t might edify a
virtuous public by accounts of incessant progress and well doing, but
which, faithful to the cause of truth, must ever teem with the harrowing
evidence of the depravity of our fellow-beings. And again turn to the
scene that so frequently closes upon the career of the convict. Consider
the helpless pauperism of improvidence; constitutions ruined by vice and
profligacy; asylums and hospitals overflowing with degraded and wretched
outcasts, descending to the grave without respect and without sympathy,
quitting a world which they had only dishonoured and abused."

"In conclusion, fellow colonists, with reference to this momentous
question, let us not argue with the home government either on the law of
the case, whether that be with them or with us, or on the relative power
of the contending parties. The accidents of law or force, whichever way
they might prevail, can never remedy the social disorders we complain
of. Let us then represent to the British government, to the British
parliament, and to the British public, that in the present state and
prospects of the world, it is a great moral obligation on the part of
our parent state, not to eject her criminals into other societies
already charged with their own, but to retain and manage them within
herself."

In their address to the united kingdom they united remonstrance with
warning: "We ask our fellow countrymen" said they, "to look at the map
of the world; to measure the distance between England and her Australian
dependencies; to mark their geographical relations with gigantic
empires; and to estimate aright their future importance as elements of
her wealth, greatness, and glory. If the colonists are compelled to own
that their interests may be ruined by an official despatch--that their
name and fame may be dishonoured, to relieve the gaols of Great
Britain--if their youth cannot visit any country under an Australian
flag without being made to feel that they were born in a degraded
section of the globe, we are at a loss to imagine what advantages
conferred by the sovereignty of Great Britain can compensate for the
stigma of its brand."

"We address the words of supplication, not of threatening. A few short
years, and that which is now a grievance will grow into a quarrel. By
instant concession, an act of justice will become a monument of imperial
clemency. But these colonies are solemnly pledged, each to the other, by
their mutual interests,--their fu