a second was provided at Port Macquarie, 175 miles north of Port
Jackson. The increase of population soon rendered a further movement
requisite: it was not, however, until 1824, that Surveyor-general Oxley
completed his report of Moreton Bay: pioneers were forwarded, and at
length 1,000 prisoners were employed in that remote region. The plan
thus narrowed, only partially succeeded, and the numbers at last
dwindled to 300 men: the Commissioner's idea, therefore, was never
fairly tested. An organisation of several thousands in a city of
penitence; under a discipline, which, while excluding the worst
temptations of regular society, might preserve many of its elementary
forms; managed by permanent officers, in number and gradation,
sufficient to form and preserve the tone of a profession--is
unfortunately still a speculation: nor is it yet safe to assume, that
the failure of stations, exhibiting several features of the
Commissioner's scheme, but excluding others not less important, is a
conclusive argument against the original design.[142]

In this colony, a penal station was projected during the residence of
Bigge. While he approved the object, he did not cordially concur in the
selected locality: he remarked several of those obstacles to access,
which were not compensated by the difficulties of escape. The
punishment of colonial offences, when persons were already in bonds,
was attended with some difficulty; the law not authorising additions to
a sentence, except by a court of criminal jurisdiction, regulated by the
forms, and bounded by the limitations of English statutes. To punish a
misdemeanour, and sometimes even capital offences, the culprit was
brought before a justice of the peace, and sent to a penal settlement
for the remainder of his sentence. Thus a widely different penalty
attended the different parties to the same crime: one would scarcely
touch the place of his second exile, before the termination of his
British sentence restored him to full freedom; another, perhaps a
prisoner for life, would linger out his wretched existence in the place
of his seclusion, forgotten.[143]

The name of _Macquarie Harbour_ is associated exclusively with
remembrance of inexpressible depravity, degradation, and woe. Sacred to
the genius of torture, nature concurred with the objects of its
separation from the rest of the world; to exhibit some notion of a
perfect misery. There, man lost the aspect, and the heart of man!

M