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Policing in a Penal Colony: Governor Arthur's Police System in Van Diemen's Land, 1826–1836

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2011

Stefan Petrow
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Extract

In eighteenth-century England the rule of law was “the central legitimizing ideology, displacing the religious authority and sanctions of previous centuries.” Arising out of struggles between the monarchy, Parliament, and the courts, the rule of law sought to protect individual liberty and private property by placing constraints on arbitrary authority. The ruling class used the rule of law ideology to enhance their power, but it also acted as a check on that power. All citizens from the monarch to the poorest citizen became bound by the rule of law and could settle their disputes in the courts presided over by judges, who were independent of manipulation.

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Articles
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Law and History Review , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , Summer 2000 , pp. 351 - 396
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Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2000

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References

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26. Castles, “The Vandiemonian Spirit,” 110.

27. Shaw, A. G. L., Convicts and Colonies: A Study of Penal Transportation from Great Britain and Ireland to Australia and Other Parts of the British Empire (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1977), 365–67Google Scholar; Forsyth, Governor Arthur's Convict System, 150; Hartwell, R. M., The Economic Development of Van Diemen's Land, 1820–1850 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1954), 68.Google Scholar

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29. Australian Joint Copying Project (AJCP), Colonial Office (CO) 280, reel 258, Arthur to Hanley, 4 April 1834.

30. For a sympathetic view of Pedder, see Bennett, J. M., Sir John Pedder: First Chief Justice (Sandy Bay: University of Tasmania, 1977).Google Scholar

31. Castles, “The Vandiemonian Spirit,” 114, 116 n. 53.

32. The Public General Acts of Tasmania (Reprint) 1826–1936 (Sydney: Butterworth, 1936–39), 7:221–28.

33. AJCP CO 280, reel 258, Arthur to Hanley, 4 April 1834.

34. Ibid., emphasis in original.

35. Korobacz, Victor, “The Legislative Council of Van Diemen's Land, 1825–1856: Some Aspects of the Development of a Colonial Legislature” (master's thesis, University of Tasmania, 1971), 30, 53.Google Scholar

36. Levy, M. C. I., Governor George Arthur: A Colonial Benevolent Despot (Melbourne: Georgian House, 1953), 52.Google Scholar

37. Colonial Times, 28 April, 26 May 1826.

38. Ibid., 16 February 1827.

39. Ibid., 2 March 1827.

40. Korobacz, “The Legislative Council of Van Diemen's Land,” 10.

41. Colonial Times, 16 March 1827; Giblin, The Early History of Tasmania, chap. 24.

42. The Colonist, 15 July 1834.

43. Launceston Independent, 31 March 1832.

44. West, The History of Tasmania, 73–74, 81–83, 132–34; Castles, Alex, An Australian Legal History (Sydney; Law Book Company, 1982), 273–75.Google Scholar

45. Archives Office of Tasmania (AOT), Police Department (POL) 319/1, Forster to Assistant Police Magistrate, Great Swan Port, 19 September 1835; for the tensions between stipendiary and lay magistrates in New South Wales, see Neal, The Rule of Law, chap. 5, and Colder, Hilary, High and Responsible Office: A History of the New South Wales Magistracy (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1991), chap. 2.Google Scholar

46. AJCP CO 280, reel 254, Arthur to Goderich, 27 February 1833; Arthur, Observations Upon Secondary Punishments, 40.

47. The words “optical apparatus” were used by G. W. T. B. Boyes, University of Tasmania Archives, Royal Society collection 25/2(5), Boyes diary, 16 March 1836; for a brief account of Arthur's police, see Stephenson, Richard, “The Rise of Governor Arthur's Police State,” Historical Records of Australia: A Documentary Periodical 1 (1990): 11–15.Google Scholar

48. AOT Governor's Office (GO) 33/1, Arthur to Bathurst, 14 September 1825; AOT GO 33/3, Arthur to Huskisson, 21 April 1828, minute by Arthur, 26 February 1828; AJCP CO 280, reel 242, Arthur to Murray, 25 May 1829.

