Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/566

 442 LEGAL HISTORY The First Fleet UtUiaing society at home. .... The proper use of banishment is to send the crime. criminal from the comitry he has mfested into another, where, by its de- pendence on the mother country, his labour may become useful to the State. Dalrymple also, in the introduction to his Collection of Voyages Dairympie. in the South Pacific Ocean, published in 1770, refers to the preju- dice against emigration : — An objection has been made to colonisation from an opinion that it draws away subjects from the mother country to the colonies ; whereby the former is weakened, and the latter, by an idea of their own increasing power, encouraged to struggle for independence. Another illustration of the singular delusion referred to may be seen in the preface to The History of New Holland, published in 1787, just before the departure of the First Fleet. Referring to the expedition, the writer says : — When it is considered as an experiment (for the disposal of oonvicts), the objections of those who exclaim a^[ainst founding a oolony upon the infamous assemblage of exiled felons will fall to the ground. Supposing that Government had chosen to embrace the single purpose of forming a settlement at Botany Bay, they would be justly censurable in inviting tiie industrious and reputable artisan to exchaiige his own happy soil for the posses&ion of territory, however extensive, in a part of the world as yet so little known. But criminals, when their lives or liberties are forfeited to justice, become a forlorn hope, and have always been judged a fit subject of hazardous experiments to which it would be unjust to expose the more valuable members of a State. If there be any terrors in the prospect before the wretch who is banished to New South Wales, they are no more than he expects ; if the dangers of a foreign climate, or the improbability of returning to this country, be considered as nearly equivalent to death, the devoted convict naturally reflects that his crimes have drawn on this- punishment, and that ofiended justice, in consigning him to the inhospitable shore of New Holland, does not mean thereby to seat him for his life on a bed of roses. Experimen- turn in oorpore vile. Hereford- ten years. Norfolk- life. HISTORY OF TRANSPORTATION TO 1787. Banishment from the King's dominions was a recognised mode of punishment from the earliest times, especially for political offences. A reference to it occurs in Shakspeare's Richard II, act 1, scene 3, when the King, after having stopped the fight between Bolingbroke and Norfolk, addressed them as follows : — Therefore we banish von oar territories : — You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life. Till twice five summers have enriched our fields. Shall not re-greet our fair dominions. But tread the stranger paths of banishment, Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom I The hopeless word of— never to return. Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life. Digitized by Google