Page:A colonial autocracy, New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, 1810-1821.djvu/337

 colonial than belonged to a place appropriated to the punishment of offenders." He passed on to a queer piece of philosophy. "It would be necessary to inquire whether the period had not arrived when it might be relieved from being the resort of such characters as had hitherto been sent to it, and might be permitted without interruption to follow the general law of nature by a more rapid approximation to that state of prosperity to which, it was to be hoped, every part of the world was destined to arrive." He finally stated that the Government "had it in contemplation to propose some place nearer home to which convicts might be transported "at a more moderate cost.

The Committee was an important one, including Castlereagh and Canning, and Sir James Mackintosh, Fowell Buxton, Bennet, Brougham and Wilberforce, amongst its members. But the affairs of the Colony remained still before the House. On the 12th March, Wilberforce notes in his diary that Brougham had consented to present the New South Wales petition, and on the 23rd he did so. The petition was signed by Blake and Williams, the former one of the men who had been flogged by the Governor's orders, the latter a man who had been dismissed from the Government printing-office by Macquarie's direction because he had signed the petition of Vale. The document had been prepared by J. H. Bent and contained much extraneous matter which it was doubtful whether Blake had known about or wished to have included. It was even doubtful whether it had been read over to him before he had placed his mark upon it. These facts were not, however, known when Brougham, in a temperate speech, presented the petition.

"With respect to the conduct of Governor Macquarie, he should say, that if culpable, he was disposed to consider such conduct rather as a fault of the system than of the man. &hellip; The Colony in question was extremely important, and might very soon be the most so of all our foreign Colonies. This was the very time for inquiry, when its Governor seemed to be entering upon a wrong course and might therefore be the more