Page:The State and Position of Western Australia.djvu/83

 In the same number of that Journal appears a petition addressed to the Home Government, and signed by sixteen settlers at King George’s Sound, soliciting to have it made a convict station. This petition fully admits that the colony was originally founded on the principle of free labour; and that the general opinion of the settlers formerly was, that the presence of convicts would be objectionable. It acknowledges, that the settlement “possesses equal, if not superior advantages to either of the sister colonies of