OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



••< But of all the calonies of Eiigla:id, the most singular and the most suc- 

 cessful is the Colony established in New South Vv^ales. — Formed by none of 

 the impulses which had hitherto urged men to take the chances of the wilder- 

 ness ; formed at the greatest distance from home ever attempted by civilization 

 — in fact, the greatest possible distance, the Antipodes ; formt d of the most 

 intractable materials, — tiie colony of Australia, within half the life of man, has 

 risen to a pitch of commerce, agricultural opulence, and population, never be- 

 fore equalled iu the most fortunate or costly settlements of national fortune 

 and enterprise. Why is this ? May we not naturally ask, v>iiy has the new 

 Continent, given exclusively into the hands of England, exhibited the extra- 

 ordinary spectacle of a n.ew shape of dominion i 



" Raised out of the refuse and rejected material of the mother country- 

 whatever may have been the purpose, the result is clear, that a great experi- 

 ment in the faculty of renovation in the human character has found its field 

 in the solitudes of this vast continent; that the experiment has succeeded to a 

 most unexampled and unexpected degree ; and that the question is now finally 

 decided between severity and discipline. If this were the intent of Provi- 

 dence, in making over to England the inheritance of New South Wales, it 

 would be only one of the crowd of instances which display the unwearied 

 watchfulness of Heaven for the welfare of man. When the time shall arrive 

 in which tlie philosopher shall be able to regard the results, free from the 

 detail which now diminishes their real grandeur ; when half a century more 

 shall show him the noble proportions of a new Empire ruling the Southeru 

 Ocean, filled with the free spirit and strong energies of Britain — covering the 

 waters so long lifeless with her commerce — acting like a new minister of life, 

 along those boundless and most fertile shores, which spread from India to 

 Japan — shooting the moral electricity in shocks that only reanimate, and 

 sparks that only enlighten, through the whole stagnant and fettered, yet most 

 lovely zone of the East, — then first shall he be able to comprehend either the 

 nobleness of the task achieved, or the beneficence of that Power which, 

 controlling all things, gave to our remote island the duty, the means, and 

 the honour of this great triumph of good over evil. We admit that all has 

 not yet been completed, that there are many things in the execution to 

 excite the displeasure of the fastidious, and not a few to puzzle the sagacity of 

 the sapient. We expect that those who pride themselves on the exclusive 

 possession of philosophy, will be indignant. We admit, also, that tiie manners 

 of convicts and their attendant turnkeys can hav^e but little of the picturesque, 

 and less of the sentimental. But the main fact is unquestionable, that out 

 of those convicts has been formed a powerful, active, and opulent community. 

 What could have been done at home with the multitude who have been, in 

 succession, transported to Australia, if they had remained in England? Pos- 

 sibly, not one in fifty would have ever thought of anything but picking pockets 

 or robbing on the highway ; one half of them would have perished iu prison, 

 or of famine and disease, in their own hovels ; one quarter at least would 

 have been hanged. But, by the fortunate, we might almost say, the mira- 

 culous, expedient of providing them with a coimtr3% where the}' might begin 

 the world anew, where they might live without the stigma of their former 

 life, and recommence their character — -where, being saved from the desperate 

 difficulties of providing themselves with food, they might feel some human 

 enjoyment in the beauties of nature ; being protected from disgrace for the 

 past, they might exert themselves to provide a character for the future ; and, 

 being placed in the hope of possessing property and providing for their ofl- 

 spring, they might become alike industrious and domestic, decent and happy, 

 or in some rarer instances, opulent and honourable, — the greatest example 

 of rapid colonial prosperity in hjj^man records has been exhibited to the eyes 



of mankind. ^ 9" 2- ^ * ''- * * * * * * 



The kind of " gelitlemen who sit at home at ease," surrounded by the labours 

 of water companies, and companies of all kinds, and having light, watching, 

 and cool streets at command, on the simple terms of paying a few shillings, 

 yet are peevish at the state of society, and praise the times 



' When wild in woods the noble savage ran,' — 

 ought to make a voyage to New South Wales, and a summer's journey through 

 it, with the sun in the vertex, if it were only for the purpose of reconciling 



