example of the reputable portion of the new community into which he was thenceforth to be cast, and stimulated by the prospects which are uniformly held forth in new countries to industry and perseverance.
A virtuous free emigrant population, sufficiently numerous to form a point d'appui to the government, and to prove, in concert with that government, "a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to all such as should do well," was therefore an essential part of the political organization and constitution of the penal colonies of the empire: and if unforeseen and calamitous events, of overwhelming importance, had not entirely absorbed the energies of his majesty's ministers, and withdrawn their attention for a long period from the state and prospects of the penal colonies,—leaving the management of these important appendages of the empire to chance and incapacity,—the whole framework of their society would doubtless have been organized and constituted, from the first, on this rational model.
This will appear evident from the following extracts from certain despatches of Captain Phillip, the first governor of New South Wales, addressed to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in the year 1790; in which it was taken for granted that the settlement of a considerable number of free
