of the world. The cases of Mr. Moore and of William Stewart, as quoted by Mr. Bennet, are very strong. If they are answerable, they should be answered. The concluding letter to Mr. Stewart is, to us, the most decisive proof of the unfitness of Colonel Macquarrie for the situation in which he was placed. The Ministry at home, after the authenticity of the letter was proved, should have seized upon the first decent pretext of recalling the Governor, of thanking him in the name of his Sovereign for his valuable services (not omitting his care of the wild bulls), and of dismissing him to half-pay- and insignificance.

pears to pervade all human institutions, | be the first to lament that an unhappy and to be the most invincible of all convict was sentenced to death for killhuman abuses. Not only are Church, ing one of his wild bulls on the other side King, and State, allured by this principle of vicarious labour, but the pot-boy has a lower pot-boy, who for a small portion of the small gains of his principal, arranges, with inexhaustible sedulity, the subdivided portions of drink, and intensely perspiring, disperses, in bright pewter, the frothy elements of joy. There is a very awkward story of a severe flogging inflicted upon three freemen by Governor Macquarrie, without complaint to, or intervention of, any magistrate; a fact not denied by the Governor, and for which no adequate apology, nor anything approaching to an adequate apology, is offered. These Asiatic and satrapical proceedings,however, we have reason to think, are exceedingly disrelished by London juries. The profits of having been unjustly flogged at Botany Bay (Scarlett for the plaintiff) is good property, and would fetch a very considerable sum at the Auction Mart. The Governor, in many instances, appears to have confounded diversity of opinion upon particular measures, with systematic opposition to his Government, and to have treated as disaffected persons those whom, in favourite measures, he could not persuade by his arguments, nor influence by his example, and on points where every man has a right to judge for himself, and where authority has no legitimate right to interfere, much less to dictate.

To the charges confirmed by the statement of Mr. Bigge, Mr. Bennet adds, from the evidence collected by the Jail Committee, that the fees in the Governor's Court, collected by the authority of the Governor, are most exorbitant and oppressive; and that illegal taxes are collected under the sole authority of the Governor. It has been made, by colonial regulations, a capital offence to steal the wild cattle; and in 1816, three persons were convicted of stealing a wild bull, the property of our Sovereign Lord the King. Now, our Sovereign Lord the King (whatever be his other merits or demerits) is certainly a very good-natured man, and would

As to the Trial by Jury, we cannot agree with Mr. Bennet, that it would be right to introduce it at present, for reasons we have given in a previous Article, and which we see no reason for altering. The time of course will come when it would be in the highest degree unjust and absurd, to refuse to that settlement the benefit of popular institutions. But they are too young, too few, and too deficient for such civilised machinery at present. "I cannot come to serve upon the jury the waters of the Hawksbury are out, and I have a mile to swim-the kangaroos will break into my corn the convicts have robbed me my little boy has been bitten by an ornithorynchus paradoxus

I have sent a man fifty miles with a sack of flour to buy a pair of breeches for the assizes, and he is not returned." These are the excuses which, in new colonies, always prevent Trial by Jury; and make it desirable, for the first half century of their existence, that they should live under the simplicity and convenience of despotism-such modified despotism (we mean) as a British House of Commons (always containing men as bold and honest as the member for Shrewsbury) will permit in the governors of their distant colonies.

Such are the opinions formed of the conduct of Governor Macquarrie by Mr. Bigge. Not the slightest insinuation is made against the integrity of his character. Though almost every

body else has a job, we do not perceive upon their landing, to be treated with that any is imputed to this gentleman; very different degrees of severity. The but he is negligent, expensive, arbitrary, first might be merely detained in New ignorant, and clearly deficient in abili. South Wales without labour or coerties for the task committed to his charge. cion; the second compelled, at allevents, It is our decided opinion, therefore, to work out two-thirds of his time, that Mr. Bennet has rendered a valu- without the possibility of remission; able service to the public, in attacking and the third be destined at once for and exposing his conduct. As a gen- the Coal River.* If these consequences tleman and an honest man, there is not steadily followed these gradations of the smallest charge against the Gover- conviction, they would soon be undernor; but a gentleman, and a very honest stood by the felonious world at home. man, may very easily ruin a very fine At present, the prosperity of the best colony. The colony itself, disencum- convicts is considered to be attainable bered of Colonel Lachlan Macquarrie, by all; and transportation to another will probably become a very fine empire; hemisphere is looked upon as the but we can scarcely believe it is of any renovation of fallen fortunes, and the present utility as a place of punishment. passport to wealth and power. The history of emancipated convicts, who have made a great deal of money by their industry and their speculations, necessarily reaches this country, and prevents men who are goaded by want, and hovering between vice and virtue, from looking upon it as a place of suffering-perhaps leads them to consider it as the land of hope and refuge, to them unattainable, except by the commission of crime. And so they lift up their heads at the Bar, hoping to be transported,

"Stabant orantes primi transmittere
cursum,
Tendebantque manus, ripe ulterioris
amore."

