the prison administration of the time in England—perhaps not so bad.
When Marcus Clarke published his book, naturally enough scores of imitators followed, and the sufferings of poor, unjustly-convicted prisoners done to death by heartless gaolers has ever since formed stock material for writers of 'short stories.'
Neither writers nor readers troubled themselves about the amount of truth to be found in these stories, or were concerned with such details as the time or place of the alleged acts of injustice, and so no inconsiderable number of otherwise sensible people picture Governor Phillip as a man who hanged half a dozen convicts every morning before breakfast, and spent the rest of the day in flogging prisoners to death.
It is also often asserted that the British Government had no higher motive in the despatch of the First Fleet than that of clearing the English gaols, sending shiploads of prisoners to the other side of the world, depositing them on shore and leaving them to starve or die, or anything else, so long as the old country was rid of them.
There is ample evidence to the contrary of this, and Phillip's instructions, without going any further into the matter, are proof enough that the Government was really animated by a sincere desire to convert criminals into colonists. Their mistake was a too great confidence in the possibility of
