In the first instance, then, I would respectfully direct attention, immediate and effective, to the present plan of fitting up prisons on board of convict ships. The manner in which those places are erected for the detention of male prisoners is less objectionable in regard to security than those for females. In the one case, the protection of the persons in authority over the confined appears principally designed, as opposed to any violence meditated on the part of the male prisoners, as also for the security of the ship. But in the other, these circumstances, if they are at all allowed to occupy consideration, appear of but little moment, because it seems to be an opinion commonly received, _that improper intercourse between the female convicts and the sailors must continue as a matter of course, and that all endeavours to prevent it will be fruitless, and therefore any precaution in fitting up a prison for females, with that view, is superfluous_. As far as it regards the safety of the ship and stores, that may perhaps be the case, as from women, merely, no such danger need be apprehended; and this notion has probably led to the present specious manner of construction, in which the semblance of confinement only appears to be consulted. The present alarming increase of crime renders every precaution for the safe lodgement of male convicts both wise and salutary, particularly so long as no pains are taken to subdue their predilection for plunder and profligacy, by informing their minds with moral truths, and showing them the just and happier resources of honest life. With regard to this class of prisoners, however, there is little to recommend by way of strengthening the rigour of the system of confinement, as sufficient care is taken in that respect, that as little chance as possible is allowed of their resorting to violence with any hope of success, even were they so disposed: when in addition to the fetters and the strong prevention of their prison, the military guard placed over them is a balance more than sufficiently countervailing to any such design. The situation of a female convict prison claims attention in a peculiar degree, if the main purpose of reformation, the object originally in the contemplation of their sentence, be kept in view. Revolting in the extreme to every feeling of propriety, is the idea of abandoning these miserable women to indiscriminate intercourse, among the crews of those ships in which they are ordered to be conveyed to their place of banishment. They are humanely removed from their former mischievous connexions; but who would say that this is a mode in which they can be reclaimed? Prostitution has been the bane of many of them; will they thus become less impure?