Before I dismiss you, I shall just remind you of the necessity of "turning out" with alacrity when you are called in the morning, either to wash decks, or persons, or clothes. Let there be no hinderance or annoyance in this particular. The petty officer who calls you, will give you "a good rouse ;" but let its repetition be wholly unnecessary. Five

minutes are an ample allowance of time for a whole division to turn out, and appear on deck. And should any one be absent at any time from muster, morning, forenoon, or evening; or neglect to appear on deck within ten minutes after he is first called in the morning; his name shall be entered in the book of reports. Nothing is a greater annoyance to me, or operates as a greater hinderance to the despatch of business, and the preservation of order, than drowsy indolence and sluggish tardiness in your movements. I do ardently trust, then, that your petty officers will never have occasion to report any of you for "hanging back," when you ought to be all activity, and each more anxious than another to be first at his post. The cooks cannot fail to perceive, that punctuality with them in the cooking and serving out of the people's appointed meals, is absolutely indispensable.

The schoolmasters, too, must be most attentive to the assembling and breaking up of the schools at the hours appointed.

Let it also be observed, that every messman, or mess-carrier, will be held responsible to his mess for his punctuality in attending to his name, or

number of his mess, when called by the ship's officer, whose duty it will be to serve out provisions and water from the hold. The members of messes will themselves observe, that their messmen are at their posts, when the word is passed for their attendance; and as it cannot be expected that the ship's officer should lose his time by waiting beyond a reasonable period (which cannot be more than a few seconds) for the messmen to make their appearance, the consequence of their negligence may be, that they and their respective messes will be deprived, for the day, of the ration which the messcarrier may have neglected, when called, to receive. In order to prevent the possibility of such occurrences, it will be required of the second captain, or of some other petty officer appointed by him, to muster at the proper periods the messmen, according to their numbers, close to the barricade, that they may be in perfect readiness to answer to their mess-number when called. The serving officer will begin with number one, and proceed with the numbers in succession. And he is not to be expected to encourage inattention or negligence on your part, by returning to any number he may have passed, and which was distinctly called and repeated by the petty officer in attendance. The messman who shall neglect any portion of his duty to his mess, shall be put into the "book of reports." But if your conduct be what it ought to be, and what I anticipate it will be, our "book of reports" will remain-what it now iss—a blank, so far as impro

priety of conduct is concerned. It will then be the record of good and superior behaviour; exhibiting the demonstrable evidence of the happy reformation of every individual prisoner on board; and such the book in question cannot fail to be, should the whole of you continue under the governing influence of a right frame of mind, and attend to the punctual discharge of all your duties, personal and relative, in the spirit of a well-directed and disinterested zeal―a zeal in harmony with knowledge, and guided by brotherly love.

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CHAPTER VI.

THE WORKING OF THE SYSTEM OF INSTRUCTION AND GOVERNMENT-APPOINTMENT OF A COURT OF INVESTIGATION-OBSERVATIONS ON THE ENACTMENT AND ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS.

THE people having been thus organized, rules and regulations laid down for their guidance; their respective duties, as men and petty officers, pupils and teachers, detailed; a general view presented to them of the grand and ultimate objects to be attained, of the principles upon which they were required to act, and of the spirit by which they were to be influenced in the whole of their conduct; they gave, as a body, immediate proof that they had come under the influence of a power whose tendency is, to regulate the operations of the mind, the desires and feelings of the heart, and to secure such a degree of outward order and decorum as is necessary to the enjoyment of quiet and peaceful comfort. A very short period sufficed to familiarize the people with the daily routine; and the required duties were speedily executed with a regularity and precision which could not fail to gratify every enlightened and benevolent observer.

There were unquestionably a few, whose behaviour continued for several weeks, to be not only painful and disheartening to me, but grievous to the bulk of the prisoners themselves; but these unhappy exceptions were almost confined to the boys; a class which embraced all aged nineteen years and under, and of whom there were seventy-nine. Fifty of these were under sixteen, and twenty were from eleven to fourteen years of age. Eight or ten of these boys about sixteen years old, were, for some time, rather troublesome, and appeared to resist, in a great measure, the influence of their instruction during at least the first half of the voyage.

It is not my intention to offer, in this place, any observations on the moral character of the people; these will be more appropriately made, when I come to speak of their apparent improvement at the end of the voyage. Here I would only remark that, with the exceptions already made, the general outward demeanour of the whole of the prisoners was strikingly quiet and orderly; and the system of management acted so well, and so much beyond. anticipation, that no sooner was the machinery put into motion than it seemed to work by an inherent power-as if, indeed, its primum mobile were nothing short of a vital principle. Every hour brought with it its own duties; and it just occasionally required that the petty officers should be reminded of the demands which the approaching hour would make upon them, and that the people should sometimes feel the influence of my voice, in