--of their friends, have been constrained to
subsist on the goal allowance. This, together with the sameness of a
prison life, brings on a weariness of mind, which renders any change
agreeable to their now broken spirits; the prospect of a removal
occasions a temporary excitement, which, to those unaccustomed to reason
on the matter, may appear like gaiety, and carelessness of the future.
The noise and apparent recklessness, however, on these occasions, are
produced more by those prisoners who are to remain behind, availing
themselves of the opportunity to beguile a few hours of tedious
existence by a noisy and forced merriment, which they know the officers
on duty will impute to the men under orders for the ship. This is
confirmed by the inmates of the place being, on all other nights of the
year, peaceable after they have been locked up in their respective
wards. Those who suppose there is any real mirth or indifference among
them at any time, have taken but a superficial view of these wretched
men. Heaviness and sickness of heart are always with them; they will at
times make an effort to feel at ease, but all their hilarity is
fictitious and assumed--they have the common feelings of our nature, and
of which they can never divest themselves. Those who possess an unusual
buoyancy of spirits, and gloss over their feelings with their
companions, I have ever observed on the whole, to feel the most internal
agony. I have seen upwards of two thousand under this sentence, and
never conversed with one who did not appear to consider the punishment,
if it exceeded seven years, _equal to death_. May, the accomplice of
Bishop and Williams, told me, the day after his respite, if they meant
to transport him, he did not thank them for his life. The following is
another striking instance of the view they have of this punishment. A
man named Shaw, who suffered for housebreaking about two years since,
awoke during the night previous to his execution, and said, "Lee!"
(speaking to the man in the cell with him) "I have often said I would be
rather hanged than transported; but now it comes so close as this, I
begin to think otherwise." Shortly afterwards he turned round to the
same man and said, "I was wrong in what I said just now; I am still of
my former opinion: hanging is the best of the two;" and he remained in
the same mind all the night. The first question an untried prisoner asks
of those to whom he is about to entrust his defence i