Читать книгу Australian History For Dummies - Alex McDermott - Страница 118

The end of the Napoleonic War meant Britain start paying attention to the penal colony again but, curiously, this wasn’t really a good thing. Scrutiny of the far-off colony of NSW started to increase — and for Macquarie, and most of the convicts and ex-convicts in NSW and Van Diemen’s Land, this scrutiny didn’t bode well.

The extended period of neglect previous to 1815 had proved to be largely benign for most colonial inhabitants. In this initial period, no-one insisted that NSW was meant to function as a place of punishment — it was just a place to get sent off to. Once here, governors were mainly concerned with keeping costs down and were quite happy to give convicts conditional freedom if they could pay their way or had a decent trade that was in demand.

With the end of the wars and the beginning of a long period of peace, Britain began to experience increased economic depression and social turmoil. Increased crime led many to begin asking questions about the current system of crime prevention and punishment. They weren’t greatly impressed by the answers.