AND COLONIZATION.
67
emancipists, and actually glorying in the recollection of their having once been outcasts from society for their crimes.[1]
Had the intentions of the original founders of the colony of New South Wales been vigorously followed up, and had the reiterated recommendations of its first governor been duly attended to, so as to have enabled the first detach-
- ↑ As a proof of the correctness of these statements, and of the reality of the feeling I have represented as existing extensively in New South Wales, I would merely mention the following fact:—At an anniversary dinner, held by the emancipists of Sydney, in the year 1822 or 1823, to celebrate the founding of the colony, Mr. Edward Smith Hall, a free emigrant, and for a long time past the editor of a paper called the 'Monitor,' which for the last ten years has been pandering to the worst passions and feelings of the convict and emancipated convict classes of the population, and doing an infinity of harm to the colony, actually expressed his " sincere regret that he was not an emancipist himself," or, in other words, that he had not arrived in the colony as a convict. If Mr. Hall had been a person of disreputable conduct, the circumstance would not have been so remarkable: but as he has all along maintained a reputable character, it only serves to demonstrate the pernicious results that may be anticipated from attempting to form a colony exclusively of "wicked, condemned men." There were very few free emigrants in New South Wales when Mr. Hall expressed himself in the manner above-mentioned: it would be somewhat difficult to find a respectable individual of that class who would venture to do so now.
