Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

contrition, but seem to rejoice in the thing, -many of them to court it. I have heard them, when the sentence of transportation has been passed by the Recorder, return thanks for it, and seem overjoyed at their sentence: the very last party that went off, when they were put into the caravan, shouted and huzzaed, and were very joy odlous; several of them called out to the keep

[ocr errors]

of those who are transported consider it as | sink of wickedness, in which the great
a party of pleasure-as going out to see majority of convicts of both sexes be-
the world; they evince no penitence, no
come infinitely more depraved than at
the period of their arrival. How, as
Mr. Bennet very justly observes, can it
be otherwise? The felon transported
to the American plantations, became
an insulated rogue among honest men.
He lived for years in the family of some
industrious planter, without seeing a
picklock, or indulging in pleasant dia-
logues on the delicious burglaries of
his youth. He imperceptibly glided
into honest habits, and lost not only
the tact for pockets, but the wish to in-
vestigate their contents. But in Botany
Bay, the felon, as soon as he gets out
of the ship, meets with his ancient trull,
with the footpad of his heart, the con-
vict of his affections,-the man whose
hand he has often met in the same
gentleman's pocket-the being whom
he would choose from the whole world
to take to the road, or to disentangle
the locks of Bramah. It is impossible
that vice should not become more in-
tense in such society.

ders who were there in the yard, The first
he Sunday we will have aglorious Kangaroo
bunt at the Bay,-seeming to anticipate a
great deal of pleasure.' He was asked if
those persons were married or single, and
his answer was, 'By far the greater number
of them were unmarried. Some of them
are anxious that their wives and children
held follow them: others care nothing
about either wives or children, and are glad
to get rid of them.” ” — (Bennet, pp. 60, 61).
It is a scandalous injustice in this
colony, that persons transported for
seven years have no power of returning
when that period is expired. A strong
active man may sometimes work his
passage home; but what is an old man
or an aged female to do? Suppose a Upon the horrid state of morals now
convict were to be confined in prison prevalent in Botany Bay, we would
for seven years, and then told he might counsel our readers to cast their eyes
get out if he could climb over the walls, upon the account given by Mr. Mars-
or break open the locks, what in general den, in a letter dated July 1815, to
Tould be his chance of liberation? Governor Macquarrie. It is given at
But no lock nor doors can be so secure length in the Appendix to Mr. Bennet's
a means of detention as the distance book. A more horrid picture of the
of Botany Bay. This is a downright state of any settlement was never
trick and fraud in the administration penned. It carries with it an air of
of criminal justice. A poor wretch truth and sincerity, and is free from all
who is banished from his country for enthusiastic cant.
seven years, should be furnished with
the means of returning to his country
when these seven years are expired. —
If it is intended he should never return,

[ocr errors]
[merged small][ocr errors]

his

"I now appeal to your Excellency," he says at the conclusion of his letter, "whether,

under such circumstances, any man of com

mon feeling, possessed of the least spark of

sentence should have been banish-humanity or religion, who stood in the same

ment for life.

and an

which

The most serious charge against the
colony, as a place for transportation,
experiment in criminal justice,
is the extreme profligacy of manners
prevails there, and the total want
of reformation among the convicts.
pon this subject, except in the regular
letters, officially varnished and filled ceiving into her friendly, and I may add
with fraudulent beatitudes for the pub-pious bosom, the stranger, whether savage
eye, there is, and there can be, but or civilised, of every nation under heaven.
one opinion. New South Wales is a There are, in the whole, under the two

official relation that I do to these people,
could enjoy one happy moment from the
as their spiritual pastor and magistrate,
beginning to the end of the week?

"I humbly conceive that it is incompat

ible with the character and wish of the British nation, that her own exiles should be exposed to such privations and dangerous temptations, when she is daily feeding the

[ocr errors]

hungry and clothing the naked, and re

principal superintendents, Messrs. Rouse merit. Mr. O'Hara's is a bookseller's and Oakes, one hundred and eight men, and compilation, done in a useful and pleasone hundred and fifty women, and several ing manner. Mr. Wentworth is full of children; and nearly the whole of them information on the present state of

have to find lodgings for themselves when

they have performed their government

tasks.

"I trust that your Excellency will be fully persuaded, that it is totally impossible for the magistrate to support his necessary authority, and to establish a regular police, under such a weight of accumulated and accumulating evils. I am as sensible as any one can be, that the difficulty of removing

these evils will be very great; at the same time, their number and influence may be greatly lessened, if the abandoned male and female convicts are lodged in barracks, and placed under the eye of the police, and the number of licensed houses is reduced. Till something of this kind is done, all attempts of the magistrate, and the public administration of religion, will be attended with little benefit to the general good. I have the honour to be, Your Excellency's most obedient humble servant, SAMUEL MARSDEN."-(Bennet, p. 134.)

