fice of president, Wilmot convened the Tasmanian
Society, formed by Franklin, and presented a series of alterations in
its organisation. He proposed that it should consist of a president,
four vice-presidents, and a council of twelve, to be nominated by the
governor; and that at first it should be limited to fifty fellows. The
project was distasteful to the original members of the Tasmanian
Society, who objected to the summary increase of their body. Wilmot
proceeded to incorporate those who concurred with his views as "The
Horticultural and Botanical Society of Van Diemen's Land." They were
then intrusted with the government garden, and the appropriation of a
grant of L400 per annum, required for its cultivation. The discarded
society complained of the haste of the proposed revolution. They thought
past services demanded a consideration of their wishes. They had
received in trust an endowment from Lady Franklin of some prospective
value; they corresponded with men of the first scientific circles; and
they had published a journal which widely extended the physical
knowledge and European fame of this hemisphere. None who are experienced
in the causes of political discontent will consider such trifles without
serious effect on the tempers of parties and the peace of rulers.

Wilmot received the government in a condition most unfavorable to his
tranquillity. The arrival of many thousand prisoners had for a time
quickened trade, and some months elapsed before they became competitors
for the bread of the free mechanics. The universally low price of labor,
the demand for dwellings, and the closing of a local bank, which
liberated small capitals, occasioned a competition for town allotments,
and set all classes to building. But this stimulus was soon exhausted,
and workmen of every grade began to suffer distress. They found hundreds
of passholders working at a price to them, indeed, ample, but on which a
family would starve. The regulations introduced by Lord John Russell
discouraged employment of prisoners in the towns, where they could
easily indulge every evil inclination, and where they abated the value
and respectability of labor; but such was the pressure of numbers on the
colonial government that its officers were glad to abandon all
reformatory theories to get rid of the crowds which idled their time and
burdened the British treasury. The free operative classes appealed to
the governor for redress. Wilmot replied by app