ally
extinguished. He had before acknowledged that the claims of the colony
were unsatisfied, and had given no distinct denial of the pledge; but
his tone under these rebukes was authoritative and menacing. Passing
over all he had ever said in favor of dispersion, he adopted the
sentiments, almost the words of Lord Stanley, delivered four years
before, when that nobleman defended the policy of transportation and
denied the right of the colonists of Tasmania to complain.

The people of Van Diemen's Land, on receiving this speech, met in
unusual numbers, and renewed their protests and petitions. They extended
the leagues, started a year before, by Mr. Young, a Launceston mechanic,
to discountenance the employment of convicts. These compacts contained
various conditions, but they all proceeded on the presumption that
petitions must be followed by action. They were, however, difficult to
observe. It was not easy to distinguish the different orders of convicts
and periods of arrival. The working-classes, to whom the confederation
was beneficial, taunted employers with inconsistency when they shrank
from the unequal sacrifice. The governor himself described the opponents
of transportation, who employed convicts, in terms of irony, and the
press took up the reproach, and weekly reiterated the charge of "paltry
trimming between principle and expediency." By many hundreds the pledge
was signed notwithstanding, and it was generally kept. Many tradesmen
exhibited an example of self-denial and voluntary sacrifice to gain a
public object worthy of praise.[259]

When the _Neptune_, rejected by the Cape, arrived in the Derwent, except
Mr. Mitchell, who was detained in bondage, the passengers were pardoned
(1850). The painful exhibition of ministerial contempt stung more than
it injured the people of Tasmania, and they declared that nothing but
want of power prevented them from chasing the vessel from their waters.
A solemn protest, addressed to the people of Great Britain, was signed
by the chief merchants and landholders.[260] From this time the
colonists continued to protest specially against the violation of public
faith whenever a convict vessel anchored on their shores. Scarcely any
form of remonstrance remained to be tried. For three years the colonists
had repeated their petitions. The collecting of signatures in a
scattered population was attended with much difficulty and expense. To
stimulate and sustain hope through so long