“He who thinks he sees many around him, whom he esteems and loves, labouring under a fatal error, must have a cold heart, or a most confined notion of benevolence, if he could withhold his endeavours to set them right, from an apprehension of incurring the imputation of officiousness.”-— Wilberforce....

My late voyage in the Morley, female convict ship, having been undertaken chiefly at your instance; an account of it could not with propriety, in my opinion, be addressed to any person but yourself. A faithful relation of every circumstance connected with the voyage has rendered occasional mention of your name unavoidable, for which I have to entreat your indulgence. In soliciting your protection to the following pages, I am anxious to secure for them an attention and respect which, perhaps, the

The general state and condition of those unfortunate persons whose crimes had brought them under the severe cognisance and judgement of the laws, and whose lives only had been spared by the late happily increasing liberality of modern opinion and feeling, have for a long series of years occupied little public attention. Those, indeed, who bestowed any thought at all upon the final treatment of convicts, viewing the provision made for safely securing them on board of Hulks, or within the walls of

The frequency of capital punishment in this country has long excited a general feeling of abhorrence, not merely from the removal of a malefactor from the stage of life, but the distress produced in the display of a scene relieving the unfortunate sufferer from worldly troubles, yet leaving a too painful impression on the mind of the spectator. There is a hallowed reverence thrown around the grave of even the hardiest offender whose crimes have been expiated by his death. The execution of his se

On being appointed Surgeon and Superintendent on board the Neptune, Male Convict Ship, in 1817, I was anxious to avail myself of the opportunity which appeared favourable for forming a correct opinion on the actual state of that duty, and its concerns. It appeared the more necessary that I should come to a just understanding of the influence which the moral principle held over the prisoners’ minds, as on that I intended to ground my future proceedings. A brief summary of the crimes marked agains

The object of my calling you together at this time, is to make a few observations regarding the voyage which, under Providence, we are about to commence. On your good and correct behaviour during this voyage your future happiness will depend in an infinitely greater degree than, I apprehend, any of you can form the least conception; let me, therefore, entreat your undivided attention, and most serious consideration, to what I am about to offer, as it materially concerns your own welfare. Your pe

At our first meeting I took occasion to lay before you a few observations, which a leisure hour had allowed me to put together, for your guidance during the present voyage; and I fondly indulged the hope that they might awaken in your minds the principles of virtue, which a longer or a shorter career in the devious paths of vice had suffered to slumber too long. Since that time, many eventful circumstances have occurred to produce in my mind reflections of a very serious nature, which, as they t

Having now arrived at that destination to which many of us have for some time looked forward with anxious solicitude and uncertainty, I wish to avail myself of the present opportunity to offer a few reflections which have at different times occurred to me, respecting your future conduct and welfare in life. In putting together my thoughts upon this subject, it has been my aim to frame an advice for the moral guidance of you all, but more particularly of those whose tender years and inexperience

It was stated at the commencement of this journal, that a school was to be formed on board for the children of the convicts, as also for those of the free passengers; and that the Committee of Ladies had provided at their own expense a school-mistress to have charge of them under my immediate direction. It now remains to give some account of the manner in which this undertaking was conducted, and to explain the motives which induced me to defer noticing its progress among the daily occurrences i

The preceding pages exhibit a faithful account of the progress towards reformation made by the convicts under the system observed in their management during removal to New South Wales. The moment they were disembarked, my public functions regarding them terminated of course; yet the interest excited in my mind by the dawning of renovated moral feeling, which appeared general, made me still anxious to cultivate and keep alive amongst them, as much as possible, the influence of those salutary impr

As the welfare of the convicts, and their advancement or retrocession in moral reformation, depend materially upon the exertion, apathy, or capability of the Surgeon Superintendent, it may not be out of place, or destitute of interest, to say something regarding the duties attached to that appointment. The transportation of convicts to the colony seems entirely a mercantile concern, in which the Government contracts, as a private individual would, with the ship-owner for the conveyance of a cert

From the foregoing arguments, grounded on facts, which I am satisfied are irrefutable, the following inferences may be deduced: First. —If the object of transportation to New South Wales be only the punishment of the criminal, it is seldom effected in the proportion contemplated by the law; as many of those deserving the most rigorous treatment live there much more comfortably than they could have done at home, and realize large fortunes: while others, with not a tenth of their turpitude, are co

If we refer to the most obvious consequences attendant on the crime of seduction, we shall observe, that in almost every case the victim is reduced to the dreadful necessity of seeking a desultory and precarious subsistence by prostitution , which can never fail to expose the ill-fated object to a degree of wretchedness too painful for sensibility and virtue to picture even in imagination. Before pronouncing a sweeping sentence, however, of unqualified condemnation on the horrid life these miser