It might be expected that the passions of prisoners, whether male or female, sentenced to transportation, having been long kept under by discipline, a sense of guilt, and repentant reflection during the voyage, would not easily be roused again into mischievous action; but a momentary consideration even of what is human nature, and how prone it is to evil, as also the former state of these persons, will forbid a too confident expectation that the mind long accustomed to habitudes of vice, and subdued only by a powerful sense of shame, or religious feeling, can be at once thoroughly reformed, and secure from relapse. It was doubtless with a view to prevent any thing of that unhappy tendency, that the local Government instituted the confinement of the prisoners, as already mentioned. The following circumstance will show how careful the Superintendent is to maintain this humane intention.
There were two of the females under my care, whose behaviour during the voyage was so profligate, that, besides the character with which they were handed over at the muster, I was induced to point them out to the notice of the Governor, with a request that they might be separated from the others: to this His Excellency paid immediate attention, and gave orders to that effect. I mentioned the same matter, moreover, to the Superintendent of convicts, who made a note of it in his book, in my presence; yet on that very same evening these wretched creatures were permitted to go at large in the streets of Sydney, where necessity, or their own abandoned propensities, must have driven them to infamous practices.
About one-half of the female prisoners were disposed of in Sydney and its neighbourhood, and the remainder were kept in a separate place in the gaol, until an opportunity should offer for removing them to Parramatta, whither the Governor had directed they should be sent by water, to prevent improper conversation with straggling prisoners of the other sex, who are continually infesting the roads. It is to be remarked, however, that those whose behaviour or disposition had most frequently incurred censure on the voyage, and consequently least merited favourable report, were singled out as the fittest objects for assignment, while many of those whose conduct had been uniformly deserving of approbation, whose names also were conspicuous for excellent character, were left to be transmitted to the Factory!