[The members of the Committee, in addition to Sir W. Molesworth, were Lord John Russell, Sir G. Grey, Mr. Leader, Mr. Ward, Mr. Hawes, Mr. Ord, Lord Howick, Sir T. Fremantle, Mr. F. Baring, Sir R. Peel, Mr. C. Buller, Lord Ebrington, Sir C. Lemon, and Mr. French. The Committee held seven meetings and examined fourteen witnesses. The Report was accompanied by Appendices on:

A. Measures taken for the Advancement of Religion in Australia.

B. Papers respecting Immigration into New South Wales.
C. Treatment of Convicts.

D. Discontinuance of System of Assignment of Convicts.
E. State of the Penal Settlements of Norfolk Island and
Moreton Bay.

F. Report on Macquarie Harbour.

G. Sale of Waste Lands in the vicinity of Port Philip (sic). H. Civil and Military Expenditure of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land.

I. Miscellaneous.

Although it appears from the note on p. 304 that Molesworth did not agree with the recommendation to establish penitentiaries abroad, the Report was adopted unanimously, it evidently being the subject of compromise between members, who were not altogether of one mind on the question.]

APPENDIX.

REPORT OF SELECT COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION, 1838.

The Select Committee appointed to inquire into the system of transportation, its efficacy as a punishment, its influence on the moral state of society in the penal colonies, and how far it is susceptible of improvement; and who were empowered to report their observations, together with the minutes of evidence taken before them, to the House; have examined the matters to them referred, and have agreed to the following report:

In order to comply with the instructions of the House, your Committee have instituted a laborious inquiry into the system of transportation. That inquiry occupied the greater part of the last, and some portion of the present session, during which period there have been examined no less than twentythree persons, nearly the whole of whom have had personal, and many of them official, experience of the system of transportation; not to mention a great mass of information acquired from official documents, furnished by the Colonial Department.

For the sake of brevity and clearness, the result of the labours of your Committee may be arranged under the following heads: first, as to the history, nature, and amount of the punishment of transportation; second, as to the apprehension produced by the threat of transportation, and its tendency to prevent crime in this country; third, as to the effects of transportation on the character of those who have undergone that punishment; fourth, as to its influence on the moral state of society in the penal colonies; fifth, as to its economical effects on those communities, and to what extent their pecuniary interests would be affected by its continuance or discontinuance; sixth, as to the cost of the system of transportation; and last, as to whether

it be susceptible of improvement, and if not, what substitute for it might be adopted with advantage.

The punishment of transportation is founded on that of exile, both of which are unknown to common law. Exile, according to the best authorities, was introduced, as a punishment, by the Legislature in the thirty-ninth year of Elizabeth; and the first time that transportation was mentioned was in an Act of 18 Chas. I. c. 3, which empowered the judges to exile for life the moss-troopers of Cumberland and Northumberland, to any of his Majesty's possessions in America. The punishment authorised by this Act is somewhat different from the one now termed transportation, inasmuch as the latter consists not only of exile to a particular place, but of compulsory labour there. It appears, however, to have been the practice at an early period to subject transported offenders to penal labour, and to employ them as slaves on the estates of the planters, and the 4 Geo. I. c. 11 gave to the person who contracted to transport them, to his heirs, successors, and assigns, a property and interest in the services of such offenders for the period of their sentences. The great want of servants in the colonies was one of the reasons assigned for this mode of punishment, and offenders were put up to auction, and sold by the persons who undertook to transport them as bondsmen for the period of their sentences. Notwithstanding, however, the dearth of labourers, many of the colonies, especially Barbadoes, Maryland, and New York, testified their disinclination to have their wants supplied by such means; and the opinion of Franklin, as to the letting loose upon the new world the outcasts of the old, is too well known for your Committee to repeat it. With the War of Independence transportation to America ceased. Instead of taking that opportunity for framing a good system of secondary punishments, instead of putting in force the provisions of the 19 George III. c. 74, by which Parliament intended to establish in this country the penitentiary system of punishment, the Government of the day unfortunately determined to adhere to transportation. It was not, however, deemed expedient to offer to the colonies that remained loyal in America the insult of making them any longer a place of punishment for offenders. It was determined, therefore, to plant a new colony for this sole purpose; and an Act was passed in the twenty-fourth year of George the Third, which empowered his

Majesty in Council to appoint to what place, beyond the seas, either within or without his Majesty's dominions, offenders shall be transported; and by two Orders in Council, dated December 6, 1786, the eastern coast of Australia and the adjacent islands were fixed upon. In the month of May, 1787, the first band of convicts departed, which, in the succeeding year, founded the colony of New South Wales.

