PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
T
חון
C.O.
Reference :-
885
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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55. The average annual numbers removed to
Australia in the five years ending 31st December,
1848, was-
[Van Diemen's
Land and Norfolk Island
Port Philip.
Western Australia.
TOTAL.
Males
Females
1,434
400
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1,860
616
Nil
Nil
616
Total
2,050
400
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2,476*
• The men sent to Port Philip were only "exiles." i.e. their sen- tences were altogether remitted, with the single exception that they
The numbers transported to Australia in 1849 might not return home. were as follows
Sydney
The average numbers per an- num sent in these 5 years to the public works abroad, were as fol.
Males. Females. TOTAL
lows:
Bermuda Gibraltar
371 184
580
580
555
Port Philip*
560
560
Moreton Bay
580
530
Van Diemen's Land
300
530
830
Western Australia ..
53
53
2,023
530
2,568
New South
Wales
N.B. From Port Philip the Local Government has resolved
to remove them to other parts of New South Wales.
56. The number to be transported from the United Kingdom in the course of the approaching financial year is estimated, it is believed, at about 3,600 males and 700 females. The males include 500 who appear to be expected to go to Gibraltar and Bermuda; but as the room for these must chiefly be made by the removal of other convicts from those stations to Australia, the result is the same as if the whole number were going from this country direct to Australia.
57. From the foregoing statements, subject to any minor corrections which they may require, it follows that during the latest five years for which there are returns, the numbers sentenced to trans- portation have been 4,800; that the numbers actually removed have averaged rather less than 2,500, hence that an annual surplus of about 2,300 convicts must have been accumulating at home; and further, that it is desirable for the
R
Paragraph 46.
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future to find an outlet for not less than 3,800 males and 700 females. There may possibly be the reduction of a few hundreds by the change in the law which makes the first commission of larceny no longer a transportable offence, but the state of committals and trials in Ireland is such as to render all estimates of reduction doubtful.
very To receive these convicts when they become quali- fied for removal by having undergone the prelimi- nary stages of discipline, there are at the present time
open the two settlements of Western Australia and Van Diemen's Land. All the other colonies are shut against them.
58. In Western Australia the experiment of introducing convicts is a new one, and the wish of the inhabitants for it has only been expressed in a qualified form. It would be wrong to pass alto-
gether in silence the possibility of change in this community, or the necessity which would then arise of determining how far it would be requisite to be guided by their sentiments. But without doing more than advert to that point, it may be observed that the numbers which this little colony can receive must for a long while continue very limited. Assuming that the number of convicts under coercion and on the public works in this set- tlement be gradually raised to 500, it probably will not be estimated that at the utmost more could be done than to let the whole of this number pass off annually as ticket-of-leave holders, so as to make room for 500 more from England. Even at this rate the convicts would in ten years outnumber the whole of the present free population, which by the last returns does not appear to exceed 4,500 persons.
59. The more important resource is Van Die- men's Land. In this colony the free people on the 31st of December, 1847 (including 11,000 who had been convicts), were about 52,000, and the bond about 27,500. It has no doubt been much relieved, as has been mentioned in a former para- graph, by the great decrease for some time in the number of male convicts introduced. There has heen, however, a large emigration of free people as well as of persons originally convict from this colony, as will be seen by a return which is placed
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