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JESSVTION OF TRANSPOllTATlbN %Q
NEW SOUTH WALES.
The Sydney Morning Herald in testimony of
its satisfaction at the assured abolition of an in
iquitous system, sajrs : —
*' We are glad to find that hi« Excellency the
Uovemor has lost no time in othcially communi*
eating to the public the despatch of the Secretary
ot State, announcing thai no more convicts are to
be sent to this colony. The late hour at which we
received this important document prevents us from
doing more than present it to our readers this
morning ; 'but there are several points in Lord
Grey's letter of the lUth November, which cannot
be allowed to pax* without comment. We cannot,
however, omit to again congratulate our fellow
colonists on the successful result of their exertions
to defeat that small and mischievous bund who
wished to deluge the country with the ciime and
vice of Britain and Ireland.'
The official announcement, and Earl Grey's Des
patches appeared in a Supplement to the (New
South Wales) Government Gazette in the follow
ing order :—
Sydney, 12th April, 1850.
His Excellency the Governor has been pleased
to direct the publication of the following despatches
from the Right Honorable the Secretary of State,
acknowledging the receipt of the several petitions
referred to therein, on the subject of the renewal
of transportation to this colony, which were for
warded by his Excellency indue course, in accor
dance with the wishes of the petitioners.
By his Excellency's command,
For, and in the absence of, the Colonial Secretary,
W. Elyard, junk.
(No. 173)
Downing-street, 10th November, 1819.
Sir — I have received your despatch, No. 42, of
the 21st of March last, enclosing various addresses
ami communications, which have been addressed
to you at Melbourne, against the introduction of
convicts with tickets of-leave into that portion of
New South Wales together with the published re
port of a public meeting at Sydney, at which strong
objections were expressed to the introduction of
such convicts into the Middle District.
2. I regret to learn that the measure of sending
convicts with lickets-of-leave to New South Wales,
has been so strongly objected to by many
persons in the colony ; and it becomes necessary,
iu consequence of the manner in which these ob
jections have been urged, that I should briefly
review the proceedings which have taken place on
this subject, and that I should explain both the
grounds upon which her Majesty's Government
have acted, in what has already been done with
reference to it, and the course which it is intended
now to pursue.
3. On the 30 ih of April, 1846, my predecessor
instructed you, as Governor of the colony, to as
certain whether to send convicts to New South
Wales, after a previous poriod of probation, would
be acceptabh to the inhabitants. On the Oth of
November, 1846, in answering this inquiry, you
transmitted some petitions which had been addres
sed to the Legislative Council against the renewal
of transportation, and at the same time a report
from a Committee of Council expressing an opinion
in its favour, provided that it should be accompa
nied by certain measures which the Committee
recommended. These measures I will not enume
rate here , they are set forth perspicuously in the
report itself; but I may state that two leading
features of the Committee's recommendations were,
first, that free emigrants (including the wives and
Xtmilies of the prisoners), should be sent out in
number equal to that of the convicts; and secondly,
that instead of being placed in a state of almost
entire freedom, the convicts should be subject to a
strict power of control, so that if introduced, for
?example, from Van Dumien's Daud, they should
rather be so with tickets of leave than as the
holders of conditional pardons.
4. When this report reached England, the duty
devolving upon me of acquainting you, in my des
patch of the 3rd September, IS47, thit her Ma
jesty's Government could not concur in all the
proposals of the Committee, especially as these
proposals contemplated a recurrence to assignment
of convicts, a practice which had been for some
years discontinued in accordance with the opinion
of a Committee of the House of Commons, which
had advised its abandonment on such strong grounds
as must preclude its renewal. But though the
views of the Committee of the Legislative Council
could not be entirely adopted, to a considerable
extent they met with our concurrence; and they
formed the main foundation of an arrangement
which 1 proposed for the consideration of the
Legislative Council in my despatch of 3rd Sep
tember, 1847, and which included both of the im
portant suggestions oi the Committee to which I
have above more particularly adverted.
