Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/266

 deputation was sent to the quasi-Governor requesting him to order the vessels to proceed to Botany Bay a penal settlement—and announcing that the landing of the convicts would be resisted if necessary by force. The Governor agreed with the colonists, but the skippers refused to proceed to Sydney, as such a change of destination would forfeit their insurance. They were offered the choice of doing as they were ordered or returning to England, and finally they accepted the Governor's instructions. Thus the future colony of Victoria was saved from the taint of convictism. But a few years after when the gold discovery made the new colony the Mecca of the adventurous classes, the worst convicts in Tasmania and New South Wales found their way to the Victorian diggings, and a serious portion of the public expenditure was incurred in defending society against their exploits. The Colonial Office was repeatedly appealed to to stop a system of which, wherever the convicts were originally sent, Victoria was sure to be the victim. But the appeal produced no effect, and even after we had obtained free constitutions, we had not succeeded in stopping the discharge upon our shores of the most desperate and depraved ruffians in England. Some of their achievements exceed belief. They seized upon squatters' stations, and not merely plundered and destroyed at discretion, but amused themselves in their drunken revels by blazing away with revolvers at their prisoners. The destruction of the system was attributable to a bold coup struck at this time by Edward Wilson, the proprietor of the Argus. As England continued to send her convicts to Australia, he proposed to collect some of the worst of them whose sentences had expired, and send them back to their native country. A committee was formed of men willing to aid this project. A retired officer of the convict department in Tasmania, familiar with thousands of these ruffians, undertook to find any quantity necessary who were willing to return to England. The passages of about a dozen of them were paid, and an order given to each of them for a small sum to be handed to him on landing. The expense of returning one of these seasoned ruffians to London or Liverpool amounted to about £15, and Mr. Wilson was persuaded that