272 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



tainted one. In a report by Mr. Latrobe to Sir Charles Fitzroy in 

 1846, he gives a return of 2,000 expirees from Van Diemen's Land 

 introduced into the district by the pastoral tenants of the Crown, 

 and he intimates that the number would have been largely in- 

 creased had further funds been available. For some time past the 

 British Government had been regretfully aware that the small 

 colony of Van Diemen's Land was being hopelessly over-weighted 

 by the transmission to its shores of over 3,000 convicts per annum. 

 This labour demand, forced upon their notice by many despatches 

 and petitions, seemed to promise a fresh outlet. It was decided to 

 seek an expression of opinion from the colonists as to their willing- 

 ness to recruit their labour supply in this hitherto objectionable 

 form. Mr. Gladstone, who was Secretary for the Colonies in 1846, 

 addressed the inquiry to the Governor of New South Wales as to 

 whether a limited number of convicts might not be sent there with 

 advantage to both parties. The despatch was referred to a Com- 

 mittee of the Legislative Council, with Wentworth as chairman, 

 and they unanimously reported that under certain conditions such 

 a step would be equally beneficial to the colony and to the mother - 

 country. Indeed, they went very far, for they affirmed that " all 

 the hulks, prisons and penitentiaries of England might be at once 

 emptied of their inmates, and those inmates be readily employed in 

 the boundless fields of profitable occupation at present shut up from 

 colonial enterprise, and destined to remain so, until a sufficient 

 supply of labour from some source or other shall arrive among us 

 to open them out ". 



The conditions stipulated for were : 



1. That male convicts should be accompanied, as a simultaneous 

 measure, with an equal number of females, to consist of female 

 convicts as far as they would go, and the balance to be made up of 

 female emigrants. 



2. That simultaneously such transportation be accompanied 

 with an equal importation of free immigrants, as nearly as possible 

 in equal proportion as to sexes. 



3. That the wives and families of all convicts receiving in- 

 dulgences should be brought out and count as part of this free 

 immigration, 