' 5. Her Majesty's Government were the more
induced to expect that the proposal thus made
might be regarded as satisfactory by the Committee
of the Legislative Council, because it was con
sidered that by sending out convicts with tickets
of-leave, after a due period of probation in this
country, the advantages which really had belonged
to the syslem of assignment might be secured with
out the evils by which, when it was formerly in
force, this system had been attended. The leading
advantage of assignment was, that it supplied the
demand of private employers for labour, and that
ic placed the convicts when they were fortunate in
their masters, 'in circumstances favourable to their
reformation, by dispersing them in the more thinly
inhabited districts of the colony, instead ot congre
gating them in large masses, or allowing them to
remain exposed to the temptations of the large
towns. This advantage would seem equally to
belong to permitting convicts by means of ticket
ol-leave, to work for their own livelihood, and at
the name time distributing them into different dis
tricts within which they arc required to reside.
The great objection of assignment was the in
equality of the condition in which it placed differ
ent couvicts, ro that some might be unduly favoured
by the partiality, and others be unduly oppressed
by the harsh ness of the employers to whom they
might happen to be assigned. This objection is
obviated by tickets of leave which allow the men
the liberty of choosing their own masters.
6, Before the proposal of Her Majesty's Govern
ment could, reach the colony, the Legislative Council,
which had not had time, in the previous session, to
deliberate on the report of its Committee, had, on its
re-assembling, come to a vote disapproving of the
conclusion contained in that report, and declining to
adopt its recommendations. This I learned from
your despatch of the 25th of September, 1847. But
when the proposal of Her Majesty's Government
arrived the Legislative Council re-considered the
subject, an4;^a»j^4 an address to yourself expressive
of its 'wifl&Majiiiflfcco-opcrate in the measures sug
gesWf!Hn|HM9^* winch you had iaid before it.
the 1 Ottf jorapflpfffrS, reached me at a peculiar
moment. I kj&ju&t addressed a Circular Despatch
'to the Governors of those colonies which were con
sidered to afford the best opening for European
labourers in which, after explaining the good effects
of the measures which had, within a few years, been
adopted for subjecting convicts to an improved
system of reformatory discipline, I made, on the part
of her Majesty's Government, an offer to seud out to
those colonies, if the measure should be acceptable to
their inhabitants, such of the convicts who had un
dergone this discipline as were judged deserving of
tickets of leave. From the Address of the Legisla
tive Council, which, not many months before, I had
received from you on the subject of emigration, I had
every reason to believe that bo urgent a demand for
labour then prevailed in New South Wales as to
render an immediate and large supply of labourers an
object of vital interest to the colony. These circum
stances rendered me very unwilling to disappoint the
inhabitants of the supply of labour which they might
justly expect from the communications which had
passed between the Legislative Council and Her Ma
jesty's Government. On the other hand, the close
of the sessions rendered it impossible, at that time, to
apply to Parliament for a grant to meet the expense
of pending out free emigrants in equal numbers with
the convicts who might be sent to New South Wales ;
and the financial condition of this country had also
become such that I could not feel any confidence,
that in the ensuing Session it would be found that
Parliament could with propriety be called upon to
grant the money which would be required for this
purpose.
8. The question therefore to be determined by
Her Majesty's Government was whether, because it
was out of their power to send out, in equal numbers,
both convicts and free labourers, as had been origi
nally proposed, they should abstain from sending
either the one or the other ; or whether, on the other
hand, they should, until a further communication
could be received from you, send out the convicts who
were expected, and whose services (were ?) believed
to be so urgently required ; at the same time ex
plaining to you why the plan could not be carried
into execution exactly as it had been agreed to ; and
also informing you that if you should find the
colonists unwilling to receive convicts unaccompanied
by the promised number of free emigrants, the trans
mission of convicts to the colony in this manner,
should be discontinued as soon as you should so
report to me, Parliament being, at the same time,
applied to for the means of redeeming the promise
which had been made, by sending out as many free
emigrants a3 there might have been convicts already
sent. Upon full consideration it appeared to me
that the latter was the course which it would be most
for the advantage of the colony to adopt, since it
would thus at once obtain a portion of that supply of
labour which was represented to be indispensable in
order to avert the most serious inconvenience, and
because without interposing the long delay of a
previous correspondence with the colony, the adop
tion of this course would place it absolutely at the
option of the Legislative Council either to close the
transaction as one to be completed on the terms
which it had already approved, or to carry it on per
manently on a different footing, if this were judged
by the Council to be for the public advantage.
