Page:Transportation and colonization.djvu/184

 to settle in New South Wales an object of anxious solicitude to all who were desirous of leaving their native country, and had capital to apply to the improvement of land. This, together with the number of convicts, who after the expiration of their sentences remain with their respective families growing up under them, has so increased the population of free settlers, that the prosperity of the settlement, as a colony, has proportionally advanced; and hopes may reasonably be entertained of its becoming, at no distant period, a valuable possession of the Crown. It is this very circumstance which appears to me to render it less fit for the object of its original institution: nor can I conceal from myself that transportation to New South Wales is becoming neither an object of apprehension here, nor the means of reformation in the settlement itself; and that the settlement must be either placed upon a footing that shall render it possible to enforce, with respect to all the convicts, strict discipline, regular labour, and constant superintendence; or the system of unlimited transportation to New South Wales must be abandoned."

In his Lordship's instructions to Mr. Commissioner Bigge, of date, "Downing-street, 6th January, 1819," he developes more particularly his views on the subject of transportation to New South Wales.