wished also to provide a place for the banishment of
criminals. The restless energy with which fresh points
were from time to time occupied under orders from England
shows that the mere providing of a gaol was not the sole
motive for the founding of New South 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 holding of a few convicts. That Pitt's
measures have resulted in the securing of the whole
continent is a fact which no one can deny. Whether other
measures would have insured a similar result may be
speculated 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 politician in
1786 the question was—If this be the only practicable way
of appropriating these new lands, is it, on the whole, wise so
to secure them? Assuming that voluntary emigrants will
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?
Weighing these considerations, it may be doubted whether the easy censure of critics, after the fact, who condemn the institution of transportation, is altogether justified, 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 all these evils, which Bacon foreboded, Australia has been the scene. After-generations reaped the crop sown in 1788. But the House of Commons in 1787 was not as wise as Bacon, and had he then been in it he might have yielded to the necessity of securing the land in the first instance by transporting convicts to a place so distant that no colonists would go thither at their own expense. The ancient mode
