These arrangements were indeed admirable, all of them, but they should have been earlier enforced. Not that Sir Richard Bourke was to blame for this. The change he instituted should have been made by his predecessors. But he was probably superior as an administrator to most who had gone before. At least he was clear-sighted enough to perceive that New South Wales had already outgrown the conditions of a mere penal settlement. He was of opinion that convict labour was no longer required, and that the abolition of transportation would be really a benefit to the colonial community. He was in this ahead of his time, but within a year or two of the close of his reign the same views began to be widely entertained both in Great Britain and her colonies. In fact, the period was now approaching when the idea of the possible abandonment of transportation was to take a tangible and substantial form. CHAPTER III CONVICT LIFE Various conditions described--Arrival and treatment of newcomers--Hyde Park barracks for males--Parramatta factory for females--Behaviour of assignees to their convict servants--Treatment at out-stations--Labour--How enforced--Demeanour of convicts--Disciplinary methods--The lash the chief penalty. British transportation divides itself naturally into three periods. The first comprises the early history of the penal colonies; the second treats of the days when "assignment" flourished, then fell into disrepute; the third saw the substitution of the "probation" system, its collapse; and finally, the abandonment of transportation beyond the seas. Transportation was really continued for some years after the collapse of the probation system in Van Diemen's Land, but only to the extent of sending a few hundreds annually to Western Australia, and in keeping up the convict establishments at Bermuda and Gibraltar. Having sketched this early history in the two preceding chapters, I propose to draw now a picture of convict life, and the state of the colonies generally during the second of these periods. I shall, in this, confine myself chiefly to New South Wales, the details of management and the results having been much the same in Van Diemen's Land, or Tasmania as it is now called. But I shall refer more especially to that island in a later page.