ies, who pleaded the utmost want, and, when travelling
over districts equal to an English county, depended on the charity of
the settlers.

These appeals were laid before parliament; they rested their claims on
the word and honor of the minister, and on the unaltered circumstances
which he quoted to justify his original design of abolition. The pledge
was confirmed by the long acquiescence of Earl Grey and the other
ministers of the crown. Lord Mahon, a member of the late ministry,
complained that Earl Grey had fettered not only himself but his
successors. He confirmed the colonial interpretation of the pledge,
"most imprudently given by Earl Grey, that transportation should not be
resumed to Van Diemen's Land;" and he expressed an opinion "that it was
most impolitic and perilous thus to make pledges to the colonists that
were not fulfilled."[258]

During the same session Mr. Gladstone repeatedly referred to the purport
of this abolition despatch, and urged the minister to extend as widely
as possible the area of penal dispersion. He thought the policy of
England less wise than in former times, when the numbers distributed in
America were so small that they were lost in the mass of the population
(March, '49). Lord John Russell, he observed, had given a pledge that
transportation to New South Wales should be stopped. The same promise
was made to Van Diemen's Land. Had these pledges been kept? Such
vacillation was discreditable to the name of this great country (June,
'49).

Earl Grey was still pressed by the reiterated appeals of Van Diemen's
Land, and by imputations of having broken faith with its inhabitants.
The complaints of eminent commoners were renewed in the lords. He was
reminded that his opinions in 1846 were at variance with continued
transportation. Earl Grey demanded proof, when Lord Lyttleton held up
his despatch, and referred to an opinion but a few days before avowed by
Lord John Russell, that the time was at hand when a substitute would be
necessary for transportation. Lords Wodehouse and Ilchester followed,
and predicted a fearful recoil,--a severe and well merited retribution.
Lord Stanley reflected on the secretary of state for abandoning the
remedial plans of his predecessor. "Expectations," he said, "had been
held out to Van Diemen's Land, that transportation would cease, but that
now it appeared that it was not to cease. What security had the noble
lord that the colony would not resist the rece