Having begun to talk, I continued; and our conversation for some time was all about the _Childe Harold_ and convict ships. My uncle knew a good deal about this sort of vessel. Long association with seafaring people had taught him much that is not commonly known to lawyers. He explained that ships chartered for convicts often went to Deptford to fit out. The lower decks were cleared fore and aft; strong bulkheads of oak, frequently loopholed for muskets, erected; hatchway openings strongly railed and protected; bed-boards set up in tiers within the whole length of the prison, after the manner of a soldiers’ guard-room. ‘I dare say,’ said he, ‘the _Childe Harold_ will get about five pounds a ton. Not bad pay, as times go. The captain receives so much a head for every man delivered in the colony. This makes him careful. Formerly, the skipper took the job in the lump, and the more deaths during the voyage the better, because deaths saved victuals. If Butler wants to sail I hope he’s pretty well.’ ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘They’ll carry no sickly convicts to sea,’ said he. ‘The surgeon inspects the fellows and rejects those whom he considers unfit for the voyage. But they’re mostly so wild to get transported that they’d cheat Old Nick himself; and I’ve heard of surgeons being humbugged into taking men who died before the Scillys were fairly astern.’ ‘Tom, when I saw him,’ said I, ‘was as strong and well as it was possible for a man to be who is everyday put to killing work.’ My aunt eyed me askant; my uncle softly drummed upon the table and then suddenly burst into a speech on the delights of transportation. He felt strongly on this point. He said he knew of country labourers who had called upon the parson of the parish to know what crime they could commit to insure their being transported. ‘Letters are read in village ale-houses,’ said he, ‘from rogues who are making money and doing well in New South Wales or Tasmania. The writers hail from the district, and they tell their friends how Bob, whom the country-side knows and who was transported for burglary, is receiving a hundred a year as tapster at a tavern, and how Bill, who was lagged for stealing wheat, has taken a large farm near Sydney. Transportation ought to increase crime in this country. I am not surprised that the people of Australia should be apprehensive that morality is on the increase amongst us.’ ‘How do the respectable people out there,’ inquired my aunt, ‘relish our turning their country into a dustbin for our own vile sweepings and offal?’ ‘The system’s liked. We send them labour for nothing. Labour they must have, and they get it free. In the West Indies they have to pay handsomely for slaves; in the colonies the slaves called convicts cost their masters nothing but their keep.’