49. AOT GO 33/1, Arthur to Bathurst, 3 July 1825; Levy, Governor George Arthur, 90–96; Maxwell-Stewart, Hamish, “‘I Could Not Blame the Rangers…’: Tasmanian Bushranging, Convicts and Convict Management,” Tasmanian Historical Research Association Papers and Proceedings 42 (1995): 109–26.Google Scholar

50. AOT GO 33/3, Arthur to Huskisson, 21 April 1828.

51. Mitchell Library (ML) Arthur Papers, vol. 5, Letters from Arthur, Arthur to Franklin, 29 October 1836, emphasis in original.

52. AOT GO 33/1, Arthur to Bathurst, 3 July 1825; AJCP CO 280, reel 243, Arthur to Hay, 24 November 1829.

53. ML Arthur Papers, vol. 5, Letters from Arthur, Arthur to Franklin, 29 October 1836.

54. AOT GO 33/3, Arthur to Huskisson, 21 April 1828, minute by Arthur, 26 February 1828; West, The History of Tasmania, 85–86.

55. AOT GO 33/1, Arthur to Bathurst, 3 July 1825; for a description of the police in 1820, see Superintendent Humphrey's evidence to the Bigge Commission, Historical Records of Australia, 3d ser. (Sydney: Government Printer, 1921), 3:270–89; see also Jackman, A. K., “Development of Police Administration in Tasmania, 1804–1960” (diploma of public administration thesis, University of Tasmania, 1966), 1–46.Google Scholar

56. AOT GO 33/3, Arthur to Huskisson, 21 April 1828, minute by Arthur, 26 February 1828; Arthur to Bathurst, 9 June 1824, Historical Records of Australia, 3d ser., 4:142; West, The History of Tasmania, 81.

57. AOT GO 33/1, Arthur to Bathurst, 11 April 1826, Arthur to Huskisson, 21 April 1828; AJCP CO 280, reel 242, Arthur to Murray, 25 May 1829; ML Arthur Papers, vol. 5, letters from Arthur, Arthur to Wilberforce, 9 October 1828; Hobart Town Courier, 29 December 1827, 10 September 1831, letter by “A Constant Reader”; Colonial Times, 12 June 1829.

58. Arthur to Huskisson, 1 May 1828, Historical Records of Australia, 3d ser. (Canberra: AGPS. 1997), 7:303; O'Sullivan, John, Mounted Police of Victoria and Tasmania (Adelaide: Rigby, 1980), 182.Google Scholar

59. ML Arthur Papers, vol. 5, Letters from Arthur, Arthur to Franklin, 29 October 1836; AJCP CO 280, reel 244, Arthur to Murray, 15 April 1830; see also AOT Non State (NS) 1044/1, Reminiscences of James George, 38–40, and Colonial Times, 29 September 1826; AOT GO 33/4, Arthur to Murray, 4 November 1828. Arthur's Aboriginal policy has been fully analyzed in Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, passim.

60. AJCP CO 280, reel 242, Arthur to Murray, 12 September 1829; AOT GO 33/5, Arthur to Murray, 28 April 1829; Levy, Governor George Arthur, 106–24.

61. Tasmanian and Austral-Asiatic Review, 31 December 1830.

62. Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, chap. 6; Launceston Advertiser, 9 May 1832.

63. AOT GO 33/3, Arthur to Huskisson, 21 April 1828; Arthur to Huskisson, 1 May 1828, Historical Records of Australia, 3d ser., 7:292.

64. Ibid; AJCP CO 280, reel 243, Arthur to Hay, 24 November 1829; Hobart Town Gazette, 25 January 1833, 45.

65. Arthur to Goderich, 31 December 1827, Historical Records of Australia, 3d ser. (Sydney: Government Printer, 1923), 6:421–22; Transportation, vol. 2, Report from the Select Committee on Transportation, 290, 311.

66. AOT GO 33/3, memo by Arthur, 28 February 1828, minute by Arthur, 26 February 1828; AJCP CO 280, reel 254, Arthur to Goderich, 27 February 1833, memo by Forster, 1 January 1833.

