ations of Governor Arthur, and the
extreme difficulty of change, secured a further trial under new
conditions.

Lord Melbourne held a consultation with Mr. Stanley. He suggested that
the increase of crime had arisen partly from ignorance of the actual
consequences of transportation. He requested him to reflect upon this
topic, and to determine whether it might not be proper to send
transgressors through a more rigorous discipline on their landing, and
to stop the comparative ease and comfort it was customary to enjoy.[196]
Mr. Stanley undertook to contrive a scheme, which should terminate the
indifference with which banishment was regarded. He had said that he
would render the punishment of transportation more dreaded than death
itself. At his suggestion Lord Melbourne addressed a letter to the
judges, and requested them, when on their circuits, to explain the
extent of torment which banishment included; to select such as they
might deem it proper to separate to a more terrific form of punishment;
and to declare, in a public manner, the degree of severity which would
follow a particular sentence.

It was determined that the more hardened should be confined at Norfolk
Island or Macquarie Harbour; and that no prisoner for life should be
withdrawn from a penal settlement, until seven years of his sentence was
passed, or until one-third of a shorter period was completed. Then
drafted to the roads: after wearing chains a further five years, he
might be assigned to a master, and commence his probation. The less
guilty were to join the road party at once, and in seven years be
liberated from their chains. Mr. Stanley forwarded sixteen persons in
the _Southwell_, whom he directed should be kept in chains for the first
seven years of their bondage. He thus established the system,
distinguished as the "certain and severe" in the orders of government;
and for several years described by the journals, as the "worse than
death" system of Mr. Secretary Stanley.[197]

The object of Stanley was to invest transportation with novel terrors,
and to give a more tragic aspect to the law. He did not, however,
reflect, that he who has destroyed hope has also made the despairing
worthless; that the victim will have recourse to violence or
insensibility--that when he cannot rupture he will hug his bonds. He did
not perceive that no Englishman would accept the service of a felon, who
for twelve years had experienced the misery of chains--that