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Bob Harvey had seized, on the shores of Norfolk Island this brig, which was loaded with arms, ammunition, utensils, and tools of all sorts, destined for one of the Sandwich Islands. All his gang had gone on board, and pirates after having been convicts, these wretches, more ferocious than the Malays themselves, scoured the Pacific, destroying vessels, and massacring their crews.
But it was necessary to remember that the convicts were, perhaps, roaming about the woods, and that in the midst of these thick forests a shot might quickly be fired and received. It was also decided that no one should remain at Granite House. Top and Jup themselves were to accompany the expedition; the inaccessible dwelling needed no guard.
I must own that I felt a greater curiosity to see the convicts than the prison which contained them, and my wishes were completely gratified, as my husband was detained for several hours on business, and I had a long interval of leisure to examine the workshops, where the convicts were employed at their different trades, their sleeping cells, chapel, and places of punishment.
Mothers hushed their children when the youngsters chattered or whimpered. Men merely whispered commands to the horses. All at once Vaniman beheld the van. It was holding a place in the parade and was moving with the decorous slowness of the other vehicles. On the driver's seat with Wagg were the two convicts.
Flood of Convicts.# After the cessation of transportation to New South Wales, in 1840, hopes were entertained that Tasmania would likewise cease to be a penal settlement; and, under this impression, great numbers of immigrants arrived in the colony.
In 1821, at the end of Macquarie's government, there was scattered about in the colony a population of 29,783, of whom 13,814 were convicts, and among these were found ministering seven clergymen of the Church of England, with no bishop of that Church to "set things in order" nearer than the Antipodes, the very opposite side of the habitable globe!
The considerable cost of maintaining these convicts as at present, in State institutions, would be saved by the adoption of the plan proposed, and by employing them in the manufacture of such articles as were needed for use by the Government quite a large pecuniary benefit would be realized in partial return for our outlay.
After the publication of this order, however, I saw many persons committed to prison for debt, whose situation, as convicts, exempted them from incarceration; but this apparent breach of the regulation was entirely attributable to the ignorance of the court which had thus decided, that the person against whom their warrant was directed, was at the time a bond-servant, and, consequently, within the reach of this clause.
But, he is destroying whole battalions and even armies of caterpillars, those green coated Boches and striped convicts of our forest trees; and we think "brigadier" none too noble a title for the bravery he shows in carolling all through the hot summer day.
He was sent out to be the chaplain to the convicts at Sydney, and his zeal, his faith in the work he had to do, and his roughly eloquent style, made him successful where more cultured clergymen would have failed.
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