Thus much for Botany Bay. As a mere colony, it is too distant and too expensive; and, in future, will of course involve us in many of those just and necessary wars, which deprive Englishmen so rapidly of their comforts, and make England scarcely worth living in. If considered as a place of reform for criminals, its distance, expense, and the society to which it dooms the objects of the experiment, are insuper able objections to it. It is in vain to say, that the honest people in New South Wales will soon bear a greater proportion to the rogues, and the contamination of bad society will be less fatal. This only proves that it may be a good place for reform hereafter, not that it is a good one now. One of the principal reasons for peopling Botany Bay at all, was, that it would be an admirable receptacle, and a school of reform for our convicts. It turns out, that for the first half century, it will make them worse than they were before, and that, after that period, they may probably begin to improve. A marsh, to be sure, may be drained and cultivated; but no man who has his choice, would select it in the mean time for his dwelling-place.

Botany Bay. The humanity, the exertions, and the genuine benevolence of Mr. Bennet, are too well known to need our commendation.

All persons who have a few guineas in their pocket, are now running away from Mr. Nicholas Vansittart to settle in every quarter of the globe. Upon the subject of emigration to Botany Bay, Mr. Wentworth observes, 1st, That any respectable person emigrating to that colony, receives as much land gratis as would cost him 400% in the United States; 2dly, He is allowed as many servants as he may require, at one third of the wages paid for labour in America; 3dly, Himself and family are victualled at the expense of Government for six months. He calculates that a man, wife, and two children, with an allowance of five tons for themselves and baggage, could emigrate to Botany Bay for 1004, including every expense, provided a whole ship could be freighted; and that a single man could be taken out thither for 301. These points are worthy of serious attention to those who are shedding their country.

CHIMNEY SWEEPERS.

(E. REVIEW, 1819.)

Account of the Proceedings of the Society for superseding the Necessity of Climbing Boys. Baldwin, &c. London. 1816. AN excellent and well-arranged dinner is the most pleasing occurrence, and a great triumph of civilised life. It is not only the descending morsel, and the enveloping sauce — - but the rank, wealth, wit, and beauty which surround the the learned management of light and heat-the silent and rapid services of the attendants- - the smiling and sedulous host, proffering gusts and relishes the exotic bottles-the embossed plate the pleasant remarks the handsome dresses the cunning artifices in fruit The three books are all books of and farina! The hour of dinner, in

meats

[ocr errors]

short, includes every thing of sensual and intellectual gratification which a great nation glories in producing. In the midst of all this, who knows that the kitchen chimney caught fire half an hour before dinner!- and that a poor little wretch of six or seven years old, was sent up in the midst of the flames to put it out? We could not, previous to reading this evidence, have formed a conception of the miseries of these poor wretches, or that there should exist, in a civilised country, a class of human beings destined to such extreme and varied distress. We will give a short epitome of what is developed in the evidence before the two Houses of Parliament.

Boys are made chimney sweepers at the early age of five or six.

Little boys for small flues, is a common phrase in the cards left at the door by itinerant chimney sweepers. Flues made to ovens and coppers are often less than nine inches square; and it may be easily conceived, how slender the frame of that human body must be, which can force itself through such an aperture.

What is the age of the youngest boys who have been employed in this trade, to your knowledge? About five years of age: I know one now between five and six years old; it is the man's own son in the Strand: now there is another at Somers Town, I

think, said he was between four and five, or about five; Jack Hall, a little lad, takes him about.-Did you ever know any female children employed? Yes, I know one now. About two years ago there was a woman told me she had climbed scores of times, and there is one at Paddington now, whose father taught her to climb; but I have often heard talk of them when I was apprentice, in different places.-What is the allest-sized flue you have ever met with in the course of your experience? About eight inches by nine; these they are always obliged to climb in this posture (describing i), keeping the arms up straight; if they slip their arms down, they get jammed in; unless they get their arms close over their head, they cannot climb."-(Lords Minutes, No. 1, p. 8.)

The following is a specimen of the manner in which they are taught this art of climbing chimneys.

