Page:Transportation and colonization.djvu/9

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ADVERTISEMENT.


The following work was written at sea, in the course of the Author's last voyage from New South Wales to London, towards the close of the year 1836. Its main object is to point out to His Majesty's government, to members of parliament, and to the British public generally, the absolute necessity of some immediate and extensive change in the regulation and management of the transportation system in the Australian colonies, as also the means of effecting such a change without entailing any additional expense on the mother country, through the judicious application of the land-revenues of these colonies to the purpose for which they were originally destined; viz. in promoting an immediate and extensive emigration of virtuous and industrious families and individuals from Great Britain and Ireland to the colonial territories. Such an emigration would prove a seasonable relief at the present moment to those districts of the mother country, of which the inhabitants (as, for instance, those of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland) are at present suffering extreme destitution, from the want of employment and the want of subsistence. But it would also prove a measure of the soundest policy, both in regard to the future efficiency of transportation as a species of punishment, and to the moral welfare of the free inhabitants of the