The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-12 00:00:00

CONVICT SYSTEM, NORFOLK
I SLAND.

In this return there is no notice taken of the quantity
of fresh meat turned ;into store on the island, which
within my four years was more than doubled.
No notice is here ,taken of the large return of wool
and sheep and ox hides, thus also caused. Of the first in
particular the transmission became at last very great ;
and by superior care taken in washing its price was lat-
terly nearly doubled. This was stated to me in a letter
expressly written by the Colonial Secretary on the
subject.
With all these errors and omissions, notwithstanding
my asserted extravagance, the charge per head of pri-
soners in my time is very little more by this table than
in the preceding years. But for the enormous credit
given to Ms, which Icannot help thinking a clerical
error, for it does not tally at all with the official-returns
of crops in my possession, it would be even lower; and
it is nearly 5/. per head (4/. 15s. 5d.) lower in 1842, the
year of my severe drought, than in 1839, the year before
,arrived.
I am very far from indifferent to economical results;
on the contrary, apart from their own value, I am
persuaded that, under a good system, in a good
locality, they will afford generally an almost
exact measure of moral results also ; for the
virtues of order, method, punctuality, energy, and
good judgment, which realise good returns, will, on a
persuasive principle, also make good servants while ob-
taining them. No school of training can be better for
previously idle and dissolute men than one of succeo.sful
industrial exertion in which they have been induced to
take a voluntary part. But on Norfolk Island I was
most pecularly circumstanced. I had to organise a new
system, and endeavour to revive long forgotten feelings
in the minds of all around. In all my operations I was
jealously watched, harshly judged and reported on, and
perpetually hampered by limitations on my proposed
measures. If my system could have failed in any cir-
cumstance, it would have failed in these ; yet it did not
fail, and Sir George Gipps himself bears testimony to
this.
In 1839, the year before I landed on Norfolk Island,
the proportion of cases tried at the police court was, to
the bond population, as -604 to 1 ; during my four
years it was as •363, 353, '347, and •473 respectively.
In 1844, after I left, it was -623 ; and in the first eight
months of 1845, the latest period to which I have re-
turns, it was as -543. Again, in 1839, while the old
severity was yet unabated, 512 men were sent to Sydney
on commuted sentences, of whom 20 were re-convicted
within the year. During the four years I sent up 688
men under the circumstances, of whom only 17 were re-
convicted in the whole time ; and of 240 who were sent
up about the period of my departure (Feb. 1844). in the
Jan. following none had been re-convicted, though three
were in gaol for trial, and have since been found guilty.
Of 538 first-convicted men whom I took with me to Van
Diemen's Land, on the Ist of July last, after a lapse of
sixteen months, not one bad been re. transported; only
five out of 330 ticket of leave men had lost their tickets
(the remaining 325, amid all the social difficulties
there, respectably maintaining themselves) ; including
these five, only fifteen were under any punishment ;
and of 209 pass-holders 132 were in private service,
a greater proportion by a tenth than of pass-holders
locally trained. Yet these are the men who were slan-
derously said on Norfolk Island to have been spoilt and
rendered unfit for labour.
When these results, then, are compared with the
means at my disposal, I think that it will be impossible
to doubt the sound practical character of the principles
of management, that, after much experience, I seek to
introduce. And amidst the difficulties now besetting the
management and disposal of transported criminals, and
the doubts entertained by many of the wisdom of our
whole system of secondary punishments, they might be
considered worthy of a little extra charge, had it been
incurred. Yet, practically, they cost nothing ; and, be-
yond all doubt, had my proceedings been unfettered,
they would have been combined with even signal eco
nomy. A. MACONOCHIE

THE ECLAIR STEAM-VESSEL.
The following extract from the official correspondence
on the subject of the Eclair, and the epidemy which
broke out in the said -vessel, recently presented to Par-
liament, will serve to throw some further light on the
subject.
The dispatch of Sir W. Pym and Mr. Arnott to Mr.
Greville (No. 5), dated " Whitehall, October 3, 1845,"
shows that four days after sailing from Sierra Leone one
man died with fever and black vomit, the first case of the
kind which had occurred ; and that during the voyage
18 were attacked by the same malady (fever and black
vomit), of whom 13 died. At Bona Vista the disease
continued to spread rapidly amongst the crew, when
it was determined to land all the crew (sick and
well), and to purify the vessel. For this purpose
every means was adopted to extirpate the infection by
washing and whitewashing, fumigation, &c. ; all the
Kroomea remaining on board except six. The disease,
however, continued to prevail amongst the officers and
men on shore, thirty-one having died between August 21
and September 13. Under these circumstances, a con-
sultation was held by three naval surgeons, when it was
recommended and resolved that the steamer and crew
should proceed to England.
The crew were consequently re-embarked, and parted
on the lath of September. Captain E:tcourt was taken
ill the day befort.leaving Bona Vista, and died on the
16th. At Bon
Eclair, died . a Vista, Assistant-Sure-eon Harte, of the
Madeira. 6nalae Dr. M'Clure did on the voyage to
arrival of the steamer at Madeira,
the authorities refused
permission to communicate with
the shore, as had beeuedts the French at Goree.
From the (late of her sailng
sefroal Madeira (Sep'. 21),
ven deaths took place
Pro o
the 30th of that moni th ,
from the fever, and eight fresh cases occurred.
The report of Mr. Consul Bendel to Lord Aberdeen
(dated San Antonio, Cape Verd,_ December 22, 1845)
sets forth, amongst a variety of details, that the anxiety
which the stay of the Eclair at Bona Vista caused him
(the Consul), was of the most painful descr
fever,
te n
al-
though the medical men persisted in theirbelief h
disease was merely the common African coast and
that there was no dancrer of its spreading amongst the
people. This " non-infection" theory was subsequently
refuted by facts. On the 20th September, seventeen
days after the departure of the steamer, a white Portu-
guese soldier, who had been housed on the island with
the crew of the Eclair, died in the fort. The following
day another died, and two or three were reported as
sick. Up to the 9th of October an extraordinary heat
and an immense quantity of rain had been experienced.
The fever then showed itself most alarmingly, and each
succeeding day to the end of the month gave two and
sometimes three cases, all occurring within the imme-
diate vicinity of the house where the first death took
place.

