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Do all these deserve such hardship? If a man sees a friend, a brother, a father going to a prison, where felons are to be his society, want and sickness his sure attendants, and death, in all likelihood his only, but quick relief; if he stretches out his hand to save him from immediate slavery and ruin, he runs the risk of his own liberty, and at last loses it; is there any one who will say, this man is not an object of compassion?
It was true that New South Wales contained a large convict population, who required to be ruled with despotic rigour; yet there were many free settlers who declined to be treated like slaves and felons, and who soon came to have a thorough dislike to the new Governor.
His dread of the prison increases as he comes under the shadow of its grim walls, and, once having passed within, a feeling of remorse and desperation seizes him. Its intensity or weakness will depend upon his temperament. He is soon told in the most emphatic manner that he is to regard himself as a felon; that he is to live with felons as a felon and observe the habits of a felon.
"Yesterday we were some hours with the poor female felons, attending to their outward necessities; we had been twice previously. Before we went away dear Anna Buxton uttered a few words of supplication, and, very unexpectedly to myself, I did also.
After dinner, the Lord Mayor, aldermen, &c. returned into a separate room, where we sat with them at the head of the table, one on each side of the Lord Mayor; our two companies were in another room, and the greatest part of the Clerks of the Exchequer remained in the hall." On the 7th of October they "settled a point," with the keeper of Newgate in regard to the transportation of felons.
The strangers who were the subject of discussion, were from the counties in the Southern part of the State, and all bore the same general appearance of vagabonds, cut-throats, felons, bounty-jumpers and deserters.
The others were sent to prison, since it was manifestly impossible to execute them all, nor was Cromwell so bloodthirsty, now the rebellion was broken utterly, and some sixteen hundred of them were sentenced to be transported to the colony of Virginia, which had long been a dumping ground for convicts and felons and political scapegoats.
And if any under such judgment of transportation shall escape, or being transported, return into any part of England, shall SUFFER DEATH as felons, without benefit of clergy. Notwithstanding this edict, mark well his words on the next leaf, 'Exhorting the people of God to take heed, and touch not the Common Prayer. Englishmen, blush! This is now the law of the land we live in.
In the other, we must, it is true, separate ourselves from our long list of acquaintances, and be absent from the dinner-party and the ball; but all our interest in social life will be kept up: we can see at least a weekly newspaper; and although we may have descended a few steps in the social scale, we shall not be obliged to make the acquaintance of convicted felons.
At first they were opposed by the people and denounced by the press. You can remember that it was Franklin who said to his compeers, 'We have now to hang together or we'll hang separately bye and bye. And if the Revolution had failed, the revolutionary fathers would have been executed as felons. But it did not fail. Revolutions have a habit of succeeding, when the time comes for them.
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