Page:A colonial autocracy, New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, 1810-1821.djvu/349

 his first and clearly outlined in his third report. The faults of the Government service were in his opinion that it kept the convicts gathered in large numbers in the towns where discipline was difficult to enforce and where the object of their reform was lost sight of, and also where they were put to work on ornamental and often unnecessary public buildings, at great expense to the Crown and with little advantage to the Colony. Nor could he see by what means an efficient scheme of overseeing could be established and the convict overseers done away with. He considered the employment of the prisoners in agricultural and pastoral pursuits as more conducive to their reform than their employment on town buildings, but he was not satisfied that the Government could carry on farming or grazing with advantage. The exact reason why he was averse to such a scheme is not clear, but probably lay in the fact that he wished primarily to forward the cause of the sheep farmer and to make the convict labour subservient to that purpose. Thus he came to the conclusion that all convicts should be distributed to the fullest possible extent amongst the settlers, and that those who remained over from the distribution should be dealt with in the following ways. Some would be placed in gangs for the purpose of clearing away the virgin forest; others for making roads; and the old men and boys only be left in Sydney. Further he proposed that three new settlements (Moreton Bay, Port Bowen and Port Curtis) should be founded and used rather as punishment stations for the prisoners, Newcastle being abandoned, so far as that purpose was concerned, as being too easily accessible to the rest of the settlement. One notable recommendation was to the effect that the whole number of mechanics should be assigned to settlers, though each settler taking a useful tradesman was to take also one or two inferior workmen. The degrading communication of settlers and ex-convict superintendent should, he thought, be brought to an end, and the assignment of servants become one of the duties of the Colonial Secretary.