270 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



in 1874, there were 137 registered clergy, 445 churches or build- 

 ings temporarily used as such, and a distinct following of fully a 

 quarter of a million persons, equal at that time to one-third of the 

 estimated population of the colony. 



The question involved in the right of the British Government 

 to continue the transportation of felons to Australia aroused many 

 protracted discussions and much angry feeling in the period be- 

 tween 1844 and 1849, though by the end of the latter year New 

 South Wales at least was legally closed against them. The 

 colonists were under the impression that this end had been at- 

 tained in 1840, when the British Cabinet formally revoked the 

 Order in Council by which New South Wales had been declared a 

 place for the reception of criminals. But these Orders were ap- 

 parently easily manipulated to suit ministerial views, and what 

 with several changes in the Cabinet, the distraction of an excep- 

 tionally exciting time in Europe, and the conflicting memorials 

 pouring in upon them from Australia, the Secretary for the 

 Colonies would seem to have been somewha^ fogged. As will be 

 seen later on, the revocation above referred to was in its turn 

 revoked, and the attempt to revert to the original condition was 

 violently resisted and finally defeated. 



In 1844 there was a distinct conflict of opinion on the subject 

 of receiving labourers who had the taint of the prison upon them. 

 Even admitting the genuineness of a great deal of violent oratory 

 on the " moral taint " aspect of the question, an impartial examina- 

 tion of the proceedings shows that, at this period at least, it was 

 largely a labour question. For, as a matter of fact, the " exiles " 

 who came out in 1844-45 were really free men. In one of the 

 many tentative efforts of the British Government to devise a bene- 

 ficent course of action for the occupants of the overcrowded gaols, 

 the principle was adopted which defined transportation to mean a 

 limited period of separate confinement in local prisons, followed by 

 a course of labour on public works, and then banishment for the 

 remaining term of the original sentence. The principle is defined 

 and defended at great length by Earl Grey in his review of the 

 Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell's Cabinet, in which he served 

 as Secretary for the Colonies. In some of his despatches to the 