67. Arthur, Defence of Transportation, 33–34; Forsyth, Governor Arthur's Convict System, 57.

68. Shaw, A. G. L., Sir George Arthur, Bart, 1784–1854 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1980), 71–73.Google Scholar

69. Transportation, vol. 3, Report from the Select Committee on Transportation, 116–17.

70. AOT Colonial Secretary's Office (CSO) 1/199/4743, minute by Arthur, 29 February 1828, minute by Arthur, 1 August 1828; AOT Executive Council (EC) 4/1, 286–87, 9 April 1828.

71. AOT CSO 1/199/4743, minute by Arthur, 29 February 1828.

72. AOT CSO 50/5 and 50/10.

73. AOT CSO 1/60/1258, report by committee of senior public servants, 15 October 1829, Lyttelton to Burnett, 7 June 1830.

74. Ibid., minute by Arthur, 1 December 1829; AJCP CO 280, reel 243, Arthur to Hay, 24 November 1829.

75. AOT CSO 1/545/11870, Forster to Burnett, 30 March 1832, Police Magistrate, New Norfolk to Forster, 16 March 1832, Police Magistrate, Launceston, 21 March 1832; AOT EC 4/2, 321–22, 2 April 1832.

76. Launceston Advertiser, 18 April 1832; Launceston Independent, 28 September 1833.

77. Launceston Advertiser, 9 May 1832.

78. Neal, The Rule of Law, 159.

79. King, “Some Aspects of Police Administration in New South Wales,” 221.

80. AOT CSO 1/60 1258, report by committee of public servants, 15 October 1829.

81. Transportation, vol. 2, Report from the Select Committee on Transportation, 282, 300–301; Hobart Town Gazette, 21 November 1829, 270–71.

82. AOT CSO 1/252/6040, Spode to Burnett, 21 February 1831.

83. Transportation, vol. 2, Report from the Select Committee on Transportation, 300–301.

84. Ibid., 302–3.

85. Ibid., vol. 3, Report from the Select Committee on Transportation, 127.

86. Cornwall Chronicle, 29 August 1835, 2 January 1836.

87. Tasmanian, 12 October 1832, letter by “Z.”

88. Tasmanian, 16 November 1832, letter by “Justice”; it was true that in England incompetent witnesses included those “whose crimes had rendered them infamous” and those “who were interested in the event of the suit.” See Jervis, John, Archbold's Summary of the Law Relating to Pleading and Evidence in Criminal Cases, 10th ed. (London: Sweet and Stevens, 1846), 143.Google Scholar But this situation changed with the English Evidence Act of 1843, section 1.

89. True Colonist, 11 September 1835.

90. True Colonist, 13 January 1835.

91. Forsyth, Governor Arthur's Convict System, 156.

92. O'Sullivan, Mounted Police, 185, estimates that one-third of all petty constables were free men, but it is more accurate to say that one-third of policemen of all ranks were free.

93. True Colonist, 22 December 1835.

94. Transportation, vol. 2, Report from the Select Committee on Transportation, xi, 302; Morning Star, 23 December 1834.

95. Tasmanian and Austral-Asiatic Review, 3 June 1836.

96. Colonial Times, 7 June 1836.

97. AOT CSO 51, Police Serving on 1 August 1828; AJCP CO 280, reel 258, Return of Police Establishment in Van Diemen's Land, 31 December 1833, and reel 263, 345, Quarterly Return of Police in Van Diemen's Land, 1 April 1835.

98. The population figures for Van Diemen's Land might have been underestimated. See Hartwell, The Economic Development of Van Diemen's Land, 68; Neal, The Rule of Law, 54, 155.

99. AOT POL 318/4, memo by Forster, 29 September 1835.

100. David Philips, “Good Men to Associate and Bad Men to Conspire: Associations for the Prosecution of Felons in England, 1760–1860,” in Hay and Snyder, Policing and Prosecution, 113–70.

101. Hobart Town Courier, 6 November 1835; Launceston Advertiser, 26 November 1835, letter by George Palmer Ball; Cornwall Chronicle, 14 November 1835; Colonial Times, 27 October 1835.

102. Hobart Town Courier, 13 May 1836; Launceston Advertiser, 1 September 1836; Colonial Times, 15 November 1836.

103. Launceston Advertiser, 1 September 1836; West, The History of Tasmania, 127.

104. AJCP CO 280, reel 258, Arthur to Hanley, 4 April 1834; Jackman, “Development of Police Administration in Tasmania,” 43.

