H R. MUDIE'S FELONRY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. OUR misgivings

as to the colonial character of this volume were prophetic. Mr. MUD1E not only displays the narrow views, the local prejudices, the personal likings and antipathies, and the ex- aggerated and heated notions which distinguish the partisan of an unsuccessful party, but he injures what seems to be a good cause, by the manner in which these qualities pervade his statements. The Felonry qf New South ;Vales cannot therefore be relied upon as a full or fair exposition of the social state of the country ; still less, perhaps, of the present policy of the Colonial Government. At the same time, the volume is not without value. The zeal and temper of the writer stamp a strong individual character upon his book: whilst his intimate acquaintance with the Australian "felonry," and his anecdotes and stories of some of its heroes and their patrons, personal and perhaps spiteful though they be, give the reader an insight into the very peculiar society of the colony. As Mr. Mentz appears to represent a numerous body opposed to the present Governor, who call themselves the friends of Eng- land, and are advocates for the enforcement of severe measures against the convicts, the volume conveys a notion of the feelings and objects of one political party in New South %Vales. And some striking though incidental glimpses are given of our Colonial Office, ever working mischief—abandoning a settlement to anarchy by its neglect, and misruling it in fits of activity. As the book is in a measure a statement of personal affairs, a notice of the author is necessary to its comprehension. Mr. MUDIE, then, is a free settler, who willingly emigrated to Botany Bay in 1822, and remained there till 1836. He took, and brought into cultivation, a very extensive estate ; he was the " master " of many convicts ; and lie filled the office of Justice of the Peace. From some causes which we do not clearly learn, Mr. MUD1E was un- popular with his assigned servants ; and he seems to have re- garded the felonry or their supporters with no favourable eye. He

was active in the prosecution of one WATT, a " ticket-of-leave" man, a protege of the Governor's, and a writer in a Sidney news-

paper : the nominal offence was " immorality," an intrigue with a female convict—the real one, his attacks upon Mr. Muni t's party : and the object was to deprive Sir Riettaan BOURKE of his scribe, or to commit him to the man's defence. The felanry, on the other hand, were not idle. Some of Mr. Mu DIE'S convict servants attempted to assassinate his son-in-law : they then brought a charge of cruelty against himself: after an investigation of seven days and an examination of seventy servants, this charge was dismissed ; but the acquittal was shortly followed by Mr. MUDIE'S dismissal from the Magistracy, in company with thirty- two other gentlemen, who were thus summarily shorn of their honours by the influence, as our author says, of WATT. Feeling degraded in the eyes of his own slaves, and despairing of con-

trolling them any longer, MUD1E sold his property, and came to England, in order " to arraign, at the bar of public opinion, the

conduct of his Excellency General Sir RICHARD BOURKE, and that of several of his functionaries in the gmernment of New South Wales;" which he has done in this volume. His other purpose, of getting " compensation" for his alleged losses, is not of such easy accomplishment. The greater part of the book consists of a detailed account of the points touched upon in the foregoing paragraph, and of the various ramifications into which they may be supposed to branch. It is preceded by a brief historical sketch of the colony, chiefly remarkable for its account of the frauds and peculations com- mitted on the Government by their own convict-officials; and

which losses are clearly enough traceable to the want of skill, forethought, or system of any kind, upon which the colony was planned, or rather undertaken, by the Government of the day, and pursued by its successors. Intermingled with narratives of Mr. MUDIE'S wrongs, and of the felon WATT.S triumph in despite of his "immorality," are sketches of convict advancement in the world, and of many official officers; pictures of convict and Botany Bay society in general ; and an enumeration of the grievances under which free emigrants are said to labour. The grievances consist in the favour shown to convicts and emancipated convicts, by the Governor, and in the existence of certain laws. According to Mr. MUDIE,—who cannot, however, be considered an impartial witness,— Sir RICHARD BOURKE treats the convicts generally with undue and improper indulgence, and even corrupts the language by calling them "absentees;" in differences between them and their masters, he not only invariably leans to the assigned servants, but tolerates violations of the rules or laws by which complaints of this kind should be wade; he has given great offence by opposing himself to the respectable settlers—that is, the free emigrants, the aristocracy of Botany Bay ; and much of his evil doings is attributed ion vanity which is gratified by the unscrupulous adulation that convicts only will render. The chief legal or executive grievances are two (I.) The employment of paid military magistrates—nearly sixty in number, i.t flora two to and most three hundred a year ; many of whom, as must nei e moils, hap. Tallies whom are deficient in the local knowledge necessary to &liana" pen amongst so large a body, are of whom (such is Horse Guards and Colonial wisdom) ale sent away as soon as they acquire a little experience,—New Sisith(2\1; being a kind of depfit in transitu for troops going to Ind a. continuance of the temporary jury law, which renders it Yery the generality of the questions which come before them,

