Norfolk Island, lying some seven hundred miles from the coast of New South Wales, was first utilised as a penal settlement in 1788, when it was decided that convicts who committed crimes in New South Wales should be transported there for more severe treatment. Early in the nineteenth century a rumour spread in Australia that Napoleon the First intended to fit out a fleet to search for Admiral La Perouse, and to found colonies in the south seas. The truth of this rumour seemed to be affirmed by the activity of the naval authorities in New South Wales. Settlements were made at Port Essington in the north, King George's Sound in the west, and the Derwent River in Van Diemen's Land. Shortly afterwards, in 1805, the prisoners were removed from Norfolk Island to Hobart Town, apparently for the purpose of strengthening the settlement in Van Diemen's Land. When Van Diemen's Land was made independent of New South Wales, in 1825, Norfolk Island was again made a penal settlement of the mother colony, and it so continued until transportation to New South Wales ceased in 1842, when Norfolk Island was transferred from the jurisdiction of the Governor of New South Wales to that of the Governor of Van Diemen's Land. The treatment of the prisoners in the island was rigorous in the extreme, and may aptly be described as savage. When the enquiry of the House of Commons, by Select Committee, was made in 1837 and 1838, as to the condition of the convicts in the penal settlements, the few particulars published about the evidence in the English newspapers had some effect on public opinion, and in 1841, Captain Maconochie, one of the witnesses examined who said that the prisoners might be governed with less harshness, was appointed Commandant of Norfolk Island, with instructions to try the mild reformatory treatment he advocated. Captain Maconochie and his supporters in England do not seem to have realised that human beings who have been under demoralising influences until they have reached the adult age, and their characters have become set, are not amenable to civilising influences. These should have been applied during the impressionable years, and the younger they are applied the more successful they are likely to be. This fact, however, does not yet seem to be known sufficiently in England, and therefore small blame attaches to Captain Maconochie, if he was not aware of it sixty years ago. The new Commandant abolished Sunday labour as a punishment, shortened the hours of labour on week-days, and granted holidays for good behaviour. He allowed the men to build huts and to cultivate small patches of ground, and thus to provide themselves with vegetables. He also gave them tins to cook in, and served out rations individually, instead of giving the rations out in messes. It does not appear that the prisoners became unduly riotous under this treatment, and no such murders as were mentioned by Judge Forbes and other witnesses before the Select