9. Her Majesty's Government having, for these
rea6ons,determined, for the present at least, to con
tinue to send convicts to New South Wales, did not
lose sight of their original intention of applying to
Parliament for the means of carrying on free emigra
tion at the same time ; and they were glad to be
enabled to recommend that a grant should be made
for this purpose in the last session. Parliament, as
you are aware, assented to this proposal, and has
made liberal provision for sending out free emigrants
to those colonies which receive convicts. Large
numbers of the wives and families of convicts, as
was recommended by the Council, have already been
despatched to New South Wales; other free emi
grants, selected for their usefulness and good cha
racter, are also about to be immediately sent, at the
expense of this country ; and, in fact, all is pro
ceeding exactly as was contemplated by the Legisla
tive Council, when it gave its assent to the proposed
measures, in April, 1848.
1 0. Such are the circumstances under which I
have received your present despatch, accompanied
by the reports of public meetings, at which the
most unmeasured imputations cf bad faith were
thrown out against her Majesty's Government, and
the boldest assertions made that the free emigrants
who had been promised, in the event of their
being called for by the Council, would never be
sent. The answer is, that without waiting for any
demand from the Council, the tree emigrants are
already gone, or arc going, by means of a grant re
commended to Parliament m-tny months before
the receipt of the present advices from the co.
lony.
11. As I observe that, in Port Phillip, much
stress is laid on the fact that the new convicts were
holders of tickets-of-leave and not exiles, which is
only another expression for men with conditional
pardons, I must point out that the objection urged
on this ground seems to rest on misconception.
When the plan of sending out exiles was first
adopted, convicts who had already undergone a
certain amount of punishment were sent out under
this name with conditional pardons; but it was
represented by some of the most expeneuced offi
cers in whose charge they were placed, that by
this plan men who had beep accustomed to severe
discipline were relieved too suddenly and too ab
solutely from all control. The Committee of the
Legislative Council of New South Wales, adopting
a similar view, had most judiciously suggested that
coovicts sent to the colony should hold tickftsof
leave, instead of conditional pardons ; the measure
which has been objected to is, therefore, merely
the adoption of the course recommended by these
authorities, and the whole amount of the charge
is, that instead of sending out convicts, as was at
first the practice, in such a manner as to be re
leased from all supeiiutendence, and from all check
upon their conduct, they have lately been sent with
tickets-of-leave, by which they are left as free as
before to earn their own subsistence, but are sub
jected to the necessity of removing from the
towns and the temptations to which they would
there be exposed, in order to distribute themselves
— under the orders of the Government — in the va
rious districts where they are most wanted ; while
they are also rendered liable to be remanded to a
penal condition in case of misconduct.
12 It is difficult to conceive how the security
of the colony can be impaired by a change in the
constitution under which convicts are sent out, of
which the only effect is to place them under these
additional restraints from evil, and these additional
incentives to good conduct. As to the want o
any penal establishment to which to remand ill-*
conducted holders of tiokets-of-leave, to which Mr
La Trobe adverts, I have to observe that the in
itructions sent to you provided that such men
should be sent to the same places of punishment
with * persons convicted of crimes committed in
the colony, the cost which they might there occa- '
sion being charged to this country. If I am not
mistaken, those who are convicted of serious
crimes in the Port Phillip district are at present
sent for punishment to Cockatoo Island, or some
other place of detention in the Middle District ;
and convicts from this country holding tickets
of-leave in the Port Phillip district, would, in cue
of misconduct, hate been dealt with in the same
manner.
13. Returning', however, from the digression I
have made, in order to correct the misapprehension
which appears to exist on the nature and effect of
tickets-of-ieave, I may repeat that the plan accord
ing to which convicts have recently been sent to
New South Wales is now being carried into effect
in strict conformity with that which was sanctioned
by the Legislative Council in the month of April,
1848. It is possible that a change of opinion may
since have taken place in that body and in the co.
lony ; and it may be gathered from some of the
reports you have enclosed from the Superintendent
of Port Phillip that, to some extent at least, such
is the case ; and that since her Majesty's Govern
ment have poured in such large supplies of free
labour, the very same persons who once had been
advocates for the measure of introducing convicts
are now among its opponents. But it is obvious
that, even were it certain that this change of opi
nion were general, it could not reasonably be made
matter of complaint against her Majesty's Govern
ment that they had acted in conformity with the
wishes previously expressed by the Legislature —
nor should I be justified in assuming, in opposition
to the recorded vote of that body (the only one
which, upon such contested questions, I can re
gard as speaking the sentiments of the whole com
munity), that the colonists are no longer desirous
of receiving convicts upon the conditions on which
the address of the 7th April, 1848, declares that
they will be acceptable. It would be the less
proper to uo so, because it is obvious that this is
a question upon which very opposite views are
entertained in different parts of the colony, and by
different classes of its inhabitants. Nearly at the
same time with your report of the public proceed
ings in that part of the colony, I received from
Moreton Bay an earnest request, embodied in a
petition (of which I enclose a copy), that they
might have the benefit of a supply of convicts pro
perly selected, to satisfy the wants of labour, which
is urgently felt in that district.
