SECTION IV.. "i Hope," Said Lord John Russell, "that When the House Does Come

"I hope," said Lord John Russell, "that when the house does come seriously to consider any bill having the question of transportation directly in view, it will consider the benefit of the colonies as well as of the mother country. I own I think it has been too much the custom both to pass acts imposing the penalty of transportation with a view rather to the convenience of this country than to the reformation of persons known to be of vicious habits, or to the interest of the colonies to which they were sent. We are bound to consider those interests likewise. We are bound when we are planting provinces, perhaps what may in future time be empires, to endeavour that they should not be merely seats of malefactors and of convicts, but communities fitted to set an example of virtue and happiness, and not to make plantations, as Lord Bacon says, of the scum of the land" (June, 1847). Such were the sentiments of the prime minister on penal colonisation. The secretary of the home department and the secretary for the colonies had been equally explicit. Could they really believe their own doctrine, when their practice was exactly opposite to its plainest dictates?

The revolution in the policy of the crown everywhere excited astonishment and indignation. The minister, who denounced penal colonisation as a national crime--who had pleaded the cause of the colony and pledged the redress of its grievances--who, in short, had professed himself a disciple of Archbishop Whately--continued to pour convicts by thousands where for every free man there were two in bond. Destitute of legislative and physical power, the colonists could do nothing but deprecate. Every principal town and public body renewed their entreaties. To give them in full would be but to repeat statements of similar import. However variously expressed, they could scarcely deepen the unavoidable convictions of the world.

In their numerous petitions the colonists referred to the public joy which had greeted an offer of abolition,--accepted not less as a signal interference of providence than as a proof of the equity of the British government. They slightly censured Sir William Denison who had called for four thousand convicts annually, against the petitions of 5,320 colonists, 624 parents and guardians, representing 3,355 souls; against the memorials of the clergy of every sect, the oldest magistrates, and most opulent settlers, and public meetings everywhere decisive, and they entreated deliverance from an experiment more hopeless than its predecessors. They reminded the government of Great Britain that the colony was now entitled to abolition, not only as a measure politic in itself, but as guaranteed by the deliberate and solemn promise of the minister, promulgated by the representative of the crown.

A massive volume would be insufficient to contain the petitions, letters, and despatches produced in this controversy. Colonists well qualified to maintain the popular cause devoted to this question the best years of life.

Sir William Denison, although opposed to one form of transportation, maintained its substance with a pertinacity which never wavered. He stood almost alone. He adopted the opinion that the supply of labor to the colonies of this hemisphere was within the special province of his government. The tendency of high wages to demoralise the workman and retard the prosperity of employers, are prominent topics in all his discourses and writings. Thus the masses of the people inferred that his schemes were hostile to their welfare, and that the depression of the working classes was a primary object of his policy. The opulent settlers had abandoned these considerations under the influence of higher aims. They were resolved to trust to the experience of other colonies where--with a demand for labor--a rapid enlargement of capital and diminished crime seemed to prove that the moral and material interests of the wealthy and industrial classes were not incompatible. The social recovery of the colony could only be effected by the influx of families, and a comfortable subsistence was indispensable to attract them. The arguments of the governor, addressed to momentary interests, were overpowered by a desire to stand on a level with free peoples. The disputants on both sides were in possession of facts favorable to their respective opinions. Whatever evils were proved against transportation, the labor it afforded had been long employed. Habit had reconciled the minds of many to its inferiority; and the means of supplying its place were confessedly contingent and remote. A new society, having no disabilities to remove, no moral stain to obliterate, and formed of elements in natural proportion, could not hesitate a moment. Economical experience would dictate the rejection of slaves. But to clear away the refuse of a long-existing social state, and to build anew, was a formidable undertaking, however certain of reward. Many landholders and masters foresaw the trials attending the transition, but were willing to encounter them to attain an object beyond all price. "We wish it," said one of their manifestos, "to go forth to England, and to England's Queen, that we are not expecting solicitation or waiting for bribes; but knowing what we do, and prizing as man must ever prize the sources of gain, our resolution is taken,--relying on the sympathy of mankind, we cast ourselves on the goodness of Almighty God, and dare all hazards, that our children may be virtuous, and their country free."

The expression of colonial feeling was accepted by most respectable dissentients as decisive. The settlers least averse to transportation were disgusted with the ever-changing views of the ministers. In the preceding ten years they had never known an hour's repose. In '38, the parliamentary committee condemned assignment. In '40, Lord John Russell stopped transportation. In '41, Captain Maconochie's mark system was in the ascendant. In '42, Lord Stanley's probation scheme sprang up. In '45, Mr. Gladstone projected the North Australian colony for ticket-holders. In '46, Earl Grey propounded the Tasmanian convict village scheme. In '47, he announced total abolition. In '48, another complete revolution took place, and all convicts were to be sent to Van Diemen's Land. This extravagance of upstart theory and fitful experiment without end, all tended to check colonial enterprise and destroy the public tranquillity.

