r. Dickenson dwelt upon the social corruption, and
declared that it was in vain to imagine a colony, so composed, could
ever become respectable. The natural conclusion from the proportions of
the census, the amount of crime, and the character of the expirees, was
unfavorable to the colonies; but the imputation of general vice and
juvenile depravity, were made most frequently by projectors of rival
settlements, and were tinged with selfishness. The object of the
arch-bishop and his chaplain warped their judgment, and their lofty tone
induced the public to believe that they were right; yet when they
described the colonies as vast brothels--as the dwelling of banditti,
rank with the crimes and ripening to the ruin of Gomorrah--they were
guilty of injustice. Many, who labored to civilise the brutish, and to
reform the vicious, read with just indignation the statements of
persons, whose station gave weight to their accusations, when they told
the world that the children of the settlers surpassed, by the precosity
of their depravation, the dreams of misanthropy. Against these sweeping
opinions, Major Macarthur, then on the spot, earnestly protested. Dr.
Broughton, on this side the globe, made an energetic remonstrance, and
asserted that the report of the transportation committee could be taken
only as the collection of facts, which were spread over a long period of
time, and were descriptive only of a base and dishonored fraction. He
asserted that a series of the _Times_ newspaper contained a succession
of atrocities which, if combined, would exhibit Great Britain as the
most worthless of nations.

Inspirited by Captain Wood, of Snake Banks, the settlers of Tasmania had
endeavoured to check the calumnies which assailed them. A public
meeting, held when the report of the committee arrived, requested the
Governor to do them justice. Sir John Franklin warmly denied the
corruption imputed to the settlers, and the chief facts alleged against
transportation; and the clergy united in general commendations of the
liberality, decorum, and religious habits they had witnessed. This
appeal was not received with much favor in England, and the London
_Times_ pertinaciously maintained that they were mere assertions of
individuals--who represented that Van Diemen's Land, far from being a
den of vice, was the place to look for virtue.[231]

The Archbishop of Dublin presented a petition from certain citizens of
London, praying for the total a