MR. LATROBE AS SUPERINTENDENT 277 



The fall of Earl Grey with the Russell Cabinet helped the cause, 

 for the Palmerston Ministry desired to placate the Colonies on 

 which the eyes of the whole world were just now turning. 



To the last there was considerable opposition in Van Diemen's 

 Land, where a section of the residents persisted in proclaiming 

 that the colony would have little to live upon if the Government 

 expenditure on the convict establishments was withdrawn. But 

 better counsels finally prevailed, and before the end of 1852 the 

 last convict ship had sailed from England for the Derwent. 



Western Australia continued to receive convicts for more than 

 a dozen years afterwards. The waterless desert of a thousand 

 miles that separated it from the other Colonies, and the infre- 

 quency of communication by sea, seemed to offer an immunity 

 from infection. But when in the progress of time Albany became 

 a place of call for the mail steamers, the agitation was vigorously re- 

 vived, and was so strongly expressed in Melbourne that the Premier 

 of the day, Sir James M'Culloch, made an effort to get all the 

 eastern Colonies to join him in refusing to hold any intercourse with 

 the tainted West. The proposal was blocked by New South Wales, 

 but the feeling evinced led to action by the British Government, and 

 in 1867 transportation to any part of Australia absolutely ceased. 



The contemporary press and public opinion, nay, even the de- 

 liberate historian, have been singularly unanimous in condemning 

 the action of the British Government in the matter of transporta- 

 tion. A resolution at one of the public meetings implored the 

 Queen to dismiss Earl Grey from her Council on account of the 

 " arbitrary and faithless manner in which he had treated the 

 colony". And yet no one can carefully peruse that nobleman's 

 defence of the policy of the Cabinet in which he served without 

 admitting that the question was by no means so one-sided as it has 

 been represented. The authorities certainly misunderstood the 

 signs of the times and the desire of the masses ; but they were 

 confused and misled by the contradictory utterances which reached 

 them intermittently, and by the exaggerated declarations of in- 

 terested parties that, unless labour of some sort was forthcoming, 

 the fair prospect of a colonial dominion would vanish, and the 

 country revert to a solitary wilderness. 



