morals and good conduct of the young ones. There are always, among a cargo of either sex, a few who pretend to have reformed their lives, and are constantly to be seen with the bible in their hands; but Mr. Cunningham soon discovered that these were invariably the greatest hypocrites and the least worthy of trust-in short, the very worst of the set. Among numerous instances of this bare-faced hypocrisy, he mentions that of one Breadman, who, on arriving at Sydney, was in the last stage of consumption, and unable to sit up without fainting. This expiring wretch, who grasped his bible to the last, mustered strength enough, while the hospital-man was drawing on his trowsers, to stretch out his pale trembling hand towards the other's waistcoat pocket, and actually to pick it of a comb and penknife:-next morning he was a corpse. Yet,' says Mr. Cunningham, during his whole illness, this man would regularly request some of the soberminded rogues to read the scriptures to him, and pray by his bed-side!' There was another who assumed the character of a saint, one Jones, a Welshman, who, while in the hospital, was so fond of scripture-reading, that

'I never passed his berth,' says Mr. Cunningham, without observing him earnestly toiling away, with a pair of huge spectacles arched over his nose, or else the bible lying close to his hip, ready to be snatched up on the instant. Indeed, so earnest was he in his religious exercises, that he could not even attend muster without the bible in his hand, and his forefinger stuck between the leaves to mark the passage he had been reading.'

This fellow robbed the surgeon's assistant who attended him of a sum of money. Shade of Le Sage! who shall deny that father Hilary and brother Ambrose de Lamela are but too true portraits of poor frail human nature!

It was just the same thing among the first settlers. They stripped each other of their blankets, and the dying men watched with eagerness the moment of snatching away the covering of his neighbour, even before the breath was out of his body.'

The women are described as infinitely more difficult to manage than the men; but those composing the cargo which our author once superintended, were pretty well kept under by an old sybil of seventy,' a' most trust-worthy creature,' who had been, during forty years of her life, in all the houses of correction, prisons, and penitentiaries of the metropolis. Some of Mrs. Fry's reformed damsels from Newgate, very soon after getting on board, set about papering their hair with the religious tracts that this good lady had supplied them with for their edification.

Bad and unpromising as materials like these are, to be thrown

into the mass of society, it is admitted by most writers that the present prosperity and the population of the Australian colonies are mainly owing to the industry and ingenuity which such convicts transmit to their progeny. And yet, if we may credit the following statement, extracted from the State of Agriculture and Grazing in New South Wales,' by Mr. Atkinson,* an old established settler, we should be obliged to come to a very different conclusion, or, at any rate, very considerably qualify the laudatory reports which have been so largely bestowed on the emancipists and others who became early settlers :

'The first settlers in the colony were obtained from among the military and convicts; very few of these men had any knowledge of agriculture, being mostly derived from inhabitants of great towns, or from the very lowest orders of the people: thoughtless and negligent, as might naturally be expected from their early habits and subsequent life, with very little regard for the comforts and conveniences of civilised society, their whole desires were confined to the obtaining sufficient food: clothing, except what decency absolutely required, they had little regard for; and to bring up their families with respectability, and make a comfortable appearance in the world, never once entered their minds. Their absolute wants being satisfied, the whole surplus produce of their labour was expended in intoxication and debauchery. Men of this description were but little calculated to improve and beautify the face of the country, and develope its agricultural capabilities; accordingly, their farms exhibit to this day nothing but a scene of confusion, filth, and poverty. Their first necessarily rude habitations of bark, are still unreplaced with more comfortable dwellings of brick or timber; and their families have been suffered to grow up without education, useful knowledge, or religious principles. I beg here to be understood as only alluding to the early settlers, and the lower orders of the present-what are technically termed in the colony Dungaree Settlers, from a coarse cotton manufacture of India, which forms their usual clothing: a more improvident, worthless race of people, cannot well be imagined. It unfortunately happens that the greater part of these people have been located on the banks of the Hawkesbury and Nepean, and in the district of Airds, the best lands in the colony.'-Atkinson's Agriculture and Grazing in New South Wales, pp. 28, 29.

Mr. Atkinson, however, confines his statement to the old settlers, soldiers, and convicts, who in the early periods of the colony had no good example to follow. For some years past the case has been different, a more intelligent and respectable population having spread itself over the colony. The

8vo. London, 1827-a useful little work.

amount

amount of this population is rather over-stated by Mr. Cunningham, in making it amount in round numbers to forty thousand. By a census taken towards the end of the year 1825, it stood as under :

From this return, it would appear that the number of adult emigrants amounts only to 6828; whereas that of convicts, emancipated and in servitude, is 23,459, being in the proportion of about three and a half to one ;-that the emancipists alone are equal in numbers to the adult emigrants;-that about one-half of the population are convicts in a state of servitude, the other half consisting of free settlers and emancipists. We think, therefore, that Wentworth and Cunningham are fully borne out in ascribing mainly to the labours of the convicts the prosperous condition of the colony. It is distinctly stated by the former writer, that the value of the property now possessed by emancipists is fully double that of the free settlers.

