of cultivation by the slow process of experiment; and thus they came to
a conclusion, only lately obsolete--that an Australasian husbandman is
spoiled by the agricultural knowledge of Europe.

The immediate direction of labor, from the beginning, was committed to
convicts. To stand over the prisoners, was not an agreeable occupation
for gentlemen: thus the actual working of transportation, as a penal
system, was entrusted to men, often clever and corrupt, whose brutal
habits and savage demeanour excited disgust and fear. This error
perpetuated itself: persons of character rejected a position, so often
occupied by the worthless: even the distribution of labor was entrusted
to such hands, or subject to their influence. To the prisoners, in
reality, they sold indulgences of the crown, or exacted a revenue from
their vices. The chief superintendent of convicts at Sydney, and who
long determined what men should be dispatched to this country, was
himself doubly convicted.[82] This was far from destroying eligibility:
it became at last an official proverb, that bad men, from the very vices
of their character, were the fittest for a direct supervision; and,
finally, that the world is divided between the rogue and the fool. The
use of power, when entrusted to such hands, is no problem; nor is it
possible to imagine greater degradation, or punishment more capricious,
than of the unfortunate person subject to such taskmasters; in whose
hands, according to the custom of early times, the rod of authority was
not a metaphor.[83]

That form of service, known as assignment, was established by Governor
King in 1804. The master was bound by indenture to retain his servant
for one year, and for every day deficient, a penalty of one shilling was
imposed: the quantity of the work to be done was prescribed; contingent,
however, on the nature of the soil, the state of the weather, and the
strength of the workman: the surplus of his time might be occupied by
the master, but his earnings were his own. Wages were L10 per annum, and
for a female L7; but the deficiency of money, induced the employers to
allot a proportion of time as a compensation, or to supply goods, on
which an advance was claimed, often extremely oppressive; and when the
season rendered servants less useful, the masters were tempted to obtain
relief by false accusations, or to allow their men to quit the
premises--who sought, by labor or theft, the means of subsistence.

To r