CO885(1-2) — Page 678

PUBLIC

RECORD O

lluilulu

Reference -

C.O.

885

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

Printed for the use of the Cabinet. May 9, 1853.

CONFIDENTIAL.

Miscell

anemy

4 XXXIV

to

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O.885

2

RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

CC RIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE PRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPY of a DESPATCH from the Duke of NEWCASTLE to Sir WILLIAM

(No. 17.)

SIR,

DENISON.

Downing Street, February 7, 1853.

IN the speech delivered from the throne at the opening of the present session of Parliament, Her Majesty was pleased to observe that she should rejoice if Parliament should find it possible to devise nfeans by which, without giving encouragement to crime, transportation to Van Diemen's Land might, at no distant period, be altogether discontinued. The considerations which influ- enced the late Government in advising Her Majesty to express herself in these Terms, were communicated to you in my predecessor's despatch, No. 137, dated the 14th December, 1852; the intelligence therefore, which will shortly reach you, will lead the Legislative Council to anticipate the gracious reception which I have to state that Her Majesty was pleased to accord to their address upon this subject, forwarded with your despatch, No. 198, of the 4th of October last.

2. The reply which you sent to the Council, in undertaking to forward this address, gave rise, I observe, to certain proceedings in that Assembly, reported in your subsequent despatch, No. 228, of the 2nd of November, which from the connexion of its subjects with that of the previous one, I take this opportunity of acknowledging.

3. I approve of that reply. It is your duty upon fitting occasions to avow the honest convictions which you may entertain respecting great questions of public policy affecting the material or moral interests of the colony, the govern ment of which you are commissioned to administer. And the occasion which you seized in this instance, to express your dissent from the views of the Legislative Council, respecting transportation, was a fitting one in my opinion, looking to the premature and unfounded inferences which in the absence of such an authoritative declaration on your part, the public would not have failed to draw from the conduct of some of your organs in the Legislative Council, which will form the subject of another despatch from me.

4. I have not time to consider the probability of the deplorable conse quences which you foretell in that reply, actually ensuing from the means which Parliament may adopt, in pursuance of the wishes of the Legislative Council, to effect, at no distant period, the discontinuance of transportation to Van Dienten's Land. I will only say that, if such consequences be of a nature which admits of their being averted or mitigated by any measures which Her Majesty's Govern ment can afford assistance in devising, that assistance is cheerfully tendered.

5. I have been thus particular in noticing your reply to the Council, because it is laid as the proximate cause of their address expressive of u want of confidence in you.

6. I have laid that address before Her Majesty. The Council, I am glad to collect from its language, is alive to the importance of maintaining a good understanding with those who may share with it the exercise of the powers of Government. Her Majesty's Government has given the best proof of the friendly

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