King in
council; and here the necessity of taking down the evidence
brought before the court becomes still more strong, since the
character of the court itself may be involved in the issue of the
legal decision. Suits to this amount are not now very rare, but
they may be expected to become much more frequent in the thriving
state of the colony.

The affixing a greater degree of respectability to the office
of chief constable at Sydney, and the attachment of a salary to
the situation from the crown, would be a desirable measure, since
on this officer depends, in a great measure, the peace, the
internal security, and good order of the colony; and it is
therefore worthy of consideration whether the trust, inferior in
importance to scarcely any in the settlement, ought not to be
reposed in a person of some respectability, and who, by the
receipt of an adequate remuneration, might be enabled to devote
his time and attention to the duties of his office. To this
situation so much responsibility is attached, and from it so much
good is expected, that the person who fills it ought to be
enabled to preserve a respectable appearance, and to embrace the
comforts of life, without being permitted to have recourse to
traffic or other pursuits which might contaminate his principles,
or render him less zealous in his exertions for the good order of
the colony. The benefit which must arise from the conscientious
discharge of the duties of this office is much more than can be
imagined at first sight; and the evils, on the other hand, which
flow from its mal-execution, are in an opposite extremely
baleful, and calculated more to promote excesses and tumults than
to repress them.

That prisoners who are transported for life are in general
indifferent to their future fate, and careless of their conduct,
is a fact well known to all persons who have resided in the
settlement; and it therefore becomes a naturally interesting
question, by what means these convicts may be brought to
discharge their duties with more readiness, and to follow a
course of life more fraught with happiness to themselves, and
more satisfactory to those who are placed near them. The best
method which suggests itself to me, is that of employing
prisoners for life on government labour for a limited time only,
at the expiration of which period they should be made free of the
country, and, in case their conduct had been such as to merit
approbation, should be allowed t