nent settlement, and limited only to such as, "by
their good conduct and disposition to industry, should be deserving of
favor, and receive emancipation and discharge from their
servitude."[113] This opinion was still further sustained by the
comparative neglect of emigration, and the selection of officers, for
situations of authority and trust, from the ranks of the prisoners. A
comparison of property acquired by the various classes, in 1820,
explains many anomalies[114] in their social aspect, and vindicates the
policy of Macquarie himself. It is shown, that the emancipists and their
children were more than five times in excess of the free; and that their
property in land, trade, and commerce, exceeded by more than one-half
the possessions of the voluntary settlers.

To erect the barriers of caste around so small a section, and to exclude
emancipists from the common intercourse of social life, was a task no
Governor could then accomplish, without danger. The changes which
followed Macquarie's administration, especially the growth of a free
population, enabled his successors to effect what, in 1817 to 1820, had
been attempted in vain. The opposition encountered by Macquarie, and
which he resented with the ardour of his character,[115] enabled his
enemies to represent him as the patron of criminals. He was said to look
upon their offences in the light of misfortunes, which they were to
repair in the country of their exile, rather than to atone by the
severities of toil and privation;[116] and that they were taught to look
upon no title to property, as so just as that which had been derived by
passing from crime to conviction; from thence to servitude,
emancipation, and grant.[117]

The difference of opinion and feeling between the Governor and military,
led to the combination of emancipists, who did not veil their former
condition, but ennobled it by raising it to a political interest; who
adopted a designation, and formed a system of morality, to which it is
useless to look for a parallel. They returned with bitterness the
reproaches of the free, and insisted on the benefit of the proverb,
which ascribes more virtue to the vigor of reformation, than the
constancy of obedience.[118] Their advocates would ask, with exultation,
whether any emigrants were found whose life would bear a scrutiny?
Whether greater crimes are not tolerated by the refinements of vice than
those which are commonly visited with the vengeance of t