The Hulks at Woolwich

The terrible fate that many of the prisoners suffered whilst confined in the stinking prison hulks that were moored at Woolwich and near the Plumstead Marshes and Arsenal on the River Thames is graphically and meticulously told in the following excerpt from Victorian London - Publications - Social Investigation/Journalism - The Criminal Prisons of London and Scenes of London Life (The Great World of London), by Henry Mayhew and John Binny, 1862 - The Convict Prisons of London - The Hulks at Woolwich

THE HULKS AT WOOLWICH,

    Half an hour's journey along the North Kent Railway, past the rising meadows near Blackheath, and the bright toy villas, planted in the centre of the greenest conceivable lawns, which make the neighbourhood of Charlton - then through a long dark tunnel - will deposit the traveller within five minutes' walk of the Dockyard gates of Woolwich.
    The sign of the public-house, "THE WARRIOR," which shows a gaudy front close to the station, suggests at once the proximity of the hulks. The lazy men, in cotton-velvet-fronted waistcoats, leaning against the door-posts; strong musters of very dingy children; remarkably low shops, exhibiting all kinds of goods at wonderfully cheap prices; and street after street of little houses, where the wives of the regularly employed dock labourers advertise the nature of their industry in their parlour windows-indicate the neighbourhood of a great industrial establishment.
    Turning from the entrance of the Dockyard - opposite which is a flourishing public-house, rejoicing in the suggestive sign of "THE OLD SHEER HULK," which probably reminds some of its customers of peculiarly "good old times" - and keeping the high, dark walls of the yard on the left, the way lies past little shops and beer establishments on the right, towards the arsenal. From the elevated churchyard, crowded with graves, the sharp outlines of which are rounded by the waving of the uncut grass, the first view of the river, with the flat Essex marshes beyond, is obtained. Here, immediately opposite the yard, rises the bulky form of the great "WARRIOR" hulk, which, the authorities declare, can hardly hold together. Painted black and white, and with her naked and puny-looking spars degraded to the rank of clothes-props for the convicts, she stands in curious contrast to the light steamers that dance by her, and to the little sloops laden with war stores, and bound for Sheerness or Portsmouth, that glide like summer flies upon the surface of the stream, almost under her stern.
    From the churchyard, veering to the right along the busy little High Street, the way lies past a long line of shop windows, displaying capacious tea-pots, flanked by wondrously variegated tea-cups, and offering tempting advantages to the lovers of "a comfortable tea." A dead wall still further suggests the neighbourhood of the hulks; for there the posting-bill of the Woolwich theatre offers to the aspiring youth of the locality the lessons of "THE CHAIN OF CRIME; or, The Inn on Hounslow Heath!" Then, before the arsenal gates, which are protected by three or four stern policemen, a broad avenue is seen at noon, marked by a double row of women, standing with their arms a-kimbo, and with baskets of the freshest and reddest-looking radishes upon the ground before them, waiting for the coming of the labourers, who are about to leave the arsenal for dinner.
    As we pass through the arsenal gate, noticing a long gun pointed right through the portal, we are asked where we are going.
    "To the 'DEFENCE' Hulk," we answer.
    Forthwith we are ushered into one of the lodges at the side of the gate, where our name, address, and profession are inscribed in a police book. We are then told to pass on to the water's edge, where we shall find a policeman who will hail the hulk. Through groves of tumbled wheels and masses of timber, past great square buildings, from the roofs of which white feathers of steam, graceful as the "marabout," dart into the clear air, and through the doors of which the glow of fires and the dusky figures of men are seen, we go forward to the flag-staff near the water's edge, and close to the bright little arsenal pier, with its red lamps, and that long iron tube under it, through which the shells are sent to the sloops moored alongside. A heavy mist lies upon the marshes on the opposite bank of the river; yet, in the distance, to the right of the "DEFENCE", Barking Church is visible.
    The "DEFENCE" and "UNITÉ", moored head to head, with the bulky hammock-houses reared upon their decks, their barred port-holes, and their rows of convicts' linen swinging from between the stunted poles which now serve them as masts, have a sombre look. From this point we can just see, nearly a mile farther down the river, the heavy form of the "WARRIOR" moored close alongside the Dockyard, with the little, ugly "SULPHUR" (the washing-ship) lying in the offing.
    Meantime, the policeman, placing himself in a prominent position upon the pier, has hailed the officer in the gangway of the "DEFENCE;" and in a few minutes afterwards a long "gig," pulled by four convicts, in their brown dresses and glazed hats, parts from the hulk; and showing in the stem the stiff, dark form of an officer, steering directly for the landing- place, upon which we are standing.
    As the boat touches the shore, one of the convicts places a little mat upon the cushioned seats, upon which we tread as we jump into the craft, telling the officer that we hear an order for the governor. With wonderful precision the convict boatmen obey the orders of the officer, and point the boat's bows back again to the gangway of the hulk.
    In a few minutes we are aboard; and, as we pass up the gangway steps, we hear one officer repeat to the other - "For the governor!" And then a warder, with a bright bunch of keys attached by a chain to his waist, conducts us to the governor's drawing-room - a pretty apartment, where, from the stern-windows of the hulk, there is a very picturesque view of the river.

