PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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• 885
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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the Government without qualification for a continu- ance of transportation. But whatever differences of opinion might prevail, the Legislative Council was deemed by Lord Grey the only body which, upon contested points, the Government could re- cognize as authorized to speak the sentiments of the community.
42. The following are the terms in which Lord Lord Grey, November 16, 1849. Grey finally conveyed the conclusions of Her Majesty's Government to the Governor :—
“In that despatch (viz., 10th November, 1849) I had occasion to point out that owing to the aid granted by Par- liament for free emigration, the convicts recently sent from this country have in point of fact been going to New South Wales, in exact conformity with the arrangement which was approved of by the Legislative Council in their Address to you of the 7th of April, 1848*. But finding, from their present address, that the views of the Council have been changed, and that they no longer consider it advisable that convicts should be introduced under any circumstances whatever, I have to inform you that after the ship which is already engaged shall have proceeded to Moreton Bay, it is not intended that any more convicts shall be sent to any part of New South Wales. That ship having been engaged in pursuance of a course of proceeding adopted with the con- currence of the Legislature, its destination could not now be altered without very serious inconvenience.
It
"I have not, however, thought it necessary to advise that, in compliance with the concluding portion of the ad- dress from the Legislative Council, Her Majesty should immediately revoke the Order in Council in which New South Wales is named amongst the places to which prisoners who are sentenced to transportation may be sent. may be proper that this step should be taken here after, but there is nothing to make it of immediate urgency. You are aware that the existence of such an Order by no means implies that convicts are to be sent to each place named in it, but merely renders it legal to send them there if it should be judged advisable to do so. The Transportation Act gives power to send convicts to such places as are appointed for the purpose by the Order ¡u Council, and hence the necessity of an Order naming each colony to which they may be removed; but this Order is purely permissive, and contains no directions for intro- ducing convicts into the places which it enumerates. will understand that Her Majesty's Government do not intend to act upon the Order by sending convicts to New
.
You
Page 39 of Papers relative to Convict Discipline, presented
to both Houses of Parliament, by command, February 1 49.
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South Wales while the opinion of the colonists, as expressed by the Legislature, continues adverse to that measure, Though New South Wales was originally established as a penal colony, and therefore its inhabitants would have no right to complain had it been continued as such, the Order in Council which Her Majesty was pleased to make in the year 1840, directing that convicts should no longer be sent there, may fairly be regarded as virtually conveying a pledge to its inhabitants that without their concurrence the practice of so sending them would not again be resumed. Her Majesty's Government have acted strictly on this understanding of what is due to the colony, and will con- tinue to do so; but considering that the judgment of the Legislature (which must be regarded as authorized to declare the sentiments of the inhabitants whom it repre- sents) has from time to time undergone more than one change on the question, and that the opinion of the com- munity upon it has always appeared to be much divided, and still continues to be so, it would seem to be inconvenient (as it is unnecessary for the purpose of practically meeting the present wishes of the colonists) to revoke that Order in Council until it shall clearly appear that after being more fully apprized than it was at the date of the last advices of the measures adopted by Her Majesty's Government to meet its wishes, as previously expressed, the Legislature has deliberately adopted as its final conclusion, a determina. tion that no more convicts ought, under any conditions, to be sent to any part of the colony."
CAPE.
43. With regard to this colony, Lord Grey's views have been so fully explained in a recent
Recently circulated with Lord despatch of the 30th of November, that only a
Grey's Paper on the Colonies.
very brief outline of the measures adopted appears Parliamentary Paper of February necessary in this place. The circular of the 7th of
1849, page 52.
August, 1848, was sent to this colony in common with several others. Before an answer could be received, accounts arrived from Bermuda of a very inoffensive party of convicts, consisting chiefly of men who had committed their first fault by steal- ing food in Ireland at the time of the famine, and it was supposed that whatever view might be adopted at the Cape on convicts generally, there could be no objection to receive a body of such men as these, and that they would afford a particularly good opportunity of trying how far ticket-of-leave holders could be introduced into the colony with