ured to meet, as far as possible, the views of
all parties. To carry out the plans of Lord J. Russell, he proceeded to
form gangs of from two to three hundred men, and to locate them wherever
it might be practicable to render them useful. The superintendence of
the scheme he committed to Captain Forster, who at the same moment held
the office of police magistrate, and whose administrative tact was
highly esteemed. The effects appeared, at first, encouraging, and the
despatches of Sir John Franklin gave promise of success; but in 1842 he
found it necessary to recall the favorable opinion: he found that many
great and formidable evils were rising into strength, and that the gangs
had far from realised his anticipations in the moral improvement of
convicts.[246]

It is probable that transportation would have been limited by Lord John
Russell, had not a change of ministry thrown the colonies into the hands
of Lord Stanley. This nobleman, who succeeded September, 1841, differed
greatly from his predecessors. He hinted that the colonies were not
entitled to separate consideration--scarcely to notice, in the
discussion of this question. That the interest of the mother country was
the final and sufficient object to regard; but he did not hold the
common views of assignment. He thought that it had been far too hastily
condemned. Thus it did not seem improbable that on his return to power
the former system, so highly prized by the colonists, would be restored.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 244: _Courier_, February, 1840.]

[Footnote 245: The following eloquent and touching appeal closes this
very able production:--

"I am well aware of the scorn with which the main principle recognised
in these pages--the reform of the culprit, is regarded by many persons.
I know that the task is pronounced a hopeless, visionary one. But, that
a being _lives_, is a Divine authority for believing him not to be
beyond hopes, in which his own reclamation is implied. That the task is
not an easy one, is admitted; but that is the case in reference to every
other end of penal institutions as well: and, is it really so very much
more difficult to reclaim a criminal than any other man given to vice? I
believe not;--criminals, I think, will be found even more accessible to
religious influences, sympathisingly applied, than those whose errors
have had a less equivocal stamp. Their apparent hardness of heart is not
always the native hardness of the rock, but