The History of the Hulks.

     The idea of converting old ships into prisons arose when, on the breaking out of the American War of Independence, the transportation of our convicts to our transatlantic possessions became an impossibility. For the moment a good was effected, for the crowded prisons were relieved; but from the time when the pressure upon the prisons ceased, down to the present, when the hulks may be said to be doomed, all writers on penology have agreed in condemning the use of old ships for the purposes of penal discipline.
    If, however, we follow the wording of the 19th Geo. III., cap. 74, in which the use of ships for prisons is referred to, we shall perceive that an idea of turning convict labour to account, for cleansing the Thames and other navigable rivers, had probably directed the attention of government to the possibility of arranging ships for their crowds of convicts.*

[* The section of the act referred to runs thus:-
    "And, for the more severe and effectual punishment of atrocious and daring offenders, be it further enacted That, from and after the First Day of July, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine, where any Male Person . . . shall be lawfully convicted of Grand Larceny, or any other Crime, except Petty Larceny, for which he shall be liable by Law to be transported to any Parts beyond the Seas, it shall and may be lawful for the Court . . . to order and adjudge that such Person . . . shall be punished by being kept on Board Ships or Vessels properly accommodated for the Security, Employment, and Health of the Persons to be confined therein, and by being employed in Hard Labour in the raising Sand, Soil, and Gravel from, and cleansing, the River Thames, or any other River Navigable for Ships of Burthen," &c., &c.]

The "JUSTITIA," an old Indiaman, and the "CENSOR," a frigate, were the first floating prisons established in England. This system, though condemned by such men as Howard and Sir William Blackstone,*  [*London Prisons, by Hepworth Dixon, page 124.] was not only persevered in, but extended; till, on the 1st of January, 1841, there were 3,552 convicts on board the various hulks in England.*

[* In 1841, the gross number of convicts received on board the hulks in England during the year was 3,625, and these were natives of the following countries, in the following proportion:-
3,108 were born in England.
80 were born in Wales
229 were born in Scotland
180 were born in Ireland
13 were born in British Colonies
15 were born in Foreign States

Their occupations had been as follows:-
304 had been Agriculturists.
1,176 had been Mechanics and persons instructed in manufactures.
1,986 had been Labourers and persons not instructed in manufactures
82 had been Domestic servants.
69 had been Clerks, shopmen, and persons employed confidentially.
8 had been Superior class, or men of education.

As regards the religion of these same 3,625 convicts, the subjoined are the statistics:-
2,934 belong to the Established Church
269 belong to the Roman Catholic ditto
167 belonged to the Scotch ditto.
245 were Dissenters
9 were Jews.
1 were of "another denomination."

Concerning their prison "antecedents"-
1,451 were first-offence men
487 had been in prison before
1625 had been convicted before
10 had been in penitentiary
52 had been transported before

Their ages were as follows
3 were under 10 years old
213 were from 10 to 15 years old
958 were from 15 to 20 years old
1612 were from 20 to 30 years old
839 were above 30 years old

Lastly:-
1,103 were married
2,522 were single.]

