Page:A colonial autocracy, New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, 1810-1821.djvu/328

 of the case. "It was," he said, "of the utmost importance, in a political point of view, and as it affected other countries. Those who escaped from New South Wales were well calculated to give a new character to the South Seas and to form dangerous nests of pirates."

Ryder withdrew the latter part of his motion and Romilly gave notice "that he should on Friday move for leave to bring in a Bill for repealing 29 Geo. III., relative to the transporting of convicts".

This drastic step was not taken, but on the 12th February Romilly moved for the appointment of a Committee on Transportation, and the motion was carried without opposition. Mr. George Eden was named as chairman, and amongst the members were Sir Samuel Romilly, Robert Peel, and Henry Goulburn.

The Committee took evidence on thirteen days, extending over a long period of four months, and finally presented their report on the 10th of July, 1812. The recommendations of the report have been already referred to, and the scant attention paid to them by Government commented upon. It is, however, interesting to see what were the materials at the command of the Committee. Fourteen witnesses were examined, two of whom were transportation officers in England who had never been in the Colony, and one, Captain Flinders the discoverer, who gave evidence as to the Australian coasts only. Of the remaining eleven, four were ex-convicts who had but little to say, two were former Governors, Hunter who had left the Colony in 1800, and Bligh who had anything but happy recollections of it. The Rev. Mr. Johnston, another witness who had been the first chaplain and had been back again in England some fifteen years, showed that in addition to his long absence from the Colony, his observations themselves had been to very little purpose. Two colonists who had come home as witnesses for Bligh spoke with some intelligence of the condition of affairs in 1810, and Johnston, the leader of the mutiny, who had left the