DIGITIZED BY PETER KILLACKEY PORT ARTHUR - PENAL SETTLEMENT James Bonwick - 1856 Connected with the south-eastern corner of Tasmania is the rugged and barren Forrestier's Peninsula, in a bay of which a Dutch carpenter of Tasman's ship first landed and planted a European flag, December 3, 1642. A low narrow rock is the division between this promontory of land and another peninsula, called after the discoverer Tasman; the isthmus is known as Eagle Hawk Neck. The first peninsula contains 15,000 acres and the latter 45,000. Such is the density of the scrub that many have perished in its entanglement. Many years ago Captain Booth was lost in one of these thickets for five days. Numbers went out after him with guns and bugles. His faithful dogs barked on the approach of a party, and relief was brought to the despairing and exhausted officer; his toes mortified, and he never recovered his former vigorous health. Tasman's Peninsula has much interesting and striking scenery, with remarkable natural phenomena, as the Blowhole, Needle. &c. The basaltic columns of Cape Pillar have attracted the notice of all navigators. To the southward is a deep bay, formerly known as Stewart's Harbour, and afterwards Port Arthur, after the Governor. Colonel Arthur sought to establish another penal settlement, combining the advantages of perfect safety and contiguity to head-quarters. Many evils had arisen from the distance and difficult approach of Macquarie Harbour; supplies were not easily forwarded, and the officers were not sufficiently controlled. He also required a place as an intermediate penitentiary, where those who had been in gangs of punishment could be drafted for a time, previous to their transmission to Hobart Town for assignment. Mr. Welsh, was, therefore, sent round to survey the port, accompanied by Mr. Roberts of Bruni, who was to observe the character of timber &c. The report was so favourable, that sixteen men were despatched thither under Mr. Russell, assistant surgeon of the 63rd, in September, 1830. The successive commandants were Captain Mahon, Major Briggs, Captain Gibbons, and Captain Booth; the last, who was a good disciplinarian, was appointed on St. Patrick's Day, 1833. The settlement was admirably situated, and the disposition of dwellings upon the rising ground had a pleasing effect, especially after the erection of the noble stone church and its towering spire. Upon the introduction of the Probation System in 1841, several extensive establishments were formed in different parts of Tasman's Peninsula. Point Puer, or Boy Point, was two miles from the chief station of Port Arthur, and between Opossum Bay and Safety Cove. In 1830 the juvenile male prisoners, the neglected orphans of society, were there placed under rigid and corrective discipline. They were taught various handicrafts, and instructed in secular and religious knowledge. The Rev. John Manton, now of Horton College, Tasmania, was the chaplain, and Lieutenant Montgomery the superintendant, in 1831. A military detachment guarded the neck of this slip of land. A military detachment guarded the neck of this slip of land. Opposite to Point Puer was the little burial island, Lísle des Morts. In the year of the colonization of Port Phillip, 1835, there was at Port Arthur 911 men and 270 boys; their labour for the year was valued at £16,000. The employment of the men consisted of agriculture, ship building &c. The worst were put into the carrying party, who had to bring down logs from the forests. As many as sixty or seventy might be seen clinging to a massive tree, and prenting the appearance of some huge centipede, as they swayed to and fro beneath the weight. The inequality of pressure on their shoulders was a serious trial, often ranging from 40 to 200 lbs. The members of the Chain gang had the word "Felon' stamped in several places upon their yellow dresses. They slept in separate cells, and endured the heaviest and most degraded labour. The Relief gang were the better conducted, who were allowed to use the hoe and spade. This large prison was well guarded. Escape by sea was well nigh hopeless. Eagle Hawk Neck was only 300 yards broad; in addition to the patrol of soldiery, there were a dozen enormous mastiffs chained to lamp posts at regular intervals, and some out upon rafts in the shallow water. To pass these was impossible, but some would endeavour to swim through the surf upon a dark tempestous night, and gain the shore of Forrestier's Peninsula, while others constructed rafts or boats. One ingenious fellow ventured out to sea in a washing bowl; unable to preserve his equilibrium, he passed head foremost over its side into the sea, but managed to scramble back to land and slavery. Another party made a long basket of plaited wattle boughs and covered it with old shirts. Bark coracles were often tried; the frail vessel would be found ashore, and the corpse of the hapless runaway beside it. Two men stole a packing-case and conveyed it to the sea side. They caulked it above and below and laid spars across, but for the want of a longitudinal preventer, the ark upset and both were drowned. Among the few successful bolters were two men and a boy, who contrived to get across to the mainland in a bark boat. Landing upon an unsettled part of the coast, wholly unprovided with food, they suffered the cruel torture of hunger. The men had recourse to muder and cannibalism; the boy was killed and eaten. Not long after they were captured by constables. They told their tale, and when their dreadful account was doubted, they exhibited a portion of the roasted body which they had retained for another meal. On the scaffold one of them remarked, "If men were only once to taste human food, they would want no other as long as they lived." Governor Arthur's regulations for the government of Port Arthur, dated January 25, 1833, are illustrations of this system. Four classes of persons are to be received:-- convicts under Colonial sentence, those with extra bad characters from home, those behaving ill on the voyage, and the body of gentlemen convicts. The Governor thus speaks of the last class:--"The educated convicts, whom it is desired by His Majesty's Government especially to sequestrate, will have no victims upon whom their superior cunning will enable them to prey, and that intelligence which they have so miserably abused and misdirected, will not avail them." Colonel Arthur properly calls the place "a natural penitentiary." He states the design of the establishment to be "the severe punishment of the vicious part of the community, as the means of deterring others from the commission of crime, as well as the reformation of the criminals themselves."