There were two gaols in the colony; one at Melbourne, the other at Geelong; neither of them very large. The Geelong gaol, in fact, was little more than a lock-up, and it was only within the past two years that the gaol had been enclosed within a high wall. In 1850 it stood out on the hill, a short distance from the banks of the Barwon River, an ordinary-looking brick building, with the Governor's House and other offices grouped near it, and all opening out directly on the level flat which stretched from the top of the banks of the Barwon River to the hill on which the main portion of the town of Geelong was situated. On the top of this hill, the last building in that direction, in "old Geelong"--as it was called, although it had only been founded about twelve years before--was the court house, and there was no other building along Yarra Street, on the southern side of the hill and across the little flat (a distance altogether of about half-a-mile) until the gaol was reached. The Melbourne gaol stood on what was then the boundary of the city of Melbourne. It was a larger and more imposing building than the Geelong gaol, but still wholly inadequate for the requirements; and therefore one of the first duties of the Legislative Council of the new colony was to provide accommodation for evil doers, who could no longer be sent to the gaols of Sydney to serve out their terms of punishment. This was done by the establishment of "stockades" at Collingwood and Pentridge, both near Melbourne, and the purchase of two old trading vessels, the _President_ and the _Success_, in September, 1852, to be converted into convict hulks for the safe keeping of the more desperate of the malefactors. Subsequently three other hulks were added to the list, and these were in use for many years after large prisons had been erected at Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, and other centres of population.