Any person acquainted with the general depravity which characterizes most of the boys who are banished after a few months confinement in prison, will not hesitate to acknowledge that they are usually more corrupt and vicious than many of the grown up, and display traits of acuteness and refinement in knavery sufficient to astonish older adepts. These boys in general are very deeply conversant with immorality and turpitude; and the boys on board the Neptune, according to information I received which left no room for doubt, exhibited this disposition in a manner at once shocking to delicacy, and subversive of every principle of virtue.
Taking advantage of the separation, they indulged in certain wicked practices, and from the privacy thus secured to them, they became every day more and more prevalent, and, had the matter not been discovered in proper time, would have ended in the inevitable destruction of the unfortunate youths. In this critical moment I had the separating bars pulled down immediately, and threw both the prisons into one. I thought it a further necessary proceeding to break up the boys’ messes, which before were distinct, and divide them among the messes of the men; all which was done without apprizing any of them of my knowledge of the disgusting cause. One of the most steady members of each mess was instructed to have a sharp look-out after his young companion, and let me know the most minute particulars of his conduct.
In this manner a visible change was soon effected, which was further improved by separating them still more from each other, placing them to sleep, one in each of the men’s berths, sending some men at the same time to sleep in their places with those who remained in that part which before was the boys’ prison. Although this cautionary proceeding effectually put an end to the odious practice which first drew my attention to the particular state of the boys, still the work remained in my mind far from being accomplished.
The seeds of vice having once taken root are not easily removed; some of the fibres will still remain, and the tares and weeds will again and again, we know, spring forth and disfigure the best of soils. I made the theatre of their wickedness a place for their reformation. Having formed all the boys into a school, I obtained a number of Bibles and Testaments, there being no other books of any kind on board fit for the purpose, and with these I tried to ascertain how many of them could read. To my utter amazement, I found that of all these boys, who were so ripe in knavery and fraud, and were ready and fluent in their own forms of speech, and were of course totally ignorant of the contents of the sacred volumes, because not able to read a syllable of their contents, few of them could distinguish the letters of the alphabet.