Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/64

sea had reduced the number of convicts, and only about 700 were landed at Sydney. In guarding, controlling, and extorting labour from 700 prisoners the Governor had a task with which some men might have been content, his adult assistants being little more than 200 in number. But he had also a town to found, land to clear, seed to sow, and crops to wait for. The products of Rio Janeiro and the Cape of Good Hope were to be planted with careful hands, and the result awaited with anxious hearts. Meantime, with the future in his thoughts, there were houses or huts to be built to shelter the community, from which, as a whole, the Governor could expect little sympathy or genuine help. It is true that the number of men under long sentences of imprisonment was small, thirty-six being transported for life, twenty for fourteen years, and the remainder for seven years. Many of the latter class had passed through several years of their sentences, and might be looked upon as desirous to shake off in a new country the stain they had acquired in the old. No savages, however, were more reckless of anything beyond the humour of the hour than some British criminals; and such a class, though it bears mournful testimony to the truths which are taught from the pulpit, is as little careful to obey human laws as to think of the Divine. And yet even about the worst of our race there cling some traces of the image they have defaced. They form friendships, have like affections with other men, and will do acts of kindness which, measured by their means, would put to shame some charities which are extolled as munificent. It is not only amongst condemned criminals that may be found a roll of wrongs done or duties neglected. This army of convicts had formed friendships on its voyage amongst the mariners, and one of the earliest sources of trouble was the landing of the sailors from the transports, bringing spirits to carouse with their acquaintances among the prisoners. The consequences were debauchery and riot.

As early as 11th Feb. a court was assembled; one of the prisoners was ordered to receive one hundred and fifty lashes for an assault; another, for taking some biscuit from a comrade, "was sentenced to a week's confinement on bread and water on a small rocky island near the