Page:Transportation and colonization.djvu/187

 land which it opened up for future settlement and cultivation, having rendered the examination of the other localities above-mentioned unnecessary, a new settlement was immediately formed at Moreton Bay, pursuant to Earl Bathurst's directions. That settlement has hitherto been a penal settlement, intended exclusively for the reception and employment of convicts re-transported from New South Wales. For some time after its formation, the number of convicts at the settlement of Moreton Bay was very considerable; but another penal settlement having been subsequently formed at Norfolk Island, and the government having found it inexpedient to incur the expense of more than one settlement of that description, the practice of re-transporting criminals to Moreton Bay was afterwards discontinued; and orders were eventually forwarded to the present governor, by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, for its entire abandonment. It is probable that His Excellency Sir Richard Bourke has represented to the authorities in Downing-street the inexpediency of such a measure, which indeed would have implied the absolute loss of the whole expenditure which had been already incurred, together with all the improvements which had been effected at Moreton Bay; for although the number of the convicts at that settlement has been progressively