Page:The A. B. C. of Colonization.djvu/12

7 act of oppression is perpetrated—if a scandalous insult is offered to female virtue, it is not the Colonial office,—it is not a ship-broker, or a mercantile agents that is to institute an inquiry into the alleged abuses, and try to defend the accused and the guilty, but the moral feelings of the country will stand as the arbitrator; the benevolent from all quarters will in fact be the agents of this Society; each may feel an interest in some individual or families he or she has helped over. Nay, such emigrants may have friends, relatives, or benevolent contributors ready on the distant shores of Australia to take up their cause: thus a moral guardian will be formed; a phalanx of the good, of the rich and the powerful win be raised, which may prove ample to protect the defenceless and the innocent.

It may be well, however, to view the two systems; the present Government Emigration, and the one proposed under the surveillance of this Society. The emigrants sent by the Government assemble at Deptford or some other port: not two families know each other, or perchance until their meeting at the depot had ever seen one another before: young females find themselves there as perfect strangers. But what scenes take place before they have got thus far: what conflicts of nature are endured ere they leave their homes; what harrowing scenes arise out of the taxation clause; at times young children may be seen handed over to the care of a grandfather, an aunt, or a cousin, or as one poor man in Australia said to me: "my wife was obliged to take the child from her breast by the side of the ship, and hand it to a friend." Others, on account of having just passed the prime of life, are necessitated to remain behind. What wailings in the cottage! what sad farewells outside the village! how nature will then exclaim, "Never