Part 13

The first who improved the discipline of the convict ships, were Captain Brown and Dr. Reed, of the _Morley_: they endeavoured, by precept and example, to inculcate morality. Coercion had been found ineffectual, and the women, when restricted, filled the vessel with clamour and profaneness; but these gentlemen adopted a system of mental influence, and their prisoners, whatever was their subsequent conduct, were far superior to their predecessors. The result of this instance led to a permanent amelioration, and proved what had hitherto been doubted--that even the worst societies can be controlled, by those who unite a sense of virtue with official authority.[70]

The safety ascribed to the system of prostitution, was but an apology for vice, and the voyage of the _Jane Shore_ dissolved the illusion. The persuasion of the women accomplished what the male prisoners rarely attempted, and when on their passage to the colonies have never been able to effect. The soldiers and sailors, seduced by their caresses, seized the vessel, and having shot the captain and the chief officer, steered into a South American port. Once only, did a piratical plot assume a serious form. The prisoners by the _Chapman_ devised a capture; but the report of the design being communicated, the guard was prepared for resistance. A deadly fire covered the deck with carnage: several were precipitated into the sea. The sanguinary conflict, which might have been prevented by timely precautions, obtained for the _Chapman_ the popular prefix by which it is distinguished.[71] On one occasion, a vessel was in imminent danger, through the foolish incaution of the guard. It was the custom to discharge the fire-arms at sunrise, and to load them at noon: the interval seemed to offer the fairest prospect of success, and the prisoners extensively joined in the conspiracy; but they were overheard in conversation by a soldier standing at the hatchway: the ringleaders were seized, and the plot defeated.

During the shorter voyages, from port to port, such accidents have been much more common, although rarely successful. Knatchbull, a relative of the eminent Kentish family, and formerly an officer in the navy, enticed his fellow prisoners to attempt the capture of the vessel which conveyed them: but his device, to poison all but the conspirators with arsenic, was denounced.[72]

The prisoners sent down from Sydney to Van Diemen's Land, were conveyed in small crafts and small numbers, and without much regard to their health; but as an example of wretchedness, nothing could exceed the usual passage from Hobart Town to Macquarie Harbour. The unhappy men, often destitute of clothing, were placed in the hold of a vessel, without bedding or blankets, and were exposed, sometimes for five or six weeks, to the chills of a wintry voyage: on one such, there were thirty-five men, who had but four blankets among them; and one was found without any other covering than his shirt, in which plight he had been forwarded from the gaol.[73]

The surgeon-superintendent enters on his office at the same moment with the guard: his duties are multiform--the magistrate, the chaplain, the mentor, and the physician. The surgeons are usually popular with the prisoners, and the penal administration with which they are entrusted, is generally the most disguised. Educated men, they are not commonly haughty and capricious: they are able to distinguish moral imbecility from perverseness, and both from disease. The habit of scrutinising quickens their sagacity, and fits them for a station, where the knowledge of the heart is the great secret of control. Accustomed to behold human nature, stript of all its external trappings, the grade of the prisoner, in their estimation, does not wholly debase the man. Witnesses to the wretchedness of humble life, the squalor of its garrets and its cellars--observant that want, which sometimes forms the felon, much oftener makes the martyr, and crowds the hospital rather than the gaol--they are not incapable of pitying either class of victims. The horrors which others feel for disease, whether of the body or the mind, excite no antipathies in men who have devoted their lives to its relief: thus their government of convicts often affords a singular contrast to the agency which precedes or follows them. The recollection of their conduct is mentioned by the prisoner with respect, and even with fondness. No profession can better prepare for practical benevolence: what it withdraws from the sensibility it adds to the understanding; and those in charge of convict vessels have exhibited, in full average, the virtues of their profession.[74]