- The Portuguese practitioners maintained that the
fever arose from the presence of the stagnant water,
and held the same opinion till November the 20th, when
tbe7 openly delared it to be a fever of the worst de-
scription, and of a most contagious character. Up to
the first week in December the fever continued to rage,
and at that period it had found its way into almost all
the villages—the deaths averaging seven or eight daily.
Up to the 21st of December 250 had died at Bona Vista;
but it was stated in the report that for 14 days previ-
ously there had been no deaths in the port, and in three
of the country villages, although the fever still existed
in two of them. The English suffered dreadfully, hav-
ing k number. The leading symp-
tack vomit, pains in the head,
suppression of urine, and
a blood-vessel. The fever
who acted as nurses to the
.!eption. The Consul says,
;he place imagined that the
ed a dangerous type, they
pratique. Mr. Macaulay, in
Lord Aberdeen (dated St.
24th of December, 1f145),
os building used as a fever

The following are portions of the copies or extracts of
corresponde o-t. respecting the convict system adminis-
tered in N4:4.:f•iik Island, under the superintendence of
Captain Muonochie, R.N., in continuation of papers
ordered by tlke House of Lords to be printed the 23d 4,f
February, 1846, just issued by order of their Lordships'
House:
COPY OF A LETTER FROM CAPTAIN MACONOCHIE, R.N.,
TO JAMES STEPHEN, ESQ.
London, April 2, 1846.
Sir,—The inclosed paper refers to certain economical
statements contained in the correspondence respecting
the convict system administered in Norfolk Island, re-
cently laid before the House of Lords.
I should be extremely obliged by your bringing it
under the notice of Mr. Secretary Gladstone, with my
earnest request that it may be added as a supplement to
the other papers so printed.
(Signed) A. MACONOCHIE.
NOTE ON CORRESPONDENCE RESPECTING THE CONVICT
SYSTEM ADMINISTERED ON NORFOLK ISLAND.
On all points of system and discipline involved in these
papers, my explanations are in themselves so full that I
do not think it necessary to add a word more in regard
to them ; but I now see, for the first time, a variety
of economical statements on which some comment is ne-

cessary.
In his letter. Mr. D. C. G. Miller inveighs strongly
against the experse of my ticket of leave establishment,
and contends that faith was broken in regard
to it in
to it,
by
its not being required to pay for supplies issued
" the produce of labour." But my instructions
respect to it were, that the men should pay for with
their sup-
plies " in money or labour "—not in " the produce of
labour" at all.
So far from the ticket of leave establishment having
been expensive, it was directly economical ; and this,
Sir George Gipp4, in his report almost admits. Labour..
ing in Government employ, precisely as other prisoners
did, they were, under the arrangements, entitled to at
least the same rations ; yet my accounts, still in my
possession, show that in eighteen months during which
the system was maintained 512 ticket of leave men
drew less than their rations to the extent of 066/. 13s. 4d.
In his letter, Mr. D. C. G. Miller states, that in the
eighteen months preceding August, 1840, he had re-
ceived 25,000 bushels of maize from the Island, but that
subsequently its crops were never equal to its own con-
sumption. I shall presently show some reasons for
questioning even the accuracy of these statements ; but,
meanwhile, I observe that in March and April, 1840,
603 English prisoners arrived on the island, in addition
to its previous bond population, and that the same sur-
plus production could not thus reasonably be looked for
Mr. Miller states, that such was the decrease in the
produce of the island in 1842 that in the item of provi-
sions alone there was an increase of 10,0001. in its ex-
penditure. Yet Sir George Gipps gives a return, which
must have come from the Commissariat, of the actual
expenditure during six years, from 1837 to 1842 inclu-
sive ; and from this it appears, that while the expense
for provisions in 1839 was 18,978 L, and for 1840, 20,465/.
it was in 1842 only 16,7901. ; showing, instead of an in-
crease of 10,000 L, an actual decrease of from 3,000/. to
4,000 L

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