, where many herded together, an item of large expense.
Punishments, the readiest instruments of control, were inflicted on
calculation: there was, perhaps, no anger in the breast of the
accuser--the defaulter he would have readily forgiven, had he stood
alone; but impunity would relax the reins of authority, and the lash was
invoked because most convenient. The published documents of the House of
Commons illustrate the perseverance of masters, in repeating their
prosecutions; and the resistance and suffering of miserable men, who for
the long period of their service lived in constant warfare, and
retaliated the social wretchedness they endured. An enquirer could not
long reside in the colony, without learning that many had borne a
succession of punishments sufficient to prostrate the strength of a
giant, and which no mere animal in the creation could survive.

Yet this is not a fair estimate of the character of the settlers, or the
results of assignment; and a want of discrimination in Maconochie,
however unintentional, was a serious injustice. It was true, that the
constant vexations of a settler's life produced, too generally, a tone
and manner, striking to a stranger, because not so common under happier
circumstances. The substantial benevolence of many employers is not the
less unquestionable: a large number continued their liberated men in
their service, whom they had taught the arts of industry, brought under
the influence of moral instruction, and assisted to settle in life.
Hundreds scattered throughout these colonies, who were born in the
contagion of wickedness, were rescued from habits of crime by the long
and patient training of their masters. That many such have become
virtuous, in the highest sense, could not be affirmed without hazard;
but can this be said of the majority of mankind?

The charges of Maconochie incurred severe reproach, for their rashness.
It is true, that the prominence of evil fixes the attention, while
humanity is retiring and noiseless--as the riot of the streets conceals
rather than illustrates the sobriety and order within doors; but a
philosopher should have taken into account this facility of error, while
condemning with whatever severity the evils he might scan: lest he
should be found to set forth the exception as the rule, and the rule as
the exception.

Were persons, who have passed through assignment, to give their
testimony, a very large proportion would acknowledge that t