For the Term of His Natural Life

Seven classes of criminals were established in 1826, when the new barracks for prisoners at Hobart Town were finished. The first class were allowed to sleep out of barracks, and to work for themselves on Saturday; the second had only the lastnamed indulgence; the third were only allowed Saturday afternoon; the fourth and fifth were refractory and disorderly characters to work in irons; the sixth were men of the most degraded and incorrigible character to be worked in irons, and kept entirely separate from the other prisoners; while the seventh were the refuse of this refuse the murderers, bandits, and villains, whom neither chain nor lash could tame. They were regarded as socially dead, and shipped to Hell's Gates, or Maria Island. Hells Gates was the most dreaded of all these houses of bondage. The discipline at the place was so severe, and the life so terrible, that prisoners would risk all to escape from it. In one year, of eighty-five deaths there, only thirty were from natural causes; of the remaining dead, twenty-seven were drowned, eight killed accidentally, three shot by the soldiers, and twelve murdered by their comrades.