Explore "A Short History of Australia" by Ernest Scott on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Sir William Molesworth's committee on transportation--Effect of the committee's report--Order in Council discontinuing transportation to Australia--Effect of new policy--The new prison system--'Pentonvillains'-- Convicts shipped to Port Phillip--Growth of anti-transportation feeling-- Gladstone's policy--The RANDOLPH in Hobson's Bay--Resistance to landing of 'exiles'--Lord Grey and the colonies.
The whole policy of transportation was elaborately reviewed by a committee of the House of Commons which sat in 1837-8, and which presented two very large reports. For some years previously there had been brisk controversy in England on the subject. Archbishop Whately of Dublin in particular assailed the system with remarkable vigour, on three grounds chiefly: first, that it did not diminish crime in Great Britain, secondly that it did not conduce to the reformation of criminals, and thirdly that it produced a disgraceful state of depravity in the colonies into which the convicts were poured. The system was costing Great Britain between 400,000 and 500,000 pounds per annum. Was she obtaining an adequate advantage from this expenditure? Nay, more, was she not actually doing evil?