AND COLONIZATION.
49
giously to the previous amount of the immorality and criminality of the colony of New South Wales.[1]
- ↑ A few facts will serve to open the eyes of people of common understanding in England, as to the real character and tendency of the female emigration system. The David Scott, a female emigrant ship, chartered and loaded with merchandise on his own private account by Mr. John Marshall, agent of the London Board, arrived in Sydney about the beginning of November, 1834. Sixty of the females who formed part of her cargo were common prostitutes; forty of whom were so thoroughly vile, that my informant, a respectable free emigrant, who arrived in the colony as a cabin-passenger by that vessel, assured me, "he did not believe they could be matched in England," The captain's authority was accordingly set at defiance by the crew, and the vessel converted into a scene of the most abandoned licentiousness during the whole voyage. The ship Lay ton, which had arrived some time previous, had been similarly circumstanced; and the consequence was, that although a considerable number of reputable females emigrated by both vessels, many were ruined for ever, from the vile society into which they were thus thrown. The Canton, which arrived rather more than a year after the David Scott, was at first reported to have brought out a much better cargo: it was ascertained, however, that within three days after the females by that vessel were landed in Sydney, forty of them were regularly domiciled in houses of bad repute in the colonial capital.
The change for the worse which the prevalence of this system during the last three years or thereby has produced in the town of Sydney, and in the morals of the colony generally,
