medicines, and provisions for the voyage and for nine months afterwards were put on board at the public expense. The owner supplied a surgeon, and the admiralty laid down precise instructions for his guidance. The master, too, was bound over to be careful of his living cargo. On arrival his log-book was submitted for inspection, and the governor of New South Wales was empowered to reward him a special gratuity on the one hand, or on the other to mulct and prosecute him, according to his behaviour on the voyage out.

On arrival at Sydney the convicts were either disposed of as servants to settlers, or retained in government hands. We have here the system of assignment, though as yet quite in embryo. While settlers of any wealth were few, there was little demand for convict labourers, except as simple servants; although in the case of some of the leading officials, who had already considerable grants of land under cultivation, as many as forty were, even in these early days, assigned to the same master.

The great mass of the convicts were therefore retained by the government. They were fed, clothed, and lodged by government, and organised in gangs. Each gang was under an overseer—an old convict—who was certain to err either on the side of culpable leniency towards his charges, or of brutal cruelty. Stories are told of an overseer who killed three men in a fortnight from overwork at the sawmill. "We used to be taken in large parties," says the same old hand that I mentioned before, "to raise a tree. When the body of the tree was raised, old ---- (the overseer) would call some of the men away, then more. The men were bent double, they could not bear the weight—they fell, and on them the tree, killing one or two on the spot. 'Take them away: put them in the ground.' There was no more about it." Another overseer was described as "the biggest villain that ever lived. He delighted in torment, and used to walk up and down rubbing his hands when the blood ran. When he walked abroad the flogger walked behind him. He died a miserable death: maggots ate him up. Not a man could be found to bury him." A third overseer was sent to bury a man who, though weak and almost insensible, was not dead. "For God's sake," cried the poor wretch, "don't cover me up. I'm not dead." "You will be before night," replied the overseer. "Cover him up" (with an oath), "or we shall have to come back again to do the work a second time." On the other hand, it was known that overseers connived at irregularities of every description. The men were allowed to work as little as they pleased; many left their parties altogether to rob, and returned at nightfall to share their plunder with the overseers. Naturally the work accomplished for the public service did not amount to much. The hours of labour were from 6 A. M. to 3 P. M., after which the rest of the day belonged to the convict to be spent in amusement or labour profitable to himself. Even in these days the punishment of transportation fell most unequally on different men. While the commoner classes of offenders were consigned to the gangs or drafted off to be the slaves of the low-bred settler, persons who had held a higher station in life, or who had been transported for what came to be called "genteel crimes," forgery, that is to say, embezzlement, and the like, were granted tickets-of-leave at once, which exempted them from all compulsory labour and allowed them to provide for themselves. To them the only hardship entailed by their crimes was the enforced exile.

So far we have had to deal only with the difficulties encountered by the young colony and the steps taken to combat them. It is too soon to speak of the consequences that were entailed by forming a new settlement from the dregs of society. I will only state in general terms what was the actual state of affairs. A governor at the head of all with full powers nominally, but not nearly autocratic; next to him, as the aristocracy, a band of officials not always obedient, sometimes openly insubordinate, consistent only in pushing forward their own fortunes. Between these and the general body of the colonists a great gulf; the nearest to the aristocracy being the settlers—passing through several gradations—from the better class, few in number, to the pensioner or convict newly set free; at the very bottom, the slave or serf population—the convicts still in bondage.

This was the first stage in the colony's existence. With the breaking up of the power of the New South Wales Corps and the appointment of Governor Macquarie a new era opened; and to this I devote the next chapter.

CHAPTER II THE GROWTH OF NEW SOUTH WALES

Large amount of convict labour available for employment—Free settlers too few to utilise it—Applied chiefly to public works—Premature erection of public edifices—Convicts given good wages and plentiful drink—Many grow rich—Governor Macquarie favours convicts unduly—Hostility shown him—Strong antagonism between classes—Great impetus to free emigration—Convict labour in demand—System of assignment revived—Discipline maintained by the "cat"—Efforts toward fair administration.

The peculiar condition of the colony now was the presence therein of a supply of convict labour, growing larger also from day to day as vessels with their cargoes arrived, for which there was no natural demand. When General Macquarie assumed the government the influx of male convicts had been so great in the five years preceding 1809, that the free settlers were unable to find employment for more than an eighth of the total number, though the labour was to be had for the asking, and cost nothing but the price of raising the food the convicts consumed. In point of fact, the free settlers were still too few and their operations too limited. Seven-eighths of the whole supply remaining on hand, it became necessary for the governor to devise artificial outlets. He was anxious, as he tells Earl Bathurst, "to employ this large surplus of men in some useful manner, so that their labour might in some degree cover the expense of their feeding and clothing." The measures by which he endeavoured to compass this shall now be described.

There is a stage in the youthful life of every colony when the possession of an abundant and cheap supply of labour is of vital importance to its progress. Settlers in these early days were neither numerous enough nor wealthy enough to undertake for themselves the work of reclaiming land, of establishing harbours and internal communications on a scale sufficiently wide to insure the due development of the young country. At such an epoch a plentiful supply of convict labour pouring in at the cost of the home government is certain to be highly valuable. Merivale points out how some such timely assistance to British Columbia in more recent years would have given an enormous impetus to the development of those provinces. It would be premature to discuss, at this period of my narrative, the question whether the advantages gained would outweigh the positive evils of a recurrence to transportation on any grand scale. Some of these evils might disappear if the system were carried out with all the safeguards and precautions that our lengthened experience would supply. But the main objection—the excessive costliness of the scheme—would remain.

This stage New South Wales had now reached, and the governor, finding himself amply supplied with the labour so urgently needed, bent all his