268 
EMIGRATION. 
for a short time, in order to obtain power to be bad hereafter; 
but it would not have effected any radical change for the better. 
Yet it is evident that, under a modified system, the convict 
might be sent with great advantage to the colony, and with 
little fear of moral danger. 
If some were sent out for long periods, and those in 
detachments, suited to the wants of the different provinces, 
under proper surveillance, there could be then no more reason 
to fear their presence, than there is of them whilst in their 
hulks or jails. If each colonial town had its convict gang, how 
many public works might be made, which otherwise cannot be 
hoped for. This is actually what is now being done by the 
Colonial Government with their own prisoners : they are thus 
employed, and it is very proper they should be, as the most 
likely way to reform them. At any rate, the view here taken 
may perhaps be worth further thought and consideration. 
In whatever part of the world we live, there is much in the 
present day to excite our wonder and astonishment; the mist 
of ages, which shut out the southern hemisphere from our 
view, has well nigh disappeared, and revealed its remote con¬ 
tinents and sunny isles to our view. The lands over which but 
a few years ago only the naked savage roamed, and where the 
cannibal held his horrid feast, are now become the habitations 
of civilized man,—happy homes filled with all the costly 
productions of the world, have there been formed. The fiat 
has gone forth,—let them be peopled, and every difficulty is 
being removed. The attention is compelled to be given to 
these remote regions. Here we see a controling Wisdom dis¬ 
played which cannot be denied. 
When the steule and uninviting regions of North Western 
America appeared, less likely to be peopled than even Austra- 
lia, gold, the loadstone of attraction, was suddenly discovered. 
Cities, towns, and villages, sprung up, as if by the touch of 
the magician’s wand. It did not take ages to build cities in 
those out-of-the-way lands, as had been the case in the old 
world; it did not even require years—months sufficed. 
But the attractive power of Californian gold, threatened to 
depopulate even the little colonies of Australia and New 
