than ten were sick at once; and
during seven years, one soldier only died.[141]

Such was the site chosen by Mr. Bigge; but he endeavoured to render it
suitable, by suggesting a code of regulations, in which may be
discovered the outline of several schemes, since claiming originality.
It was intended for those convicted of serious crimes, or such as
committed offences in the colonies. The prisoners, two together, were to
build their own huts; their sole implement the hatchet, and their
material wood and nails: their only furniture, stools and bedding. Their
labor graduated; from removing heavy weights, and sawing the hardest
timber, to the easy occupation of the gardener, according to their
behaviour or their crimes. They were to raise their own provisions, and
the produce of their tillage for the crown, was to be sold in the
colonies, and carried to the public account; except a sixteenth part,
the moiety of which was to be paid to the commandant, and the rest
proportionately to the overseers. No vessel, unauthorised, was to touch
at the port: every precaution was projected to prevent escape, and the
natives were expected to bring back, for rewards, such as might venture
to stray. Every crime, short of murder, was to be punished on the spot.
No spirits were to be sold; no money circulated; no private speculations
in produce permitted. The wives of prisoners, when suffered to join
them, were to sacrifice all but the necessaries of life. From the chief
settlement others were to branch off; fifteen miles distant from each
other. A church, a school, a library, were to promote the reformation of
the prisoners--an object to be considered paramount to every other. Such
were the plans for a _City of Penitence_, projected by Bigge; and by
which he expected, in several directions, to dispose of 4,000 prisoners.

It was his hope, that their labor would discharge the chief cost of
their control, and end the mockery, and the inequalities of punishment.

Before the arrival of the Commissioner, penal establishments existed,
and prisoners were sequestered for violations of local regulations; or
on extensive farms, where grain was grown for the royal stores. At
Newcastle, on the Hunter River, were coal mines (1818), where those
under colonial sentences, or those _guilty_ of experience in mining,
were subjected to a more rigorous servitude. By an onward progress of
the settlers, this station was less adapted for its purpose, and (1821)