On the whole, your Committee may assert that, in the families of
well-conducted and respectable settlers, the condition of assigned
convicts is much the same as the condition of similar descriptions of
servants in this country; but this is by no means the case in the
establishment of all settlers. As the lot of a slave depends upon the
character of his master, so the condition of a convict depends upon the
temper and disposition of the settler to whom he is assigned. On this
account Sir George Arthur, late Governor of Van Diemen's Land, likened
the convict to a slave, and described him "as deprived of liberty,
exposed to all the caprice of the family to whose service he may happen
to be assigned, and subject to the most summary laws; his condition"
(said Sir George) "in no respect differs from that of the slave, except
that his master cannot apply corporal punishment by his own hands or
those of his overseer, and has a property in him for a limited period.
Idleness and insolence of expression, or of looks, anything betraying
the insurgent spirit, subject him to the chain-gang or the triangle, or
hard labour on the roads.
Pages:
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279