When physical suffering became infrequent, and the arrangements secured both convenience and comfort during the voyage, it was long ere moral control, or a reformatory discipline, became objects of concern. A surgeon,[75] employed from 1818, amused the public with the details of his system of management--not wanting in humanity. He encouraged a joyous indifference to the past or the future: the prisoners sang from morning to night, and often spent the evenings in dancing. The greatest criminals were selected on principle for offices of trust, as far the most trusty! The discourse was licentious--the feats of thievery, the chosen topics of amusement and conversation. A stage, decked out with the remains of former spoil, exhibited "the forty thieves," or a comedy of judges, officers, and felons: mock charges were enforced by barristers, arrayed in blankets; the bench was filled with an actor decorated with a quilt, while a swab covered his head, and descended to his shoulders. In the female prison ships, dancing and concerts, at which the cabin passengers were spectators, whiled away the voyage. The gross immoralities of a former period had subsided when he wrote: he mentioned the change with regret. A free intercourse, he thought, more conducive to reformation, as well as to harmony: the attachment formed by the women, softened their demeanor, and facilitated their control. Such were his views, and they had many partisans: but in connection we learn, without astonishment, that he thought contemptuously of saintship, considered reformation utopian, and honesty rather the result of habit than of principle; the convicts, more unfortunate in their detection than peculiar in their crimes: capable of the devotion of hypocrites; hardly of repentance. The dash of libertinism which sparkles in the pages of this writer, fell in with the humour of the day, and the work was popular. It greatly tended, notwithstanding its levity, to change the character of penal discipline in the colonies.[76]

The discipline of a convict vessel, as administered by Surgeon-superintendent Browning, exhibited a different scene, and was carried out in another spirit. The devout character of his mind, his confiding disposition, and boundless good-will, are well known in these colonies; and his management has been regarded with great admiration, or great contempt. His high valuation of human nature contrasted with the common official estimate: he not only saw fellow men in the worst prisoners, but practicable materials, which knowledge and judgment might form into comparative moral excellence. The plan of his government recognised a wide distribution of oversight and responsibility: the names by which he distinguished those whom he employed were flattering: they were not gaolers and turnkeys, but captains of divisions and delegates. He delivered lectures upon geography and astronomy: those who could play instruments, such as clarionet, fife, and violin, were stationed on the deck, while the rest marched in ranks. He instituted a court of enquiry, consisting of five persons, of which his clerk was the recorder, who examined witnesses, and disposed of trivial offences, by exhortation, warning, and reproof; and in more flagrant cases, these preliminary inquiries formed the basis of his own adjudication. He treated the prisoners as persons sequestered from society for their own good. He has shewn, by tables, that those who acquired a knowledge of reading under his instruction, often indeed imperfect, formed a large proportion of the whole.[77] His addresses exhibit the ardour of his character: most critics would discern a tinge of enthusiasm; which, however, is common to all, who successfully attempt the reformation of mankind. Under such a guardian, it may be imagined, that the physical welfare of the prisoners was carefully superintended. Medical comforts were distributed with great liberality: flogging was wholly disused. Moral influence, assisted by occasional deprivation of food or liberty, comprehended the agency he employed. The systems of Browning and Cunningham, though contemplating the same general objects, were singularly adverse; and in nothing did they differ more pointedly than their estimate of the substrata of convict character, the influence of religious instruction, and the usefulness of the _cat_. Dr. Browning was subject to much imposition--a liability which meets every aspect of practical benevolence; but that he preserved order and health, discouraged blasphemy, provided for the occupation of time, and prevented gambling and peculation--that he sheltered the well-disposed from the violence and contamination of the worst--and that he parted with his charge, with their ideas increased and their moral sensibility awakened--is, with all deductions, a claim to no trifling praise. Colonel Arthur, a keen observer, mentioned the general emotion which separation occasioned: the prisoners heard his valedictory address with tenderness and reverence, and melted into tears.[78] To reproach his labors would be a sin against mankind; but an over-estimate of their effect, diminished the moral weight of their example. "Dr. Browning's pets" became marked men; their conduct was watched with curiosity, often with ill-will, and their lapses were reckoned up with exultation.

