Agriculture, on account of the
droughts, can never succeed on an extended scale: therefore, so far
as I can see, Australia must ultimately depend upon being the
centre of commerce for the southern hemisphere and perhaps on her
future manufactories. Possessing coal, she always has the moving
power at hand. From the habitable country extending along the
coast, and from her English extraction, she is sure to be a
maritime nation. I formerly imagined that Australia would rise to
be as grand and powerful a country as North America, but now it
appears to me that such future grandeur is rather problematical.
With respect to the state of the convicts, I had still fewer
opportunities of judging than on other points. The first question
is, whether their condition is at all one of punishment: no one
will maintain that it is a very severe one. This, however, I
suppose, is of little consequence as long as it continues to be an
object of dread to criminals at home. The corporeal wants of the
convicts are tolerably well supplied: their prospect of future
liberty and comfort is not distant, and, after good conduct,
certain. A "ticket of leave," which, as long as a man keeps clear
of suspicion as well as of crime, makes him free within a certain
district, is given upon good conduct, after years proportional to
the length of the sentence; yet with all this, and overlooking the
previous imprisonment and wretched passage out, I believe the years
of assignment are passed away with discontent and unhappiness.
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