In 1854 the numbers so confined had been reduced to 1298.
    Some idea of the sanitary condition of these establishments, even so recently as 1841, may be gathered from the report of Mr. Peter Bossy, surgeon of the "WARRIOR" hulk, off Woolwich, which shows that in that year, among 638 convicts on board, there were no less than 400 cases of admission to the hospital, and 38 deaths! At this period there were no less than 11 ships (including those stationed at Bermuda, and the "Euryalus," for juvenile convicts) used by the British government for the purposes of penal discipline - if discipline the then state of things could possibly be called.
    There are still officers in the Woolwich hulks who remember a time when the "Justitia" (a second "Justitia," brought from Chatham in 1829) contained no less than 700 convicts; and when, at night, these men were fastened in their dens - a single warder being left on board ship, in charge of them! The state of morality under such circumstances may be easily conceived - crimes impossible to be mentioned being commonly perpetrated.*

[* Even so late as 1849, we find the "Unité", hospital ship at Woolwich, described in the following terms .- "In the hospital ship, the 'Unité,' the great majority of the patients were infested with vermin; and their persons, in many instances, particularly their feet, begrimed with dirt. No regular supply of body-linen had been issued; so much so, that many men had been five weeks without a change; and all record had been lost of the time when the blankets had been washed; and the number of sheets was so insufficient, that the expedient had been resorted to of only a single sheet at a time, to save appearances. Neither towels nor combs were provided for the prisoners' use, and the unwholesome odour from the imperfect and neglected state of the water-closets was almost insupportable. On the admission of new cases into the hospital, patients were directed to leave their beds and go into hammocks, and the new cases were turned into the vacated beds, without changing the sheets.]

Indeed we were assured by one of the warders, who had served under the old hulk "regime," that he well remembers seeing the shirts of the prisoners, when hung out upon the rigging, so black with vermin that the linen positively appeared to have been sprinkled over with pepper; and that when the cholera broke out on board the convict vessels for the first time, the chaplain refused to bury the dead until there were several corpses aboard, so that the coffins were taken to the marshes by half a dozen at a time, and there interred at a given signal from the clergyman; his reverence remaining behind on the poop of the vessel, afraid to accompany the bodies, reading the burial-service at the distance of a mile from the grave, and letting fall a handkerchief, when he came to "ashes to ashes and dust to dust," as a sign that they were to lower the bodies.
    It was impossible that a state of things so scandalous could last; and the successive reports of the directors of convict prisons are evidence of the anxiety with which they urged upon the government the reform - if not the abandonment of the hulk system altogether; for, to the disadvantages inseparable from the conduct of prison discipline on board ship, the governors of hulks were forced to add the rottenness of the vessels intrusted to them. They were expected to govern five hundred convicts in a ship, the same as in a convenient building, and to keep them healthy - in a rotten leaky tub!
    The completion of the Portsmouth Convict Prison, in 1852, at length effected an important reduction in the hulk establishments. The "YORK" was given over to the Admiralty to be broken up. In 1851 the "DEFENCE" had been moved to Woolwich to replace two unserviceable hulks, and the "WARRIOR", which lies off Woolwich Dockyard, and is still called the model hulk, had been reported as unsound. It will be seen, by the accompanying extract from the directors' report for 1852, that they again drew attention to the "WARRIOR"; while in their last report (1854) they have, once more, ventured into a few details.
    "The 'WARRIOR,'" say they, "is patched up as well as her unsoundness will permit, but there is no knowing how soon she may become quite unfit for further use, and it will be advisable to take the earliest opportunity that offers of transferring the prisoners to some more suitable place of confinement, as any serious repairs would be quite thrown away on so decayed a hulk, if indeed they would be practicable." To this remonstrance of the directors the governor added his own, in these emphatic words- "It is well known that the hulk is in a most dilapidated condition, and scarcely able to hold together. Recent repairs, supporting the lower deck, &c., have rendered her safe from any immediate danger; but the remedy is merely temporary. She is rotten and unsound from stem to stern."
    Still the "WARRIOR" remains, in spite of such remonstrances as these, with canvas drawn over her leakages, to keep the damp from the wards, moored off the Woolwich dockyard, with 436 convicts between her crumbling ribs.
    Before passing from this brief history of the hulks, to paint their actual condition, the labour performed by their inmates, and the regulations under which they are conducted, we will quote a paragraph from the general remarks of the directors, addressed to the government at the beginning of last year on this subject:- "Our opinion on the disadvantages of the hulks, as places of confinement for prisoners, has been so strongly expressed in previous annual reports, that we feel it unnecessary here to say more than that we consider these disadvantages radical and irremediable, and to urge the necessity of adopting every opportunity that may offer of substituting for them prisons on shore, constructed, as at Portland and Portsmouth, with sleeping cells for all the prisoners. Now that the transportation of criminals can only be carried on to a small extent, it appears of very great importance that every defect in connection with their imprisonment which might lessen the prospect of its being effectual as a punishment, and also as a means of their reformation, should be got rid of as speedily as possible, and of such defects we know none at all approaching in magnitude to the association of the convicts in the prison hulks."
    It should be remembered, let us add, by the opponents of the ticket-of-leave system, that although it is from these condemned hulks, where the men are herded together and arc pretty well free to plot and plan as they please, that they are turned upon society, nevertheless, according to the directors' report just quoted, of five hundred and forty-four convicts discharged in 1854 from the Woolwich hulks only, and one hundred and six discharged before that period - in all six hundred and fifty convicts - there have been but six received back with licenses revoked for misconduct.
    As we have already remarked, however, the hulks are doomed. At the present time the "WARRIOR", lying off Woolwich Dockyard; the little "SULPHUR," a floating wash-tub for the convicts, lying opposite the "WARRIOR;" the "DEFENCE," lying off Woolwich Arsenal; and the "UNITÉ," made fast to the "DEFENCE," and used as the hulk hospital (together with the "STIRLING  CASTLE," the invalid depot, and the "BRITON" convict hospital at Portsmouth), are the only "floating prisons" in England - though, by the by, the "WARRIOR," floats only once a fortnight.*