14. For these reasons, until the recorded vote of
the Legislative Council in favour of sending con
victs to the colony on certain conditions shall have
been realised by an equally formal proceeding, her
Majesty's Government are not prepared to abandon
the measure ; but as it appears, as well from the pe
tition to which I have jusl adverted as from the pro
ceedings in an opposite sense at Sydney and Port
Phillip, that convicts are much more needed and will
be far more willingly received at Moreton Bay than
in the other districts of the colony, for the present,
at least, those who are sent to the colony will be di
rected to that quarter. A ship will accordingly be
despatched almost immediately to that destination
with convicts, who will be carefully chosen for good
conduct since their sentences ; and they will be fol
lowed by an equal number of free emigrants.
15. In conclusion, I have only to add, that, when
ever I may receive your report of the further deli
berations of the Legislative Council on this important
subject, the views finally adopted by that body will
not fail to receive the early and serious attention of
her Majesty's Government.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your most obedient humble servant,
Gbey.
Governor Sir Charles Fitzroy,
&c, &c.
Enclosure in Earl Grey's answer to Sir C. A. Fitz
Roy's Despatch, No. 42, of 21st March, 1849.
Rickmansworth, Sept. 24th, 1849.
My Lord — We, the undersigned magistrates and
stockholders in the district of Moreton Bay, New
South Wales, now on a visit to England for a short
time, are induced to address your Lordship, in the
hope that you will be pleased to authorise the intro
duction and continuous supply of exiles into that
district ; and we trust that you will the more readily
attend to this suggestion, as we are aware that the
Mountstuart Elphinstone sailed for that port in the
month of last May with a shipload of that descrip
tion of labour.
We are not ignorant that objections have been
raised in different quarters, and indeed in some of
the Australian colonies, on this important subject ;
but our experience, gained by -a long residence in
the neighbourhood of a penal settlement, teaching
us that, even under such disadvantages, the system
has generally worked well, whether we consider the
amount of reformation or the benefit derived by the
employers of laboui ; and we may add, that many of
our most trustworthy and useful servants have been
originally convicts.
We would not have made tbis request without
having' well considered the subject, and without feel
ing confident that we are expressing the opinion of
the majority of the stockholders in our district ; and
we would respectively point out to your Lordship
that our stake is considerable (calling* your attention
to the note aunexed to this letter), that we reside
with our families on our sheepstafioiis, and that our
own establishments alone require the services of 250
men.
We are given to understand, on enquiry at the
office of her Majesty's Emigration Commissioners,
in Park-street, that it is not their intention, for the
present at all events, to despatch emigrant ships to
any other ports in the Australian colonies, save to
Sydney, Port Phillip, and Adelaide; consequently
no labour will reacii Moreton Bay direct from the
mother country, and we shall be compelled, at a
considerable risk and expense, to forward the
newly-arrived emigrants to that distant part of the
colony.
Our last advices from Moreton Bay, up to the end
of April, inform us that labour is as scarce as ever,
and wages almost as high — shepherds, at that date,
receiving from £22 to £25 per annum, with the
usual weekly ration. Our distance from Sydney —
six hundred miles — may operate is one reason for
such continuous high wages ; but, on the other hand,
we cannot forget that our grazing capabilities are of
unlimited extent, every day producing fresh outlets,
and consequently absorbing fresh labour — so much
so, that his Excellency Sir Charles Fitz Roy has,
during the last year, deemed it expedient to make
three new appointments as Commissioners of Crown
Lands to the north, west, and north-west of Moreton
Bay.
