burdens of the mother country; but that employment would also afford the means of establishing a regular gradation of punishments, in some measure corresponding to the various degrees of criminality among the convicts; while it would enable the officers, who might in future be entrusted with their management, to enforce in all cases "strict discipline, incessant labour, and constant superintendence.
In alluding to the future employment of a large number of the convicts, who may hereafter be transported to New South Wales, in preparing the way for the establishment of free emigrant settlers of the humbler classes of society, I have hitherto confined my observations to the settlement of Moreton Bay, because that settlement has been already occupied as a penal settlement for twelve years past, and because it could therefore be converted into a free settlement immediately. There are various other localities, indeed, on the east coast, to the northward of Port Macquarie, which is situated on the thirty-first parallel of south latitude, that would probably be found equally eligible for such settlements, as well to the southward as to the northward of Moreton Bay; there being navigable rivers, with a large extent of eligible land on their banks, in both directions. It would not be expedient, however, for various