The ample provision for the accommodation, exercise, and food of the prisoners, has been of late years a topic of complaint. They require more care, and a diet more nicely chosen, than laborers in health and mental tranquillity. Efforts to reduce these comforts have been followed by fever and physical prostration; and whatever aspect their treatment may wear, those who deprive them of liberty are bound to provide for their safety. The law sentences to transportation: no question of public policy could justify a minister, when converting that penalty into a sentence of death.[79]

Notwithstanding the length of the voyage, the navigation of convict vessels has been fortunate: for thirty years no vessel had been lost. The merchant ships met with the average of accidents; but the transports were supposed, by the curious, to be under a peculiar destiny. They attributed their safe passage to the force of the proverb, which implies that the trident of Neptune is powerless against the heritage of the executioner.

A succession of calamities, in the navigation of convict vessels, changed the aspect of their fortune, and filled all classes with commiseration: such was the wreck of the _Amphitrite_, in 1833, which struck on the coast of Bologne. That vessel was in a position of great danger, and the French pilot, Heuret, endeavoured to warn, in time to save; but the risk of the usual reward, it is said, the surgeon was unwilling to incur; and the captain, not less indisposed to forfeit his bond, which included a penalty for every prisoner who might escape. Their hesitation was fatal to themselves: the women were not permitted to come on deck, or to avail themselves of the opportunity to save their lives. These unfortunate females, to the number of 103, with their children, were drowned; and their naked corpses, floating to the coast of France, exhibited an appalling spectacle. The French and English mingled their tears, as they beheld the bodies strewed along the beach--some models of feminine beauty, others disfigured by the recent concussions; among the rest, a young mother, with her child clasped in her arms. Nor does it appear that the instructions of the government had ever foreseen or provided for such dangers, or authorised the temporary release of prisoners, when the situation of the ship might require their liberation.

The wreck of the _George the Third_, in April, 1835, excited the most painful sensations. Having fifty-three persons on the sick list, occasioned by a deficiency of proper food, Captain Moxley endeavoured to reach Hobart Town through D'Entrecasteaux's Channel: while running at an easy rate, and in smooth water, the leadsman cried out, "a quarter less four:" that instant the vessel struck; at first gently, then heavily, and in less than ten minutes she was a perfect wreck. The prisoners were below, imploring release: they rushed to the hatchway, where a corporal's guard was armed to repress them: they forced through the bars, and a few were seen to escape; the soldiers, ordered to resist their egress, then fired. The waters rushing into the hold of the vessel drowned the sick, and reached the knees of the convicts, who were ascending the hatchway; and Major Ryan, and the surgeon-superintendent, expected instant death. They succeeded in sending the long-boat on shore, amidst the cheers of the prisoners. Assistance was afforded by the _Louisa_ schooner; and a party dispatched in the cutter, obtained help from Hobart Town: but of two hundred and twenty, one hundred and thirty-three perished. The fate of the convicts who fell at the hatchway, excited great commiseration and some complaint: the officers disclaimed the order to fire--an act which could only be excused by the danger to the whole company in a rush to the boat. A board of inquiry acquitted all parties of blame.

One man, only, was found on the wreck; an aged prisoner, on his passage to the colony under his third sentence of transportation: unable to face the surf, he lashed himself to a ring attached to the hull, and there closed his career of crime.

A disaster, not less appalling, occurred off King's Island, by the wreck of the _Neva_, in May, 1835, at 4 o'clock in the morning: she struck upon the rocks, swung on the reef, and admitted the sea. The pinnace was lowered, and the prison being broken by the shock, the unfortunate women rushed on the deck; they filled the boat, which was instantly swamped, and all, except three seamen, perished. The long-boat was then carefully laden; but being upset by the surf, all sunk, except the master and chief officer: these having regained the ship, she parted; and the women, aroused from their beds in the twilight of a wintry morning, clung shivering to the fragments. Their cries of suffering and anguish were soon hushed, and of two hundred and forty, a few moments before slumbering in tranquillity, twenty-two only were borne on broken pieces of the ship to land; of these, seven died from exhaustion, and the remainder must have perished, but for the intrepid exertions of Mr. Charles Friend, who caught sight of their signals when passing the coast.

Two women disputed about the position of the vessel: exasperated by contradiction, they were tearing each other by the hair, when a wave swept them from the deck into eternity.