mere youthful subal erns; all of difficult to convict in New South Wales, from the sympathy towards criminals. Some complaint is also made against that " eternal Council," which haunts the Colonial inquirer go where he will ; though, of course, Mr. MUD1E is opposed to a Represen- tative Assembly. Of the general morale of this new society, a few instances will give an idea. The following quotation conveys a hint as to the estimate in which female virtue is held. The " factory " is a Government establishment, where the unassigned female convicts are kept.

CHOOSING A WIFE,

Iii the factory, too, there is a good chance of getting married ; for the con, vict swains scattered amongst the settlers, when they obtain the coment of their masters, or choose, when they become flee, to enter into the CM ',tibial state, usually apply for permission to go to the factory in quest of a liii help, mate, with the full knowledge that it is inure likely to be for worse :lila for better that they make their election. On the arrival of one of these at the abode of the recluses, the unmarried frail ones are (hewn up in line for the inspection of the amorous and adven. turous votary, who, fixing his eye on a vestal to his taste, with is finger beckons her to step forth front the rank. If, after a short confert hee, they are mutually agreeable, the two aria married in due time and form, ti, in the contrary, either the Macheath or the Polly prove distastefol to the other, the resolute amateur continues his inspection tilting the line, till lie hits upon* Lucy more complying, or more suitable to his mind ! * • *

A young fellow who had just become free, and had got himself established on

thirty acres of land, with a few pigs. Rte. set off for the factory in seat eh of wife. On his way, he had to pass the estate of the writer of this work. III eon. versation with the wife of the porter at the gate, he mentioned the objoet of his journey. The porter's wife advised him to pay his addiesses to one if her ' ina:,ter's convict female servants, whom she recommended as being boob sober and inthisti ions, whereby he WOUIll at once gain a good wife and spare him. self an additional journey of a hundred aud forty miles. At the request of this Crelebs of Australia, the damsel was sent for, and the bargain struck on the instant, provided the necessary consent of the lady's assignee master could be obtained.

After the interview of the lady with her master, the proposed husband is introduced.

His Honour—Well, young man, I am told you wish to marry Marianne, one of my convict servants. Ccelele (grinning )—That's as you please, your honour.

His Honour—As / please ! why, have you observed the situation the young woman is in ? (Marianne being "iii the way that ladies wish to be who lore their lords.") Ccelebs (grinning broadly)—Why, your honour, as to that, you know, in country like this, wheie women are scarce, a man shooldn't be too "greedy!" I'm told the young woman's very sober, and that's the main chance with me. Ill go to the factory, why, your honour know* I might get one in the Sans way without knowing it; arid that, you know, might be the cause of words hereafter ; and she might be a drunken vagabond besides! As to the picka. ninny, if it should happen to be a boy, you know, your honour, it will soon be useful, and do to look after the pigs. The author having afterwards satisfied himself as to the man's condition, and as to his being free, gave his consent to the match ; and the enainutned pair were of course united in the holy bond of matrimony.