In whatever sense Earl Grey announced abolition in '47, it was clear that free emigration was essential to his plan when he proposed to resume it in '48. The funds he assigned for this purpose were sums,--the cost of their exile--to be exacted from ticket-holders as the price of freedom. But these funds were wholly prospective. Insuperable difficulties opposed their collection. Nor was the principle just. The sickly and unskilful would have stood at a greater distance from liberation than the clever and robust. The successful thief could purchase his freedom, and leave behind his more honest shipmates. The criminal being confounded with the debtor, a penal sentence would have ended in a civil process. Earl Grey proposed to add to the free population by the expenditure of L10,000, granted by the parliament, but it was found that the families of convicts were to be the chief participants. Thus resumption cut off all hope of free emigration. Nor was it even desirable while the laboring classes were in poverty. The settlers had the example of New South Wales before them; where even the sudden stoppage of transportation had been followed by rapid recovery. They were willing to combat their difficulties alone. "Such," said they, "will at no distant period be the condition of this country should the government prove just. And then, with its fertile valleys, clothed with abundance and filled with life, and its pure salubrious atmosphere giving length of days, it will need no other attractions than nature has conferred--no other commerce than the commerce of freedom--no patronage save the enterprise of its children. From the crown we ask nothing except to spare us from further wrong, and to accept our grateful loyalty in return for the uplifting of a burden too heavy to bear."

The governor himself was adverse to the ticket system. The control exercised over the holders was limited to the most ineffectual and distant surveillance. They were free in reference to the colonists, and were subject to the same laws for the regulation of service. Restrictions were imposed on their locomotion, but without much practical restraint. Sir William Denison now recommended to the secretary of state to send all convicts to New South Wales, where wages were high and labor scarce, until the colonies being equal, the market of Van Diemen's Land might again share in absorbing them. To this plan the colony would have been disposed to assent at this stage of the struggle. By most persons it was thought reasonable, on national grounds, that the theory of dispersion should be tried, wherever it might inflict no peculiar caste or moral stain. Mr. Sharland, a strenuous abolitionist, prepared a series of resolutions against the new form of convictism. The governor promised to support them in the nominee council, and they passed unanimously (October, 1848). The first totally objected to the ticket system, as in the highest degree injurious to the convicts and the colony, and without advantage to Great Britain. The second recommended the dispersion of convicts throughout the colonies, accompanied by well-selected emigrants. The commentary of the governor explained these resolutions as a compromise between persons of adverse views. A large number of non-official magistrates--117 out of 140--signed the condemnatory clause only. They declined to countenance the revival of transportation, or, by discussing theories of secondary punishment, to weaken the moral claim held in the pledge of Earl Grey.

The increasing numbers of ticket-holders confirmed these objections. They were landed, and forwarded in considerable bodies to seek employment in the interior. Their decent apparel and quiet demeanour made them less objects of aversion than pity. Unacquainted with colonial labor, they were often unable to procure employment. Amongst men of this class many, of course, were disorderly and reckless, and when they were not readily relieved, they were insolent and threatening. They could, indeed, throw up their tickets, and claim food of the government, but only by a process which exposed them to censure and punishment. "Unfortunate men," said the London Agency Association, "unacquainted with useful labor, wander from farm to farm, asking for a night's shelter or a morsel of bread. The relief of these men by the settlers is prompted alike by their humanity and their fears." These statements were disputed by the governor, but they were sustained by numerous certificates, and, in a form more qualified, by several police magistrates. In a lonely locality females could hardly refuse relief to applicants in parties, who pleaded the utmost want, and, when travelling over districts equal to an English county, depended on the charity of the settlers.

These appeals were laid before parliament; they rested their claims on the word and honor of the minister, and on the unaltered circumstances which he quoted to justify his original design of abolition. The pledge was confirmed by the long acquiescence of Earl Grey and the other ministers of the crown. Lord Mahon, a member of the late ministry, complained that Earl Grey had fettered not only himself but his successors. He confirmed the colonial interpretation of the pledge, "most imprudently given by Earl Grey, that transportation should not be resumed to Van Diemen's Land;" and he expressed an opinion "that it was most impolitic and perilous thus to make pledges to the colonists that were not fulfilled."

During the same session Mr. Gladstone repeatedly referred to the purport of this abolition despatch, and urged the minister to extend as widely as possible the area of penal dispersion. He thought the policy of England less wise than in former times, when the numbers distributed in America were so small that they were lost in the mass of the population (March, '49). Lord John Russell, he observed, had given a pledge that transportation to New South Wales should be stopped. The same promise was made to Van Diemen's Land. Had these pledges been kept? Such vacillation was discreditable to the name of this great country (June, '49).

