These were, however, small changes, compared with the total revolution in the spirit and details of convict management, suggested by the Commissioner. All those signs of advancement which he saw in the material state of the colonies, in connection with the objects of transportation, were anomalies in his eyes. He observed, that the prisoners were always anxious to reside in the towns, where they obtained, by casual labor, the price and opportunities of dissipation. By a peremptory exercise of his authority, Mr. Bigge stopped some of the public works, and promoted the dispersion of those multitudes who were employed in the improvement of the capital.
The Commissioner, strongly impressed with the mischief incident to the congregation of prisoners in the presence of a free community, proposed several remedies. Among the most important was the establishment of settlements, purely penal, at Port Curtis, Moreton Bay, and Port Bowen. These places were explored by Mr. Oxley, the surveyor-general of the colonies. Moreton Bay is situated 480 miles from Port Jackson: this region, watered by the Brisbane, unequalled for climate and soil in any part of the globe of the same latitude; adorned with trees of magnificent growth,[140] had nothing in its natural features to repel. Though the days are warm in summer (80° to 100°), the nights are cool, and for several months fires are agreeable. Bananas, plantains, and pines--cotton, tobacco, maize, the sugar cane, and all the ordinary productions of a tropical climate, are cultivated with success. The atmosphere is soft and salubrious: of 1,200 persons, afterwards stationed there, sometimes not more than ten were sick at once; and during seven years, one soldier only died.[141]
Such was the site chosen by Mr. Bigge; but he endeavoured to render it suitable, by suggesting a code of regulations, in which may be discovered the outline of several schemes, since claiming originality. It was intended for those convicted of serious crimes, or such as committed offences in the colonies. The prisoners, two together, were to build their own huts; their sole implement the hatchet, and their material wood and nails: their only furniture, stools and bedding. Their labor graduated; from removing heavy weights, and sawing the hardest timber, to the easy occupation of the gardener, according to their behaviour or their crimes. They were to raise their own provisions, and the produce of their tillage for the crown, was to be sold in the colonies, and carried to the public account; except a sixteenth part, the moiety of which was to be paid to the commandant, and the rest proportionately to the overseers. No vessel, unauthorised, was to touch at the port: every precaution was projected to prevent escape, and the natives were expected to bring back, for rewards, such as might venture to stray. Every crime, short of murder, was to be punished on the spot. No spirits were to be sold; no money circulated; no private speculations in produce permitted. The wives of prisoners, when suffered to join them, were to sacrifice all but the necessaries of life. From the chief settlement others were to branch off; fifteen miles distant from each other. A church, a school, a library, were to promote the reformation of the prisoners--an object to be considered paramount to every other. Such were the plans for a _City of Penitence_, projected by Bigge; and by which he expected, in several directions, to dispose of 4,000 prisoners.