"Do you remember being taught to climb VOL. I.

chimneys? Yes.-What did you feel upon the first attempt to climb a chimney? The first chimney I went up, they told me there the top of it, and that is the way they enwas some plum-pudding and money up at ticed me up; and when I got up I would not let the other boy get from under me to get at it, I thought he would get it; I could not get up, and shoved the pot and half the chimney down into the yard.- Did you experience any inconvenience to your knees, or your elbows? Yes, the skin was off my knees and elbows too, in climbing up the new they force you up? When I got up, I cried chimneys they forced me up.-How did out about my sore knees.-Were you beat or compelled to go up by any violent means? Yes, when I went to a narrow chimney, if I could not do it, I durst not go home; when I used to come down, my master would well beat me with the brush; and not only my

master, but when we used to go with the to hit us three or four times with the brush." journeymen, if we could not do it, they used (Lords' Minutes, No. 1. p. 5.)

In practising the art of climbing, they are often crippled.

"You talked of the pargetting of chim

neys; are many chimneys pargetted? There

have to go and sit all a-twist to parge them, used to be more than are now; we used to according to the floors, to keep the smoke from coming out; then I could not straighten my legs; and that is the reason that many are cripples,-from parging and stopping the holes."-(Lords' Minutes, No. 1. p. 17.)

They are often stuck fast in a chimney, and, after remaining there many hours, are cut out.

"Have you known, in the course of your practice, boys stick in chimneys at all? Yes, frequently.-- Did you ever know an instance of a boy being suffocated to death? No; I do not recollect any one at present, but I have assisted in taking boys out when they have been nearly exhausted. - Did you ever know an instance of its being necessary to break open a chimney to take the boy out? O yes. Frequently? Monthly I might say; it is done with a cloak, if possible, that it should not be discovered: a master in general wishes it not to be known, and therefore speaks to the people belonging to the house not to mention it, for it was merely the boy's neglect; they often say it was the boy's neglect.

Why do they say that? The boy's climbing shirt is often very bad; the boy coming down, if the chimney be very narrow, and numbers of them are only nine inches, gets his shirt rumpled underneath him, and he

T

from 8s. to 10s. per day. Great atten- | Bathurst, and that it must have received

tion has been paid to the improvement of wool; and it is becoming a very considerable article of export to this country.

The most interesting circumstance in the accounts lately received from Botany Bay, is the discovery of the magnificent river on the western side of the Blue Mountains. The public are aware, that a fine road has been made from Sydney to Bathurst, and a new town founded at the foot of the western side of these mountains, a distance of 140 miles. The country in the neighbourhood of Bathurst has been described as beautiful, fertile, open, and eminently fit for all the purposes of a settlement. The object was to find a river; and such an one has been found, the description of which it is impossible to read without the most lively interest. The intelligence is contained in a despatch from Mr. Oxley, SurveyorGeneral of the settlement to the Governor, dated 30th August, 1817.

"On the 19th, we were gratified by falling in with a river running through a most beautiful country, and which I would have been well contented to have believed the river we were in search of. Accident led us down this stream about a mile, when we were surprised by its junction with a river coming from the south, of such width and magnitude, as to dispel all doubts as to this last being the river we had so long anxiously looked for. Short as our resources were, we could nor resist the temptation this beautiful country offered us to remain two days on the junction of the river, for the purpose of examining the vicinity to as great an extent as possible.

"Our examination increased the satisfaction we had previously felt. As far as the eye could reach in every direction, a rich and picturesque country extended, abounding in limestone, slate, good timber, and every other requisite that could render an uncultivated country desirable. The soil cannot be excelled; whilst a noble river of the first magnitude affords the means of conveying its productions from one part to the other. Where I quitted it its course was northerly; and we were then north of the parallel of Port Stevens, being in lati

tude 32° 45′ south, and 148° 58' east longi

tude.

"It appeared to me that the Macquarrie had taken a north-north-west course from

immense accessions of water in its course best calculated to form an accurate judg from that place. We viewed it at a period ment of its importance, when it was neither swelled by floods beyond its natural and usual height, nor contracted within its limits by summer droughts. Of its magnitude when it should have received the streams we had crossed, independent of any it may receive from the east, which from the boldness and height of the country, I presume, must be at least as many, some idea may be formed, when at this point it exceeded, in breadth and apparent depth, the Hawkesbury at Windsor. Many of the branches were of grandeur and more extended proportion than the admired ene on the Nepean River from the Warragambia to

Emu Plains.

"Resolving to keep as near the river as possible during the remainder of our course to Bathurst, and endeavour to ascertair, at least on the west side, what waters fell into it, on the 22nd we proceeded up the rive, and, between the point quitted and B thurst, crossed the sources of numberles streams, all running into the Macquarrie Two of them were nearly as large as tha river itself at Bathurst. The country from whence all these streams derive their source was mountainous and irregular, and appeared equally so on the east side of the Macquarrie. This description of country extended to the immediate vicinity of Ba thurst; but to the west of those lofty ranges the country was broken into low grassy hills, and fine valleys, watered by rivulets rising on the west side of the mountains, which, on their eastern side, pour their waters directly into the Macquarrie.

