and discipline, and necessarily left much of the minutia of duty to discretion, and to the suggestion of circum

stances.

The whole of my first voyage was, I may say, expended in observation and experiment; and a considerable portion of our invaluable time, particularly during the first third of the passage, was in some measure lost to a great proportion of the prisoners, as it respected their advancement in knowledge and moral improvement.

On my second charge and which was in the ship Arab, in the year 1834-I entered in possession of the system of instruction and government which the experience of my first appointment had enabled me to form; and, during our progress to the Colonies, made such additions thereunto as circumstances suggested, and as seemed necessary to its perfection. As my third voyage advanced, my plan received farther additions and improvements, and was finally brought to the state in which it is exhibited in the following pages. It has now received the approval of my own mind ; and I am not aware that it contains anything to which objection can reasonably be offered. An outline of my system apin the journal which has been submitted to the

pears

inspection of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty; and I have not heard of any objections having been taken to any of its details.

My present conviction is, that the system followed out in the Elphinstone might possibly receive, in some of its minor points, slight modifications, but that its grand principles admit not of change, and its framework of little alteration.

My chief object in printing these pages is, to put those officers who may, in future, engage in the service to which they refer, in possession of a plan of management, which they may adopt, either wholly or in part, as their judgment and sense of responsibility may lead them to determine. When I entered upon my first appointment, I should have been exceedingly glad to have been furnished with such a system; and to those who may be placed in similar circumstances, it may, at least, supply some useful hints. That any scheme of education and discipline followed out in transports has been given to the public, I am not aware. That which is developed in the following pages may be considered as deserving of regard until it is superseded by a better.

To several enlightened and pious persons who are experienced in the instruction, with a view to their moral

improvement, of the hitherto neglected portion of our population, it has appeared that the scheme now submitted to the consideration of the public, might be turned to good account, not only in transports, but on board emigrant ships; and likewise in all our country prisons, and in houses of correction, and, perhaps, also in large factories.

It will readily be perceived that I regard sound views of the Divine Character and Government; of man's nature and relation to his Maker; and of all that is involved in that relation, as lying at the foundation of all useful instruction and efficient discipline: and therefore it was that a special object contemplated in the system I was led to adopt, was the impartation to the people of scriptural perceptions of God and of themselves, and of the principles of sound and acceptable obedience.

We hear much in our days of the separate, and solitary, and silent systems of prison discipline; but, unless the CHRISTIAN SYSTEM be brought to bear with Divine power on the understandings and consciences of criminals, every other system which professedly contemplates their reformation, must, to the shame and confusion of its projectors, prove an utter failure. If we would see

an efficient system of moral discipline in operation in our prisons, and penitentiaries, and convict hulks, we must provide for the effectual instruction of their inmates in the great facts and doctrines of Christianity ; and must take care, that not only those who are especially intrusted with their religious instruction, but all who are connected with their management, from the governor down to the humblest warder, are truly spiritual and consistent Christians, whose temper and general demeanour are calculated to commend the Gospel of Christ, and afford to all with whom they may come into contact, a happy illustration of its sanctifying influence upon the heart and life.

We are quite willing to concede to all human systems of prison discipline the importance to which experience has proved, or may yet prove, them to be entitled; but it must be maintained that the attempt to reform our criminals by any means short of those which God Himself hath provided and ordained to that end, as set forth in the sacred Scriptures, involves not only the most ignorant presumption, but even practical infidelity. If the schemes we adopt with a view to the instruction and reformation of prisoners, dishonour GoD, by contemning or neglecting the Divine power of His word and SPIRIT,

they must, as hitherto, and of moral necessity, disappoint and put to shame the hopes of our legislators and philanthropists, and leave the State to the oppressive and destructive influence of increasing vice and crime.

I have intimated that, as I always speak to the prisoners from mere mental arrangement of the subject, or from very brief notes, I do not pretend to give my "addresses " precisely as they were delivered. From those I have written, it must just be inferred what those spoken were likely to have been; making due allowance for the impressive and elevating influence of the actual presence of two hundred and forty immortals deeply interested in every sentiment which was uttered.

From the sacred volume-the book of GOD, I endeavoured faithfully to set forth, and for the most part in the language of the inspired penmen, the great doctrines of man's apostasy; of the depravity of his fallen nature; of salvation through the obedience, sacrifice, and mediation of Christ; of the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit; and of the necessary tendency of Divine truth, believed, to purify the heart, and lead to holiness of life; while it inspires the mind with the cheering hope of a blessed immortality.

The circumstances in which these pages have been