oners from Great Britain
were exposed to examples of appalling sensual degradation: vices
prevailed which have ever stained that island.

The colonial press, uniformly hostile, was crowded with grotesque
delineations--a style of opposition, when not ill-founded, more fatal
than the most bitter criticism. The politeness of Maconochie to his men,
and which formed a part of his system, was the subject of constant
humour: he treated them like gentlemen in distress; they regarded him as
a patron and benefactor.[241] The recall of Maconochie had been
contemplated from the publication of the birthday festivities of 1840:
his administration was, however, prolonged until 1844, from the
difficulty of finding a qualified successor.

The people of New South Wales, who regretted the abolition of assignment
as a calamity, disapproved the scheme of Maconochie. The legislative
council declared against the transportation of convicts to Norfolk
Island, not only as hopeless in reference to the moral recovery of the
prisoners, but tending to perpetuate all the evils of transportation
without its advantages. They requested that prohibitory measures might
be adopted to prevent them from entering the colony at the expiration of
their sentences (1840).

The trial of the "mark system" in Norfolk Island during a period of
four years, according to Captain Forster, totally failed. This was the
most important element of Maconochie's reform discipline. The men,
however, found means to render the accumulation of marks independent of
individual conduct and moral reformation. The amount, which ranged from
eight to thirty marks a-day, afforded ample means for corruption. Clever
mechanics were rewarded for their skill; the strong for their strength.
The convict clerks falsified the accounts; men transferred their marks
to each other as a private traffic. Offences were mostly punished by the
forfeiture of marks: blasphemy at thirty; insolence at fifty; and
greater insubordination, two or three hundred. These are the
representations of an officer hostile to the plan; but they are such as
are probable in themselves, and are inseparable from every system
admitting indefinite good conduct as a positive claim to
liberation.[242]

The officers had been permitted to keep shops and to traffic with the
prisoners; and, it was said, that a vessel was freighted from Sydney to
supply them with goods. It was, however, asserted by Maconochie that the
practice had p