Earl Grey was still pressed by the reiterated appeals of Van Diemen's Land, and by imputations of having broken faith with its inhabitants. The complaints of eminent commoners were renewed in the lords. He was reminded that his opinions in 1846 were at variance with continued transportation. Earl Grey demanded proof, when Lord Lyttleton held up his despatch, and referred to an opinion but a few days before avowed by Lord John Russell, that the time was at hand when a substitute would be necessary for transportation. Lords Wodehouse and Ilchester followed, and predicted a fearful recoil,--a severe and well merited retribution. Lord Stanley reflected on the secretary of state for abandoning the remedial plans of his predecessor. "Expectations," he said, "had been held out to Van Diemen's Land, that transportation would cease, but that now it appeared that it was not to cease. What security had the noble lord that the colony would not resist the reception of convicts?" Lord Monteagle asked if it was possible to send them to Van Diemen's Land? To this Earl Grey replied that the colony was thriving, that the opposition to transportation had declined. Millions had been expended in preparing the country for convicts, and the free inhabitants could not expect that when they chose to call for cessation, the imperial policy was to be altered on their demand (April 12, 1850).

"I must notice," said Earl Grey, "the remarks of the noble lord at the table (Lord Lyttleton) and the noble lord opposite, (Lord Stanley) as to the effect of the earlier measures of the present administration in producing the difficulty which is now complained of. It is asserted that the language used both in despatches and in discussions in parliament by members of her Majesty's government was calculated to create an impression on the minds of the colonists, that transportation was to be entirely discontinued, and thus to raise expectation, which it is painful now to disappoint. My lords, if that impression and these expectations were created, it was rather by what other parties represented to be the views and intentions of the government, than by anything which was said by members of the administration. I defy any person to read through the despatches upon this subject as a whole (for perhaps detached passages taken without the contents might be quoted which would convey a different meaning), and not to perceive that the view entertained from first to last was, that convicts, after having undergone the most severe part of their punishment, were to be removed to the Australian colonies, and a very large portion of them to Van Diemen's Land. Undoubtedly it was the original intention of her Majesty's government that convicts should be removed as exiles; that is, under regulations by which on their arrival they would have been entirely free except as to the power of returning to this country." When his lordship was again taunted with the violation of his promise, he replied that Van Diemen's Land had no right to complain--colonies which had been founded as free colonies might do so; "but Van Diemen's Land had been originally intended as a penal settlement, and had no right to refuse to receive any number of prisoners the government choose to send, and that he (Earl Grey) was of opinion that the authority of the crown should be firmly asserted."

Thus the hope of voluntary relief from Earl Grey was totally extinguished. He had before acknowledged that the claims of the colony were unsatisfied, and had given no distinct denial of the pledge; but his tone under these rebukes was authoritative and menacing. Passing over all he had ever said in favor of dispersion, he adopted the sentiments, almost the words of Lord Stanley, delivered four years before, when that nobleman defended the policy of transportation and denied the right of the colonists of Tasmania to complain.

The people of Van Diemen's Land, on receiving this speech, met in unusual numbers, and renewed their protests and petitions. They extended the leagues, started a year before, by Mr. Young, a Launceston mechanic, to discountenance the employment of convicts. These compacts contained various conditions, but they all proceeded on the presumption that petitions must be followed by action. They were, however, difficult to observe. It was not easy to distinguish the different orders of convicts and periods of arrival. The working-classes, to whom the confederation was beneficial, taunted employers with inconsistency when they shrank from the unequal sacrifice. The governor himself described the opponents of transportation, who employed convicts, in terms of irony, and the press took up the reproach, and weekly reiterated the charge of "paltry trimming between principle and expediency." By many hundreds the pledge was signed notwithstanding, and it was generally kept. Many tradesmen exhibited an example of self-denial and voluntary sacrifice to gain a public object worthy of praise.

When the Neptune, rejected by the Cape, arrived in the Derwent, except Mr. Mitchell, who was detained in bondage, the passengers were pardoned (1850). The painful exhibition of ministerial contempt stung more than it injured the people of Tasmania, and they declared that nothing but want of power prevented them from chasing the vessel from their waters. A solemn protest, addressed to the people of Great Britain, was signed by the chief merchants and landholders. From this time the colonists continued to protest specially against the violation of public faith whenever a convict vessel anchored on their shores. Scarcely any form of remonstrance remained to be tried. For three years the colonists had repeated their petitions. The collecting of signatures in a scattered population was attended with much difficulty and expense. To stimulate and sustain hope through so long a struggle was the great task of the leaders of this movement. The parents--the women of Van Diemen's Land--the clergy, singly--all sects together and in their separate churches, kept up by petitions a constant fire. Such a topic could hardly be expected to fix the attention of the people of England, but it derived fresh importance from its complication with the fate of other colonies and the honor of Great Britain.

