n Maconochie's remarks, as they apply generally to all convicts,
whether transported or not.

It is quite curious to observe the unconscious pranks that men of sound
understandings, but not philosophically disciplined, may be led into,
when, from some favourite point of view, they suddenly rush into
generalities, and proclaim as reasoning what is the dictate of a
momentary sentiment. Captain Maconochie, desirous of enlisting our
sympathies in favour of his convicts, assimilates their condition to
that of the black slaves, whom the philanthropic efforts of Wilberforce,
and others, succeeded in emancipating. The parallel is--to say the
best--very surprising and unexpected. Convicts in the colonies stand in
the same predicament, with regard to society, as their fellow-culprits
at home; and the gallant Captain would hardly preach a crusade for the
liberation of all the prisoners in England--for all who are undergoing
the discipline of our houses of correction. To be compelled to labour
for another man's advantage, and at another man's will, because one is
"guilty of a darker skin," and to be compelled to the like taskwork
because one has committed burglary, are two very different things. Full
of this happy comparison, however, Captain Maconochie proceeds--"They
(the blacks) were thus, in the main, merry, virtuous, and contented
beings; they did not advance--this their condition as slaves
forbade--but neither did they recede; and whatever the influence of
their condition on their own character, it ended nearly with themselves;
they were subjects, not agents, and no one was made materially worse
through their means. In every one of these respects, convicts are
differently, and far more unfavourably, circumstanced. True, they have
sinned, which is often alleged as a reason for dealing with them more
harshly; _but who has not sinned? Who will venture to say, or would be
right if he did say, that, similarly born, educated, and tempted_, as
most of them have been, he would have stood where they have fallen? They
are our brothers in a much nearer sense than were the negroes." Now, if
language such as this means any thing, the convict is a most maltreated
person, and should not have been punished at all. It is really the duty
of sober sensible men to put their veto on such oratory as this; there
is too much of the same kind abroad. We must all of us be ready to
acknowledge, that if we had been "born, educated, and tempted," as many