NEW SOUTH WALES AND PARLIAMENT. 299 



" The punishment of transportation has indeed been some- 

 times considered as one of no great severity, and I have been 

 very sorry to hear it so represented by those on whom the in- 

 flicting it depends . . ; it is sometimes inflicted on boys at a 

 very early age merely as a means of separating them effectually 

 from the bad companions they may have formed at home. It 

 were much to be wished that those who consider transportation 

 in this light would impose upon themselves the duty of reading 

 Mr. Collins' history of the settlement that they might acquire 

 a just notion of all the complicated hardships and sufferings to 

 which transported convicts are exposed." 



The motion was lost, but not by a great majority, the num- 

 ber being fifty-two to sixty-nine. 1 



During the vacation Romilly prepared a pamphlet on New 

 South Wales which was, however, never published, perhaps never 

 completed. 2 Early in 1811, a Committee of the House of 

 Commons was appointed on Ryder's motion " to inquire into 

 the expediency of erecting penitentiary houses". 8 Romilly 

 moved an instruction for the Committee " to inquire into the 

 effects which have been produced by the punishment of trans- 

 portation to New South Wales and of imprisonment on board 

 the hulks, and the motion was accepted ". 4 



The Committee reported in June, but without having made 

 any inquiry at all into the affairs of New South Wales. Their 

 report was incomplete in other respects also, and Ryder moved 

 for its reappointment, " to consider of the expediency of erecting 

 penitentiary houses, and that it be an instruction to the said 

 Committee to inquire into the effects produced by transportation 

 to New South Wales." 5 



To this Romilly objected. He hoped " the latter subject, 

 which had originated with himself, would not be thus thrown 

 into the background ". The Committee, with so much work 

 to do, would not be able to report to the House that session, 

 and New South Wales affairs called for immediate inquiry. 

 He used one argument which was comically beyond the facts- 



1 Romilly's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 33 2 - 



2 Ibid., p. 342. 



3 4th March, 1811. See Romilly's Memoirs, 11., p. 307. 



4 Ibid. Hansard, vol. xix., 4th March, 1811, p. 186. 

 6 Hansard, vol. xxi., p. 603, 4th February, 1812. 



