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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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C.O.
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1 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
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DESPATCHES RELATIVE TO THE RECEPTION
different districts, within which they are required to reside.
The great objection to assignment was the inequality of the condition in which it placed different convicts, so that some might be unduly favoured by the partiality, and others be unduly oppressed by the harshness, of the employers to whom they might happen to be assigned. This objection is obviated by tickets-of-leave. which allow the men the liberty of choosing their own masters.
6. Before the proposal of Her Majesty's Government could reach the colony, the Legislative Council, which had not had time in the previous session to deliberate on the report of its Committee, had, on its reassembling, come to a vote disapproving of the conclusion contained in that report, and declining to adopt its recommendations. This I learnt from your Despatch of the 25th of September, 1847.* But when the proposal of Her Majesty's Government arrived, the Legislative Council reconsidered the subject, and passed an address to yourself expressive of its willingness to co-operate in the measures suggested in my Despatch which you had laid before it.
7. This intelligence, contained in your Despatch of the 10th of April, 1848, reached me at a peculiar moment I had just addressed a Circular Despatch; to the Governors of those colonies which were considered to afford the best opening for European labourers, in which, after explaining the good effects of the measures which had within a few years been adopted for subjecting con- victs to an improved system of reformatory discipline, I made, on the part of Her Majesty's Government, an offer to send out to these colonies, if the nicasure should be acceptable to their inhabitants, such of the convicts who had under- gone this discipline as were judged deserving of tickets-of-leave. From the address of the Legislative Council, which not many months before I had received from' you on the subject of emigration, I had every reason to believe that so urgent a demand for labour then prevailed in New South Wales as to render an immediate and large supply of labourers an object of vital interest to the colony. These circumstances rendered me very unwilling to disappoint the inhabitants of the supply of labour which they might justly expect from the communications which had passed between the Legislative Council and Her Majesty's Government. On the other hand, the close of the session rendered it impossible at that time to apply to Parliament for a grant to meet the expense of sending out free emigrants in equal numbers with the convicts who might be sent to New South Wales; and the financial condition of this country had also become such that I could not feel any confidence that in the ensuing session it would be found that Parliament could with propriety he called upon to grant the money which would be required for this purpose.
8. The question, therefore, to be determined by Her Majesty's Government was whether, because it was out of their power to send out in equal numbers both convicts and free labourers, as had been originally proposed, they should abstain from sending either the one or the other? or whether, on the other hand, they should, until a further communication could be received from you, send out the convicts who were expected, and whose services were believed to be so urgently required? at the same time explaining to you why the plan could not be carried into execution exactly as it had been agreed to, and also inform- ing you that if you should find the colonists unwilling to receive convicts unaccompanied by the promised mumber of free emigrants, the trausmission of convicts to the colony in this manner should be discontinued as soon as you should so report to me Parliament being at the same time applied to for the means of redeeming the promise which had been made, by sending out as many free emigrants as there might have been convics already sent. Upon full consideration, it appeared to me that the latter was the course which it would be most for the advantage of the colony to adopt, since it would thus at once obtain a portion of that supply of labour which was represented to be indis pensable in order to avert the most serious inconvenience, and because, without interposing the long delay of a previous correspondence with the colony, the adoption of this course would place it absolutely at the option of the Legis lative Council either to close the transaction, as one to becompleted on the
* Page 31 of Papers relative to Convict Discipline, presented to both Ilouses of Parlament, by Colom.mt. 3rd May, 1848.
4 Page 35 ay simmler Papers of February. 49.
: Page 52, Shiel
§ Sa C. Fizikov, 0 Uber 5, 1847, receive | Machi 1, 1945. Page 62 of Papers relative to Emigration. presented to both Houses of Parlament by Canna ed. Angust, 1945.
OF CONVICTS IN NEW SOUTH WALES.
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terms which it had already approved, or to carry it on permanently on a different footing, if this were judged by the Council to be for the public advantage.
9. Her Majesty's Government having, for these reasons, determined for the present at least to continue to send convicts to New South Wales, did not lose sight of their original intention of applying to Parliament for the means of carrying on free emigration at the same time; and they were glad to be enabled to recommend that a grant should be made for this purpose, in the last Session. Parliament, as you are aware, assented to this proposal, and has made liberal provision for sending out free emigrants to those colonies which receive convicts. Large numbers of the wives and families of convicts, as was recom- mended by the Council, have already been despatched to New South Wales; other free emigrants, selected for their usefulness and good character, are also about to be immediately sent at the expense of this country; and, in fact, all is proceeding exactly as was contemplated by the Legislative Council when
its assent to the proposed measures in April, 1848. gave 10. Such are the circumstances under which I have received your present Despatch, accompanied by the reports of public meetings at which the most unmeasured imputations of bad faith are thrown out against Her Majesty's Government, and the boldest assertions made, that the free emigrants, who had been promised in the event of their being called for by the Council, would never be sent. The answer is, that without waiting for any demand from the Council, the free emigrants are already gone or going by means of a grant recommended to Parliament many months before the receipt of the present advices from the colony.
it
11. As I observe that in Port Phillip much stress is laid on the fact that the new convicts were holders of tickets-of-leave and not "exiles," which is only another expression for men with conditional pardons I must point out that the objection urged on this ground seems to rest on misconception. When the plan of sending out “exiles" was first adopted, convicts, who, had already undergone a certain amount of punishment, were sent out under this name with conditional pardons, but it was represented by some of the most expe- rienced officers, in whose charge they were placed, that, by this plan, men who had been accustomed to severe discipline were relieved too suddenly and too absolutely from all control. The Committee of the Legislative Council of New South Wales adopting a similar view, had most judiciously suggested that convicts sent to the colony should hold tickets-of-leave instead of conditional pardons. The measure which has been objected to is therefore merely the adoption of the course recommended by these authorities, and the whole amount of the change is, that instead of sending out convicts as was at first the practice, in such a manner as to be released from all superintendence and from all check upon their conduct, they have lately been sent with tickets-of-leave, by which they are left as free as before to earn their own subsistence, but are subjected to the necessity of removing from the towns and the temptations to which they would there be exposed in order to distribute themselves under the orders of the Government in the various districts where they are most wanted, while they are also rendered liable to be remanded to a penal condition in case of misconduct.
12. It is difficult to conceive, how the security of the colony can be impaired by a change in the constitution under which convicts are sent out, of which the only effect is to place them under these additional restraints from evil, ánd these additional incentives to good conduct. As to the want of any penal establishment to which to remand ill conducted holders of tickets-of leave to which Mr. Latrobe adverts, I have to observe, that the instructions sent to you, provided that such men should be sent to the same places of punishment with persons convicted of crimes committed in the colony, the cost which they might there occasion being charged to this country. If I am not mistaken, those who are convicted of serious crimes in the Port Phillip district, are at present sent for punishment to Cockatoo Island, or some other place of de- tention in the middle district, and convicts from this country holding tickets-of- leave in the Port Phillip district would, in case of misconduct, have been dealt with in the same manner.
13. Returning, however, from the digression I have made in order to correct the misapprehension which appears to exist on the nature and effect of tickets-
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