heir
condition was not unhappy, or their masters unkind. In his estimate of
prisoners, Capt. Maconochie was equally deceived by a generous
confidence, or by his pity for human suffering. Some were, indeed, far
superior to their degradation: they retained in bondage the principles
they had derived from education, or the dispositions natural to their
character: offenders by accident, not habit; and some condemned by that
last calamity incident to society, the mistakes of public justice. A
much larger class were victims of early neglect: parental example, or of
the social evils which are incident to the refinement, corruption, and
selfishness of the age; but very many, whatever the cause of their
depravity, were really and recklessly depraved. The pitying eye of the
philanthropist, glancing at their history, would find his compassion in
the ascendant, and in surveying their misfortunes might forget their
crimes; but to stand in contact with them; to struggle against their
passions, to hear their profaneness, to correct their indolence, and to
thwart their peculations--these were duties and trials, in the presence
of which the highest benevolence became practical, and theory gave way
before actual experience. Nor is it easy to discover by what plan the
injustice of European society, or the misfortunes of youth, can change
the colonial aspect of depravity, or supersede the penalties provoked by
indisputable wickedness.

A close examination of the records in the police-office, not only proves
the revolting severity of our penal administration, but by preserving
the original character and colonial career of the prisoners, illustrates
the depth, continuity, and recklessness of their guilt. It was in this
department of his investigation Maconochie dropped into serious errors.
He entertained the conviction that the far greater number were wicked,
because they were unhappy: nor did he sufficiently perceive, that in a
large mass of offenders the principles which debase them had become
constitutional by habit; and that nothing, short of divine power, could
change the current of their passions, or the course of their lives. From
such a view of human nature the feeling mind revolts, and the
philanthropist may justly cherish those animating hopes which instances
of reformation may save from the charge of folly; but a philosopher,
constructing a system, cannot disguise facts with impunity: and nothing
is more certain than that he whose