3 oo A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



of the case. " It was," he said, " of the utmost importance, in a 

 political point of view, and as it affected other countries. Those 

 who escaped from New South Wales were well calculated to 

 give a new character to the South Seas and to form dangerous 

 nests of pirates." l 



Ryder withdrew the latter part of his motion and Romilly 

 gave notice " that he should on Friday move for leave to bring 

 in a Bill for repealing 29 Geo. III., relative to the transporting 

 of convicts ". 2 



This drastic step was not taken, but on the I2th February 

 Romilly moved for the appointment of a Committee on Trans- 

 portation, and the motion was carried without opposition. 3 

 Mr. George Eden 4 was named as chairman, and amongst the 

 members were Sir Samuel Romilly, Robert Peel, and Henry 

 Goulburn. 



The Committee took evidence on thirteen days, extending 

 over a long period of four months, and finally presented their 

 report on the loth of July, 1812. The recommendations of the 

 report have been already referred to, and the scant attention 

 paid to them by Government commented upon. It is, however, 

 interesting to see what were the materials at the command of 

 the Committee. Fourteen witnesses were examined, two of 

 whom were transportation officers in England who had never 

 been in the Colony, and one, Captain Flinders the discoverer, 

 who gave evidence as to the Australian coasts only. Of the 

 remaining eleven, four were ex-convicts who had but little to 

 say, two were former Governors, Hunter who had left the Colony 

 in 1800, and Bligh who had anything but happy recollections 

 of it. The Rev. Mr. Johnston, another witness who had been 

 the first chaplain and had been back again in England some 

 fifteen years, showed that in addition to his long absence from 

 the Colony, his observations themselves had been to very little 

 purpose. Two colonists who had come home as witnesses for 

 Bligh spoke with some intelligence of the condition of affairs in 

 1810, and Johnston, the leader of the mutiny, who had left the 



1 Hansard, vol. xxi., p. 604. * Ibid. 



3 Hansard, 1812, i2th February, vol. xxi., pp. 761, 762. 



4 Son of first Lord Auckland ; afterwards succeeded to the title and became 

 Viceroy of India. 



