NEW SOUTH WALES AND PARLIAMENT. 309 



colonial than belonged to a place appropriated to the punish- 

 ment of offenders." He passed on to a queer piece of philo- 

 sophy. " It would be necessary to inquire whether the period 

 had not arrived when it might be relieved from being the resort 

 of such characters as had hitherto been sent to it, and might be 

 permitted without interruption to follow the general law of 

 nature by a more rapid approximation to that state of prosperity 

 to which, it was to be hoped, every part of the world was 

 destined to arrive." He finally stated that the Government 

 "had it in contemplation to propose some place nearer home 

 to which convicts might be transported " at a more moderate 

 cost. 



The Committee was an important one, including Castlereagh 

 and Canning, and Sir James Mackintosh, Powell Buxton, 

 Bennet, Brougham and Wilberforce, amongst its members. 

 But the affairs of the Colony remained still before the House. 

 On the 1 2th March, Wilberforce notes in his diary that Brougham 

 had consented to present the New South Wales petition, 1 and 

 on the 23rd he did so. The petition was signed by Blake and 

 Williams, the former one of the men who had been flogged by 

 the Governor's orders, the latter a man who had been dismissed 

 from the Government printing-office by Macquarie's direction 

 because he had signed the petition of Vale. The document had 

 been prepared by J. H. Bent and contained much extraneous 

 matter which it was doubtful whether Blake had known about 

 or wished to have included. It was even doubtful whether it 

 had been read over to him before he had placed his mark upon 

 it. 2 These facts were not, however, known when Brougham, 

 in a temperate speech, presented the petition. 



"With respect to the conduct of Governor Macquarie, he 

 should say, that if culpable, he was disposed to consider such 

 conduct rather as a fault of the system than of the man. . . .* 

 The Colony in question was extremely important, and might 

 very soon be the most so of all our foreign Colonies. This was 

 the very time for inquiry, when its Governor seemed to be 

 entering upon a wrong course and might therefore be the more 



1 See Life of Wilberforce, 1848, vol. v., p. 15. 



2 See Evidence of J. H. Bent, C. on G., 1819. 



8 See Hansard, vol. xxxix., p. 1124, 23rd March, 1819. 



