wished also to provide a plaee for the banishment of criminals. The restless energy with which fresh pointB were from time to time occopied under orders from England shows that the mere providing of a ^^aol was not the sole motive for the founding of New Soutli Wales. Moreover, the commission of the first Governor gave him command of the whole east coast of Australia, a space far too wide to be required for the holdieg of a few convicts. Tliat Pitt's measures have resulted in the securing of the whole continent is a fact which no one can deny. Whether othex^ measures woukl have insured a similar result may be specuhited upon, but cannot now be proved ; neither can it be affirmed that for such other measures Pitt could have obtained the sanction of Parliament. For the pohtician in 1780 the question was — If this he the only practicable way of appropriating these new lands, is it, on the whole, wise so to secure them ? Assuming that voluntary emigrants wnll go to the United States or to Canada, rather than to the antipodes, shall we, by means of transportation, insure the forced occupation of these new realms ? Weighmg these considerations, it may be doubted whether the easy censure of critics, after the fact, who condemn the institution of transportation, is altogether justiiied, unless the objector will accept the condition that, unless it could be colonized without transportation, Australia ought not to have been colonized at all Yet it must be owned that Bacon was right when he said that it was *'a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of the people, and wicked and condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant; and not only so, but it spoileth the plantation ; for they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy and do mischief, and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country, to the discredit of the plantation/* Of aU these evils, which Bacon foreboded, Australia has been the scene. After-generations reaped the crop sown hi 1788. But the House of Commons in 1787 was not as wuse as Bacon, and had he then been in it he might have yielded to the necessity of secm'mg the land in the Jirst instance by transporting convicts to a place so distant that no colonists would go thithey at their own expense. The ancient mode
