ion. The minister, who denounced penal
colonisation as a national crime--who had pleaded the cause of the
colony and pledged the redress of its grievances--who, in short, had
professed himself a disciple of Archbishop Whately--continued to pour
convicts by thousands where for every free man there were two in bond.
Destitute of legislative and physical power, the colonists could do
nothing but deprecate. Every principal town and public body renewed
their entreaties. To give them in full would be but to repeat statements
of similar import. However variously expressed, they could scarcely
deepen the unavoidable convictions of the world.

In their numerous petitions the colonists referred to the public joy
which had greeted an offer of abolition,--accepted not less as a signal
interference of providence than as a proof of the equity of the British
government. They slightly censured Sir William Denison who had called
for four thousand convicts annually, against the petitions of 5,320
colonists, 624 parents and guardians, representing 3,355 souls; against
the memorials of the clergy of every sect, the oldest magistrates, and
most opulent settlers, and public meetings everywhere decisive, and
they entreated deliverance from an experiment more hopeless than its
predecessors. They reminded the government of Great Britain that the
colony was now entitled to abolition, not only as a measure politic in
itself, but as guaranteed by the deliberate and solemn promise of the
minister, promulgated by the representative of the crown.

A massive volume would be insufficient to contain the petitions,
letters, and despatches produced in this controversy. Colonists well
qualified to maintain the popular cause devoted to this question the
best years of life.

Sir William Denison, although opposed to one form of transportation,
maintained its substance with a pertinacity which never wavered. He
stood almost alone. He adopted the opinion that the supply of labor to
the colonies of this hemisphere was within the special province of his
government. The tendency of high wages to demoralise the workman and
retard the prosperity of employers, are prominent topics in all his
discourses and writings. Thus the masses of the people inferred that his
schemes were hostile to their welfare, and that the depression of the
working classes was a primary object of his policy. The opulent settlers
had abandoned these considerations under the influence of high