Another circumstance, which destroys all idea of punishment in transportation to New South Wales, is the enormous expense which that settlement would occasion if it really were made a place of punishment. A little wicked tailor arrives, of no use to the architectural projects of the Governor. He is turned over to a settler, who leases this sartorial Borgia his liberty for five shillings per week, and allows him to steal and snip, what, when, and where he can.

The excuse for all this mockery of law and justice is, that the expense of his maintenance is saved to the Government at home. But the expense is not saved to the country at large. The nefarious needleman writes It is not possible, in the present state home, that he is as comfortable as a of the law, that these enticing histories finger in a thimble! that though a frac of convict prosperity should be pre- tion only of humanity, he has several vented, by one uniform system of wives, and is filled every day with rum severity exercised in New South Wales, and kangaroo. This, of course, is not upon all transported persons. Such lost upon the shopboard; and, for the different degrees of guilt are included saving of fifteen pence per day, the under the term of convict, that it would foundation of many criminal tailors is violate every feeling of humanity, and laid. What is true of tailors, is true of every principle of justice, to deal out tinkers and all other trades. one measure of punishment to all. We chances of escape from labour, and of strongly suspect that this is the root manumission in the Bay, we may deof the evil. We want new grada-pend upon it, are accurately reported, tions of guilt to be established by law and perfectly understood, in the flash-new names for those gradations - houses of St. Giles; and while Earl and a different measure of good and Bathurst is full of jokes and joy, pubevil treatment attached to those de-lic morals are thus sapped to their nominations. In this manner, the foundation. mere convict, the rogue and convict, and

The

the incorrigible convict, would expect, |

This practice is now resorted to.

year? It is very low indeed; I am sick of it; I do not think I shall ever deal again. We have got game this season as low as half-a-crown a brace (birds), and pheasants as low as 78. a brace. It is so plentiful, there has been no end to spoiling it this season. It is so plentiful, it is of no use. In war time it was worth having; then they fetched 78. and 8s. a brace.' - (Report, p. 33.)

was no man of sense and reflection who did not anticipate the following consequences of the measure:

"Do you find that less game has been sold in consequence of the bill rendering it penal to sell game? Upon my word, it did not make the slightest difference in the world. Not immediately after it was made? No; I do not think it made the slightest difference. It did not make the No; I never sold a bird less.-Was not there a resolution of

All the poulterers, too, even the most respectable, state, that it is abso-slightest sensation? lutely necessary they should carry on this illegal traffic in the present state of the game laws; because their regular customers for poultry would infallibly leave any poulterer's shop from whence they could not be supplied with game.

"I have no doubt that it is the general wish at present of the trade not to deal in the article; but they are all, of course, compelled from their connections. If they can. not get game from one person they can from another.

"Do you believe that poulterers are not to be found who would take out licences, and would deal with those very persons, for the purposes of obtaining a greater profit than they would have dealing as you would do? I think the poulterers in general are a respectable set of men, and would not countenance such a thing; they feel now that they are driven into a corner; that there may be men who would countenance irregular proceedings, I have no doubt.Would it be their interest to do so, considering the penalty? No, I think not. The poulterers are perfectly well aware that they are committing a breach of the law at present. Do you suppose that those persons, respectable as they are, who are now committing a breach of the law, would not equally commit that breach if the law were altered? No, certainly not; at present it is so connected with their business that

they cannot help it.-You said just now, that they were driven into a corner; what did you mean by that? We are obliged to aid and abet those men who commit those depredations, because of the constant demand for game, from different customers whom we supply with poultry.-Could you carry on your business as a poulterer, if you refused to supply game? By no means; because some of the first people in the land require it of me."-(Report, p. 15.)

