the gaols. advantages so forcibly urged by those gentlemen; the 1783-8 whole project had apparently dwindled down to a plan for ridding the country of its surplus criminals. Matra's idea was that the colony might be settled by the unfortu- Relieving nate loyalists scattered throughout the American colonies, who were at that time looking out for new homes. As it turned out, none of them emigrated to New South Wales; the expedition to Botany Bay was composed exclusively of convicts, with the military and civil officials required to govern them. The official instructions to Governor Phillip embodied two or three of Matra's suggestions-the cultivation of the New Zealand flax plant, and the despatch of a ship to the islands for the purpose of procuring women; but curiously enough, these suggestions were the only points of his project which proved impracticable. The flax plant was never cultivated in any part of New South Wales, and never realised the anticipations formed of it, even in Norfolk Island. Nor did Phillip make any attempt to bring women from the islands, knowing that "it would answer no other purpose than that of bringing them to pine away in misery." The proposal was a worse than thoughtless one. Flax and women. plan. But although the schemes elaborated by Matra and Sir George Young were not officially adopted by the Govern- The official ment, they appear to have been subjected to further revision at the hands of officials, the result being seen in the shape of a paper, without name or date, entitled-"Heads of a Plan for effectually disposing of convicts, by the establishment of a colony in New South Wales."* In this plan we find the details of the expedition to Botany Bay foreshadowed with remarkable precision. All mention of free settlers has disappeared, and from first to last the project is confined to a proposal for "effectually disposing of con- Disposal victs." That these "heads of a plan" were drawn up by some one in the confidence of the Government is shown by the fact that, in his letter to the Treasury of the 18th of convicts. Sydney's letters. 1793-8 August, 1786, and also in his subsequent letter to the Admiralty, in which instructions were given for the equipment of the expedition, Lord Sydney made special reference to the paper :-"I enclose to your lordships herewith the heads of a plan upon which the new settlement is to be formed." A review of the records on this subject seems to show that in the interval of three years which elapsed between the date of Matra's project and the letters referred to, the proposals for colonising New South Wales Revision of had been subjected to several processes of revision, resulting in the plan finally adopted. proposals. rejected. It is evident that the plans proposed to the Government were drawn up under very different influences from those which finally determined the matter. Both Matra and Sir George Young pointed to the American loyalists as the proper men to send out to New South Wales; they were Free settlers practical settlers, accustomed to the struggles of colonial life, and they were entitled to the assistance of the Government in their search for new homes. But the Home Secretary was not troubled about the loyalists, while he was very much troubled about the convicts. The hulks and gaols were crowded with criminals condemned to transportation, and where were they to be sent when the American ports were no longer open? Although Matra's proposal was ultimately shaped so as to suit the Minister's convenience, it is not possible to read his long-forgotten essay without seeing how clearly, even in the dim distance, the "heroic work of colonisation" occupied the background of the picture which represents the departure Colonisation of the First Fleet for the shores of New South Wales. The ground. mean proportions which the scheme assumed in Sydney's in the back hands should not blind us to the fact that it originated in a desire to establish free settlers in a new colony, under conditions which would enable them to turn to account the great natural resources of the country, not only to their own benefit but to that of the nation. Here he disappears from the page of history; but Sir 1793-8 George Young again becomes visible for a moment in the act of presenting a little petition to Sydney :To the Right Honorable Lord Sydney, one, &c. for Norfolk The Petition of Sir George Young, Knight, and John Call, Petition Esquire, in behalf of themselves and others, sheweth,-that your Island. petitioners have it in contemplation to form a settlement on a small uninhabited island, first discovered by Captain Cook and by him named Norfolk Island, lying in the latitude 29° 2′ south, and longitude 168° 16' east from Greenwich, in the Pacific Ocean; in order to promote the cultivation of the New Zealand flax-plant, Flax and pine timber. and the growth of pine timber for masts, being persuaded that if they are fortunate enough to succeed in their undertaking, it will be attended with great national utility, by