The discussion of transportation for several years annoyed and distressed respectable expirees, who, unless intelligent and just, were disposed to murmur at arguments which seemed to glance at themselves. The caution and discrimination of the leaders of the movement could not always restrain the oratory of their friends, and many offensive metaphors or epithets dropped in the warmth of speaking, not in the circumstances to be justified. Stimulated by newspaper writers, certain educated emancipists of the metropolis proposed to form a "protection association" (October, 1850). In their manifesto they collected all the epithets calculated to wound the feelings of "their people," for so they called them, and drew out columns of "grievances"--in the mock sentimental style of pseudo martyrdom. "Such," said they, "is our truly melancholy condition: but the time has arrived to rescue our people." "We know the silent grandeur of our strength." They proposed to put down the abolition press, to send emancipists to the Council, and to assert the majesty of their numbers against their emigrant oppressors. But, though encouraged by some old transportationists amongst the magistrates, and by the government press, the scheme was too monstrous for success. The respectable expirees stood aloof, and even detested an organisation founded on the reminiscences of crime. A few noisy meetings and inflammatory speeches were sufficient to open the eyes of most to the gulf of caste into which their own protectors intended to fling them. The deputations to the country districts were met in some instances coldly, and in others with laughter. Mr. Gregson went to the assembly at Richmond, and crushed their project by a calm exposition of its character. From this moment the Union languished, and soon disappeared, leaving a memorable warning against penal colonization and the creation of a caste embittered by ignorance and revenge.

It was, however, felt by the colonists that no expression of the public will would recall the minister to a sense of justice, or command the effectual protection of parliament. The measures adopted by the Cape were impracticable in Van Diemen's Land: if, indeed, consistent with loyalty, they were not proper in a country where the support of the law was necessary to restrain the convict population. Such a course was predicted and recommended by the English press, but the ministers, better informed, felt no danger of active or passive resistance.

Whatever compassion might be felt for Van Diemen's Land in the adjacent colonies, hitherto its treatment by the minister had produced no demonstration in its favor. It had been held up as a warning to stimulate resistance to any participation in its fate. The continental press pointed to its prostration with epithets of reproach, and it was described as the dust-hole of the empire. The sympathy of its neighbors was overpowered by the stronger feeling of self-preservation. It seemed like a mill-stone strung to the neck of the Australian world, and destined to drag it down to perdition. Under this impression they sought to impose restrictions on the migration of expirees and the holders of conditional pardons. The legislature of New South Wales passed a vagrant act, which required such persons to register their names at the nearest police-office, within a given time after their arrival. Earl Grey disallowed this ordinance, at the recommendation of Sir William Denison, as not only in itself oppressive, but calculated to retard dispersion, and counteract the royal prerogative. The great argument of the advocates for transportation in New South Wales was, however, founded on the impossibility of checking indirect transportation through Van Diemen's Land. Men landed in Tasmania, crossed over to Port Phillip, and were often traced by their depredations.

The sense of impotence is not the least painful element of unjust suffering. This weakness was the topic of exulting scorn with the few enemies of the popular cause. The people were without allies or protectors, and completely subject to a despotic will.

FOOTNOTES:

"The solemn Declaration of the undersigned Colonists of Van Diemen's Land, addressed to the British nation.

"On the 5th day of April, 1850, the ship Neptune, the vessel freighted with convicts to the Cape of Good Hope, but rejected by its inhabitants, anchored in the port of Hobart Town, under the orders of the right honorable the secretary of state, Earl Grey.

"Our reiterated petitions presented to her Majesty's government have impressed the feelings of every class upon the subject of transportation, and exhausted every argument which could enforce its abolition.

"The ministers of religion, the parents of 20,000 children, the magistrates almost unanimously, have in every form expostulated and implored; nothing that the constitution authorises remains to be done to make known the most unhappy and oppressed condition of this country....

"We cannot resist the oppression of the British government. We are convinced that appeals to the justice and humanity of the ministry are utterly unavailing; and that the principles which have induced them to relieve armed or rebellious colonies, lead to the oppression or contemptuous disregard of those who are too feeble for effectual resistance.

"We have patiently awaited redress; we have borne illegal taxes, imposed by a council of crown nominees, and maintained by the amoval of one judge and the appointment of another; and have appealed only to the provisions of the constitutional law of England--but in vain.

"And now, to fill up the measure of our wrong, ministers have publicly announced their contempt for our petitions, by ordering the Neptune to our port, and discharging her passengers upon our shores.

"In such circumstances silence would be criminal. As citizens and parents we hereby solemnly protest against the cruelty and falsehood of the English government--against the wrongs which threaten and oppress ourselves and our children.

"Van Diemen's Land, April, 1850."]