mmissioners. They evaded the payment for
one year. The claims of the shippers were instantly allowed by the
secretary of state, with the usual interest; and Mr. Dowling, who had
been aspersed by the local government, was amply vindicated by the
commissioners. The colonial secretary charged him with collusive sale of
his agency to London shippers, and a fraud on the colonial treasury. Mr.
Dowling protected his character by an appeal to the supreme court, when
Mr. Horne, the attorney-general, admitted that the imputation was
unfounded, but succeeded in convincing the jury that no malice is to be
inferred from the tenor of a libel when the writer cannot be supposed to
be influenced by mere personal animosity. Mr. Dowling lost by his agency
more than a thousand pounds.

An exceedingly useful class of emigrants arrived under the
commissioners, who readily sanctioned the applications, regard being had
to the equality of the sexes. The commissioners defended their
opposition to the plans of the local government. They asserted that
private agents could never select laborers in numbers sufficient to
freight a ship; and they inferred that transferable orders for the
payment of bounty on the arrival of emigrants would be either matters of
traffic, or that private persons, discouraged by the difficulties of
their task, would abandon it in despair.

For two or three years the emigrants were satisfied and moderately
prosperous. The sub-division of town property was rapid. On every side
small brick tenements multiplied. Every mechanic aspired to possess a
dwelling of his own. But Lord Stanley's system of probation rapidly told
on the condition of the workman. He stood aghast; he persevered for a
time; he appealed to the government for protection against convict
competition. For one-fourth its actual cost his property passed into the
hands of others: in Launceston especially many suburban neighbourhoods
were deserted. The emigrants brought out at so much public and private
cost were expelled to the adjacent settlements, to begin the world anew.

One of those seasons of general distress to which small communities are
especially liable pervaded the entire colonies (1841-4). A variety of
causes contributed to augment its pressure, and to involve the whole in
commercial embarrassment. The imports of New South Wales and Van
Diemen's Land exceeding L20 per head; the high price of grain, reaching
28s. per bushel; the enormous rate of intere