Page:Transportation and colonization.djvu/82

ments of free emigrants to have taken root in the colony; there is no doubt whatever but that numerous and reputable families and individuals, of all classes in society, would have soon found their way to the new settlement; and that government would consequently have found it practicable, at a comparatively early period in its history, to have entirely withheld the positive and pecuniary encouragement which it was so highly expedient to have afforded to free emigrants at its formation. Unfortunately for the colony, however, as well as for the establishment of those great principles of criminal jurisprudence that were so deeply involved in its success, the intentions of its founders were entirely lost sight of, and the recommendations of its first governor totally neglected, during that long period of national alarm, of preparation for foreign war, and of actual hostility, that ensued upon the outbreaking of the French revolution; for, although a few straggling emigrants arrived and settled in the colony during the administration of Governor Hunter, and a few more during that of Governor King, their number was so small, and their weight and influence on society so insignificant, that, as I have already observed, during the first thirty-three years of its existence, or until the close of the year 1820, the colony of New South Wales may be considered as