It was, however, felt by the colonists that no expression of the public will would recall the minister to a sense of justice, or command the effectual protection of parliament. The measures adopted by the Cape were impracticable in Van Diemen's Land: if, indeed, consistent with loyalty, they were not proper in a country where the support of the law was necessary to restrain the convict population. Such a course was predicted and recommended by the English press, but the ministers, better informed, felt no danger of active or passive resistance.
Whatever compassion might be felt for Van Diemen's Land in the adjacent colonies, hitherto its treatment by the minister had produced no demonstration in its favor. It had been held up as a warning to stimulate resistance to any participation in its fate. The continental press pointed to its prostration with epithets of reproach, and it was described as the dust-hole of the empire. The sympathy of its neighbors was overpowered by the stronger feeling of self-preservation. It seemed like a mill-stone strung to the neck of the Australian world, and destined to drag it down to perdition. Under this impression they sought to impose restrictions on the migration of expirees and the holders of conditional pardons. The legislature of New South Wales passed a vagrant act, which required such persons to register their names at the nearest police-office, within a given time after their arrival. Earl Grey disallowed this ordinance, at the recommendation of Sir William Denison, as not only in itself oppressive, but calculated to retard dispersion, and counteract the royal prerogative. The great argument of the advocates for transportation in New South Wales was, however, founded on the impossibility of checking indirect transportation through Van Diemen's Land. Men landed in Tasmania, crossed over to Port Phillip, and were often traced by their depredations.
The sense of impotence is not the least painful element of unjust suffering. This weakness was the topic of exulting scorn with the few enemies of the popular cause. The people were without allies or protectors, and completely subject to a despotic will.
FOOTNOTES:
[257] London Agency Letter, November, 1848.
[258] Debate, March 8, 1849. (Hansard.)
[259] Among the many devices to awaken attention to ministerial injustice was an association to obtain for liberated convicts, of the incorrigible class, a passage to England. The prospectus, signed by Drs. Browne and Gaunt, turned back the British arguments for transportation with effect, and proposed to remit the objects of their charity to the reform societies, parishes, and municipalities of England. This proposal was seriously discussed at Port Phillip, and nothing prevented its partial execution but the difficulty of preserving, with the ordinary arrangements of a vessel, the subordination of such a ship's company.
"The solemn Declaration of the undersigned Colonists of Van Diemen's Land, addressed to the British nation.
"On the 5th day of April, 1850, the ship Neptune, the vessel freighted with convicts to the Cape of Good Hope, but rejected by its inhabitants, anchored in the port of Hobart Town, under the orders of the right honorable the secretary of state, Earl Grey.