Before I proceed to close this series of papers with the conclusions which have been forced upon me in my survey of the whole, in Ireland and England, I must refer once more to the case set forth on behalf of the English system. The fate of my last paper appears to have been curious. In some quarters it has been regarded as too favourable to the English system, while the chief conductors of that system think that I have “not done them justice.” I am told that I have fallen into many errors, and that the comparison which I have made between England and Ireland is disparaging to England. In the most explicit terms that could be employed I have invited correction of errors. I have avowed my readiness to incorporate in this third paper any emendations with which I can be supplied; my object being, not to advocate one system or to disparage another, but simply to lay before your readers, as far as my examination of the two systems and your space would permit, the facts themselves. The communications upon the subject have been very numerous and protracted. Throughout all, I have been met by Sir Joshua Jebb with the most handsome consideration and a generous frankness. The result, however, is that I have a lengthened statement, from his pen, going over the ground from the time when “sound principles were laid down in 1842 by the then Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham, for establishing probationary periods of discipline at home, in order to the disposal of the convict by transportation;” and this statement I now take bodily, with some very slight curtailment. “The difficulties which occurred at that time in Van Diemen’s Land prevented the development of these principles, and led to a modified arrangement under Earl Grey and Sir George Grey. Under the system as it was then settled, from 1847 to 1853, a printed notice was communicated to every convict, telling him that the first period of probation would be passed in solitary confinement for some time; and employment on the public works for the second period; the third stage under a ticket-of-leave in one of the colonies. The incentives to industry and good conduct, during the two first periods, were very fully explained in this document. They consisted of remissions of the imprisonment, gratuities, badges marking the progress of each individual, and other records, by which a man’s fate was placed in his own hands, and was mainly dependent upon his own exertions.