"If a large body of respectable persons could be induced to settle in the Colony," he wrote, "much good might be accomplished. Provided the new settlers were of a description to compel their servants to execute a due quantity of work to determine the amount of their rewards, and to make the quality and to some extent the quantity of their food depend upon the convicts' industry and good behaviour. … I am sensible that such an authority as I have described would sometimes be misused by harsh and selfish men … and that such abuses of power might escape detection. But that portion of evil, or, I fear, a greater one, must be submitted to; for experience has proved … the pernicious and demoralising operation of general regulations which place the good and bad servant, the honest man and the thief, upon the same footing, and authorising him not only to claim but to insist upon the same indulgence." He summarised his views by saying that a convict should be compelled to work for his living and to refrain from vicious practices, but that he should be duly rewarded for good work and good conduct.
Thomas Moore, an experienced settler and magistrate, made a proposal of a novel kind to which unfortunately no attention was paid.
"All persons," he suggested, "receiving convicts into their employ should take the entire management and superintendence of them themselves, and in every agricultural district I would recommend a village or small town to be established in the most central part of it, where there should be fixed such Government mechanics as may be necessary for the benefit of that particular district. In each of these towns a magistrate should preside, and three respectable settlers should be appointed to act as appraisers, who, with the magistrate, should be empowered to fix the quantity and price of every kind of agricultural labour that may be performed by convicts within that district."[1]
No one approved of the method of payment. Some considered it inconsistent with a state of servitude that convicts
- ↑ This is, perhaps, too simple and patriarchal—but it would have been a good idea to form such small settlements of Government men all over the country. Fixed regulations were a virtual necessity for convict labour unless Macarthur's view was to be adopted.
