continue the specially severe police regulations which had been required to control the convict population?
As to the Colony's trade, "it will … be for you to report to me whether the market may not be freed either gradually or all at once from such restrictions, whether the competition of traders will not here as elsewhere produce the most beneficial effects, and whether the Government stores may not be supplied (as in other Colonies) by public tender, with equal advantage both to the public and to the individual cultivator". "There is one other point also," Lord Bathurst added, "which I cannot avoid recommending to your consideration, though I fear there is not much prospect of your being able to reconcile that difference of opinion which has prevailed in the Colony. I allude to the propriety of admitting into society persons who originally came to the settlement as convicts. The opinion entertained by the Governor, and sanctioned by the Prince Regent, has certainly been, with some few exceptions, in favour of their reception at the expiration of their several sentences, upon terms of perfect equality with the free settlers." Lord Bathurst felt, however, that as the measures taken in this direction had certainly roused hostility in the Colony, it was important to inquire fully into the merits of the system.
The task entrusted to Bigge was indeed a heavy one, and his inquiries[1] kept him in the Colony for over a year. Four months of the time he devoted to Van Diemen's Land, and the remainder he spent in exploring New South Wales and collecting an invaluable mass of documents and evidence. He returned to England on 3rd July, 1821, and within a year the Colonial Office was put in possession of his first report, though it was not until 1823 that this was followed by the second and third.
The reports were exceedingly voluminous, containing many detailed accounts of what now seem trivial events. The cause, however, of their extreme length and minuteness was due to two facts, one that the Colonial Office were anxious for full reports on many disputes which had been communicated to them by interested parties only, and the other that it was deemed inadvisable to print the minutes of evidence on which Bigge's conclusions
- ↑ For exact titles of the reports, see Appendix.