[* STATEMENT OF THE NUMBER OF PRISONERS RECEIVED ON BOARD THE CONVICT ESTABLISHMENTS AT WOOLWICH, AND ALSO OF THE DISPOSAL OF SUCH PRISONERS, BETWEEN THE 1st JANUARY, 1854, AND DECEMBER, 1854.

Number on board	"Warrior."	"Defence."	Total
Remaining on board January 1st, 1854	421	521	942
Admitted during the year	273	298	571
Total	694	819	1513
How disposed of
Discharged to Colonies	25	29	54
Sent to other Prisons	21	22	43
Pardoned	190	216	406
Sent to Lunatic Asylums	0	1	1
Invalided to "Stirling Castle"	5	8	13
Escaped	1	1	2
Died	11	16	27*
Total	253	293	546
Remaining December 31, 1854	441	526	967
Grand Total	694	819	1513
Average daily number of prisoners	436	515	951

* 1,270, J. S., on the 20th July, drowned accidentally in canal. 1,240, J. M., on the 20th June, died suddenly from apoplexy on board the "Defence."

    The expense to the country of the hulk establishment (including the "STIRLING CASTLE" and "BRITON" at Portsmouth), in 1854, the date of the last returns, was £43,545 0s. 7d. Of this sum the cost of management (including the salaries, rations, and uniforms of officers) was nearly £14,000, and that of victualling and clothing the prisoners about £20,000; while the remainder was made up principally of gratuities to convicts (about £3,000), clothing, and travelling expenses of liberated prisoners (upwards of £1,500), medicine, and medical comforts for the sick (£1,860 odd), fuel and light (£l,500), &c.
    The hulk System, condemned, as we have already observed, from the date of its origin to the present time, has been the despair of all penal reformers. Originally adopted as a makeshift under pressing circumstances, these old men-of-war have remained during nearly half a century the receptacles of the worst class of prisoners from all the jails of the United Kingdom a striking instance of the inertness of government, as well as of its utter callousness as to the fate or reformation of the criminal.
    Convicts who have undergone the reformatory discipline of Millbank and Pentonville, are at the hulks suddenly brought into contact with offenders who have undergone no reformatory discipline whatever. All the care which has been taken at Pentonville and at Millbank to prevent the men talking together, and associating with one another, is thrown away, since the first freedom granted to the convict undergoing penal servitude is given when he reaches the hulks, and finds himself in a "mess," where he will probably meet with one old companion in crime at least. The authorities declare that in these messes only "rational" conversation is permitted, but it is very clear that forty or fifty men cannot be crammed into one side of a ship's deck, put together upon works, and swung elbow to elbow in hammocks at night without finding ample opportunity for free conversation.
    Whatever good is effected, therefore, by the systems of Millbank and Pentonville is effectually destroyed at Woolwich. The reformed convict from Pentonville is at the hulk establishments cast among companions from whom the separate system sought to wean him, while he is put to labour of the hardest and least interesting character. He was, perhaps, a shoemaker, or a tailor, or weaver at Pentonville; at Woolwich, however, he has to lay aside the craft that he has only just learnt, and is set to scrape the rust from shells, or else stack timber. Here he is not only thrown amongst brutal companions, whom it was before considered perdition to allow him to associate with, and even to see, but put to do the lowest description of labour - in some instances at the muzzle of a guard's carbine - and impressed with the idea that it is the very repulsiveness of this labour which is his punishment, so that it is strange, indeed, if the lessons of Pentonville have not been utterly erased from his memory, granting that the imposed dumbness of the " silent system," or the physical and mental depression induced by the separate system, to have worked some permanent salutary effect on his heart. /P>