It will be observed, from the above return, that the disproportion of the male to the female population is enormous, being fifteen to one nearly among the convicts, and in the total population three to one. This is unquestionably a great evil, and seriously felt as such; but it is one, we fear, difficult, if not impossible, to remedy. It might, perhaps, be diminished to a certain extent, by abolishing penitentiaries and asylums for the reformation of female delinquents at home, the success of which is, at best, very equivocal.

When

When the settlers of Virginia were much in the same situation with those on New South Wales, one hundred and fifty young women were procured, it is not stated how, and shipped off to that settlement, where, as the annals of Virginia relate, they were sold to the settlers for wives, at one hundred and fifty pounds weight of tobacco each; and in the same year, 1620, a Dutch trader carried thither the first cargo of negro slaves, among whom was a good proportion of females. Now, if an old procuress of Bristol, as the papers tell us, can purchase from a síster in iniquity living in the metropolis, a bevy of Cyprians for the use of that flourishing city, (for flourishing it must needs be to require such a supply,) we do not materially differ from our author in thinking, that a cargo of such unfortunate females might prove a good speculation both to the adventurer and themselves, in the market of New South Wales-a better school for reform, we venture to say, than any penitentiary at home, and much more likely to improve, not only their morals, but also their condition in life.

On glancing over the above census of the population of this colony, it appears quite ridiculous to hear the democratic newswriters of Sydney holding out notions of declaring their independence, shaking off the yoke of the mother-country, and demanding a colonial legislative assembly. The blockheads do not or will not see, that if England should withdraw her troops and withhold her supplies, neither sterling,' nor currency,' nor their united forces, if a sense of danger would allow such an union of discordant materials, could be able to withstand the insurrection of the convicts, who would be but too ready to avail themselves of an opportunity which offered them the summary attainment both of liberty and of wealth; and, as to a house of representatives, we cordially subscribe to the following observations of Mr. Cunningham:

'When it is recollected what bitter dissensions have existed for many years between the emigrants and emancipists, and that the latter would compose at least four-fifths of the electors, it is evident that such a measure would not only tend to revive that discord which his present Excellency is fast allaying, but put the whole emigrant body in the power of the emancipist faction. Yet these two objects, namely, a house of assembly and genuine trial by jury, are gravely declared to be the best means that can be devised for promoting the harmony of the colony; but as lawyers are the singers of the Io pæans about this said harmony, we are naturally induced to wonder what has so suddenly brought about this before unheard-of reform in the principles of that body, of whom discord forms the very food.'vol. ii. pp. 137, 138.

We

We are quite aware, that the policy of sending convicted criminals to so great a distance, at an enormous expense, has frequently been questioned. We have heard it argued, that instead of being places of punishment for those who have been convicted of crimes, the Australian colonies, by affording an asylum for felons, operate, in fact, as an incitement to crime,-in other words, that many crimes are committed here, that the offenders may have a free and pleasant conveyance to this paradise of pickpockets, which is gained by a very short and easy passage through the purgatory that conducts to it. This may be true in some instances.

'Some who had friends doing well in New South Wales would in olden times procure themselves to be transported by way of having a free passage, in order to join them. Several went out with me on these very terms; and among them, one merry youth of two-and-twenty, whose father had been transported while he was a child in arms, and a brother at a later period. This brother had followed the fortunes of the father by special invitation, to assist him in the cultivation of his farm, and the youngster I speak of was therefore the second son induced to entitle himself to a seven years' trip to Botany. On our arrival the elder brother came alongside, and introduced the younger brother and the father (who were of course utter strangers) to each other! "When may we expect, Jem?" was the question put shortly after the preliminary congratulations: Jem being a cousin who had long promised the colony a speedy visit, as I learnt from the younger brother.'-vol. ii. pp. 268, 269.

We understand, however, that these halcyon days are nearly at an end; and that since the government has fallen into the hands of General Darling, the convicts, unless in some peculiar and special cases, are required to work out the time of their sentence before they can receive the boon of emancipation. Still, however, their condition is by no means a hard one; the labour required of them is not severe, and they are well clothed and fed. 'I'question much,' says Mr. Cunningham, whether many English labourers live better than our convict-servants here, whose weekly ration consists of a sufficiency of flour to make four quartern-loaves at least; of seven pounds of beef; two ounces of tea, one pound of sugar, and two ounces of tobacco, with the occasional substitution of two or three quarts of milk, daily, for the tea and sugar allowance.' The farmers, besides, allow them little gardens for vegetables, and each has two suits of clothes annually, a bed-tick, and a blanket. Formerly, a great proportion were fed from the government stores, and employed in various kinds of labour on public works and roads, in clearing the country of wood for settlers, &c.; but we are glad to find that the extraordinary demand of the settlers for their services has induced the present governor to break up the government