Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/681

ON TRANSPORTATION. 557 ture did intend transportation to America for a punishment of 1756 those villains, I verily believe ; but so great is the mistake, that Transport- I am confident they are thereby, on the contrary, highly rewarded, ation no For what, in God's name, can be more agreeable to a penurious ^""" "**^" wretch, driven through necessity to seek a livelihood by breaking of houses and robbing upon the King's highway, than to be saved from the halter, redeemed from the stench of a gaol, and trans- ported, passage free, into a country where, being unknown, no man can reproach him with his crimes ; where labour is high, a little of which will maintain him; and where all his expenses will be moderate and low. There is scarce a thief in England that would not rather be transported than hanged. Life in any condition but that of extreme misery will be preferred to death. As long, therefore, as there remains this wide door of escape, the but en- number of thieves and robbers at home will perpetually multiply, crimef^* and their depredations be incessantly reiterated. "But the Acts were intended for the better peopling the colonies. Coioniee And will thieves and murderers be conducive to that end 1 What SJnvi^^^ advantage can we reap from a colony of unrestrainable renegadoes 1 cannot Will they exalt the glory of the Crown — or, rather, will not the p'*^"^® dignity of the most illustrious monarch in the world be sullied by a province of subjects so lawless, detestable, and ignominious) Can agriculture be promoted when the wild boar of the forest ' breaks down our hedges and pulls up our vines? Will trade flourish, or manufactures be encouraged, where property is made the spoil of such who are too idle to work, and wicked enough to murder and steal 1 " Besides, are we not subjects of the same king with the people ^1*^"^^* of England — members of the same body politic, and, therefore, pnviieiresof entitled to equal privileges with them 1 If so, how injurious does En»i"hmen, it seem to free one part of the dominions from the plagues of mankind and cast them upon another ? Should a law be proposed to take the poor of one parish and billet them upon another, w^ould not all the world, but the parish to be relieved, exclaim against such a project as iniquitous and absurd ? Should the numberless villains of London and Westminster be suffered to escape from their prisons, to range at large and depredate any other part of the kingdom, would not every man join with the sufferers, and condemn the measure as hard and unreasonable 1 And though the hardships upon us are indeed not equal to those, yet the miseries that flow from laws by no means intended to prejudice us, are too heavy not to be felt. But the colonies must be peopled. Agreed. And will the Transportation Acts ever Honest men have that tendency ? No, they work the contrary way, and emirate, counteract their own design. We want people, 'tis true, but not villains ready at any time, encouraged by impunity, and habituated upon the slightest occasions to cut a man's throat for a small part Digitized by Google