furnishing a future supply of those valuable articles cordage and masts—for his Majesty's Cordage and ships-of-war in India, which have hitherto been obtained at an enormous expense owing to the difficulty of conveying them thither, and from their scarcity have often reduced the maritime force employed in the East Indies to great inconvenience and distress. masts. Your petitioners therefore, considering the great expence and risque they must necessarily incur in prosecuting an enterprise in which, if they succeed, the nation cannot fail of being benefited, Free grant. humbly solicit from his Majesty a grant to them and their heirs for ever of the said island, to be held of the Crown as of the Manor of East Greenwich. London, May 24th, 1788. reticence. The reticence which the Government had observed in connection with their plans for colonising New South Wales may be seen in the fact that even Sir George Young-who was in a position to obtain information from official sources Official -was ignorant of their intentions as regards Norfolk Island. At the time that he presented his petition, Lieutenant King had been in occupation of it for over three months; but Sir George had not even a suspicion that instructions. had been given to Phillip to hoist the British flag there as soon as possible after his arrival. TRANSPORTATION AND COLONISATION. Convict THE employment of convicts in the formation of new foundation colonies, a practice which probably originated in the ancient labour in the of colonies. Spain. Portugal. France. England. custom of employing slave labour on public works, was a common one among the colonising nations of Europe from the earliest times. By two edicts issued in 1497, the Spanish Government authorised judicial transportation of criminals to the West Indies, and gave certain criminals the option of transporting themselves to Hispaniola (St. Domingo) at their own expense, to serve for a specified time under Columbus. The first Europeans who landed on the coast of Brazil were two convicts, who were left ashore by the Portuguese in 1500.* The commission given by the King of France in 1540 to Jacques Cartier, or Quartier, as Captain-General on his second voyage to Canada, authorised him to choose fifty persons out of such criminals in prison as should have been convicted of any crimes whatever, excepting treason and counterfeiting money, whom he should think fit and capable to serve in the expedition. Another French expedition to Canada, which set sail in 1598 under the command of the Marquis de la Roche, carried forty convicts who were left on the Isle of Sables, about fifty leagues to the south-east of Cape Breton, for the purpose of forming a settlement there. In the same manner, Sir Martin Frobisher was supplied, by the Queen's order, with certain "prisoners and condemned men" when he sailed in 1577 on his second voyage "for the discoverie of a new passage to Cataya, China, and the East India, by * Post, p. 439. instructions. the North-west," and also for the discovery of "golde mynes" among the icebergs. His instructions directed Frobisher's him to "sett on land upon the coast of Friesland vi of the condemned persons which you carie with you, with weapons and vittualls such as you may conveniently spare, to which persons you shall give instructions howe they may by their good behaviour wyn the goodwill of the people of that country, and also learn the state of the same."* And lastly, the colonists sent out to North America by the Government of Sweden in 1638, when Fort Christina in Delaware Sweden. was founded, were composed largely of convicts from the prisons of Sweden and Finland. obtaining It was natural that this system, once introduced, should Difficulty of be utilised for other purposes than that of laying the free settlers. foundations of new settlements. The difficulty of obtaining free settlers for the work operated long after that stage in the history of a colony had been passed; and as the demand for labour in the colonies far exceeded the supply, the employment of prisoners became a matter of practical necessity as well as one of State policy. emigration This difficulty was aggravated by another influence which Antioperated largely in the same direction. Down to a com- theories. paratively recent period, the various States of Europe, so far from suffering from redundant populations, were harassed with the fear of losing that portion of them which formed the main reservoirs of their military strength. One result of this apprehension was a settled aversion to the emigration of able-bodied men to new countries, on the ground that it tended to depopulate the parent State. The "depopulation" theory became a potent factor, espe- "Depopulacially in England, in checking the tendency to emigration to the colonies, and continued to be so until the evils of a surplus population had grown into a great national question.† + Hakluyt Society: The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher, p. 118. † Post, p. 440. tion." |