Transcribed from the 3 June 1823 edition of The Strabane Morning Post newspaper, by permission of The British Library: Transportation under the Insurrection Act. It was impossible to witness, without the most painful reflections, the body of young and able men, who have been lately transferred from the gaol of this city to the convict ship at Cove--to atone in another hemisphere of the globe, in slavery and exile, for the wrongs committed against the laws of their native country. It is cause of sorrow to those who concern themselves with the well-being of their fellow men, and countrymen, to see public justice doomed to the necessity of making examples of so many after this way, who might have contributed impartially to the strength and welfare of their native land, had their minds been early imbued with any sense of their moral duties. The majority of those unfortunate men were but in the very morning of their days--models of strength and activity in their forms--all possessing some property--all able to provide themselves with superfluous accommodations for the voyage--and there are among them ingenious and informed, and capable of being serviceable in many useful departments of life. They went off--some with the levity which belongs to thoughtless spirits--some with affected gaiety--none with appearances of depression; but making allowances for those airs of fortitude with which men under difficulties will sometimes endeavour to disguise their inward agonies--perhaps much of this disengaged and indifferent manner is to be attributed to some very false notions that are prevalent among the humbler orders of the people, respecting the nature of the place which is appointed for their exile. They have been taught to believe that they are destined to a land of abundance and comfort; where civilization provides free employment, and where they will be permitted to follow their ordinary occupations upon conditions of advantage to their interests. The whole of this notion is founded in complete error. The convict is handed over on his arrival at the appointed place to a master, who applies for him as a slave, and with him the convict must work out his painful term of servitude in years of labour, and with no further attention to his state than is necessary to preserve life--just such food and clothing as may sustain him in health, and may render him the more equal to the discharge of the task allotted to him--his place of rest is in general in a gaol--and it is only by the most careful behaviour and exemplary good conduct that this condition of a convict can be softened in any considerable degree. Nor is the convict now transmitted to that part of New South Wales, in which, after a very long struggle with difficulties of all kinds, civilization has made some imperfect progress. Three new Settlements have been founded on another part of the coast of New Holland, the seat of the government. The names of those places are, Moreton Bay, Port Bowen, and Port Curtis. Moreton Bay is situated in 27 deg. 30 min. South Latitude; Port Curtis in 24 deg., and Port Bowen in 22 deg. 28 min., the distance of the nearest to Port Jackson is 380 miles. To one or other of those places convicts will in future be taken; and here, where nothing is found ready provided for the new comers, the convicts must work, to raise up necessary protection from the weather. The intention is, to furnish them with nails and tools, that they may be able to lodge themselves in huts of their own construction--and the bedding that will be allowed them is to consist of one rug, and a palliass filled with fern straw. The weekly allowance to each convict is not to exceed seven pounds of salt beef or mutton, or four pounds of salt pork, five pounds of wheaten flour, and five pounds of the flour of maize, and half a pound of sugar. Their dress is to consist of striped cotton shirts, duck trousers and frock, shoes and straw hats. The employment of the convicts, as soon as necessary matters be procured, is the clearing of the land--one of the most laborious tasks in which the labour of man can be employed; and thus are the years of servitude to be consumed, by all who may now suffer the sentence of transportation! Is it such a life of hopeless drudgery as this--passed on a dreary and desolate coast, in the most remote region of the Globe, that can raise pleasure or hope in the breast of man? Is it for a pittance of food, a bed of ferns, a never ceasing round of roil under a scorching sun, that a man would exchange his country--his kindred, friends, home, and liberty? Here he is a man--there he is a slave?--Cork Constitution. ========================