great aptitude, and some of them had been
employed on similar work in their own country. The largest work,
however, commenced in Captain Man's time, was the erection of the whole
of the permanent buildings required for the location of the then large
number of Indian convicts. They were built within the surrounding wall
of the jail, near the "Brass Basa" or "Wet Rice" Canal, and entirely by
the labour of the convicts themselves. The estimate for the work made by
the Superintending Engineer for their execution by free labour was
100,000 rupees, but the money cost to the Government was only 12,000
rupees, when executed by convict labour and with convict-made materials.
To effect this, the convicts were trained to make the bricks, to dig and
burn coral for lime, to quarry stone for foundations, and to fell the
timber in Government forests in the island, and to dress it for roof
timbers, door and window frames, and so forth.

When Captain Man went to Malacca as Resident Councillor, Captain Ronald
Macpherson, of the Madras Artillery, succeeded him as Superintendent of
Convicts, Singapore, and carried on the works in progress at the time.
This was in the year 1855. The most prominent work commenced by the
convicts in his time, and subsequently carried to completion, was the
erection of the new church, now the cathedral of the diocese. It must be
acknowledged that it was a courageous act on the part of Captain
Macpherson to have designed a church in the early English style of
architecture, and to have pledged himself to the Government that he
would undertake to construct it wholly by convict labour. We think it
showed both confidence in himself and in his convict workpeople, and
nothing could more clearly have proved to what perfection their skilled
labour had advanced than that he felt himself able to embark on so
elaborate a work.

It was in May of this year, 1855, that the Bengal Government approved of
the project, and sanctioned the expenditure in cash of 47,000 rupees
upon its construction. The Bishop of Calcutta laid the foundation stone
during next year before a large concourse of the merchants and residents
of the place, and the inscription below the stone ran as follows:--

The first English church of Singapore, commenced A.D. 1834, and
consecrated A.D. 1838, having become dilapidated, this stone of
a new and more commodious edifice, dedicated to the worship of
Almighty God according to the rites and