Bacon's Essays, with annotations by Richard Whately and notes and a glossarial index, by Franklin Fiske Heard.

Essay xxxiii.] Annotations. 359
guard against the error of making the wheels necessarily obstruct
each other's motions. And though a plan of penal legislation,
which shall unite all conceivable advantages and be liable to no
abuses, be unattainable, it is at least something gained if we do
but keep clear of a system which by its very constitution shall
have a constcnt and rcdiccclly inherent tendency to defeat our
principal object.'For, let any one but calmly reflect for a few moments on
the position of a governor of one of our penal colonies, who has
the problem proposed to him of accomplishing two distinct and
in reality inconsistent objects: to legislate and govern in the
best manner with a view to —st, the prosperity of the colony,
and also, 2ndly, the suitable punislmnent of the convicts. It is
well known that slave labour is the least profitable; and can
seldom be made profitable at all, but by the most careful,
difficult, troublesome, and odious superintendence. The most
obvious way, therefore, of making the labour of the convicts as
advantageous as possible to the colony, is to make them as
unlike slaves as possible,-to place them under such regulations,
and with such masters, as to ensure their obtaining not only
ample supplies both of necessaries and comforts, but in all respects
favourable and even indulgent treatment; in short, to put them
as much as possible in the comTfortable situation which free
labozurers enjoy, where labour is so valuable, as from the abundance of land, and the scarcity of hands, it must be, in a new
settlement.
And the masters themselves may be expected, for the most
part, to perceive that their own interest (which is the only consideration they are expected to attend to) lies in the same
direction. They will derive most profit from their servants, by
keeping them as much as possible in a cheerful and contented
state, even at the expense of connivance at many vices, and of
so much indulgence as it would not, in this country, be worth
any master's while to grant, when he might turn away an indifferent servant and hire another. The master of the convictservants would indeed be glad, for his own profit, to exact fiomn
them the utmost reasonable amount of labour, and to maintain
them in a style of frugality equal to, or even beyond that of a