of rule were punished when discovered: but men of
weak minds bore in silence miseries they were afraid to resent. The
government compelled to accept such agents as transportation yielded,
employed persons of the vilest character, of which the following may be
taken as a specimen: W. A----, a prisoner for life, forfeited his
ticket-of-leave for keeping a house of ill-fame, and harbouring assigned
servants. He applied for its restoration: this was opposed by the police
magistrate, who recommended that he should serve as an overseer for
three months on probation, as he had been notorious for keeping a bad
house![212] The incongruity of this employment with his character must
have suggested itself to all except those familiar with similar
appointments. Such as could command a bribe ameliorated their condition,
while those who possessed no such resources, were selected to illustrate
the vigilance and fidelity of the overseers. It requires no extensive
acquaintance with mankind to perceive, that in such hands public justice
was desecrated, and the weight of a sentence determined by causes which
had no relation to the character or the crime.

The orders of Stanley were constantly criticised by the press, and from
various motives were disliked by every section of the public. All who
had been prisoners, naturally sympathised with the sufferers: those who
were employers, reprobated a form of punishment which, without
diminishing the application of the lash, abstracted from their farms a
proportion of labour. A spirit of resistance was extensively propagated,
and during the year following many sad instances occurred, in which an
insurgent spirit was fatal. A young man, when employed on the public
works, struck at Mr. Franks with his hammer: fortunately, the blow fell
lightly; but he was tried and executed. A considerable number threw down
their tools and retired to the bush, whither they were pursued and
retaken. One instance made a powerful impression on the public mind: a
convict, named Greenwood, took from a fellow prisoner his shovel, which
was better than his own. He was sent at once by the superintendent to
the cells in charge of a fellow workman. In the spirit of reckless
daring, he told his conductor that he could run away if he thought
proper; the other replied--"no doubt of it." Thus, by a sudden impulse,
in bravado or in terror of the lash, he sprang across the boundary, and
threw up his hat as a signal of his flight. H