er aims.
They were resolved to trust to the experience of other colonies
where--with a demand for labor--a rapid enlargement of capital and
diminished crime seemed to prove that the moral and material interests
of the wealthy and industrial classes were not incompatible. The social
recovery of the colony could only be effected by the influx of families,
and a comfortable subsistence was indispensable to attract them. The
arguments of the governor, addressed to momentary interests, were
overpowered by a desire to stand on a level with free peoples. The
disputants on both sides were in possession of facts favorable to their
respective opinions. Whatever evils were proved against transportation,
the labor it afforded had been long employed. Habit had reconciled the
minds of many to its inferiority; and the means of supplying its place
were confessedly contingent and remote. A new society, having no
disabilities to remove, no moral stain to obliterate, and formed of
elements in natural proportion, could not hesitate a moment. Economical
experience would dictate the rejection of slaves. But to clear away the
refuse of a long-existing social state, and to build anew, was a
formidable undertaking, however certain of reward. Many landholders and
masters foresaw the trials attending the transition, but were willing to
encounter them to attain an object beyond all price. "We wish it," said
one of their manifestos, "to go forth to England, and to England's
Queen, that we are not expecting solicitation or waiting for bribes; but
knowing what we do, and prizing as man must ever prize the sources of
gain, our resolution is taken,--relying on the sympathy of mankind, we
cast ourselves on the goodness of Almighty God, and dare all hazards,
_that our children may be virtuous, and their country free_."

The expression of colonial feeling was accepted by most respectable
dissentients as decisive. The settlers least averse to transportation
were disgusted with the ever-changing views of the ministers. In the
preceding ten years they had never known an hour's repose. In '38, the
parliamentary committee condemned assignment. In '40, Lord John Russell
stopped transportation. In '41, Captain Maconochie's mark system was in
the ascendant. In '42, Lord Stanley's probation scheme sprang up. In
'45, Mr. Gladstone projected the North Australian colony for
ticket-holders. In '46, Earl Grey propounded the Tasmanian convict
village scheme. In '47, he