their bondage soberly, honestly, and industriously, and so as to induce the conviction, that if placed in happier circumstances and beyond the reach of ardent spirits, they would approve themselves thoroughly reformed—no sooner become their own masters and acquire the command of money (which they are soon able to do, from the high price of labour in the colony), than they revert all at once to habits of drunkenness and dissipation. As the ticket of leave, however, is subject to be cancelled at any time for drunkenness or other disorderly conduct, society has still some hold on the ticket-of-leave holder till the expiration of his original sentence of seven or fourteen years' transportation: but when at length he obtains his certificate of freedom, and can practise irregularities of this kind with impunity, he generally gives the rein to the evil propensities of his nature, and yields himself an easy prey to the powerful influence of temptation—employing himself from time to time in honest labour only till he has acquired the means of repeating his brutalizing debauch. I have known of instances, in which emancipated convicts, who had conducted themselves with the utmost propriety as assigned servants, have spent sums of £10, £20, £30, £50, £70, and even £100 in this way at one sitting—planting them-