The wreck of the _Governor Phillip_, in 1848, was the last instance of such disasters. The vessel struck on a sand bank off Cape Barren Island; but, except four, all the prisoners were saved: six soldiers and five seamen perished, with Lieutenant Griffiths, the officer in command--a young gentleman of amiable disposition and great promise. He exhibited a brilliant example of humanity, calmness, and self devotion. The prisoners broke from their quarters, rushed on the deck, and obstructed the exertions of the seamen: entreating them to return, he gave them _his hand_ and his word, that he would not desert the vessel until they were clear of the wreck. While some were conveyed to the shore, he remained knocking off the irons of the rest; and then finding the boat could not regain the ship, he plunged into the sea, and was last seen struggling with the current. The risk of life is common to the military profession; but a sacrifice so nobly made, was surely not less glorious than when on the field of battle.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 63: Sidney Smith: _Edinburgh Review_, 1803.]

[Footnote 64: _Tench's Narrative_, 1789.]

[Footnote 65: _Bigge's Report._]

[Footnote 66: This act (4 Geo. iv.) of 1823, made the punishments legally inflicted by the overseers on board the hulks, the rule on board the transports; but 5 Will. iv. allows such punishments as may be _authorised by the secretary of state_, without specifying their nature. The penalty of L20 (previously L50), for not entering the punishment in the log-book, is in itself a feeble protection against the abuses which such powers might produce. The instructions of the secretary of state to the surgeon-superintendent direct--to confine in a dark cell; to lessen the ration, even to bread and water; and whipping: first "using mild and persuasive means." It is proper to observe, that these powers are very rarely abused: punishments are not to be inflicted, except in the presence of at least twelve prisoners.]

[Footnote 67: "The captain and each officer enjoy the right of selection. Thus they continue the habit of concubinage until the convicts arrive at Sydney Town, and some are now educating five or six children. Each sailor or soldier is permitted to attach himself to one of the females: the permission and the caresses of the artful wanton have often lured the temporary parties to marry at Plymouth, more frequently to consummate the nuptials at Sydney: such a marriage manumits the convict."

"The unhappy male convicts are denied, save occasionally, these profligate liberties. Occasionally, however, they range into the quarter assigned to the women. The males, accustomed in London to indiscriminate license, discover the greatest regret at the restraint of their passions in the grossest oaths, and in the grossest language. The females, who rather resemble the brutes than rational creatures in their excesses, answer their reproaches, and rage with equal effrontery, and unbounded impudence. It is a scene like Pandemonium--a second hell, but upon the ocean. Sitting in groups, they sing, they shout, they converse in the grossest terms, corrupting, and corrupted. The concubine knits, or sews for her sailor, near his berth: the rest wash the clothes of the male convicts; exercise and cleanliness, conducive to their health and to the comforts of the ship. Many are remarkably neat: all are clad in different dresses--some have been enabled to purchase caps, more have not. The males are clothed in simple uniformity, in blue trousers and a jacket. All the convicts are compelled to wash once in the day their heads, their feet, and their faces; the men under the superintendence of a soldier, the women apart under the eye of a matron. The males are marched in a body of six across the deck to the pump: the sailors draw up the water, and they are artfully compelled to labor for health at the pump, and to rinse away the dirt. By this prudent precaution, in every variety of weather, they obtain fresh air and avoid the scurvy, or cutaneous diseases. A surgeon daily inspects this _human cargo_, and reports its _state_. They are paid per head, a sum for those who survive the voyage; hence it is the surgeon's interest to preserve these diseased wretches. To inure this assembly, disgorged from brothels, and cellars, and gaols, to the _appearance_, or to the idea of decorum, the men wash their bodies above decks, and the women between them. The sexes are forbid to mingle, even at their meals. So rigorous a discipline is only supported by severity of punishments. Chains, tied round the body and fettered round the ankles, confine and distress each male convict, by the clanking sound, and by annoying the feet. This image of slavery is copied from the irons used in the slave-ships in Guinea: as in these, bolts and locks are at hand, in the sides and ribs of each _transport_ (for the vessels _on this service_, with _peculiar_ propriety are so named), to prevent the escape, or preclude the movements of a convict. If he attempt to pass the sentry, he is liable to be stabbed: for the attempt, a convict was lately shot, and his executioner was applauded by his officer for a faithful, though severe, discharge of duty. If a felon kill his companion, a case very frequent in the quarrels of these highwaymen and robbers, the murderer is hung at the yard-arm, and his body is slowly carried through the ship, and launched into the deep. For the theft of provisions, or of clothes from his neighbour, a case yet more common, and more natural to footpads, the convict depredator is shot. For inferior crimes, as riot or quarrels, a soldier is commanded to whip the offender with martial severity: the first stroke leaves a deep impression of the wire, the second causes the blood to trickle, the third draws a stream of gore: under several faintings, the debilitated and disordered convict receives two dozen of lashes. On the slightest appearance of a mutiny, the ring-leader is cast headlong into the sea, in his irons and his clothes. We commit this body to the deep, the chaplain repeals, but the words of Shakespeare, perhaps, would be more applicable:--

