Page:Victoria, with a description of its principal cities, Melbourne and Geelong.djvu/26

 importation from England, and equal anxiety and determination shown to stop their arrival from Tasmania. On the discovery of the Gold Fields, this question became of still greater importance, as it was only natural to assume their proximity, and great attraction would not only induce expirees and those who had obtained conditional pardons to flock to this El Dorado, but even tempt the more desperate to escape. It was, consequently, considered necessary to pass a most stringent law for their exclusion; this, however, only referred to those with conditional pardons, on the ground that the pardons were of such an extensive character as virtually to make Victoria a penal establishment, and, as the disputants affirmed, were to a great extent granted for the purpose of getting the convicts dispersed over the neighbouring colonies, thereby relieving England of considerable expense, and of the still greater difficulty of not knowing what to do with them. The meaning of a conditional pardon was, that the person holding it might go anywhere but to the land from whence he was transported; thus they were specially forbidden to return to England, yet the colonies were not allowed a similar indulgence. The Bill already alluded to was then passed by the Local Legislature, and though it received the assent of the Lieutenant-Governor, was disallowed at home, as an "infringement of the royal prerogative." Another Bill of a milder form was, therefore, introduced by the Government to the House, but was rejected, and