Читать книгу The English Colony in New South Wales (Vol. 1&2). Narrative of the British First Settlement in Australia 1788-1801 онлайн

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To check these enormities, the court of criminal judicature was assembled on the 11th of February, when three prisoners were tried; one for an assault, of which being found guilty, he was sentenced to receive one hundred and fifty lashes; a second, for taking some biscuit from another convict, was sentenced to a week's confinement on bread and water, on a small rocky island near the entrance of the cove; and a third, for stealing a plank, was sentenced to receive fifty lashes, but, being recommended to the governor, was forgiven.

The mildness of these punishments seemed rather to have encouraged than deterred others from the commission of greater offences; for before the month was ended the criminal court was again assembled for the trial of four offenders, who had conceived and executed a plan for robbing the public store during the time of issuing the provisions. This crime, in its tendency big with evil to our little community, was rendered still more atrocious by being perpetrated at the very time when the difference of provisions, which had till then existed, was taken off, and the convict saw the same proportion of provision issued to himself that was served to the soldier and the officer, the article of spirits only excepted. Each male convict was that day put upon the following weekly ration of provisions, two-thirds of which was served to the female convicts, viz 7 pounds of biscuit; 1 pound of flour; 7 pounds of beef, or 4 pounds of pork; 3 pints of peas; and 6 ounces of butter.