colony. Females banished to a place of this description must be formed of materials exceedingly pure, to withstand temptations such as are every moment spread before them. Can it be reasonably hoped, that one the whole tenour of whose life has been corrupt, debased, and almost remorseless, will be influenced by the salutary care of transient benevolence, and the precepts of religious instruction recently imbibed, to shut her eyes and ears against what is still grateful to slumbering passion, and as yet pleasurably tingles on every sense? How odious, then, and afflictive must be corrupt example and temptation at such a time, which in the absence. of discipline proceed a step further than inclination, warping the firmest purpose, and fomenting every bad propensity! Wretched indeed, and greatly to be pitied, is the female in such a situation, whose heart still cherishes a spark of virtue which reflection and pious resolution were again fanning into life, but through a direful necessity, from which there is no escaping, is

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dragged down again into the turpid mire, and smoul ders in pollution!

Four days elapsed before the wind became favourable for conveying the remaining women to Parramatta, a water passage of about twenty miles, where I took occasion to visit them at the Factory on the morning after their arrival. It would indeed be a difficult task to give an adequate notion of the miserable state in which I found them. They all collected around me, and for several minutes not one of them could utter a word; but their streaming eyes and deep sobs sufficiently expressed the state of their feelings. Some of them gave a shocking account of the manner in which the last night had been spent. On their arrival the preceding evening, they had not got within the Factory before they were surrounded by hordes of idle fellows, convicts, who came provided with bottles of spirits some, and others with provisions, for the purpose of forming a banquet according to custom, which they assured themselves of enjoying without interruption, as a prelude to excesses which decency forbids to mention. They calculated, it seems, on this security, in consequence of a guilty understanding between themselves and the constables, whom they found little difficulty of reconciling to remissness on such an occasion.

Those guardians of public morals are selected from the convict ranks, and, as in this instance, rarely possess qualities superior to those over whom they are placed in authority. The best institutions must fail in their design when supported by materials of this description; and although it is probable that a

better system could not be devised than that adopted by the present Governor, yet, for want of men of probity and firmness to carry his views into effect, the worst abuses, it is apprehended, must ensue. This is indeed so manifest, that the Sydney Gazette frequently announces the dismissal of those officers for misconduct.

At first I was unwilling to credit the account which these women gave of this strange and disorderly visit of the convicts; but they soon convinced me by pointing out several of these half-naked, half-starved, miserable-looking wretches, who were still lurking around this receptable of misery,-the well-known theatre of infamous excesses. Several of the women, whose dispositions had been particularly improved on the voyage, and who still retained a strong sense of propriety, exclaimed with tears of anguish, "O God! Sir, we are all sent here to be destroyed." They declared it to be quite impossible to remain virtuous amidst the concentrated immorality, and the various forms in which temptation was presented to them. I endeavoured to support their resolution with every argument against despair, which was evidently seizing on their minds, and tried to recall to their recollection the lessons they had heard so often during the voyage; but they again burst into tears, and with one voice declared, Were angels from heaven placed here as we are, they would in three nights be corrupted."

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The Factory is a square stone building of inconsiderable dimension, having an upper story: here are crowded all the workshops for converting the wool of

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the colony into cloth; one side being appropriated to picking, carding, and spinning; the other to weaving; the males employed in this service mixing, in the hours of work, indiscriminately with the females. It is locked at night, and the key intrusted to a porter, who has a lodging-place at the entrance. In this building the female convicts, whose behaviour after coming into the colony may have brought them under the notice of the police, and is deemed deserving of particular punishment, are ordered to be confined and kept to hard labour: they are to sleep within it at night, and are supposed to have no communication with any one outside the walls. How well these orders and expectations are fulfilled, may be seen hereafter.

Detached from the Factory is a wooden building, in a state of decay, open almost at every point; "all the elements of nature may enter in :" unfortunately, too, it is permeable to the unhallowed step of drunken licentiousness in its vilest garb. In this crazy mansion the women from the Morley were placed on their arrival; and during the day-time were not allowed to stray far from it, at least not before they had done a certain quantity of work; but this being performed, they were at liberty to go whither they pleased, do what they pleased, and entertain whom they pleased. This information does not rest on hearsay, or on authority which could excite my distrust: I visited the place at all hours, to ascertain the fact, and have the evidence of my own senses in proof of the assertion, that the women had free egress and ingress at all times.

It has just been stated, that females confined in the

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