Regulations enforcing increased severity, or rather some seve- rity of discipline towards the convicts, have been latterly sent out ; and many reports have been spread with respect to the harshness with which the " absentees" are treated. Individual cases of this sort may probably be true ; but the pages of Mr. Motile confirm all that Mr. WAKEFIELD predicted, in parodying a Judge's sentence,* soon after these home regulations of the Colonial Secretary appeared. The seemingly most exaggerated part—the carriages of the quondam convicts—is true to the letter. Mr. MUDIE intimates that a carriage is almost distinctive of the free felonry, (he has omitted to describe the armorial bearings.) Even WATT, though a convict, had his "two hunters male train of servants." And although he was distinguished as a writer, and was, in short, a remarkable man, still average talent need not despair. Lawyers' clerks, accustomed to low sharp practice, are in great demand amongst the colonial professional men of Sidney: a gentleman of this kind, whose genius is insufficiently remunerated at home, cannot do better than rob his master, and emigrate at the nation's expense. Smart young men—" gentlemen-convicts, as they are termed in the colony—also do well, especially if they have the gift of the gab, and have taken the precaution to rob or swindle to a sufficient extent, and to reserve enough of the booty to set up in some light business. The only persons who are really punished—punished, that is, in comparison with the others—are the labourer, or the mechanic, who may have been driven to crime by temporary distress ; and they, working hard and well, are too valuable to be parted with, and work out their time. "'1 he more knowing ones—that is, the very worst characters amongst the convicts—seldom undergo any real punishment at all."

" They bring out with them letters tosome of the 'old hands ' in the colony, so as to insure their being applied for as servants by persons of the right sort. If they have secured a portion of the plunder they had acquired in England.

• Popolor Politics; art, • A Sentence of Transportation," ewriar-w

they easily make themselvescomfortable ; for in that cue they enter into co.. pittnery, under the rose, with some one or other of the emancipated felonry, Salo, being enabled by the funds of their convict partners to take houses or eater into business, apply to have their partners assigned to them ns servants, and the gentlemen convicts fall upon a bed of roses at once! If a wife has been left 'in England with the charge of the spoil, she follows her husband in the &reship: on her arrival she takes a house, and then petitions the Governor to have her husband, the father of her children, assigned to her as her servant : in which petition her husband of course joins. If she has no children of her i own, three or four brats are easily borrowed n Sidney for the purpose of stage effect. In short, having brought with her a supply of the !swag,' as the con- victs call their ill-gotten cash, a wife seldom fails having her husband as- signed to her ; in which case, the transported felon finds himself his own mas- ter, in possession of all the present wealth his past nefarious courses may have procured for him, and on the road to future fortune. For the very worst cha- racters who are transported, therefore, it appears that New South Wales is not toy Punishment at all, or at least that it was easy for them, owing to the careless laxity and childish leniency of the colonial authorities, to evade the punishment which their crimes have merited." We may add, for the comfort of any gentleman pondering crime against the person, that the miscreant LUKE Diiicee is swagger- ing about Sidney at his ease, and perhaps more at home in its con- genial society than in any European country. We are the last to point to seeming invidipus distinctions, but it is impossible not to compare the crime and punishment of this pardoned ravisher, with those of the Dorchester labourers.

It is a matter of complaint with Frenchmen that France has no penal colonies, and the success of England in this way is pointed at as reflecting upon them a kind of national disgrace. Our suc- cess, however, is not quite so certain after all. The colony of New South \Vales has, indeed, been founded nearly half a cen- tury; but during the greater part of the time, it must have dropped at once had not tho inhabitants been maintained at the cost of the mother country ; it is still a source of heavy annual expense ; and even now, has it the seeds of permanency within its present society ? We suspect not. The frightful corruption and immo- rality of the bulk of the population—the impossibility of improving the breed, whilst the chief means of' maintaining its numbers is by importing felons—and the broad line of distinction drawn between the rich " feloery " and the voluntary settlers—all look as if the colony were doomed to rot. If Swan River and South Australia succeed, it is probable that the greater part of the more refined and respectable colonists will remove themselves thither : and what man of capital or character would then emigrate to a place that would, without metaphor, be a hell upon earth ? In sush a case, with its supplies of labourers lessened by Lord JOHN RUSSE L L'S plan of Criminal Reform, its social depravity depriving

it of recruits by voluntary immigration, and the paucity of females preventing much natural increase, its population must rapidly de- cline, till it sunk to a minor colony, whose settlement might com-

mence de novo by emigration, even from other parts of Australasia.

Or should a Representative Assembly be granted to Botany Bay, the free and liberal ideas of its population would probably involve it very quickly in a contention with the Home Government. The beneficial conquest of such a place would be impossible; but it would be equally impossible for the commercial interests of the civilized world to

abandon such a war, which would have to be carried on till the colony was thoroughly weeded, or till, like the buccaneering establishments of the West Indies, the settlers were destroyed and scattered and the settlement became extinct.