the head of
our colonial affairs. Like his predecessor, Mr. Gladstone complained
that the information conveyed by Wilmot and the comptroller-general,
amidst abundant statistics, left the main moral questions obscure. Mr.
Forster had passed beyond the reach of censure; and Sir Eardley Wilmot
maintained that the actual evils imputed had formed the topic of
incessant communications. He derived his impressions from others; and
seeing but the surface, was persuaded to the last that the probation
system had not failed.

The despatch of Mr. La Trobe fully corroborated the common report. His
honest discrimination was worthy his high reputation for integrity.
Nothing the reader has perused will be unsustained by his more elaborate
analysis--which may be expressed in one sentence--as illustrating both
the high-wrought theory and the mischievous practice of the probation
department:--"In spite of all the superior arrangements of the system,
vice of every description is to be met with on every hand: not as an
isolated spot, but as a pervading stain."[273]

Dr. Hampton, whose representations had largely contributed to these
official changes, which were however fortified by a mass of concurrent
testimony, received the appointment of comptroller-general. Meanwhile
the office of secretary of state for the colonies devolved on Earl Grey,
and at his assumption of office he abandoned at once all the schemes of
his predecessors. The practice of transportation he resolved to
discontinue, and in its stead to inflict punishment at home; and to send
out the prisoners, when entitled to liberation, to the various colonies
of the British empire. His expectation that their labor would be highly
prized, was fortified by the "Associations" at Port Phillip to obtain
laborers from Van Diemen's Land, and the resolutions of the committee of
the New South Wales Council, where a strong disposition was exhibited,
on the part of employers, to renew transportation. Several ship-loads
had been sent from Pentonville, and the nominal lists of their
employment and wages, appeared to assure an unbounded field for their
successors. To shut out the possibility of complaint, however, Earl Grey
sent circulars to all the colonies on this side the Cape of Good Hope.
The reply was universally adverse; and this plan, which a few years
before would have been gladly accepted, was rendered impracticable
perhaps for ever.

The total abandonment of North Australia was a su