AND TKANSPORTATION. 387 They are aware that the women sent out are of the most aban- 1789 doned description, and that in many instances they are likely to House of wbet and to encourage the vices of the men, whilst but a small view— pros- proportion will make any step towards reformation ; but yet, ^USJ^^* with all their vices, such women as these were the mothers of a ""imotheiB. great part of the inhabitants now existing in the colony, and from this stock only can a reasonable hope be held o}it of rapid increase to the population. The Committee saw no objection to the idea of populat- ing the colony with generation after generation descended from the outcasts of the streets. They not only made no recommendation to substitute free settlers for convicts, but the tenor of their argument shows that they looked upon the existing system as perfectly sound in principle. The slave trade and the transportation system have long since passed away; but it is necessary to bear iu mind how closely they had grown up together through successive colonisation ages, in order to appreciate the reasoning which, in the and ^** eyes of statesmen of the last century, justified the coloni- sation of a new country by means of chain-gangs instead of free settlers. It is difficult, in the present day, to under- stand how a colonial policy based on principles so revolting could have found favour in England, until we recollect that they were adopted in the first instance, and were main- origin o« tained in after years, because they appeared then to be a iyrtenS. natural and proper, if not the only, means of solving a very difficult problem — ^how to occupy and cultivate the waste places of the earth. No nation in Europe at that time had any surplus population seeking an outlet in the colonies.* In the present day, every nation is in that position ; although there is only one that possesses colonies capable of absorb- ing large numbers of emigrants from year to year. The old policy has so completely died out as to be almost forgotten by a generation occupied with the development of a new one, every feature in which indicates a complete
- The popnlatioii of Great Britain and Ireland in 1712 was 9,429,000 ; in
1754, it was 10,658,000 ; and in 1780, it amounted to 12,560,000.— Mulhall, Dictionary of Statistics. Digitized by Google
