Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/602

inevitable fate which attends the crime of bushranging, his Excellency trusts the settlers generally will embrace the present opportunity to impress upon the minds of prisoners committed to their care the dreadful consequences of crime, and to inculcate as far as possible the duties of moral life."

That Arthur's measures effected their object was not denied by his opponents. It was recorded in a leading article in The Tasmanian (Nov. 1827): "A person may now walk at all hours of the night in perfect safety." In his own district John Batman was useful, and Arthur publicly commended and rewarded him.

For convenient control of convicts withdrawn from bad masters, Arthur enlarged a Penitentiary in 1827. He classified the prisoners. Stricter discipline could control the weaker but not the more determined. They still risked their lives for temporary freedom. In 1829 a vessel, the Cyprus, conveying prisoners to Macquarie Harbour (called "the Hell" by the convicts), was seized by them. Their military guard, and some of the convicts who declined to take part in the seizure, were landed, and the captors found their way to Japan, where seven of them deserted their comrades. There the command devolved upon a daring sailor, one Swallow, under whom the Cyprus reached China. With a boat which he had picked up, and a sextant engraved with a name which he claimed as his own, Swallow and his companions abandoned the vessel and represented themselves as shipwrecked. Aided by contributions they reached London, but suspicions had been aroused, and two were tried and executed as escaped convicts. Others, including Swallow, were sent back to Van Diemen's Land, where another man was hanged, and Swallow survived only to die in imprisonment.

These events harassed all governors, but found Arthur ever inflexible. He systematized. Criminals must, he said, be taught that government was strong; "the main body of convicts were under mental delirium." "As from long experience the Lt.-Gov. is confident that a firm and determined but mild and constant supervision is the very best to be followed in order to remove the infirmity under which they labour, it is the treatment he enjoins shall be uniformly observed."