105. AOT GO 33/22, Arthur to Glenelg, 10 May 1836, Forster to Arthur, 17 December 1833, Pedder and Montagu to Arthur, 12 December 1833; AOT GO 1/19, Glenelg to Arthur, 8 November 1835; AJCP CO 280, reel 268, minute by unidentified author, 8 November 1836; Launceston Independent, 4 January 1834; Cornwall Chronicle, 29 August 1835; Colonial Times, 31 December 1833; Bennett and Castles, A Source Book of Australian Legal History, 72–74.

106. AOT GO 1/19, Glenelg to Arthur, 8 November 1835.

107. Cornwall Chronicle, 14 May 1836.

108. Hobart Town Gazette, 13 December 1833, 801–24; Shaw, Sir George Arthur, 148–49.

109. Colonial Times, 15 March 1836; Levy, Governor George Arthur, 54; True Colonist, 27 November 1835; Chamber's English Dictionary (Edinburgh: Chambers, 1988), 764.

110. AOT GO 33/6, Arthur to Murray, 30 November 1829.

111. AOT GO 33/1, Arthur to Bathurst, 3 July 1825; AOTGO 1/4, Bathurst to Arthur, 14 December 1826; AOT GO 33/2, Arthur to Bathurst, 25 August 1827.

112. AOT GO 33/5, Arthur to Twiss, 30 April 1829; AOT CSO 37/1, Burnett to Arthur, 6 November 1829; AOT EC 4/1, 465–67, 11 November 1829; Hobart Town Gazette, 13 December 1828, 210, 21 November 1829, 271.

113. The third officer, Richard Newman, appears to have been appointed chief constable at Port Arthur in May 1833. See Heard, Dora, ed., The Journal of Charles O'Hara Booth: Commandant of the Port Arthur Penal Settlement (Hobart: Tasmanian Historical Research Association, 1981), 257 n. 262.Google Scholar But earlier he seems to have been dismissed: ML Tasmanian Papers 265, Police Office Hobart Letterbooks 1831–32, Forster to Burnett, 8 and 29 February 1832 and Hobart Town Gazette, 24 August 1832, 454.

114. Forsyth, Governor Arthur's Convict System, 53–54.

115. AOT POL 318/4, memo by Forster, 9 June 1836.

116. For the regulations, see Transportation, vol. 2, Report from the Select Committee on Transportation, Appendix, 326–31.

117. Some of the Acts were listed in True Colonist, 14 May 1833; Launceston Advertiser, 10 July 1832.

118. Gaskill, Malcolm, “The Displacement of Providence: Policing and Prosecution in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century England,” Continuity and Change 11 (1996): 348–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

119. Douglas Hay, “Prosecution and Power: Malicious Prosecution in the English Courts, 1750–1850,” in Hay and Snyder, Policing and Prosecution, 343–95.

120. Morning Star, 23 December 1834.

121. AOT CSO 41/1, Burnett to Wentworth, 18 February 1831, re allegations by Captain William Clark.

122. AOT POL 318/3, memo by Forster, 18 June 1835.

123. West, The History of Tasmania, 103–5.

124. AOT EC 4/1, 494, 21 December 1829; Hobart Town Gazette, 20 February 1830, 62; Morgan, Sharon, Land Settlement in Early Tasmania: Creating an Antipodean England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 62, 118.Google Scholar

125. AOT CSO 41/1, Burnett to Wentworth, 18 February 1831, Burnett to Police Magistrate, Bothwell, 4 March 1831; AOT EC 4/1, 634–65, 14 March 1831.

126. AOT CSO 41/1, Burnett to Police Magistrate, Bothwell, 4 March 1831.

127. Cornwall Chronicle, 12 December 1835.

128. Ibid., emphasis in original.

129. True Colonist, 22 April 1836.

130. Tasmanian, 5 May 1832.

131. Colonial Times, 15 September 1835.

132. Hobart Town Courier, 10 October 1829; Hobart Town Gazette, 10 April 1830, 107–118; for a succinct account of the general evils of impounding, see Colonial Advocate, 1 May 1828; Melville, Henry, The History of Van Diemen's Land From the Year 1824 to 1835 (Sydney: Horwitz-Grahame, 1965), 88–89Google Scholar; Levy, Governor George Arthur, 272–74.

