March 1826
Yet those who condemn the ticket-of-leave man for what they see as his unwillingness to put the full weight of his shoulder to the colonial wheel need ask themselves: why should he?
A man who has served his sentence should be able to expect freedom, yet those with a ticket of leave cannot truly be called free. They are unable to travel where their fancy takes them. They are unable to apply such skills as they have in districts where these skills are needed, if such districts fall outside the boundaries to which they have been confined. They are, of course, unable to return home.
I have noted more than once that those who lament the attitudes of many with tickets of leave are loath to acknowledge any industry on their part, and would likely ignore the greatest displays of virtue, as long as they can persist in the damaging notion that criminals are created by nature, and cannot escape their destiny. When their self-appointed betters view them thus, it is remarkable they are willing to make even the smallest of contributions to colonial society.
Yet, ticket-of-leave men do make contributions, to their own credit and to the shame of their detractors.
One such man labours in Parramatta’s Government House, as clerk to the governor’s private secretary. By all accounts in possession of a fine intellect, Hugh Llewelyn Monsarrat once used his gifts to impersonate a barrister. For this, he was justly punished. Now, he bends his intelligence to the task of identifying the colony’s most nefarious murderers, ensuring they can no longer ply their gruesome trade.
Such a man is usually shunned in the church and the street by his so-called betters. In the case of Mr Monsarrat, some of those betters would not be alive without him.