When that worthy Errorist, Mr. Bankes, brought in his bill of additional severities against poachers, there

A

the poulterers not to sell game? I was secretary to that committee. What was the consequence of that resolution? great deal of ill blood in the trade. One gentleman who just left the room did not come in to my ideas. I never had a head of game in my house; all my neighbours sold it; and as we had people on the watch, who were ready to watch it into the houses, it came to this, we were prepared to bring our actions against certain individuals, after sitting, perhaps, from three to four months, every week, which we did at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand; but we did not proceed with our actions, to prevent ill blood in the trade. We regularly met, and, as we conceived at the time, formed a committee of the most respectable of the trade. I was secretary of that committee. The game was sold in the city, in the vicinity of the Royal Exchange, cheaper than ever was known, because the people at our end of the town were afraid. I, as a point of honour, never had it in my house. I never had a head of game in my house that season.-What was the consequence? I lost my trade, and gave offence to gentle men: a nobleman's steward, or butler, or cook, treated it as contumely; 'Good God! what is the use of your running your head against the wall?'-You were obliged to begin the trade again? Yes, and sold more than ever."-(Report, p. 18.)

These consequences are confirmed by the evidence of every person before the Committee.

All the evidence is very strong as to the fact, that dealing in game is not discreditable; that there are a great number of respectable persons, and, among the rest, the first poulterers in London, who buy game knowing it to have been illegally procured, but who would never dream of purchasing any other article procured by dishonesty.

"Are there not, to your knowledge, a great many people in this town who deal in

game, by buying or selling it, that would have detected more persons this season not on any account buy or sell stolen pro- than in any former one? Yes: I perty? Certainly; there are many capital think within four months there have tradesmen, poulterers, who deal in game, been twenty-one transported that I that would have nothing to do with stolen property; and yet I do not think there is a have been at the taking of, and through poulterer's shop in London, where they one man turning evidence in each case, could not get game, if they wanted it.-Do and without that they could not have you think any discredit attaches to any been identified; the gamekeepers man in this town for buying or selling could not, or would not, identify them. game? I think none at all; and I do not The poachers go to the public-house think that the men to whom I have just and spend their money; if they have referred would have anything to do with stolen goods.-Would it not, in the opinion a good night's work, they will go and of the inhabitants of London, be considered get drunk with the money. The gangs a very different thing dealing in stolen are connected together at different game or stolen poultry? Certainly. The public-houses, just like a club at a one would be considered disgraceful, and public-house; they are all sworn the other not? Certainly; they think no- together. If the keeper took one of thing of dealing in game; and the farmers them, they would go and attack him in the country will not give information; for so doing." they will have a hare or two of the very men who work for them; and they are afraid to give information." p. 31.)

(Report,

Mr. Stafford, chief-clerk of Bow Street, says, "All the offences against the game laws which are of an atrocious description I think are generally The evidence of Daniel Bishop, one reported to the public office in Bow of the Bow Street officers, who has Street, more especially in cases where been a good deal employed in the ap- the keepers have either been killed, or prehension of poachers, is curious and dangerously wounded, and the asimportant, as it shows the enormous sistance of an officer from Bow Street extent of the evil, and the ferocious is required. The applications have spirit which the game laws engender been much more numerous of late in the common people. "The poach-years* than they were formerly. Some ers," he says, "came sixteen miles. The of them have been cases of murder; whole of the village.from which they but I do not think many have amounted were taken were poachers; the consta- to murder. There are many instances ble of the village, and the shoemaker, in which keepers have been very illand other inhabitants of the village. I treated-they have been wounded, fetched one man twenty-two miles. There skulls have been fractured, and bones was the son of a respectable gardener; broken; and they have been shot at. one of these was a sawyer, and another A man takes a hare, or a pheasant, a baker, who kept a good shop there. with a very different feeling from that If the village had been alarmed, we with which he would take a pigeon or should have had some mischief; but a fowl out of a farm-yard. The we were all prepared with fire-arms. number of persons that assemble toIf poachers have a spite with the game gether is more for the purpose of keeper, that would induce them to go protecting themselves against those out in numbers to resist him. This that may apprehend them, than from party I speak of had something in any idea that they are actually comtheir hats to distinguish them.. They take a delight in setting-to with the gamekeepers; and talk it over afterwards how they served so and so. They fought with the butt-ends of their guns at Lord Howe's; they beat the gamekeepers shockingly."- -"Does it occur to you (Bishop is asked) to have had more applications, and to

been transported for shooting at night. It is only of late years that men have There are instances of men who have been transported at the Sessions for night poaching, who made no resistance at all when poachers weighed against them-characters estimated probably by the very lords of graceful law is the occasion of all the mur manors who had lost their game. This disders committed for game.

taken; but then their characters as old