We beg leave most respectfully to remind your
Lordship that the townships in and around Brisbane
depend in a gieat measure upon the 'squatters' for
their support ; that the increase of our sheep and
cattle during the last eight years has been without a
parallel; but unless some permauent arrangement
be adopted, so as to render the supply of labour
less precarious and less intermittent, our flocks and
herds must considerably deteriorate ^ia quantity and
value.
Pastoral pursuits necessarily involve a scattered
population — we would therefore humbly suggest that
for this very reason a favourable opportunity presents
itself of sending out men who have undergone the
probationary system here, to a district where, owing
to its enormous extent, they would be dispersed
shortly after their arrival, instead of being congre
gated together in a town.
We therefore trust that your Lordship will be
pleased to authorise the departure of two ships,
containing from two hundred and fifty to three hun
dred ' exiles' in each ship, to sail in the months of
April and October in each year, to arrive in August
and February, at a time when a fresh supply of la
bour is essentially requisite for carrying on grazing
operations.
Requesting your Lordship's early consideration of
the foregoing representations.
We have, &c,
Arthur Hodgson, J.P.,
22,300 sheep, 900 cattle, 21 horses.
Henry Hugiies, J.P.,
24,000 sheep, 1,000 cattle, 20 horses.
F. W. Biooe, J.P.,
15,000 sheep. 400 cattle, 120 horses.
Waiter D. Leslie, J.P.,
17,000 sheep, 2.500 cattle, 200 horses.
Georok R. E. Faibholmb, J.P.,
7,000 sheep, 500 cattle, 20 horses.
Evan Mackenzie, Bart; also, for Colin
Jojint Mackenzie, J.P.,
12,000 sheep, 700 cattle, 100 hones.
No. 175.
Downing-street, 1 7th Nov., 1849.
Sir — T have the honour to acknowledge your des
patch No. 81, of the 1st May last, accompanied by
a petition to her Majesty against the renewal of
transportation to New South Wales, which was
agreed to at a public meeting held at Sydney on the
9th of March, and which is very numerously signed.
I have also to acknowledge your despatch No. 105,
of the 26th May, accompanied by similar petitions
from the inhabitants of the town of Geelong and the
district of Grant, the inhabitants of the Maitland
district, and the inhabitants of the town of Singleton
and district of Patrick's Plains.
2. These petitions are all signed by the various
persons who agree to them. I have the honour to
acquaint you that that I have duly laid them before
her Majesty.
3. I have to refer you to the other despatches I
have addressed to you for a full explanation of the
views and intentions of her Majesty's Government
on the subject.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your most obedient humble servant.
Grey.
Governor Sir Charles Fitz Roy,
&c. &c.
No. 176.
Downing-street, 18th Nov., 1849.
Sir — I have the honour to acknowledge your des
patch No. 140, of the 30th June last, accompanied
by various papers on the subject of a public meeting
held at Sydney, on the 11th of June last, and by a
petition signed, on behalf of that meeting, by Mr R.
Campbell, who was its chairman, and likewise ac
companied by a memorial from a number of magis
trates, stockholders, and other residents in the dis
trict of Moreton Bay, the Darling Downs, and the
Burnett, requesting that one or more of the vessels
expected from England with prisoners of the Crown,
might land them in Moreton Bay or Wide Bay.
2. I have laid before the Queen the petition ad
dressed to her Majesty, and signed by Mr Robert
Campbell.
3. With regard to the imputation upon yourself
of a want of courtesy, I have perused with much
satisfaction the prompt testimony to a contrary ef
fect, which was forthwith embodied in a nume
rously and respectably signed address, and pre
sented to you by several distinguished inhabitants
of Sydney and its neighbourhood. The imputa
tion itself is sufficiently refuted by your well known
character, but you must have been not the less
gratified by the good feeling which suggested so
immediate and weighty a contradiction.
4. With respect to Moreton Bay, you are aware
that a ship had been engaged before the receipt of
your present despatches, for the conveyance of a
party of convicts to that destination. They will
be followed, after allowing an interval foi the dis
posal of these people and of other persons of the
labouring class who had gone to that part since
the date of the memorial you enclose, by an equal
number of free people sent out at the expense of
this country ; but afterwards no more convicts will
be sent to any part of New South Wales, in con
sequence of the address now received from the
Legislative Council.*
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
GaiY.
Governor Sir Charles Fill Roy,
&c, Sec.
Memo. — The reply to this address has been received,
and will lie laid before the Legislative Council when it
assembles.
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