Convict Labour and Discipline at Woolwich.

     "The hulk system was continued,'' says Mr. Dixon, "notwithstanding its disastrous consequences soon became patent to all the world; and it still flourishes - if that which only stagnates, debases, and corrupts, can be said to flourish - though condemned by every impartial person who is at all competent to give an opinion on the matter, and this because the labour of the convicts is found useful and valuable to the government - a very good reason for still employing convict labour upon useful public works, but no reason at all for continuing the hulks in their present wretched condition.''
    As we have already remarked, this labour is of the description called "hard;" that is to say, it is the exercise of irksome brute force, rather than the application of self-gratifying skill; still those persons who are familiar with the working of a dockyard or an arsenal, know that this "hard'' work is valuable in both establishments; for in the general report of the directors on time results of 1854, under the head of "Earnings and Expenses," we find that the labour of the convicts confined in the hulks alone was valued at £19,736 5s. 9d. These earnings, however, it should be observed, were exclusive of the estimated value of the labour of the convicts employed as cooks, bakers, washers, shoemakers, tailors, and others engaged in work merely for prison purposes.
    The directors tell us that the kind of work performed by the convicts is chiefly labourers' work, such as loading and unloading vessels, moving timber and other materials, and stores, cleaning out ships, &c., at the dockyard; whilst at the royal arsenal the prisoners are employed at jobs of a similar description, with the addition of cleaning guns and shot, and excavating ground for the engineer department - 329 prisoners, out of a daily average of 515 on board the "DEFENCE," having been so employed. "The only artificer's work," add the directors, "that the convicts have had an opportunity of performing has been, to a very small extent, in executing repairs and other jobs for the service of the hulks in which they have been confined."*

[* RETURN OF EMPLOYMENT OF PRISONERS IN THE "DEFENCE" HULK FOR THE WEEK ENDING 16TH DECEMBER, 1854

General Occupation	Average Daily No. employed	General Occupation	Average Daily No. employed	Description of Work	Average Daily No. employed	Description of Work	Average Daily No. employed
ORDNANCE (A) Working Parties (as detailed in col. 3)	329	SICK (C) and unfit for labour (as detailed in col. 4)	22	(A) ORDNANCE WORKING PARTIES		(B) PRISON WORK
PRISON WORK (B) (as detailed in col. 4)	63	SCHOOL	60	Removing and stacking timber	114	Boarders cleaning ship generally, and attending on sick at hospital	42
Carpenters	4	SEPARATE FOR PUNISHMENT (or other reasons)	3	Discharging mud	14	Boatmen	10
Smith	1		85	Shipping and unshipping stores	40	Whitewashers	2
Tinker	1	Average Daily number	515	Cleaning out sheds	10	Bed-pickers	2
Painter	1			Cleaning shot and shell	27	Net-maker	1
Sawyer	1			Carting sundries	14
Cooper	1			Digging gravel	8	(C) SICK	16
Ropemakers	2			Odd jobs not measurable	1	Sick at Hospital	6
Bookbinder	1			Making and repairing grummetts and wads	24	Ditto, complaining	22
Shoemakers	4			Repairing butt and roads	36
Tailors	6			Assisting tradesmen	27
Washers	12			Cleaning out drains	14
Cooks	4			Total	329
	101

