of this
lady recommended her to the confidence of government:[275] with her
husband, Dr. Bowden, the medical officer, and a chosen staff of
assistants--several only inferior to herself--she arrived in this colony
with high expectations of success. As a temporary expedient, the
_Anson_, a ship of war, was appropriated to the project. The decorum of
the ship, and the healthy and cleanly appearance of the women, were
striking to a stranger; but the early lack of employment ruined the
enterprise. The government, with its usual negligence, failed in
details, and thus failed altogether. Towards the close of the
experiment, the making of clothing for the prisoners was more
successfully attempted; but the local authorities were always hostile to
the institution. It was protected by Lord Stanley and Mr. Gladstone, but
Earl Grey consented to its extinction. The results were certainly not
encouraging. The women, discharged from the ship ignorant of the colony,
were at once thrown into every temptation of convict associations. They
had been instructed in the principles of religion, reading and
needlework, and the fruit of these labors will hereafter perhaps,
appear; but whoever expects much from mere dogmatic knowledge, will be
doomed to disappointment. On the death of her husband Mrs. Bowden
returned to England, convinced that moral insanity is far more hopeless
than the diseases of Hanwell. This lady and her friends and coadjutors,
the Misses Holdich, found the women generally submissive and docile:
they were haunted with all kinds of terrors, and had less than the
ordinary courage of women. Mere children in understanding; some, such
only in years; but their actual reformation, for the most part, only
remained an object of confident expectation, while their true tendencies
were repressed. The lady officers, who expected to reap a harvest in
this field of mercy, began by blaming the colonists for scepticism, and
after 3,000 women had passed through their hands, they, alas! ended in
becoming sceptical.

A great number of these prisoners are married. During the probation
system, the local government of the colony became far less scrupulous in
reference to their character, previous engagements, and means of living.
As a choice of evils this course was the least; but many of these
marriages were a disguise for licentiousness, and of a very temporary
character. The freed man united to a convict woman could not be detained
in the colo