'O mutineer! if thou hast any hope of heaven's bliss, Lift up thy hand; make signal of that hope. He sinks! and makes no sign.'" --_Account, by Captain Bertram_, in 1800: Longman.]

[Footnote 68: New South Wales first fleet, 987 convicts; of which 25 died, or 1 in 35. Second fleet, 1763 convicts: died 327, or 1 in every 5-1/2.

"I beg leave, however, to say, that the provisions were much superior to those usually supplied by contract: they were furnished by Messrs. Richards and Thorn, of Tower-street, London."--_Tench's Narrative._ These honest contractors deserve immortal renown.]

[Footnote 69: _Table of Voyages, from_ 1810 _to_ 1820:

--------+---------------------------+----------+---------+-------+-----+ Voyages.| Course pursued. | Average. |Convicts.|Deaths.|Sick.| --------+---------------------------+----------+---------+-------+-----+ 44 | Direct | 127 days | 7,657 | 71 | 94 | 38 | Touched at Rio de Janeiro | 156 days | 6,470 | 132 | 123 | 11 | Touched Cape of G. Hope | 146 days | 1,912 | 9 | 57 | --------+---------------------------+----------+---------+-------+-----+]

[Footnote 70: _Bigge's Report._]

[Footnote 71: The bloody _Chapman_.]

[Footnote 72: This man, after an extraordinary career, closed his miserable life on the scaffold, for the murder of a female, to whom he was engaged. His relative conferred upon her surviving children a sum of money to ensure their education--an act of uncommon generosity which must obliterate the discredit of a relationship to one, who, however, perhaps blended insanity and deliberate crime.]

[Footnote 73: Parliamentary Papers.]

[Footnote 74: "What chaplets are woven for men of slaughter! What statues to men slaying conquerers! What notes of glory sounded, what blaspheming praises to the genius of blood shedding! I have seen much of the ceremonies dedicated to these things, and contrasting my late feelings with my present, with what new homage do I venerate the race of Lintleys; the men who, like minor deities, walk the earth: and in the homes of poverty, where sickness falls with doubly heavy hand, fight the disease beside the poor man's bed--their only fee, the blessing of the poor! Mars may have his planet, but give me--what, in the spirit of the old mythology might be made a star in heaven--the night lamp of Apothecary Lintley."--_Story of a Feather, by Douglas Jerrold._]

[Footnote 75: Cunningham.]

[Footnote 76: _Two Years in New South Wales_, vol. ii, pp. 260-282.]

[Footnote 77: _Compiled from Dr. Browning's Tables._

+-----------------------------------------------+------------------------+ | At embarkation. | On debarkation. | +--------+-------------+------------------------+------------------------+ | Year. | Ship. | Neither read nor write.|Unable to read or write.| +--------+-------------+------------------------+------------------------+ | 1831 | Surry | 118 | 1 | | 1834 | Arab | 194 | 1 | | 1836 | Elphinstone | 158 | None | | 1840 | Margaret | 102 | 6 | +--------+-------------+------------------------+------------------------+]

[Footnote 78: "After he had examined them, and almost every prisoner had repeated a portion of scripture, he addressed them in a most affecting manner, and entreated them not to forget the lessons he had imparted; and on his withdrawing, I think there was not a dry eye amongst the whole of the prisoners."--_Col. Arthur_, 1837. _Par. Papers._]