it was not
as prisoners, but as husbandmen, that the poachers and rioters of
England were acceptable to the Australian farmer; who was reconciled to
penal slavery, only when disguised under semi-patriarchal forms.

The change proposed by Stanley was greatly disliked by Arthur. It was
the reverse of his system. Whatever influences were brought into action
by agricultural service, would be lost in a gang. He foresaw the
despondency, the oppression of the prisoners, and the gradual alienation
of the colonists. Arthur referred Stanley's despatch to the executive
council, with his own rejoinder. His system of twelve years bondage and
chains was unanimously reprobated: the council concurred in the opinion
of the Governor, that it would break up the gradations of punishment;
and unless sustained by a large reinforcement of military, endanger the
public safety and produce habits of outrage and revenge.[198] Whatever
influence these representations possessed, the plan was abandoned of
necessity. The chief justice of New South Wales advised the Governor
that the law had not authorised the arbitrary addition of chains to a
sentence of transportation--to increase the misery, not to add to the
safe keeping of the prisoners. Such, on reference, was the opinion of
the English legal authorities, and the men in irons were released.[199]

Whatever the motives of Lord Stanley, the transmission of such an order,
without ascertaining the authority under which it was issued, was a
serious official error. It is probable, that the persons injured had no
means of appeal, and deserved no redress; but when it is remembered,
that the law does not profess to determine the moral enormity of an
offence by the extent of punishment, to aggravate a penalty which the
legislators deemed equal to the crime--avowedly to make it more terrible
than death itself--was a stretch of official power, which can scarcely
be explained.

St. Paul denounced the judge who smote contrary to the law. Mr.
Stanley's encroachment on the functions of legislation was only more
defensible because less corrupt. To repress colonial disorders, the
local government had, indeed, grafted the penalties he prescribed on the
colonial statute book; but the despotic interference of a secretary of
state was specially objectionable. Persons sentenced to transportation
for political or agrarian crimes, were not unlikely to provoke the
personal hatred of ministers, and therefore to suffer a