Page:A lecture on the evils of emigration and transportation.djvu/11

7 cold-blooded atrocities, and therefore must entertain sympathy for the sufferings of their fellow-beings. This is true when applied to them as a national body. But separate them; let each pursue, unrestricted by the whole, his own inclinations, and then tell me, cannot the most refined villains in Christendom be found amongst Englishmen.

I am confident I need not go into particulars to prove the above assertion, for few have forgot the blood-stained souls of the wretches employed by the Government within the last 30 years. The names of Reynolds, Edwards, and Oliver, must be fresh on all your memories, and the dark deeds of those monsters and the ignominious deaths of their innocent victims is yet unrepaid by Him who says, "Revenge is mine and I will repay." I think I hear some one saying, there are only three found out of a whole nation. But could those three have performed the awful tragedy unless assisted by others? But look at the annals of the country;—keep in mind the Manchester massacre, and the butcherings that occurred at Derby and other places since;—bear also in mind the horrid murdering propensities of Bishop and Williams, and scenes of other blood thirsty wretches, with the disgusting, cruel, and deliberate sacrifice of life under the New Poor Law Bill, and then say are there not Englishmen to be found capable of being employed in a distant colony to perpetrate any act that the fiendish heart of man can devise? Yes, some will say, but the poor emigrant, in our Australian colonies, enjoys the blessing of living under English laws. Well, I think we are all aware that even English laws at home are not sufficient to protect the poor and weak from the tyrannical despotism of oppressors.

It is a mistaken notion to suppose that the emigrants live under British laws. Any person at all acquainted with that part of the world must be aware that our Australian colonies are penal colonies, and consequently under penal laws. Reverse the picture and place yourselves under these laws that some may imagine English. Suppose the Australian Colonies were to send a few thousand convicts yearly to England, and suppose the Government should regularly, on their arrival, select from amongst them the most accomplished villians [sic] to enforce the laws. Would you consider it English law for one of these men to stop you in the public street and ask your name and place