“The morals of the colony of New South Wales are of an exceedingly depraved description.  It is so far from being a country where men begin a new life and enter upon a fresh course with resolutions of amendment, that the testimony of all respectable men examined on the subject unites in asserting that the habits of the freed men, even of those who have acquired property and have families, are of the most dissipated character.  Of the emancipists, to whom grants of land have been made and who are often wealthy, very few, not more it is said than half a dozen, can be selected whose lives are not of a vicious description, who do not indulge in dishonest practices of one sort or another, and who have not risen to wealth by fostering and practising some species of villany.  These men procure convicts to be assigned to them, who become members of the families, and assist them in carrying on their various frauds.  In Sydney the grog shops are very numerous, and grog shops are receiving houses.  A constant trade in stolen goods is going on between Sydney and the remotest parts of the colony, and even between Sydney and this country.  The convicts in remote settlements have no means generally of indulging in licentiousness, but they see constantly before them the freed labourer who has, and they burn to enjoy similar privileges:  and should their place of occupation be too remote from a theatre of indulgence, they get a week of holiday at Sydney, where they arrive in numbers, and, for the time they stay, wallow in every species of debauchery.  In such a state of society the public standard of morality must necessarily fall to a very low degree.  The leaven spreads from the corrupted part into the whole mass.  Just as the slang of London thieves is become the classical language of Sydney, so do necessarily a familiarity with crime, hatred to law, and contempt for virtue, make their way into the minds and hearts of those who are untainted with actual crime.  So far from a reformation being even begun in New South Wales, it would seem that roguery had been carried a degree beyond even the perfection it has reached here.  Property is very insecure in Sydney, and the most extraordinary robberies take place.  Mr. James Walker, in his evidence before a committee of the House of Commons, says ’the colony has a curious effect upon the most practised thieves in this country; one of the most experienced thieves in London has something to learn when he comes out there; probably he would be robbed the first night he came into his hut.’  This was the answer given by an experienced settler to the question, whether he thought any considerable degree of reformation took place among the convicts residing at a distance from Sydney.  It is nearly impossible that it should be otherwise.  The master can only punish his servant by travelling with him some twenty or thirty miles to a police magistrate, by which he loses his own time, the labour of his servant, perhaps for months,