"If you wish to learn how the convicts were brought from England to Australia," continued their informant to Frank and Fred, "how they lived when they got here, and how they were treated, read a story entitled 'His Natural Life,' by Marcus Clarke, an Australian journalist and littérateur. In the form of a novel he has preserved much of the history of the old convict days. It is not altogether agreeable reading, though it is instructive.
"All the colonists except the convicts themselves, and they had no voice in the matter, protested against Australia being peopled by these objectionable individuals, and protest after protest was made to the Home Government. These protests had their effect, and in 1840 transportation to New South Wales came to an end; an attempt was afterwards made to renew it, but was never carried out. It was continued later in Van Dieman's Land and other colonies, and in West Australia until 1868, when it was brought to an end, not so much at the wish of the people of West Australia as of those of the other colonies.
"And let me say in conclusion," he remarked, "that there are many prominent citizens of Australia whose fathers or grandfathers were transported, and nobody in his senses thinks any the worse of them in consequence. There are some gentlemen high in official position—of course it would not be polite for me to name them—who are thus descended, and so are some of the wealthiest and most prominent citizens in civil life. Everybody may be aware of it, but nobody talks of it in public.
"In our political contests the opposing candidates use as hard language about one another as the same class of men do in political contests in the United States; they may say anything they please except that the man they are denouncing is the descendant of a transported convict. Whenever this is done, although the statement may be perfectly true, the injured man can bring a suit for slander, and be certain of high damages. Only a few years ago an aspirant for office was compelled to pay ten thousand pounds for saying in a public speech that the man against whom he was contending was the son of an 'involuntary emigrant' from England."
The gentleman paused, and Fred took the opportunity to ask what a ticket-of-leave man was in the days of transportation.
"As to that," was the reply, "tickets-of-leave are in use to-day in other countries as well as in England, though they are not known by that name. In the United States you have a system of remitting part of a sentence in case of good conduct, and we do the same in England.
