Page:Transportation and colonization.djvu/71

 position, by quoting the following well-known aphorism of that distinguished philosopher:—It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of the people, and wicked, condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant." To attempt to form a community, either in whole or in great measure, of such materials, I agree with his Lordship, is disreputable to any government,—equally opposed to the maxims of sound policy and the principles of enlightened Christianity: and if any proof or illustration were wanting of the folly and madness of such an attempt, I would only appeal to the past history and the present condition of the Australian colonies. But I have yet to learn that Lord Bacon was of opinion that wicked, condemned men" were in no case to be transported to a British colony, or that convict labour ought never to be had recourse to in a foreign plantation, either as a means of punishing and reforming the criminal, or of promoting the welfare and advancement of the settlement. If Lord Bacon had really advanced any such opinion, I would only have said, after appealing to that experience and observation which his Lordship so successfully established as the basis of his inductive philosophy, that he had himself been theorizing in this particular instance, and that "the greatest and wisest of mankind" was for