ion, and forward it
to him, he would take care that the clerk of the court should give the
jurors an opportunity to join in it, and would use his best endeavours
with his excellency the lieutenant-governor, who, he was sure, would
feel happiness in extending compensation, if it were in his power. In
passing sentence of transportation for fifteen years (the lightest which
the law permits in cases of robbery), his honor protested that,
considering the position of the prisoner, placed in a probation station
but having no restraint laid upon him to prevent from going in quest of
luxuries and comforts, he would be fain to pass a lighter sentence. He
felt the inefficiency of the sentence that he was about to pronounce,
but he had no alternative. Accordingly he passed the mitigated sentence
of fifteen years transportation".--_Courier, September_, 1846.]

[Footnote 273: Despatch to Earl Grey, 1847.]

SECTION XXV.

The notices of the treatment of female prisoners in this work have been
few. Until recently, the attention of the English government has been
almost entirely confined to the management of male convicts; and the
impression has been always too general, that the unhappy women are
beyond recovery. In the local discussion of the convict question the
deliberate opinion of Captain Forster has been usually adopted, by all
who have seen the conduct of the women. "I have not," said that
distinguished officer, "entered upon the topic of discipline for female
convicts, not considering them available subjects for prison
discipline." (1837) Colonial experience, before and since, would hardly
authorise any other conclusion.

The first female transports were left to the casualties of a convict
colony. Some, who were adopted by the officers, became the mothers of
respectable families: some wholly emerged from their degradation, and
became respectable wives; but, for the most part, they merely exhibited
the depth to which vice can depress. Nearly 20,000 have been
transported; of these, a considerable proportion have fallen victims to
intemperance, and sunk into a premature grave.

The description of the conduct of female prisoners is so uniform, that
any date and any account might be joined at random. Those who read the
works of Collins, of Read, of Henderson, and of Lang, and compare them
with each other, and with works of the present time, will find little
variety of incident. They represent woman deprived of the graces of h