Absconding has been punished with various degrees of severity. By the first governors it was held a venial offence: before the law provided any specific penalty, it was usually flogging or a penal settlement. A capital respite was, however, sent to Port Macquarie: within three months he absconded, with several companions, and started to reach Timor: on his re-capture, he was executed without further trial (1823).[185] A colonial law, of 1827, made it capital to escape from a penal settlement. It was intended to prevent a recurrence of those evils which resulted from the Macquarie Harbour elopements. That it intimidated a single person, to whom the chance of escape was presented, is extremely doubtful: that it rendered their efforts more desperate, and their course more sanguinary, is far more probable. No one will contend for the right of a prisoner to burst the bonds imposed by a sentence, yet will it never appear to justify the sacrifice of life. Such laws are useless: they outrage the common sentiments of mankind--more criminal than the offences they intend to prevent: they belong to what Lord Bacon stigmatised as "the rubrics of blood." Their extreme diffidence of each other, has rendered the combined opposition of prisoners impossible. A guard of two or three soldiers is sufficient to intimidate hundreds, and to prevent an open effort to escape. The sentinels have, generally, displayed forbearance and consideration--the honorable characteristics of the British soldier. Governor Arthur recommended a declaratory statute, to subdue any doubts respecting their right to shoot absconders, which seemed common among the military. That right had never been called in question; and in two instances only, during fourteen years, was it exercised in this country. The sense of responsibility is a healthy emotion: promptitude in taking the life of a runaway, however tolerated or authorised by law, could never be remembered by a soldier but as an odious execution.[186] The piratical seizure of vessels lately, has not been common: escape is easy in other forms. The elopement of individuals has been attended with no great perils, since the establishment of the surrounding colonies. Craft of small burden have been sometimes taken, and at the close of the voyage dismissed. Prisoners have passed as merchandise, or boldly submitting to examination, have been lost in the crowd of emigrants. A contrivance was recently discovered, by the fatal consequences which followed it: a woman was enclosed by her husband in a case, and on arriving at Port Phillip was found dead.