The opinion which appears generally to prevail, that prisoners of the crown are placed in the colony in a better situation than free men, there is too much reason for regarding as correct. They are well-fed and clothed, take good care to be never overworked, and have an hospital, with the best attendance, when sick. An assigned servant or convict may be correctly defined as an individual who is well fed and clothed—insolent and indolent—and takes care that the little work he has to perform is badly done. When sick, which often proceeds from lying idle too long in the sun, he walks to the hospital; and, from the exertion, together with the thoughts of “bleeding, blistering, and physic,” he soon recovers, and returns to his master, to again undergo the fatigue of doing little or nothing. One of these characters applied for his ticket of leave, but soon returned, wishing again to be employed by his former master, if only for his food; at the same time observing, that he was better off before, in bondage, than he was now, partially free—so his fellow servants persuaded him to send the ticket back, and say, “_it was all a mistake_.” The following anecdote may serve to illustrate the _misery_ an iron gang occasions to spirit drinkers. A convict was once weighed by his comrades, and the weight at that time marked with chalk upon the barn door. A short time after this took place, he was sentenced for an offence to an iron gang for six weeks. After the term of his punishment had expired, and he returned to his master, he was observed to be in a stouter and more robust condition than before; his comrades again weighed him, to see what he had gained in flesh, if not in any moral benefit, by his punishment; when it was ascertained he had gained twenty pounds. As this man had, when on the farm, been continually toping, and as, when with the iron gang, he had no opportunity of continuing his potations, that circumstance may have occasioned his increased good health and condition. This may be a hint, therefore, to send all the sick whose illness may arise principally from habitual drunkenness, instead of an hospital, to an iron gang for a short period. The London pickpockets are considered to make the best shepherds in the colony, as it suits their naturally idle habits; the industrious labourer cannot endure the very wearisome and lazy employment of looking after sheep; the petty larcener soon gets attached to his woolly charges, and the sheep, no doubt, by a natural instinct, to him; and thus the animals are tended with some degree of care; but the regular workman, detesting the occupation, (unless incapacitated from a more active employment, by age or accident,) seldom takes any interest in the valuable property entrusted to his care; the former are, therefore, to be preferred. The shepherds, when tending their flocks in the pasturage, wile away their leisure time by manufacturing coarse but durable straw hats.