12/04/2007
History of New South Wales From the Records
VOLUME 1 - GOVERNOR PHILLIP 1783-1789G. B. Barton - 1889
PART I
Transportation and Colonisation
THE employment of convicts in the formation of new colonies, a practice which probably originated in the ancient custom of employing slave labour on public works, was a common one among the colonising nations of Europe from the earliest times. By two edicts issued in 1497, the Spanish Government authorised judicial transportation of criminals to the West Indies, and gave certain criminals the option of transporting themselves to Hispaniola (St. Domingo) at their own expense, to serve for a specified time under Columbus. The first Europeans who landed on the coast of Brazil were two convicts, who were left ashore by the Portuguese in 1500 (1). The commission given by the King of France in 1540 to Jacques Cartier, or Quartier, as Captain-General on his second voyage to Canada, authorised him to choose fifty persons out of such criminals in prison as should have been convicted of any crimes whatever, excepting treason and counterfeiting money, whom he should think fit and capable to serve in the expedition. Another French expedition to Canada, which set sail in 1598 under the command of the Marquis de la Roche, carried forty convicts who were left on the Isle of Sables, about fifty leagues to the south-east of Cape Breton, for the purpose of forming a settlement there. In the same manner, Sir Martin Frobisher was supplied, by the Queen's order, with certain "prisoners and condemned men" when he sailed in 1577 on his second voyage "for the discoverie of a new passage to Cataya, China, and the East India, by the North-west," and also for the discovery of "golde mynes" among the icebergs. His instructions directed him to "sett on land upon the coast of Friesland vi of the condemned persons which you carie with you, with weapons and vittualls such as you may conveniently spare, to which persons you shall give instructions howe they may by their good behaviour wyn the goodwill of the people of that country, and also learn the state of the same (2)." And lastly, the colonists sent out to North America by the Government of Sweden in 1638, when Fort Christina in Delaware was founded, were comprised largely from the prisons of Sweden and Finland.
It was natural that this system, once introduced, should be utilised for other purposes than that of laying the foundations of new settlements. The difficulty of obtaining free settlers for the work operated long after that stage in the history of a colony had been passed; and as the demand for labour in the colnies far exceeded the supply, the employment of prisoners became a matter of practical necessity as well as one of State policy.
This difficulty was aggravated by another influence which operated largely in the same direction. Down to a comparatively recent period, the various States of Europe, so far from suffering from redundant populations, were harassed with the fear of losing that portion of them which formed the main reservoirs of their military strength. One result of this apprehension was a settled aversion to the emigration of able-bodied men to new countries, on the ground that it tended to depopulate the parent State. The "depopulation" theory became a potent factor, especially in England, in checking the tendency to emigration to the colonies, and continued to be so until the evils of a surplus population had grown into a great national question (3).
A third cause was at work throughout the same period and in the same direction; and that was the necessity for finding some effectual means for disposing of the convicted criminals who were always accumulating in the small, ill-constructed, and unwholesome gaols of former times. Transportation under such circumstances naturally became a favourite theory of penal discipline among reformers and philanthropists, the arguments in its favour being mainly these:- 1, It freed the country from large numbers of the criminal classes, as well as from the dangers attending over-crowded gaols; 2, It was calculated to promote the prosperity of the colonies; 3, It offered a better prospect of reformation to the convicts who were sent abroad than could possibly be afforded them in the gaols; and 4, It served to mitigate the severity of the old criminal laws, which prescribed the penalty of death for many offences now punished with a few months' imprisonment. For these reasons the system held its ground firmly for fully three centuries.
Its commencement may be dated from the fifteenth century, and so far as England is concerned, it may be said to have terminated in 1867. The Portuguese, who are credited with having been "the first European nation to employ transportation and penal labour in the colonies as a mode of punishment (4)," made large use of their Brazilian and other possessions for the reception of convicts. If they were the first to introduce this system for penal purposes, England was "the first country which systematically used her dependencies as places for the reception and punishment of convicts (5)." The transportation of convicts from England to the North American colonies began in the reign of James I, was largely resorted to in the time of Charles II, and early in the eighteenth century was reduced to a regular system. One reason why it came so largely into use was because "it was found that the Government might save the expense of maintaining convicts be selling them as slaves for a term of years or for life, to a Virginia or Maryland planter (6)." The Government, of course, did not sell the convicts directly, but it empowered the shipowners who contracted for their transportation to sell them, by giving the former a statutory right of property in their service (7). The Government transferred them to the contractors, who in turn transferred them to the planters - the Government in that way relieving itself of all cost and responsibility. But although the system of contract was continued for some years when convicts were sent out to Australia, they ceased to be made the subject of actual sale. A different method of dealing with them was adopted; the Government retained its control over them from first to last, paid for their transportation at a fixed rate, and afterwards (8) permitted their assignment to colonists on certain terms.
NOTES:
(1) Post, p. 439.
(2) Hakluyt Society: The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher, p. 118.
(3) Post, p. 440.
(4) Merivale, Lectures on Colonisation, vol. ii, p. 3.
(5) G. C. Lewis, on the Government of Dependencies, p. 236. The Council of Foreign Plantations, established by Charles II in 1660, were instructed, among other things, "to inquire touching emigration and how noxious and unprofitable persons may be transplanted to the general advantage of the public and commodity of our foreign plantations." - Mills, Colonial Constitutions, p. 5.
(6) Lewis, p. 237.
(7) Post, p. 447.
(8) "In 1824, by statute 5 George IV, c. 84, a new element was introduced into the system of transportation, by giving to the Governor of a penal colony a property in the services of a transported offender for the period of his sentence, and authorising him to assign over such offender to any other person." - Mills, Colonial Constitutions, p. 346. The element referred to was not altogether new. Governor Phillip was instructed to obtain an assignment to himself, from the masters of the transports in the First Fleet, of the servitude of the convicts on board for the remainder of the terms specified in their sentences; and he was authorised, in 1789, to assign to each grantee of lands in the colony any number of convicts that he might judge sufficient on certain conditions. The section (viii) of the Act referred to by Mills is as follows:-
And be it further enacted that so soon as any such offender shall be delievered to the Governor of the colony, or other person or persons to whom the contractor shall be so directed to deliever him or her, the property in the service of such offender shall be vested in the Governor of the colony for the time being, and for such other person or persons, and it shall be lawful for the Governor for the time being, and for such other person or persons, whenever he or they shall think fit, to assign any such offender to any other person for the then residue of his or her term of transportation, and for such assignee to assign over such offender, and so often as may be thought fit; and the property in the service of such offender shall continue in the Governor for the time being, or in such other person or persons as aforesaid, or his or their assigns, during the whole remaining term of life or years for which the offender was sentenced or ordered to be transported.
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