expectations are disappointed, feels
a dangerous reaction, and passes from unlimited confidence to
undiscriminating suspicion. The administration of the criminal laws,
both in Great Britain and the colonies, presents a series of
alternations between rigour and laxity, which have proceeded from the
alternate ascendancy of conflicting ideas, that can never settle into
harmony.

Maconochie delighted to trace the better qualities of prisoners: how
even the most daring are moved by tenderness, and when kindly spoken to,
melt into tears. Unhappily these characteristics too often exist in
combination with passions which render them useless. It is, however, the
duty of all to endeavour to elicit and nourish them; for though they but
slightly relieve the depravity with which they are not incompatible,
they afford a nucleus round which the social virtues often gather, and
prevent the total despondency of those who labor for the welfare of the
weak, the wicked, and the miserable.

Sir John Franklin made a last effort to save the system of assignment.
He defended the colonists from the imputations of Captain Maconochie,
and exhibited statistics, which proved their anxiety to promote the
spiritual welfare of the population. He maintained that the surveillance
of the government was active, the distribution of labor usually
impartial; the protection of the prisoners from injustice
secured by law, by the press, and by the constant scrutiny of the
lieutenant-governor. He argued that the quiet submission of the
prisoners was not ensured so much by military power as the consciousness
that they were treated with justice. In his view assignment, by its near
resemblance to the ordinary combinations of social life, prevented the
worst consequences of penal degradation, and tended to rouse the
sympathies which crime might have rendered dormant; he, however,
disapproved of assignment in towns, and for domestic service.[226]

The abuses of assignment were prominently exhibited in the instance of
Clapperton, a man greatly trusted by his master, Mr. Alfred Stephen. He
was guilty of embezzlement to a large extent: he was tried by Captain
Forster, and sentenced to fourteen years transportation; but Clapperton
was famous as a clever cook, and as such was desired by the colonial
secretary, who, however, judged it right first to enquire whether his
services would be in demand for the kitchen of the governor. The private
secretary waived the preceden