South Wales plead for such privileges on this ground,—aground which would have exposed him in every colony in America, during the continuance of transportation to that country, to utter derision? Why, just because society has been permitted by the British government to grow up to comparative maturity in the Australian colonies, without a sufficient infusion of virtuous freemen to give it a proper tone.
In fact, the very circumstance of a man's standing forward in any country to claim certain political privileges, on the ground of his being an emancipated convict, is a presumptive proof of his not being really reformed; for the really reformed character would naturally seek the shade and court obscurity. The extensive prevalence of such claims and feelings in any country is, moreover, a presumptive proof of the utter inefficacy of transportation to that country, under the system of management out of which such a state of things has arisen, as a means of preventing crime or of reforming criminals. Nay, the very existence of any community of recent British origin, and situated within the limits of the British empire, in which such feelings can be entertained, and such claims preferred, is a positive opprobrium to the British government for the last forty years.
As the colony of New South Wales, however,
