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40
2 kinds of tickets of leave .
1. Maximum wage only - enter into any description of service
and to choose 'own masters (subj ect to approval of Chief Police
Magistrate) .
2. Can hold property, real or personal - do not have to attend
muster, except annual one , can change own residence .
During the next months , wh ile Franklin waited for detailed
instructions on the Probation System, the English newspapers which were
received in Hobart Town brought glimpses of the Home Government 's
intentions .
'
These so dismayed Franklin that he felt constrained several
times to voice his fears about the proposed po licy to Colonial Secretary
Stanley . On February 2, 1839, he wrote :
I cannot allow a vessel to depart without expressing to
Your Lordship my serious apprehensions that the Committee were
not aware of the many if not insuperab le difficulties , wh ich
will in practice present themselves if effect is to be given
in all points to their accommodations .... I fear there will
be found positive objections to some portions of the Committee 's
recommendations , and I very much doubt whether the contemplated
benefits either to the Mother Country , the Colonies , or the
convicts themselves wi ll in practice be realized ... , 9
Two weeks later he wrote again , pointing out that there had been very few
instances of "peculiar severity" ;
on the contrary care had been taken not
to excite the insurgent spirit by unexpected degrees of punishment , but
rather to mitigate the stringency of the penal code .
Franklin fe lt that
the moral aspect of the community gave little cause to modify the present
system, and drew Stanley 's attention to the remarkab le degree of secur ity
of both person and property to be found . 10
On a month 's tour of the
settled districts in March and April, he saw little to caus e concern .
. ... I visited the huts in wh ich the men are lodged at every
Estab lishment , ·sometimes alone, sometimes attended by the Master,
frequently unexpectedly , at almost all times , and under al l
circumstances , when the huts were in the cours e of being put
in order for the day , or already in order , or when the men were
at their meals . I gave the inmates every opportunity of stating
anything in their circumstances which they might wish to bring
under my notice and in every way I made it a point to ob tain
all the information within my reach and I had the pleasure of
perceiving that there was no expression in any case of
dissatis . faction amongst the men , and that , in so far as I could
judge , there was also no ground for any such expression . In
the huts attached to the Establi shments of several of the more
wealthy and influential settlers , there was exhib ited, in the
state of the bed places , and in the general arrangements , an
attention to orders and cleanliness creditable to all part ies
9
GO 25/7 p. 607 .
1 0 Ibid. , p. 689 .