To plant a colony, and to form a new society, has ever been an arduous task. In addition to the natural difficulties arising from ignorance of the nature of the soil and of the climate of a new country, the first settlers have generally had to contend with innumerable obstacles, which only undaunted patience, firmness of mind, and constancy of purpose could overcome. But, whatever the amount of difficulties attendant on the foundation of colonies, those difficulties were greatly augmented, in New South Wales, by the character of the first settlers. The offenders who were transported in the past century to America were sent to communities, the bulk of whose population were men of thrift and probity: the children of improvidence were dropped in by driblets amongst the mass of a population already formed, and were absorbed and assimilated as they were dropped in. They were scattered and separated from each other; some acquired habits of honest industry, and all, if not reformed by their punishment, were not certain to be demoralised by it. In New South Wales, on the contrary, the community was composed of the very dregs of society; of men proved by experience to be unfit to be at large in any society, and who were sent from the British gaols and turned loose to mix with one another in the desert, together with a few task-masters, who were to set them to work in the open wilderness, and with the military, who were to keep them from revolt. The consequences of this strange assemblage were vice, immorality, frightful disease, hunger, dreadful mortality, among the settlers; the convicts were decimated by pestilence on the voyage, and again decimated by famine on their arrival; and the most hideous cruelty was practised towards the unfortunate natives. Such is the early history of New South Wales.

The present condition of a transported felon is mainly determined by the 5 Geo. IV. c. 84, the Transportation Act, which authorises her Majesty in Council "to appoint any place or places beyond the seas, either within or without her Majesty's

dominions," to which offenders so sentenced shall be conveyed; the order for their removal must be given by one of the principal Secretaries of State. The places so appointed are, the two Australian colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, the small volcanic island, called Norfolk Island, situated about one thousand miles from the eastern shores of Australia, and Bermuda. 75,200 convicts have been transported to New South Wales since its settlement in 1787; on the average of the last five years 3,544 offenders have been annually sent there; and the whole convict population of the colony in 1836 amounted to 25,254 men, and 2,577 women; in all, 27,831. 27,759 convicts have been sent to Van Diemen's Land since the year 1817; the number annually transported there on the average of the last five years is 2,078; and the convict population in 1835 was 14,914 men and 2,054 women; in all, 16,968. At Norfolk Island the number of convicts, most of whom had been re-transported for offences committed in New South Wales, was, in 1837, above 1,200, and at Bermuda the number of convicts does not exceed 900.

The 5 Geo. IV. c. 84, likewise gives to the governor of a penal colony a property in the services of a transported offender for the period of his sentence, and authorises the governor to assign over such offender to any other person. The only other imperial statutes with regard to transportation which ought to be mentioned are the 30 Geo. III. c. 47, which enables her Majesty to authorise the governor of a penal colony to remit, absolutely or conditionally, a part or the whole of the sentences of convicts; the 9 Geo. IV. c. 83, which empowers the governor to grant a temporary or partial remission of sentence; and the 2 & 3 Will. IV. c. 62, which limits the power of the governor in this respect. No reference need be made to other statutes, which merely determine for what crimes transportation is the punishment. In New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land convicts are subjected to a variety of colonial laws, framed by the local legislatures established under the New South Wales Act, 9 Geo. IV. c. 83.

After sentence of transportation has been passed, convicts are sent to the hulks or gaols, where they remain till the period of their departure arrives. On board convict vessels the convicts are under the sole control of the surgeon-superintendent, who is furnished with instructions as to his conduct from the