[* This conjecture has been verified by a publication which has lately appeared from the pen of the Honourable Henry Grey Bennet, M. P. intituled, “A Letter to Lord Viscount Sidmouth on the Transportation Laws; the State of the Hulks, and of the Colonies in New South Wales.”  From this it appears that from May, 1787, to January, 1817, the number of convicts transported thither amounted to seventeen thousand; so that the entire increase which has taken place in the population in the course of thirty years, both from emigration and births, cannot be estimated at more than four thousand souls, so numerous have been the returns of convicts after the expiration of their sentences.]

It is here but candid to confess, that one of the leading causes why so many of this class are continually quitting the colony, has been their desire to rejoin their wives and families.  This motive, however, no longer exists; since in a dispatch from the noble secretary of state for the colonial department, to Governor Macquarie, of which the receipt has been for some time past acknowledged, it was directed that “returns should be occasionally sent home of such convicts as may have applied for permission for their wives to join them; and that it should be therein stated whether such persons have the means of maintaining their wives and families, in the event of their being allowed to proceed to the colony.”  Measures have been already taken to carry the humane intention here manifested by his majesty’s government into effect; and many hundreds who would otherwise have quitted the colony, will now remain there, and thus both the permanency of their reformation will be guaranteed, and the march of colonization greatly accelerated.  Generous Britain, not more renowned in arts and arms, than in mercy and benevolence; may thy supremacy be coeval with thy humanity!  Or if that be impossible; if thou be doomed to undergo that declension and decay, from which no human institutions, no works of man appear to be exempt, may the records of thy philanthropy hold the world in subject awe and admiration, long after the dominion of thy power shall have passed away!  May they soften the hearts of future nations, and be a shining sun that shall illuminate both hemispheres, and chase from every region of the earth the black reign of barbarism and cruelty for ever!

While the existing system of government is thus rapidly undermining the general prosperity and freedom, and presenting the greatest checks to the progress of colonization, it is but natural to conclude from the pertinacity with which it is maintained, that it is at least productive of some beneficial results to the power to which it owes its origin and existence.  It were a species of political anomaly to suppose that any order of things diametrically opposite to the interests of the governed, should be persisted in, unless it were attended with some positive advantage to the governors.  Ridiculous, however, as in