and for other purposes of equal necessity, were greatly retarded.  I am confident also that this conduct tended to relax the discipline which ought to have been rigidly preserved amongst the convicts, and produced a general carelessness of the general interest; and it was not without some difficulty that Governor Hunter succeeded in the adoption of a contrary line of behaviour.  Habits of dissipation and indolence resulted from this pernicious mode of bartering the public for individual interest, which had taken such deep root, as to render their complete eradication matter of the most extreme difficulty:  The encroachments on the hours of labour for the crown has, however, been done away by Governor Hunter, and a a more regular system has been adopted in the allowance of convicts and other indulgences to settlers, etc. by order of the Secretary of State, since his excellency’s departure.

The custom of imprisoning for debt those persons who are employed in the public service, constitutes the 5th article of notice; and this practice had been carried to such a pitch, that dealers would readily give credit to convicts, or any servants of the crown, under the idea that they might sue the debtors for the amount, and imprison them, or obtain the benefit of their labour until the debt was liquidated.  The necessities of the convicts frequently compelled them to seek for credit, and thus to throw themselves into the power of those iniquitous designers.  In consequence of the prevalence of this practice many of the convicts were immured continually, and thus the public was deprived of their services; since they preferred remaining indolently in confinement to making those complaints to the governor, which would have led to their release, and reinstation in their former situations of labour.  Governor Hunter no sooner made himself acquainted with the mischievous extent to which this conduct was carried, than he published an order, in which he prohibited every person in trade from “crediting the servants of the crown, under the plea of their being at liberty to imprison their persons; if such credit was given, it was to be understood as being done at the risk of the creditor, on the good faith he entertained of the integrity of the persons he so entrusted, but that the public should not be deprived of the labour of its servants for the partial accommodation of individuals.”  This order was dated the 4th of October, 1798, three years after the return of Governor Hunter to the administration of his high and responsible office; and the regulation was justified by the situation of the colony, and the abuses which had sprung out of the custom.  After the publication of this order, however, I saw many persons committed to prison for debt, whose situation, as convicts, exempted them from incarceration; but this apparent breach of the regulation was entirely attributable to the ignorance of the court which had thus decided, that the person against whom their warrant