Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/45

---

In 1784 an Act was passed which empowered the Crown to appoint hy Order-in-Council any place deemed fitting for the tranaportation of convicts to it. For a brief time it was thought that Southern Africa would be selected, and Orders-in -Council on the subject were passed in 1785. A ship (the X^nttilus) was sent to explore the African coastj but the report was to the effect that it was unlit for settlement. A discusBion took place in the House of Commons on the subject (April, 1785), Burke assailed the project as cruel, and Pitt recommended him not to make statements ** without any better authority than report." Let him wait for the returns called for, {Such was the report made in the days when Parlia- mentary reporting made no pretensions to verbal accuracj,) Ere long the occupation of New South Wales was re- solved upon b}^ Pitt's ministry. Orders in Council were passetl, and within three years of his accession to office the plan of colonization was matured. The name of Thomas Townshend (Lord Sydney, comiected by marriage with Pitt's family) was coupled with the scheme under which that plan was matured; Lord Sydney being the Secretary of State immediately charged with carrying it on. A scheme so vast in importance and so onerous in execution must nevertheless be credited to the head of the ministry of the day, without whose approval and co-operation Lord Sydney could have neither originated nor carried it out, whatever he might have suggested. It is pleasant to think that as be had joined the elder Pitt hi denounc- ing the American war, he may, with the younger, have hoped to redress in the south the misfortunes of the west. That they had some othar motive beyond the mere removal of convicts is apparent to those who reHect that there were many nearer places to which convicts could be sent at less expense, and that efforts were made as soon as possible to induce free settlers to make Aus- tralia their home. That their motives were not suthciently apppreciated may be inferred from the fact that they were taunted with having created a settlement which would be a perpetual drain upon the mother-coimtry for a supply of food.