re to contend against--one which can laugh our threatening
to scorn. And what are the weapons we must employ? What, but the weapons
of truth? We must diffuse right information; we must expose our
wrongs--and we must appeal to the justice of the British Nation. Let
the evils and injuries under which this fair domain of the Crown now
suffers, be laid before the English people, and a cry will be heard from
Land's End to the opposite shore, "transportation shall cease because it
degrades the British name." (Cheers.) The injuries resulting from
transportation to the colony are various. A gentleman, however eminent
his station and virtues, going to a distant part of the world must
cautiously suppress the fact, that he came from Van Diemen's Land, or
even this quarter of the globe. (Hear, hear.) Yes, Sir, our sons, who
have quitted this colony in search of a home denied them in the land of
their birth, have been compelled to conceal the place from which they
came, and to drop into the box, by stealth, those letters which were to
relieve parental anxiety, and express their filial affection. And is
this to be for ever endured? Shall our own children never know the
pleasure and pride of patriotism? Shall we not ask all the colonies of
the Australian empire to aid us in our struggle? Shall we not confide in
the justice of Australasia?

When it is said that England cannot support 4,000 or 5,000 offenders the
question naturally occurs: What has she not done? Did not England for
her Continental wars incur a debt of L800,000,000: did she not give
L20,000,000 to free her West India slaves; did she not expend L7,000,000
to combat the famine of Ireland? Is not the proposed expenditure for the
National Executive of the present year an evidence of her boundless
opulence? And yet to save a trifling outlay compared with the injustice
now done, the representative of Her Majesty is compelled to carry about
under his skirts a parcel of convictism; to deposit these tokens of
imperial interest he is driven to have recourse to artifice, trickery
and falsehood. (Hear, hear.) As England glories in her past history, and
has found means to keep afloat that flag which has never been lowered;
so she must find means to carry on a nobler struggle with her own
poverty and crime. Hitherto, Van Diemen's Land has not been heard at
home; but if by the united voices of the other colonies, a sort of
telegraphic communication can be opened with Britain, if a speak