Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/234

 196 BMANCIPATIOIJ, ^'•^ returned if they could. Life in the colony, even with the advantages that were to be gained from a free grant of land and the means of subsistence for eighteen months, was to the minds of most of them an uninviting prospect. Although there were at this time many vessels returning to England, it is probable that if the discharged convicts had been obliged to pay for their passages very few of them would have been able to leave the colony. The transports, however, were frequently in need of hands, and men who could work were taken to England in exchange for their services during the voyage. As soon as it was known in Working Sydney that there was no legal obstacle to the return to P*"**^^' England of convicts who had served their time, advantage was taken of whatever opportunities presented themselves ; and a few months after Phillip received Grenville's despatch informing him that expirees could not be kept in the colony against their will, it became his duty to send to the Home Department '' a list of those convicts whose times being ex- pired have left the settlement in the different transports."* On the 16th December, 1791, he wrote to Grenville trans- Warrants mittiug the duplicates of four warrants of emancipation pfttion. under the seal of the colony.f The forms of absolute and conditional pardons will be found in Appendices E and F. In later years a third class of pardon, known as the Ticket-of-Leave, was introduced ; the form, for purposes of comparison, is given in Appendix G- t lb., p. 566.
 * Historical Becosds, toL i^ part 2, p. 665.