junior (a son of the more famous colonist), a young barrister, described the wool trade, and several officers of the Transport, or, as it was then called, the Navy Board, explained the arrangements of the voyage.
Anxious to present this important body of information before the end of the session, the Committee made practically no report, simply laying the minutes of evidence before the House on the 11th July, 1819.
Partly no doubt from this fact, and partly because the more important work of Bigge would soon be completed, the work of the Committee was neglected; and in 1820 Bennet published in the form of a letter to Lord Bathurst, a short resumé of the evidence.[1]
"I have," he wrote, "no cause to complain of the Prison Committee; on the contrary, I found in it a great willingness to hear all the evidence I had to offer, written as well as oral; and though, in some few instances, I think, evidence was excluded which before a House of Commons' Committee might have been reasonably admitted, yet the general object of all concerned seemed to be a fair, candid and impartial inquiry. …"[2]
Bennet admitted that to wait the return of Bigge was natural, but he thought some steps should be taken by the Government at once. These were the restriction of the number of convicts transported, the provision of civil and criminal courts, the pledge of granting jury trial in the near future, and the establishment at once of a council for the Governor.
"What is to become of the settlement? Is it to be a gaol or a Colony?—if a gaol you must bring back again to Europe all the free settlers—if a Colony, in order to maintain those who are already there in a flourishing condition, as well as to induce persons of character and property to settle within its territories, a rational, limited, legal Government must be established. Martial law[3] may be a fit mode of Government for felon con-
- ↑ See Report, etc., of C. on G., 1819.
- ↑ The written evidence was in some cases very wrongly admitted. See, e.g., some letters by J. H. Bent. Those, however, came from the Colonial Office.
- ↑ It is perhaps worth while to point out that the term "martial" is quite inaccurate. It was military not "martial".
