he state of
various convict establishments, inquiring into the conduct of the
various officers engaged, was not so generally unfavorable as I had been
led to anticipate. The negligence and irregularity of subordinate
officers cannot be denied."--_La Trobe's Despatch, November_, 1847.]

[Footnote 257: _Forster's Report_, 1845.]

[Footnote 258: Despatches: Sir Eardley Wilmot, acting
Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe, and Governor Denison.]

[Footnote 259: Despatch, 1843, No. 34.]

[Footnote 260: Despatch, 1844.]

[Footnote 261: The proceedings of the colonists, in reference to this
question, will be found in the first volume of this work.]

[Footnote 262: _Forster's Report._]

[Footnote 263: "Employment, in many cases, appeared to be merely
devised, because whether to the real advantage of the military chest or
not, they are certainly not to the colony."--_Le Trobe, November_,
1847.]

[Footnote 264: March, 1846.]

[Footnote 265: September, 1845.]

[Footnote 266: _Forster's Report_, 1844.]

[Footnote 267: "Under all the circumstances of the case, therefore, I
cannot find language sufficiently strong, to express my opinion that
convicts, considered deserving of any indulgence whatever, ought not to
be sent to Van Diemen's Land; ... for, in my opinion, it would be more
just and humane to shut up Pentonville Prison at once, than to pass men
through such a course of training, only to discover, on arriving here,
that their previous expectations are a mockery, their present prospects
worse than slavery, and their future moral ruin and contamination nearly
a certainty."--_April_, 1845.]

[Footnote 268: Sir Eardley Wilmot's despatch, 1846.]

[Footnote 269: La Trobe's despatch, 1847, No. 18.]

[Footnote 270: Letter to Dr. Hampton, 1845.]

[Footnote 271: The writer thus records his opinion in 1850:--"If
transportation were discontinued, and the colonists, under a free
government, were allowed to exercise their own intelligence and develop
the resources of their country, the stain and evils of having been the
receptacle of criminals would gradually and speedily disappear.... For
nearly ten years have the colonists been struggling to relieve
themselves from the annual importation of criminals, and throughout that
long period they have displayed a spirit and disposition worthy of the
highest admiration. Regardless of the profits of convict labor, and of
the immense government expenditure, they preferred any sacrifice to t