Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 1.djvu/165

 the females who are born from this promiscuous connexion prostitute themselves at a very tender age.

From these facts, accidentally elicited by inquiries into the state of the country by parliamentary discussions, it results, that colonization is far from influencing, as has been unfoundedly believed, the morals of the convicts; and it is besides now decided that it would be almost impracticable for France. The first and most potent objection is, the entire want of a fitting place for transportation; for to form an establishment at Sainte-Marie de Madagascar, the only one of the French possessions at all suitable for such an object, would be sending to almost certain death, not only the convicts, but the governors and guards. The small number of those whom the climate would not have destroyed, would not fail to seize on the stationary vessels, turn pirates, as has been frequently the case at New South Wales; and, instead of a penitentiary establishment, we should find that we had only formed a new horde of buccaniers. Again, it is impossible to think of sending the convicts to any of our colonies, not even to Guyana, where the vast savannahs would not be sufficient to secure an indispensable isolation; and escapes would be soon multiplied, and the colonists would call to mind the lesson given, it is said, by Franklin to the English government, who at that period were sending the convicts to the United States. It is asserted that immediately on the arrival of a transport at Boston, he sent to the minister, Walpole, four boxes of rattlesnakes, begging him to set them free in Windsor park, "so that," he said, "the species might be propagated and become as advantageous to England as the convicts had been to North America."

Even at the present day, escapes at New South Wales are more general than may be thought; and this is proved by a passage from a narrative published in London by a liberated convict, who, without heeding how much he might compromise the reputation of