JB/116/132/002

Click Here To Edit

N.S. Wales

28 May 1802

1. Ends
3. Incapacitation

Reformation is a very complex idea object; and requires
thought and contrivance to pursue it. Local exclusion,
is a very simple idea: and object: it may be aimed at almost
without thought.

When, for for persons of this description, the obtainment of the accustomed
situations for persons of this description in British America was
formed, or supposed, or said to be no longer practicable, another
spot was came to be looked for, and the new-discovered
land of New South Wales, presented itself as a most eligible
one.

The requisites that had been presented afforded by America were+

+ that man one of
a neighbourhood composed
of men of thrift, all making
common cause against fugitives
or and idle refractory bondsmen.

+ The requisites that had
been found in America—
an exemplar ready to take
charge of the delinquent for and during
the period of punishment—
that employer a man of
thrift—and at the end
of that period of industry a certainty
of honest subsistence in a voluntary employment.

Altogether The customary requisites were
indeed (as your Lordship has seen) all wanting: but the spot was a distant one: the most so of any that could be found.
Convicts might be sent thither indeed it is true in any
numbers: but there was nobody there to receive them: the recommendation
therefore—and the only one—must have consisted
in the distance. There The virtue ascribed
(with what judgment will be seen) to distance, was to make up for
the absence: if every other requisite. The degree of perfection in which
it possessed this
requisite, was not open
to dispute. The
more was
then, as it continues
to be, inaccessible: upon
earth there was no
other accessible place so distant
as New South Wales.
Such being the property
possessed in so pre-eminent
and indisputable a degree by
this new discovered region,
the idea of sending Convicts thither presented itself as a most happy thought.

This presented itself as a most valuable property
The security thus had been afforded to Britain by America
America afforded Britain but a precarious security against
against the returned return of the expelled emigrants, had been but a precarious one: why?
because the distance was comparatively so small;means of communication so abundant? New South Wales
the surest best security possible: why? because the distance was the
greatest possible means of communication, at the time then present, none: Let a man once get there we
those excepted which were it the command of government. Let a man
once get there, we shall never be troubled with him any more.
I say at the time
then present: for, beyond
the present, it was not
given to any eye, on
either floor of the Treasury
to reach. The present
—no, nor beyond a narrow part
even of that present—the
past exactly under the
nose, according to to from such
opportunities for observation
as a course of ten
years disastrous attendance
at that scene of disorder
and oscitancy has been obtruded on me.

In substance and effect,
In plain English the expedient consisted of neither
more nor less than the converting of banishment of banishment in all its different lengths in
lengths that had been so carefully marked out and distinguished by the
legislature, degrees on the occasion of each Act, and by Judges on the occasion
all its lengths of duration into banishment for life. Presented
of each judgment—in all these carefully scrupulously distinguished lengths, into one
length—and that the greatest possible—banishment for life. Presented
to the legislature in these its real colours,
it might have found repugnants/objectors. Allowance Reference might have
been made to the lines of distinction drawn by former
legislators: to the great apparent pains taken about the drawing of
these lines. Doubts might have been started about the
property of levelling all these distinctions and screwing up
the punishment applied to the most venial of these offences, to a level
with that which was never inflicted upon any man whose care
had not been previously
supposed to call for
the punishment of
the last and highest degree in the
scale of punishment terrific scale.

.

Identifier: | JB/116/132/002"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 116.
Date_1	1802-07-02	Marginal Summary Numbering	130
Box	116	Main Headings	panopticon versus new south wales
Folio number	132	Info in main headings field	n. s. wales
Image	002	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	a88
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	1800
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer
Corrections	jeremy bentham	Paper Produced in Year	1800
Notes public	[[notes_public::"not to be inserted, but yet copied" [note in bentham's hand]]]	ID Number	37665
Box Contents