ining and mutual responsibility, which
he deemed only a new accommodation of established principles. In his
view, it was a moral field the greatest statesman might enter with
success, and thus crown himself with immortal renown. Such in substance
was the summary, afterwards amplified by details and illustrated by
facts. In subsequent papers the more offensive passages were explained
and qualified; but at best, they appear not only an indictment of
opinions and systems, but of classes and communities.

Sir John Franklin promptly referred the queries of the _Society_ to an
official board, which consisted of the chief police magistrate of the
territory (Captain Forster), the director-general of public works
(Captain Cheyne), and the superintendent of convicts (Mr. Spode). In
reply to sixty-six of these questions they had only to refer to
undisputed facts; but the last contemplated both the theory and
practice of transportation. In the statement of facts they united; but
the proper remedies to apply to acknowledged evils, admitted of
difference--and they all differed.

The memorandum of the chief police magistrate, beside briefly describing
the practice of former times, recommended important changes for the
future. Instead of assignment from the ships, he suggested that all
prisoners should be placed on the public works, for a period to be fixed
by the judges. He proposed a new distribution of time penalties: thus
instead of seven, fourteen years, and life, to recognise by law a more
minute and proportionate sub-division. In assignment, he recommended
wages, rateable at the discretion of government; afterwards a _first
class_ ticket-of-leave, with a permission to choose employers; and a
_second class_, to include most of the privileges of freedom, voidable
only by a court of quarter sessions for specified offences. The
conditional pardon he deemed it necessary to defer a longer time than
usual; since, when released from surveillance and responsibility,
ticket-holders often relapsed into the vices from which they had
previously emerged.

Mr. Spode concurred with the chief police magistrate, though with
serious reservations: especially, he deprecated any delay of
assignment--a state he deemed most conducive to reform, and highly
useful to the colony. Mr. Forster had declared that female prisoners
"_were not available subjects for prison discipline_." Mr. Spode
recommended solitary confinement, or marriage. In the meantime,