respect to the authority of magistrates in granting or withholding of licenses, when it will be important to consider the suggestions of different members of your Committee on that head.

Your Committee have nothing to add on the subject of fairs. They have no wish to oppose such innocent recreations as relieve the monotony of labor or give joy to the youthful part of society: it is only when fairs are not effectually superintended by the police, that they become, as has been fatally experienced, the means of disorder, violence, and crime.

With regard to that fearlessness of punishment which your Committee has imputed to offenders, they believe themselves to have established the fact from documents which cannot fail. The number of re-commitments, namely, upwards of 2000 within the last five years, out of about a total of 10,000 commitments, would alone prove the indifference with which the culprit regards his sentence. Strong as is his confidence in escape from serious suffering, and incalculable as is the evil arising from such persuasion, there are, perhaps, few questions more easy of solution than its probable cure. Were there a scale of real punishments fixed with regard to offences, as nearly as the variety of crimes will admit of; and were trial speedily to follow offence, and execution as speedily and certainly to wait on sentence, it is believed by those who have thought much on the subject, that it would soon make a striking difference in the number of offenders, unless where the want of sustenance drives them to desperation.

The Court will readily appreciate the anxious feelings with which its Committee, introduce their last remedial proposition, namely, the permanent removal of convicts in general, including minor offenders as well as felons, to parts beyond the seas; except in cases of extreme youth, and where the crime is not of a profligate nature. In the former case, summary punishment and immediate discharge would save them from the contaminating effects of a jail.

Your Committee might, perhaps, be considered as having already discharged their duty, by their solemn declaration, that without such a measure they have no hope of security for the public, or of any material improvement in the system of police. All means for the reform of prisoners have been tried, and tried in vain. Short transportations, the Hulks, penitentiaries, wellregulated jails and houses of correction, classification, employment, education, spiritual instruction-all have failed, and that almost totally. Those who shall condescend to consider the facts and weigh the reasons herein adduced, it is believed, will partake of that despair which fills the minds of your Committee, and come to the same sorrowful conclusion.

It may be said, that having thus avowed its opinion, it would be more becoming in your Committee to leave to the state, should it admit the truth of the evil, to devise a suitable remedy for its cure. With all possible deference to the higher authorities, your Committee believe that, as between the court of quarter-sessions and themselves, more is expected.

They will proceed, therefore, to meet the two material objections which they anticipate; the one on the part of the public, the other on that of government.

The public, not entering into those minute considerations which it has been the duty of your Committee to pursue, and influenced by those kind feelings which do honor to our country, may regard so general a measure of transportation as shall include minor convicts, such as profligate vagrants, reputed thieves, &c. as too severe but those who have attended to the more recent and authentic accounts from New South Wales, will be convinced, that to transport such persons to that settlement, would be towards them an act of the highest humanity. It does not follow, that those who have been convicted of the minor offences should be sent to the same parts, or be subject to the same degree of opprobrium and discipline, as those convicted of felony. Their situation would rather be that of articled servants for a period. Their transfer would be from the moral pest-houses of the metropolis, and the fiend-like association of those confederates, from which they cannot, or will not separate themselves, to a salubrious climate, a fertile soil, occupied by a prosperous and rapidlyincreasing population, among whom mild and respectable servitude would be almost sure to be obtained, and where even the worst felons have by a change of conduct acquired considerable property; and, what is of more consequence, have regained that which, under no system hitherto adopted, has ever been accomplished, namely, character! When your Committee reminds the Court, that under the 17th Geo. II. cap. 5, which was regarded for upwards of eighty years, and until recently, as the great institute of our vagrant law, that the same order of convicts whom it is now proposed to remove to New South Wales, might, after long imprisonment and whipping, have been sent to serve his Majesty by sea or land, this suggestion of your Committee will not, they flatter themselves, be deemed a harsh one.

It is idle to say, that the errors and crimes of such persons arise from the want of employment. Were manufactures brisk and labor in demand, they are not the beings who would submit to it, or be satisfied with the ordinary wages of servitude, while occasional depredation is so productive, as to enable them to continue thir inveterate habits of wicked and expensive indulgence.

But were they even disposed to work, let every man ask himself, if he would mix people, thus stamped with infamy, with sober and respectable mechanics and artisans? It is well known that they are not, that they cannot be employed. And the question is at length reduced to this, namely, whether the criminal part of the population shall go on increasing till they become too strong for the civil power, of which, even at present, they stand in so little awe, or be removed to a station every way better for themselves?