133. Cornwall Chronicle, 24 December 1836, letter by “A Poor Bullock Driver.”

134. Cornwall Chronicle, 30 May 1835; see also Hobart Town Gazette, 1 March 1828, 10 October 1829.

135. Hobart Town Gazette, 14 December 1832, 11 January 1833; Launceston Advertiser, 8 November 1830; Hobart Town Courier, 17 May 1833.

136. Historical Records of Australia, ser. 3, 7:528–15, 556–59.

137. Tasmanian, 5 May 1832.

138. Colonial Times, 8 September 1835.

139. True Colonist, 5 August 1836; Colonial Times, 18 September 1832; West, The History of Tasmania, 103.

140. Launceston Advertiser, 7 March 1832.

141. Colonial Times, 22 April 1834, 19 April 1836.

142. Cornwall Chronicle, 16 May 1835.

143. Cornwall Chronicle, 6 February 1836, letter by J. W. Bell.

144. Colonial Times, 21 September 1831, 4 May 1834.

145. Colonial Times, 21 September 1831, 25 February 1834.

146. Colonial Times, 25 February 1834; Launceston Advertiser, 18 April 1832.

147. Launceston Independent, 25 June 1831.

148. Launceston Independent, 28 September 1833, 22 November 1834, letter by “Observer.”

149. True Colonist, 29 January 1835.

150. True Colonist, 27 November 1835.

151. Colonial Times, 11 August 1835, letter by “A Constant Reader.”

152. Colonial Times, 27 May, 17 June 1834.

153. AOT POL 321, memo by Forster, 11 August 1834; Hobart Town Gazette, 15 August 1834, 563.

154. Colonial Times, 21 July 1835.

155. Launceston Advertiser, 17 December 1835; True Colonist, 22 December 1835; Cornwall Chronicle, 26 December 1835; West, The History of Tasmania, 131

156. Cornwall Chronicle, 2 January 1836.

157. True Colonist, 11 September 1835; Colonial Times, 15 September 1835.

158. AOT NS 1044/1, Reminiscences of James George, 108–16.

159. Ibid., 190–95. George was apparently one of many arrests on the day of Arthur's departure. See Colonial Times, 1 November 1836.

160. For uses of the term pig, see Partridge, Eric, The Wordsworth Dictionary of the Underworld (Ware: Wordsworth, 1995), 511.Google Scholar

161. Hobart Town Courier, 25 April 1834.

162. Launceston Independent, 15 November 1834; Tasmanian, 21 November 1834.

163. Cornwall Chronicle, 21, 28 May 1836.

164. Hobart Town Courier, 25 April 1834; Launceston Independent, 22 November 1834, letter by “Observer.”

165. Cornwall Chronicle, 2 January 1836, letter by “A Colonist.”

166. Tasmanian, 14 January 1832; Colonial Times, 3 November 1835.

167. Cornwall Chronicle, 21 May 1836.

168. True Colonist, 26 February, 22 December 1835.

169. Hobart Town Courier, 4 May 1834.

170. True Colonist, 8 January, 26 February, 22 December 1835.

171. O'Sullivan, Mounted Police, 184–85

172. AOT NS 1044/1, Reminiscences of James George, 167.

173. AOT NS 1116/1, The Alexander Laing Story, 22.

174. Launceston Advertiser, 24 July 1832.

175. Colonial Times, 24 September 1833.

176. True Colonist, 11 September 1835.

177. Launceston Independent, 3 November 1832, letter by “A Ghost of the Celebrated E B,” 12 January 1833, 11 January 1834; Colonial Times, 7 June 1836; The Colonist, 24 December 1833; Launceston Advertiser, 23 May 1832; Levy, Governor George Arthur, 146, 338.

