ed no
provincial sphere seemed to him so worthy a noble ambition, as to
become the legislator for these colonies, never failed to denounce the
accumulation of illegality and folly.

At this stage of our inquiry, it may be proper to scan this singular
government. The legislators who authorised its establishment, prescribed
as little as possible: all beyond the repression of crime was hidden
from their eyes. They saw that punishments must be necessary, and
provided for their infliction; but the complicated arrangements which
grew out of the colonisation, were left to the adjustment of chance, or
the discrimination of ministers, and ultimately to the caprice of naval
and military governors.

The extemporary character of their contrivance and expedients, is
sufficiently apparent. Nothing was expected: nothing was dreaded: no
checks were opposed to abuses. Thus acts of tyranny were perpetrated
beyond the ordinary excesses of arbitrary governments, and all classes
were confounded in one regimen of despotism. The commencing measures
manifested their indifference to personal rights. Intending to banish
men for life, the ministers selected for the first fleet chiefly persons
whose crimes only forfeited their freedom for a few years. By
withholding, or neglecting to forward lists of their names, their
crimes, or their sentences, they consigned them not only to perpetual
exile but protracted and illegal bondage. Imitating the ministers of the
crown, the governor imposed compulsory labor on free men, or detained
them when their liberation was notoriously due.

Thus again, law had conveyed power to the king to deliver prisoners by
assignment to shippers, but jealous of trusting the executive, the
actual transportation could only be carried out as the result of a
covenant with private persons. Regardless of these well-advised
precautions, the ministers delivered prisoners to ships of war, in
custody of captains in the royal navy, bound to obey the orders of the
crown; and when loud remonstrances induced them to obtain a legislative
sanction to the innovation, they were silent in reference to the past,
and trusted in their party influence to protect their own agents from
legal penalties.[98] No wonder, with such examples before them, the
governors detained or released at their pleasure.

Bentham was the first to protest against this illegal and violent system
of government, as opposed to every principle made sacred by the
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