Page:Elizabeth Fry (Pitman 1884).djvu/98

90 improper connexions. Some of these women, when they have been brought before me as a magistrate, and I have remonstrated with them for their crimes, have replied, "I have no other means of living; I am compelled to give my weekly allowance of provisions for my lodgings, and I must starve or live in vice". I was well aware that this statement was correct, and was often at a loss what to answer. It is not only the calamities that these wretched women and their children suffer that are to be regretted, but the general corruption of morals that such a system establishes in this rising colony, and the ruin their example spreads through all the settlements. The male convicts in the service of the Crown, or in that of individuals, are tempted to rob and plunder continually, to supply the urgent necessities of those women.

All the female convicts have not run the same lengths in vice. All are not equally hardened in crime, and it is most dreadful that all should alike, on their arrival here, be liable and exposed to the same dangerous temptations, without any remedy. I rejoice, Madam, that you reside near the seat of Government, and may have it in your powder to call the attention of His Majesty's Ministers to this important subject—a subject in which the entire welfare of these settlements is involved. If proper care be taken of the women, the colony will prosper, and the expenses of the mother-country will be reduced. On the contrary, if the morals of the female convicts are wholly neglected, as they have been hitherto, the colony will be only a nursery for crime

Your good intentions and benevolent labours will be all abortive if the exiled females, on their arrival in the colony, are plunged into every ruinous temptation and sort of vice—which will ever be the case till some barrack is provided for them. Great evils in a state cannot soon be remedied I believe the Governor has got instructions from home to provide accommodation for the female convicts, and I hope in two or three year's to see them lodged in a comfortable barrack; so that none shall be lost for want of a hut to lie in. If a communication be kept up on a regular plan between this colony and London, much good may be done for the poor female convicts. It was the custom for some years, when a ship with female convicts arrived, soldiers, convicts, and settlers were allowed to go on board and take their choice; this custom does not now openly obtain countenance and sanction, but when they are landed they have no friend, nor any accommodation, and therefore are glad to live with anyone who can give them protection; so the real moral state of these females is little improved from what it always has been, nor will it be the least improved till they can be provided