Your Committee do not anticipate any other objection on the part of his Majesty's government than the expense, which they have understood to be the reason that so small a proportion of those sentenced to transportation within the last seven years, have actually undergone that penalty of the law. To say nothing of the proportion of expense which different parishes might be disposed to contribute to this end, through their county rate, and be great gainers by so doing, your Committee cannot help thinking that persons might be found who, from the altered state of New South Wales, would readily contract to convey convicts free of expense to government, provided they should have a property in their servitude assigned to them for a certain number of years. This is no new principle. By the Act 4 Geo. I. cap. 11, and subsequent Acts, the court which passed sentence of transportation were "" empowered to transfer and make over such offenders to the use of any person who should contract for the performance of such transportation, to him and to his assigns for seven years." Other provisions enlarged the power of the court, as to the number of years and places beyond the seas to which criminals might be consigned, after they should have undergone the previous punishment of burning in the hand, or whipping, and imprisonment: most expressly enacting, that the contractor should have a property in the convict for his labor, during the whole term for which he was sentenced. From the clauses which relate to the expense of transportation, it should seem that the only charges to which the public was liable, were those of preparing the contract and the conveying of the felon in order to be transported." The striking difference between the rigorous fate of the transports to the American plantations and those to New South Wales is, that such has been the value of labor at the latter place, such the field of exertion, and such the comfort and prosperity of the convicts, that without strong regulations it must, as observed by Lord Bathurst, cease to be that place of punishment which the legislature designed it for.

Your Committee feel satisfied that they have already established their proposition as to the probability of convicts being removed

from the country without material expense to the state, and, under this impression, they have directed their attention more particularly to ascertain, how far it is probable that those who are now an intolerable and dangerous burden to their country and themselves, might be received into active and useful service in New South Wales.

Among other means of information presented to your Committee, has been a work recently published by P. Cunningham, Esq. R. N., who went four voyages to that settlement as superintendant surgeon, having a considerable number of convicts placed under his care and authority, and who himself resided two years in different parts of the colony, to which he has now returned. This gentleman's work is written with considerable ability, and displays so much knowlege of his subject, physical, moral, and political, as seems to entitle his opinions to great attention. He speaks of the settlement as in a most rapid state of advancement. Considering the numerous and great difficulties which the first settlers had to encounter, the Court will read with interest the following sketch:-"Here" (Mr. Cunningham says, vol. ii. p. 64.), "where thirty-eight years ago not one civilised being disputed the dominion of the woods with their savage inhabitants, nearly fifty thousand such now exist, spread over an extent of country of two hundred square miles, having justice administered by civil and criminal courts and by six separate courts of quarter-sessions, and eleven benches of magistrates instituted among them. Where, thirty-eight years ago, not a single European animal breathed, now upwards of two hundred thousand sheep, upwards of one hundred thousand head of cattle, and many thousand horses and other animals destined for the support and pleasure of man, are peacefully grazing. Where, thirtyeight years ago, not an ear of grain was cultivated, we now see one hundred thousand bushels advertised for, for the mere annual consumption of one of our distilleries." Mr. C. goes on to enumerate other items of surprising progress, such as the amount of exports and imports, and the quantity of shipping employed in voyages to Europe, America, India, and the China seas. He imputes much of their agricultural success to the labor of the convicts, whom they have only to lodge, clothe, and board; while a free farm laborer is allowed, in addition to those advantages, from 121. to 201. per year in wages, and female servants from 101. to 15. Had Mr. Cunningham said no more, your Committee would have concluded that the labor and service of convicts is too profitable, not to make their importation a valuable speculation. The following extract, however, places the matter beyond doubt (vol. i. p. 11.): "Few people will be found foolish enough to

manifest an eagerness for the furtherance of objects which would prove detrimental to their private interests, and when we see the whole body of Australian settlers eager for the continuance of convict transportation to their shores, we may reasonably conclude that they expect to derive therefrom some considerable benefit. Notwithstanding the excess of the larcenous importation for some years back among us, no less than one thousand six hundred applications for ex-highwaymen, burglars, pickpockets, and various other descriptions of rogues, still remained uncomplied with on the arrival of the present governor, which obliged his Excellency to break up the government clearing-gangs, in order to satiate the longings of the settlers for the valuable services of that, with us, highly useful body of men. Nothing, in fact, ever created greater dismay among us, than the announcement, some two years ago, of a project for the future disposal of convict labor in the furtherance of government works at home, and in other colonies in preference to this."

Your Committee believe that it will give the highest satisfaction to every friend of humanity to learn, that the great object of the convict is to regain character. All past history is voted, by common consent, into oblivion. Here the convict starts anew; and having no hope of remission, comfort, or success, but according to his character for good conduct, he becomes most anxious to possess that good name of which he was formerly so prodigal. Those who are convicted of further offence in the courts in New South Wales are calied "second sentence men," and contemned and avoided by their former associates. Mr. Cunningham observes (vol. ii. p. 190.), "the great body, however, of the convicts turn out to be good servants, and you will exact as much labor from them in general as from free laborers in England. We constantly see convict servants trusted to bring home, from distances of seventy or eighty miles, cart-loads of valuable property, for which they generally account as strictly as the most honest in England, while others have charge of houses containing property to a great amount, and faithfully perform their duty thereby." Towards the conclusion of his work, Mr. Cunningham observes, that "a more deadly blow could not be aimed at the prosperity of New South Wales, than making her no longer a deposit for

criminals."

Your Committee are further enabled to refer to an authority of no mean weight. Mr. Wilmot Horton, in a speech which he delivered in the House of Commons on the 4th of March, said, "It was impossible to lay out capital with a better prospect of insuring a fair return, than by sending the supernumerary population to New South Wales. In fact, many parishes were so well