But the dark side of this romantic picture must not be withheld. The infant colony was chiefly composed of the worst class of felons; they were the days of barbarous justice even in England, and it would often be difficult to say why some convicts were sentenced to transportation, while others for lighter causes were punished with death. There was, at that time, a fearful indifference to human life in our penal code. Punishment was its sole object; amendment was seldom if ever contemplated. Amongst the convicts there was every shade of crime, but scarcely any corresponding gradation of punishment. The truth is, true religion was at its lowest ebb, and pure philanthropy, in consequence, all but unknown; a formal, heartless religion prevailed; and, as one of its fruits, a stern and iron code of law. The convict-ship, which has now become a reformatory school, was rivalled in its horrors only by the slave-ship; indeed if the physical suffering was greater in the latter, in moral torture and mental defilement the hold of the convict-ship had, beyond all doubt, the bad pre-eminence. The prisoners consisted of the most abandoned persons of all nations; British, Dutch, and Portuguese sailors, the polite swindler, and the audacious highwayman, with their female accomplices. They were shipped off in chains; during the passage outward a detachment of soldiers was constantly on guard; and the voyage was seldom accomplished without bloodshed. The secret plots, in which the prisoners were continually engaged, broke out into open mutiny whenever circumstances offered a chance of success; for this purpose a storm, a leak, or a feigned sickness, was readily taken advantage of. When signs of such disturbances showed themselves, the ringleaders were seized and tried in a summary way by court martial; but the sailors often refused to enforce the sentence, so that it became necessary to compel obedience with loaded muskets. The hold of a convict-ship presented a melancholy picture of human depravity. In the course of the voyage most of the felons survived the sense of shame: the sounds of ribaldry and boisterous mirth, mingled with catches from the popular songs of the day, issued unceasingly from the prisoners' deck; this uproar was ever and anon increased by more riotous disturbances, blows and bloodshed followed; and occasionally the monotony of the voyage was broken by mock trials among the prisoners, to show that even in the most profligate and abandoned the principle of justice was not altogether destroyed. When a prisoner committed an offence against his fellows, a judge was appointed, advocates were assigned to the prosecutor and the accused, a jury was sworn to try according to the evidence, witnesses were examined, and the prisoner, being found guilty, was sentenced to an immediate and brutal punishment.