virtue out of it. It mattered little to the
official mind that the system was incurably bad and immoral; the main
thing was to speedily and effectually transfer an awkward burden to
other shoulders. The entire history of penal transportation from Great
Britain throws a sinister light upon the national character. The
practice originated with banishment of convicts to the American colonies
under conditions which constituted a form of slavery.

The criminal on being sentenced became a marketable chattel of the
State. His services were sold by public auction, the purchaser acquiring
the right to transport him and sell him for the term of his sentence to
a builder, planter, manufacturer, or other employer beyond the Atlantic.
The price paid to the British Government averaged five pounds per head,
and some of the more useful prisoners were resold in America for
twenty-five pounds each. One of these dealers in convict labour, in
giving evidence before a committee of the House of Commons, made a
matter-of-fact complaint that 'the trade' was not so remunerative as
people supposed. Artisans sold well, but the profit realised upon them
was often consumed by losses upon some of the others. One-seventh of his
purchases died on his hands, and in the course of business he had been
obliged to give the old, the halt and the lame in for nothing. When the
War of Independence closed the United States against the traffic,
Britain was given a fresh opportunity to reconsider and place its penal
system upon a more humane basis; but the temptation to adopt sweeping
measures was once more too strong to be resisted. The promoters of the
Australian scheme were in so great a hurry to seize their chance that
they despatched over seven hundred convicts before even the site for the
first settlement was chosen. The hardships which this characteristic act
afterwards entailed are too familiar in history to need repetition.
After such recklessness, it is no wonder that, as Sir Roger Therry has
observed, 'the first-fruits of the system exhibited a state of society
in New South Wales which the world might be challenged to surpass in
depravity.'

A generation passed before the British Government reluctantly admitted
transportation to be a failure. Lord John Russell, as late as 1847,
discovered that it had been 'too much the custom to consult the
convenience of Great Britain by getting rid of persons of evil habits,
and to take that view alone.' In planting