d by the strongest evidence of Australian loyalty to the
common law of nations. "The success of the confederation (said the first
journal of Europe), forms a remarkable indication of a feeling in all
the Australian colonies of a more elevated character than they have
hitherto obtained credit for. It becomes more than ordinarily important
to ascertain the exact nature of that moral and social atmosphere which
so large a number of our countrymen are probably destined to breathe
(October '51)."

On their return to Tasmania the delegates were greeted with addresses
and public demonstrations. The settlers, with a manly consistency,
despite the threatened scarcity of labor, adhered to their flag and
responded with cheers to those who predicted a temporary struggle and a
bright futurity. But the agents of the convict department endeavored to
rekindle the last embers of jealousy and hate. To the employers they
predicted ruin; to the houseowners, desolation and emptiness; to the
publicans the reign of puritanism; to the emancipists the ascendancy of
the free, to be followed by unextinguishable persecution. All the
sentiments and epithets known in Irish polemics and Irish seditions were
re-arranged in the convict service, and scattered with profusion. The
League was assailed with peculiar virulence, and all its distinguished
adherents held up to scorn as religious and immoral men, as hateful for
their covetousness and contemptible for their poverty. Sometimes they
were locusts, swarming everywhere; at others they were a scattered and
miserable remnant--which the government and the convict party would
speedily sweep away. The governor himself during a procession through
the colony was cheered as the great champion of the pardoned, and
placards represented that he had defeated a scheme of the settlers to
deprive them of their votes. He entered the city in state--and while he
passed under a triumphal arch, Mr. West, the Hobart Town delegate, was
publicly gibbetted. But the Trades' Union, and an association of the
Native Youth, assembled in the evening, and in the presence of many
thousands, the well-dressed effigies of Earl Grey and the governor were
thrown into an enormous fire.

Meanwhile the league was extended to South Australia. All the members of
the legislature, except the officials, joined in a requisition to
receive Messrs. West and Bell as delegates from Tasmania and Victoria
(August, '51). All denominations warmly advoca