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CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.-CONVICTS.

paratively small number who were already on their way thither. Till a much later period I had every reason to entertain this opinion. Your Despatch of the 24th of May,† which reached me on the 13th of August, was directed en- tirely against the proposal so inaccurately described as one for making the Cape a penal colony; and indeed implied (so at least I understood it) that there would be by no means the same sort of objection in your opinion to sending to the Cape with tickets-of-leave (as a special measure, and one not to be repeated) Accordingly, I an- the particular convicts who had been actually sent there. swered these Despatches by referring you to that in which I had announced the determination of Her Majesty's Government, to defer to the wishes ex- pressed by the colonists, by abstaining from sending any more convicts, and I fully believed that the instructions I had transmitted to you on the 2nd of July, would suffice for your guidance as to the Bermuda convicts.

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7. Your Despatch of the 29th June, which was received in this Office on the 14th September, contained the first intimation which reached me of the violence of the opposition which was likely to be made to the reception of even the convicts sent in the " Neptune;" and this Despatch showed, that at its date you still contemplated receiving these convicts on shore, and providing for their reception until further instructions could be received, apparently without anticipating any difficulty in doing so. Three days later, that is on the 17th September, your Despatch of the 24th July, § No. 123, was received, from which I learnt to what a height the excitement had risen; and that in consequence of the extraordinary proceedings which had taken place, you had most unad- visedly, as I think, publicly announced your determination not to permit the landing of the convicts hourly expected by the " Neptune."

8. I have already stated that I did not immediately answer this Despatch, because I was in daily expectation that I should receive from you further intelligence, which might materially alter the nature of the instructions it might be proper to give. But, further, I considered it to be quite impossible that any instructions which could be then transmitted to you, could be of any assistance to you in meeting the immediate difficulty of disposing of the Bermuda convicts. They had for three or four weeks been hourly expected to arrive at the Cape, when you wrote to me (two months before) the Despatch I had just received. When they left Bermuda, these men had already suffered in health from con- finement in the hulks: and it was known that when they were at Pernambuco, though their health had improved, the ship was still sickly. I knew that it must also have been obvious to you from my Despatch of the 2nd July|| (which was likely to reach you as soon as yours of the 24th of the same month had entertained no come into my hands), that when that Despatch was written, doubt that the conviets would be landed; and you must have known, that in your own correspondence up to the time of your writing the Despatch of the 24th July,' there was nothing which could lead me to form a different opinion, or to call for additional instructions. Hence, 1 concluded that when this vessel arrived, and when you learned, as you were sure to do from the commander and from the surgeon, the condition of those on board, it must have been utterly impossible that you could, fail to adopt some course or other for the immediate relief of these unfortunate men. Hence | regarded it as highly inexpedient that I should send out instructions as to the disposal of these convicts, when it appeared certain that those instructions must arrive far too late for your guidance, and might probably be at variance with the determination which in the emergency you had adopted, and of which I should, probably in a few days, be apprised,

9. It did not even occur to me as possible that you could take the course of detaining these people on board the "Neptune" until you could receive further instructions, since this would involve the probability of their being so detained for nearly four months, the shortest time in which you could calculate on an answer to your Despatch. I felt the more confident that, in one way or another, the question as to how these persons were in the first instance to be disposed of, must have been determined long before you could hear from me, because, I could not believe that, however strong might be the feeling of the colonists against the Goverment for the measures which had been adopted, they would visit those measures on the heads of these unfortunate men, whose lives might be endangered by such protracted confinement.

10. After this brief review of what has taken place, reserving for anothwa

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.-CONVICTS.

Despatch all that relates to military convicts, I now proceed to give you the instructions which it appears are still necessary as to the manner in which the convicts on board the "Neptune" are to be disposed of. You will take mea- sures for sending them to Van Diemen's Land as soon as you receive from me the accessary powers, which will be forwarded to you by the earliest oppor- tunity; and you will at the same time inform them that, in consideration of what they have undergone, and of the disappointment of the expectations they were encouraged to entertain when they left Bermuda, Her Majesty will be advised to grant conditional pardons on their arrival in Van Diemen's Land, to those who shall not by misconduct havé disqualified themselves for that indul- gence. The case of the prisoner Mitchell, which is quite distinct from that of all the others, is reserved for separate consideration, and instructions will be sent respecting him to the Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land.

11. 1 have only further to add, for your information, that Her Majesty will be advised immediately to revoke the Order in Council by which the sending of convicts to the Cape is rendered legal. I forbear to express my opinion either on the extraordinary proceedings of the inhabitants of the Cape, or upon your own conduct: on the former, because I am unwilling to use the terms which would alone adequately describe what I think of their proceedings; on your own conduct, because I have not yet received your explanation of the grounds upon which you acted, and because I should be unwilling to pass any judgment-prematurely, upon your course in circumstances of undoubtedly great and unprecedented difficulty.

12. You will publish this and my other Despatch, No. 39,† Military, of this date, in the Gazette, for the information of the inhabitants of the Cape.

I have, &c. Lieut. General Sir H. G. Smith, Bart.,

(Signed) Se.

(No. 39.)

SIR,

&c.

&c.

No. 4.

GREY.

Copy of a DESPATCH from Earl Grey to Governor Sir H. G, Smirti, Bart, G.C.B.

Downing-street, November 30, 1849. 1. I HAVE received your Despatch of the 12th June,‡ marked “ Military, separate," which I have read with considerable surprise, as it seems to imply a forgetfulness of what has already passed on this subject, which I find it difficult to account for. I have to remind you that the arrangement for sending mili- tary convicts, immediately on receiving sentence, to the convict establishment at the Cape, is one totally distinct from, and having different objects from, that which was proposed with respect to sending ordinary convicts to the same colony with tickets-of-leave. 'It was intended that the latter should become absorbed in the general population of the colony, and they were to be sent by the authority of an Order in Council which, in an other Despatch of this date, I have informed you that Her Majesty will be advised to revoke, and which made the Cape one of the places to which offenders sentenced to transportation might be sent.

2. Soldiers sentenced to transportation are, on the contrary, sent under the authority of the Mutiny Act, and are placed on their arrival in the existing penal establishment of the Cape of Good Hope, where the whole cost of their maintenance is defrayed by this country, and where they are kept quite apart from the population. It was considered expedient to send soldiers sentenced by court-martial, from certain stations to the Cape (as from others they are sent home or to Van Diemen's Land), partly because this was the most con- venient arrangement with a view to existing means of communication, partly because it is of importance that military convicts should be as much as possible divided, and not sent in large numbers to any one place.

3. I have further to remind you that the arrangement for sending soldiers to the Cape has not been recently introduced. My Despatch stating that military convicts were to be sent there from the Mauritius, was dated so long ago as the 10th September, 1847; and on the 28th September, 1848, the same arrange- ment, you were informed, would be adopted with regard to soldiers sentenced by courts-martial in Hong Kong, Both these Despatches were received and acknowledged without even a hint that there could be any objection to the arrangement.

1. Nor is this all. Throughout th

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