178. Tasmanian, 18 June 1831; West, The History of Tasmania, 139–40. The theme of distrust has been considered by MacFie, Peter, “Dobbers and Cobbers: Informers and Mateship Among Convicts, Officials, and Settlers on the Grass Tree Hill Road, Tasmania 1830–1850,” Tasmanian Historical Research Association Papers and Proceedings 35 (1988): 112–27.Google Scholar

179. Launceston Independent, 11 January 1834.

180. Colonial Times, 1 November 1836; see also the True Colonist's reference to “a regularly organized body of spies in every district,” 1 July 1836.

181. True Colonist, 27 November 1835; Jorgenson, Jorgen, A Shred of Autobiography (Adelaide: Sullivan's Cove, 1981), 61–63, 85–88Google Scholar; Clune, Frank and Stephensen, P. R., The Viking of Van Diemen's Land: The Stormy Life of Jorgen Jorgenson (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1954), 339–10, 370–86, 421–22.Google Scholar

182. AJCP CO 280, reel 257, Arthur to Hay, 6 March 1834, reel 260, Arthur to Stanley, 24 October 1834, reel 265, Arthur to Hay, 28 October 1835; AOT GO 1/22, Glenelg to Arthur, 23 June 1836, Bryan to Grey, 20 June 1836; AOT Solicitor General's Department (SGD) 4/1, Ross to Arthur, 27 November 1833; Shaw, Sir George Arthur, 162–68.

183. AOT GO 33/24, petition from Robert Bryan, 7 June 1835; AJCP CO 280, reel 267, Macdowell to Montagu, 29 December 1835; AOT POL 779/1, Booth to Forster, 28 May 1836.

184. AOT GO 1/25, Glenelg to Franklin, 1 January 1837.

185. Colonial Times, 10 November 1835.

186. AOT EC 4/3, 645, 6 June 1836; Miller, E. Morris, Pressmen and Governors: Australian Editors and Writers in Early Tasmania (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1973), 43–53Google Scholar, and Melville, The History of Van Diemen's Land, 182–84.

187. Colonial Times, 29 March, 5 April 1836.

188. True Colonist, 8 April 1836; Colonial Times, 8, 19 April 1836. In an earlier incident constables abducted two of Melville's dogs and charged him with not keeping his dogs under control. See Colonial Times, 25 August 1835.

189. Colonial Times, 19 April 1836.

190. ML Arthur Papers, vol. 50, Gilbert Robertson correspondence, Arthur to Glenelg, 29 October 1836: Hobart Town Gazette, 8 November 1828, 28 April 1832; AOT EC 4/2, 300, 16 March 1832.

191. Melville, The History of Van Diemen's Land, 166–69

192. True Colonist, 4 March 1836.

193. AOT CSO 41/3, Burnett to Forster, 22 April 1836.

194. True Colonist, 11 November 1836; Bent's News, 12 November 1836.

195. True Colonist. 11 November 1836, AOT POL 315/1, Montagu to Robertson, 2 December 1836.

196. ML Arthur Papers, vol. 52, Addresses, land and householders of Hamilton, 12 August 1836, inhabitants of Hamilton, August 1836.

197. ML Arthur Papers, vol. 52, Addresses, Price to Arthur, 5 August 1836.

198. AJCP CO 280, reel 270, Arthur to Franklin, 29 October 1836, Statistical Returns of Van Diemen's Land from 1824 to 1835, 10 October 1836; Hobart Town Courier, 28 October 1836.

199. Maconochie, Alexander, Thoughts on Convict Management and Other Subjects Connected with the Australian Penal Colonies (Hobart Town: J. C. MacDougall, 1838), 145–46.Google Scholar

200. AJCP CO 280, reel 270, Arthur to Franklin, 29 October 1836, Statistical Returns of Van Diemen's Land from 1824 to 1835, 10 October 1836; Hobart Town Courier, 28 October 1836.

201. For the effect of the economy on crime rates, see Sturma, “Policing the Criminal Frontier,” 21.

202. Colonial Times, 3 May 1836.

203. Hobart Town Courier, 4 May 1834.

204. Maconochie, Thoughts on Convict Management, 142.

205. Transportation, vol. 3, Report from the Select Committee on Transportation, xxiv–xxv.

206. Forsyth, Governor Arthur's Convict System, 128–29.

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