As regards the industry of the prisoners, the directors say "the men generally have worked willingly and with good effect, considering the disadvantage inseparable from their being occasionally mixed with, or in the neighbourhood of; numbers of free labourers and others - a circumstance which requires, for the sake of security, considerable restraint to be placed on their freedom of action. Punishments for idleness, though always inflicted where the offence is proved, have been by no moans of frequent occurrence." ** [** Report of the Directors of the Convict Prisons on the Discipline and Management of the Hulk Establishment, 1854]
    The "willingness" here spoken of, however, is of a very negative kind, and might be better described as resignation, or a desire to escape punishment. Nevertheless it should in fairness be added, that the governor of the "WARRIOR" hulk reported to the directors of convict prisons in 1854, that "the valise of the convicts' labour might be favourably compared with that of an equal number of free workmen."

*_** Value of Labour at the Hulks. - -Let us turn now to the value set upon the labour of the prisoners at the hulks by the directors of convict prisons.
    The report for 1854 returns the value of convict dockyard labour at 2s. 5½d. and a fraction daily, per man; while arsenal convict labour, according to the same authority, is worth 2s. 4d. per diem; that of the convict carpenters, blacksmiths, painters, plumbers, and coopers is valued at 2s. 6d. a day, and that of shoemakers, tailors, washers, and cooks at 1s. 6d., whilst the general prison labour, working of boats, &c., is set down at only 1s. 3d. a day.
    Now, by this scale we find that the following were the earnings of the convicts at Woolwich, "as calculated according to reasonable wages, for the different descriptions of work performed, per day of 10 hours," during the year 1854:-

Here, then, we perceive that 951 convicts on board the two Woolwich hulks performed altogether very nearly 180,00 days' labour in the course of the year, and earned collectively, in round numbers, £20,000 or almost 20 guineas per head.*

[*The subjoined is a more detailed account of the quantity and the kind of work done by the convicts in the dockyard and arsenal at Woolwich:-

STATEMENT OF THE VALUE OF LABOUR PERFORMED IN THE ROYAL DOCKYARD, WOOLWICH, BY CONVICTS, IN THE YEAR 1854

Removing and stacking, &c., cubic timber, 2,825,073 cubic feet at 12s. per 1,000  . . . £1,965 0s 10½d
Removing and stacking superficial timber, 1,726,555 superficial feet, at 4s. 6d. per 1,000 feet . . . £388 9s 5¾d
Removing iron, ballast, stores, &c. 23,916 tons, at 6d. per ton . . .  £597 18s. 0d.
Weighing and stacking ditto, 25,654 tons, at 4d. per ton . . . £427 11s. 4d.
Removing coals, 46,406 tons, at 7d. per ton . . . £1353 10s, 2d.
Weighing and stacking ditto, 33,586 tons, at 5d. per ton . . . £699 14s. 2d.
Carting sundries, 3,362 loads, at 6d. per load . . . £84 1s. 0d.
Spinning and balling oakum, 228cwt. at 2s. per cwt. . . . £22 16s. 0d.
Cutting up old rope. 193 tons, at 2s. per ton . . . £19 6s. 0d.
Picking oakum 119lbs., at 5 ½d. per lb. £2 14s. 6½d.
Removing, stacking, and weighing old rope, &c. 1932 tons, at 6d. per ton . . . £48 6s. 0d.
Odd jobs not measurable:- Assisting shipwrights and riggers, cleaning out sawmills, steamers, docks, and yard, testing chain cables, &c. docking and undocking vessels, cutting up old iron, staging , pitch scraping, cross-cutting timber, removing boats, &c. &c., 266,948 hours, at 10 hours per day, equal to  26,694 days 8 hours, at 2s. 4d. per day . . . £3414 7s. 10¼
Total value of dockyard labour £8453 15s. 5d.

