44* NEW SOUTH WALES. 



ready been the means of removing many of those petty annoyances 

 by which the peace and good feeling of the colony has hitherto been 

 disturbed. 



The historical part of Dr. Lang's work we regard as peculiarly 

 valuable in several points of view.* It is because it has enlightened 

 us upon this subject that we reckon the historical part of Dr. Lang's 

 work of so much value. In the concise and well-written sketch 

 which he has given us of the history of the colony, he has pointed 

 out with great precision and accuracy the various causes which have 

 operated in preventing the transportation system from producing the 

 effects which were contemplated,, and has proved that its failure has 

 not by any means arisen from an innate defect in the system itself^ 

 but solely from the mistakes and misgovernment of those to whom it 

 has been entrusted. He has proved, likewise, that it is still possible 

 for that system, under good management, and a proper code of regu- 

 lations, to be made a most valuable means in the hands of the British 

 Government, not only for the improvement of the convicts themselves, 

 but also for the good of the colony, and the mother country itself. 



In this point of view Dr. Lang's work must be of incalculable use 

 to those entrusted with the Colonial Department of Government ; and 

 we hope that it will therefore receive both from them and from the 

 British public that attention which, on this account alone, it so well 

 deserves. 



To give a correct idea of the history, tendency, and working of 

 the transportation system, as regarded the Australian colonies, was 

 one of the objects which the author had in the present work. This 

 he has accomplished with much skill and ability in the first seven 

 chapters of his first volume. To give a correct exhibition of the 

 present state of the colony, and to point out the advantages which 

 would accrue to it, to the mother country, and to private individuals, 

 from an extensive emigration of certain classes at home, is the other 

 object he has in view, and to this he devotes the remainder of his 

 book. 



In the two concluding chapters of Volume I, and the first three of 

 Volume II, there is much information on the climate, natural produc- 

 tions, and state of society in the colony, which we have no doubt will 

 prove interesting both to the general reader and to those intending 

 to emigrate. The climate appears to be an extremely delightful one ; 



* It would be so, were it only that it formed, as it does, the only complete 

 civil history of the colony that has yet been given to the public, and has thus 

 supplied what has long' been a desideratum in our knowledge of those distant 

 regions. But it is still more valuable in another respect : it was generally 

 known in this country that the hopes of those who had counted upon the ame- 

 lioration and moral improvement of the transported convicts had been, to a cer- 

 tain extent, disappointed, and that the transportation experiment had turned 

 out, at least partially, a failure. But the causes of this failure were not so ob- 

 vious ; and whether it was owing to some radical defect in the system itself, or 

 to a bad management of the system, we could not tell ; and the great distance 

 of the colony from the mother country, and the conflicting, and sometimes in- 

 terested, statements which were from time to time sent home, tended only to 

 render our ignorance more profound. 



