was no power but Parliament which could legally raise money within it.
"Were we to plant a Colony on the other side of the globe and to take no care as to the manner in which it was … administered? He had no hesitation in saying, that if the settlement were well governed and its resources wisely drawn forth, it might be made, instead of a seat of immorality and a nursery of vice, a source of great profit to the country."
Wilberforce, who supported the motion, dealt rather hardly with the faults of Macquarie's government and the failure to reform the convicts.
Goulburn opposed the motion on reasonable grounds. "If, … the report of 1812 was meagre," he asked, "why was it so? It was because the committee had to investigate at a distance of thousands of miles from the subject of their investigation. … In 1812 they could only procure information to 1810, and in 1819 the proposed committee could only gain a knowledge of the transactions of 1817. …"[1]
Lord Castlereagh pointed out that there was no need of a Committee, for "before the honourable gentleman gave notice of the present motion, his noble friend at the head of the colonial department had instituted a Commission and had obtained the consent of an individual … to go out to the Colony and make a detailed inquiry on the spot, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the Colony could be made more auxiliary (sic) to the administration of justice in this country, and how far its moral and religious improvements might be promoted." The motion was lost.[2]
Then suddenly the Government made a volte face apparently without further solicitation. On the 1st March, twelve days after Bennet's motion. Lord Castlereagh proposed the appointment of a Committee to inquire into Gaols, Prisons and Transportation. He made clear what were the Government's feelings towards New South Wales.[3]
"It would," he said, "be necessary to inquire if Botany Bay, as it had lately and as it still existed, had not a character more