STATEMENT OF THE VALUE OF LABOUR PERFORMED FOR THE ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT, ROYAL ARSENAL, BY THE CONVICTS, DURING THE YEAR END 31st DECEMBER, 1854

Removing and stacking timber, 2,222,350 cubic feet, at 12s. per 1,000 feet . . . £1333 8s. 3d.
Ditto   Ditto    6,095,636 superficial feet, at 4s. 6d. per 1,000 feet £1371 10s. 4d.
Making mortar, 329 cube yards at 11d. per yard . . . £15 1s. 7d.
Breaking stones, 3,525 bushels, at 5d. per bushel . . . £73 8s. 9d.
Facing stones, 839 superficial feet at 5d. per foot . . . £17 9s. 7d.
Weeding, 59,787 superficial yards, at 1s. 6d. per 100 yards . . . £44 16s. 9d.
Raising and removing mud, 13,070 tons, at 5½d. per ton . . . £299 10s. 5d.
Removing and shipping stores, &c., 53,037 tons at 6d. per ton, £1325 18s. 6d.
Cleaning shot and shell, 247,370 No., 1s. per 24 shot . . . £515 7s. 1d.
Carting sundries, 44,550 loads at 6d. per load . . . £1113 15s. 0d.
Digging and removing gravel, 8,547 cube yards, at 5d. per yard . .  £178 1s. 3d.
Making concrete, 96 cube yards, at 1s. per yard £4 16s. 0d.
Odd jobs not measurable:- Cleaning saw mills, sheds, drains, tanks and cadets' barracks, making and repairing grummetts, wads, &c. repairing butt and roads, assisting tradesmen, filling hollow shot, whitewashing, cutting sods, mowing, making and stacking hay, spreading mud, clearing away now, &c.&c., 19,550 days at 2s. 4d. per day . . . . £2280 16d. 8d.
Total value of arsenal labour £8574  0s. 2d.

N.B. The totals above given, thought incorrect, are copied literally from the Directors' Report.]

*_** Convicts Gratuities - The gratuities which the convicts, labouring on the public works or in the hulks, are entitled to, are divided into "conduct gratuities" and "industry gratuities," both of which vary according to the class to which the convict belongs. Each prisoner is entitled to his conduct gratuity irrespective of his gratuity for industry, whilst his industry gratuities are measured by the zeal with which he labours. The conduct gratuities, as arranged in the books of the governor of the "DEFENCE," stand thus:-
        CONDUCT GRATUITIES.
        1st Class Prisoners (receive) . - . .  9d. Weekly.   
        2nd Class Prisoners ,, ,, . . . . 6d. ,,
        3rd Class Prisoners ,, ,, . . . . 4d. ,,
    The industry gratuities, or sums placed to the credit of the convicts according to the amount of work done, vary from 3d. for a "good" quantity of labour performed, to 6d. for a "very good" quantity.*

[* The subjoined is extracted from the governor's books:-
1. }                                                INDUSTRY GRATUITIES
2. } as per authorised scale
3. }
    V.G. (very good). If the number of the V.G.s is under one-third of the total number of weeks that the prisoner has been in the prison, he may receive 4d. for every V.G.; if over one-third and under two thirds of the total number, he may receive 5d.; if over two-thirds, he may receive 6d. for every V.G.
    G. (good). The prisoner may receive 3d. for every G. (unless the whole of the gratuities become forfeited by misconduct)
    O. Nil.
    V.B. (very bad)
    P. (punishment)
    B. (bad)
    I. (infirmary). Nil. The infirmary cases are liable for special considerations with reference to class and conduct but not for extra gratuity.
    I.A. (infirmary accident). Discretionary - being governed by the circumstances; but, as a rule, a gratuity is allowed according to the prisoner's previous conduct and industry.
    L. (light labour). According to class (as above), but no extra gratuity.
    The above scale does not apply where a special scale is authorised for invalids.]

    We took the trouble to inspect the books of the "DEFENCE," and can testify to the marvellous neatness and accuracy with which they are kept. When a prisoner is reported to the governor, the latter can tell, by a glance at the character-book, the conduct of the former during every week he has spent at the hulk. At the expiration of the convict's term the character-book is summed up, the advantages resulting from the prisoner's class and industry are added together, and he has a bill made ·out of the sum due to him, in the following form, which we copied from the governor's book:-

J.C. Class I.