These disastrous, if not shameful, results without doubt
influenced a committee of the House of Commons, appointed
in 1777, in resolving—"That the plan of establishing a
colony or colonies in some distant part of the globe, and in
new discovered countries, where the climate is healthy, and
where the means of support are attainable, is equally agreeable to the dictates of humanity and sound policy, and
might prove in the result advantageous to navigation and commerce."
A second resolution was to the effect that it might be useful so to alter the laws relating to transportation to colonies and plantations in America, as to "authorize the same to any part of the globe that may be found expedient."
Sir Joseph Banks, moreover (Cook's fellow-voyager), testified before a committee of the House of Commons in 1779[1] that in his opinion "the place best adapted" for a settlement whither convicts might be transported was Botany Bay. He furnished particulars as to the needs of such a settlement with regard to food, implements, seeds, tools, &c.; and "being asked whether he conceived the mother country was likely to reap any benefit from a colony established in Botany Bay, he replied—'If the people formed among themselves a civil government, they would necessarily increase, and find occasion for many European commodities; and it was not to be doubted that a tract of land such as New Holland, which was larger than the whole of Europe, would furnish matter of advantageous return.'"
Lord North's administration was not to see his Western crimes redeemed by any successes in the East, and it may well be conceived that while war was raging in 1779, neither he nor his colleagues cared for colonization at Botany Bay. Neither did his short-lived coalition with Fox after the fall of the Shelburne ministry yield any results from the report of the committee before which Sir Joseph Banks had given evidence. It was reserved for Pitt and his friends who took office with him in Dec. 1783 to confront the problem.
- ↑ "H. of Commons Journal," vol. xxxvii, p. 311.