"These westerly streams appeared to me to join that which I had at first sight taken for the Macquarrie; and, when united, fall into it at the point at which it was first discovered on the 19th instant.

"We reached this place last evening without a single accident having occurred during the whole progress of the expedition, which from this point has encircled, with the parallels of 84° 0′ south and 32° south, and between the meridians of 149° 43′ and 143° 40′ east, a space of nearly one thousand miles.'"- (Wentworth, pp. 72-75.)

The nearest distance from the point at which Mr. Oxley left off, to any part of the western coast, is very little short of 2000 miles. The Hawkesbury, at Windsor (to which he compares his new river in magnitude), is 250 yards in breadth, and of sufbicient depth to float a 74-gun ship,

stream has often risen from 70 to 90 feet above its common level.

At this point it has 2000 miles in a straight line to reach the ocean; and if it wind, as rivers commonly do wind, "These inundations often rise seventy or it has a space to flow over of between eighty feet above low-water mark; and in 5000 and 6000 miles. The course and the instance of what is still emphatically direction of the river has since become termed 'the great flood,' attained an elevathe object of two expeditions, one by confusion and distress that presents itself tion of ninety-three feet. The chaos of land under Mr. Oxley; the other by on these occasions, cannot be easily consea under Lieutenant King, to the ceived by any one who has not been a wit results of which we look forward withness of its horrors. An immense expanse of great interest. Enough of the country on the Western side of the Blue Mountains has been discovered to show that the settlement has been made on the wrong side. The space between the mountains and the Eastern Sea is not above 40 miles in breadth, and the five or six miles nearest the coast are of very barren land. The country on the other side is boundless. fertile, well watered, and of very great beauty. The importance of such a river as the Macquarrie is incalculable. We cannot help remarking here, the courtly appellations in which geography delights; the river Hawkesbury; the town of Windsor on its banks; Bathurst Plains; Nepean River. Shall we never hear of the Gulf of Tierney; Brougham Point; or the straits of Mackintosh on the river Grey?

water, of which the eye cannot in many directions discover the limits, everywhere interspersed with growing timber, and crowded with poultry, pigs, horses, cattle, women, and children, clinging to them for stacks, and houses, having frequently men, protection, and shrieking out in an agony of despair for assistance:- such are the principal objects by which these scenes of death and devastation are characterised.

"These inundations are not periodical,

but they most generally happen in the month of March. Within the last two years there have been no fewer than four of them, one of which was nearly as high as the great flood. In the six years preceding there had not been one. Since the establishment of the colony, they have happened, upon an average, about once in three years.

"The principal cause of them is the con

tiguity of this river to the Blue Mountains.

The Grose and Warragambia rivers, from which two sources it derives its principal supply, issue direct from these mountains; and the Nepean river, the other principal branch of it, runs along the base of them for fifty or sixty miles, and receives in its progress, from the innumerable mountain torrents connected with it, the whole of the rain which these mountains collect in that great extent. That this is the principal cause of these calamitous inundations has

The mistakes which have been made in settling this fine colony are of considerable importance, and such as must very seriously retard its progress to power and opulence. The first we shall mention is the settlement on the Hawkesbury. Every work of nature has its characteristic defects. Marshes been fully proved; for shortly after the should be suspected of engendering plantation of this colony, the Hawkesbury disease-a volcanic country of erup-overflowed its banks (which are in general tions-rivers of overflowing. A very about thirty feet in height), in the midst of little portion of this kind of reflection harvest, when not a single drop of rain would have induced the disposers of had fallen on the Port Jackson side of the land in New South Wales to have be- mountains. Another great cause of the inundations which take place in this and come a little better acquainted with the other rivers in the colony, is the small the Hawkesbury before they granted fall that is in them, and the consequent land on its banks, and gave that direc-slowness of their currents. The current in tion to the tide of settlement and culti- the Hawkesbury, even when the tide is in vation. It turns out that the Hawkes- full ebb, does not exceed two miles an hour. bury is the embouchure through which The water, therefore, which during the all the rain that falls on the eastern rains rushes in torrents from the mountains, side of the Blue Mountains makes its way to the sea; and accordingly, without any warning, or any fall of rain on the settled part of the river, the

cannot escape

from its immense accumulation soon overwith sufficient rapidity; and tops the banks of the river, and covers the whole of the low country."-(Wentworth, pp. 24-26.)

« AnteriorContinua »