Possessing Coal, She
Always Has The Moving Power At Hand.
From the habitable
country extending along the coast, and from her English
extraction, she is sure to be a maritime nation.
I formerly
imagined that Australia would rise to be as grand and powerful
a country as North America, but now it appears to me
that such future grandeur is rather problematical.
With respect to the state of the convicts, I had still fewer
opportunities of judging than on other points. The first
question is, whether their condition is at all one of
punishment: no one will maintain that it is a very severe one.
This, however, I suppose, is of little consequence as long as
it continues to be an object of dread to criminals at home.
The corporeal wants of the convicts are tolerably well supplied:
their prospect of future liberty and comfort is not
distant, and, after good conduct, certain. A "ticket of
leave," which, as long as a man keeps clear of suspicion as
well as of crime, makes him free within a certain district, is
given upon good conduct, after years proportional to the
length of the sentence; yet with all this, and overlooking
the previous imprisonment and wretched passage out, I
believe the years of assignment are passed away with discontent
and unhappiness. As an intelligent man remarked to
me, the convicts know no pleasure beyond sensuality, and in
this they are not gratified. The enormous bribe which Government
possesses in offering free pardons, together with the
deep horror of the secluded penal settlements, destroys
confidence between the convicts, and so prevents crime. As to a
sense of shame, such a feeling does not appear to be known,
and of this I witnessed some very singular proofs. Though
it is a curious fact, I was universally told that the character
of the convict population is one of arrant cowardice: not
unfrequently some become desperate, and quite indifferent as
to life, yet a plan requiring cool or continued courage is
seldom put into execution. The worst feature in the whole
case is, that although there exists what may be called a legal
reform, and comparatively little is committed which the law
can touch, yet that any moral reform should take place
appears to be quite out of the question. I was assured by
well-informed people, that a man who should try to improve,
could not while living with other assigned servants; - his
life would be one of intolerable misery and persecution. Nor
must the contamination of the convict-ships and prisons, both
here and in England, be forgotten. On the whole, as a place
of punishment, the object is scarcely gained; as a real system
of reform it has failed, as perhaps would every other plan;
but as a means of making men outwardly honest, - of converting
vagabonds, most useless in one hemisphere, into
active citizens of another, and thus giving birth to a new
and splendid country - a grand centre of civilization - it has
succeeded to a degree perhaps unparalleled in history.
30th. - The Beagle sailed for Hobart Town in Van Diemen's
Land. On the 5th of February, after a six days' passage,
of which the first part was fine, and the latter very cold
and squally, we entered the mouth of Storm Bay: the weather
justified this awful name. The bay should rather be called
an estuary, for it receives at its head the waters of the
Derwent. Near the mouth, there are some extensive basaltic
platforms; but higher up the land becomes mountainous, and
is covered by a light wood. The lower parts of the hills
which skirt the bay are cleared; and the bright yellow fields
of corn, and dark green ones of potatoes, appear very luxuriant.
Late in the evening we anchored in the snug cove,
on the shores of which stands the capital of Tasmania. The
first aspect of the place was very inferior to that of Sydney;
the latter might be called a city, this is only a town. It
stands at the base of Mount Wellington, a mountain 3100
feet high, but of little picturesque beauty; from this source,
however, it receives a good supply of water. Round the cove
there are some fine warehouses and on one side a small fort.
Coming from the Spanish settlements, where such magnificent
care has generally been paid to the fortifications, the
means of defence in these colonies appeared very contemptible.
Comparing the town with Sydney, I was chiefly struck
with the comparative fewness of the large houses, either
built or building. Hobart Town, from the census of 1835,
contained 13,826 inhabitants, and the whole of Tasmania 36,505.
All the aborigines have been removed to an island in
Bass's Straits, so that Van Diemen's Land enjoys the great
advantage of being free from a native population. This
most cruel step seems to have been quite unavoidable, as
the only means of stopping a fearful succession of robberies,
burnings, and murders, committed by the blacks; and which
sooner or later would have ended in their utter destruction.
I fear there is no doubt, that this train of evil and its
consequences, originated in the infamous conduct of some of
our countrymen. Thirty years is a short period, in which to
have banished the last aboriginal from his native island, -
and that island nearly as large as Ireland. The correspondence
on this subject, which took place between the government
at home and that of Van Diemen's Land, is very interesting.
Although numbers of natives were shot and taken prisoners
in the skirmishing, which was going on at intervals for several
years; nothing seems fully to have impressed them with
the idea of our overwhelming power, until the whole island,
in 1830, was put under martial law, and by proclamation the
whole population commanded to assist in one great attempt
to secure the entire race. The plan adopted was nearly similar
to that of the great hunting-matches in India:
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