Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/231

 EMANCIPATION. I9J on shore."* In so acting' Phillip exceeded" Ms powers, and i^®^ the men were illegally at large. After the receipt of the Commission empowering him to emancipate, Phillip reported (5th November, 1791) that he had freed another convict. This person had been '^ bred to surgery,'* and was employed Joh» irytDg. as an assistant to the surgeons. He was made a free man because of his ^'exemplary oonduct."t In the case of the convict who was emancipated because at considerable personal risk he had saved the wreck of the Sirius from destruction by fire, the act of grace was redundant. Shortly after the warrant giving the man his freedom had been executed it was discovered that " his term of transportation had expired prior to his emancipation." The fact, however, was not discovered until he had left for India in the Atlantic, as an "emancipated" convict. J The remission of sentence, or emancipation, which the EniMcipft. Governor was empowered to grant was a conditional one. conditional It is apparent from Phillip's original Commission and Instructions that emancipation was to be granted with a view to turning the well-disposed convicts into settlers, and so promoting the cultivation of the country. In the Instructions which accompanied the Special Commission authorising the Governor to remit sentences, Phillip was directed to insert in the instrument granting the remission on residence return within any part of our Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland during the term or time which shall thus remain unexpired of his or her original sentence or order of trans- portation, on pain that the remission so to him or her granted shall in such cases be wholly null and void." This was an irksome condition. It meant not only that the emancipist who returned to Tiis native country before the • Historical Becords, vol. i, part 2, p. 472. f CollizkB (yoI. i, p. 99) mentionB thu man, Jobn Irmig; he was emanci- pated and Bent to Norfolk Island in March, 1790| to " act as an assistant t6 the medical gentlemen there." X Historical Becords, toI. i, part 2, p. 635. VOL, II. — N
 * ' a special condition that such felon or offender shall not colony.