TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.

Wellington Independent, Volume VI, Issue 563, 5 March 1851, Page 3

TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.

The humble Petition of the Inhabitants- of the Australian Colonies of New South JVales, Victoria, Van Dieiiten's Land, South Australia, and A'eiv Zealand. Shewkth — That it is the glory and happiness of your Majesty's petitioners to form a part of your Majesty's Empire, united to Great Britain by mutual ties of interest, affection, and duty; possessing the domestic aud moral habits, the literature, the laws, and the religious faith, of the Illustrious Nation which gave them birth. That the past belongs to the Parent State, the future alone to your petitioners, and among the bright visions of the future there is not one more cheering than, that which exhibits these Colonies as the grateful refuge and pleasant home of millions of honest and industrious men, the redundant population of Great Britain and Ireland.

That the magnificent capabilities of these colonies, as fields for emigration, are greatly impaired, and your petitioners, as colonists, grievously injured, by the wrongs inflicted directly on Van Diemen's Land, and indirectly on all the other colonies of Australasia, through Transportation : the appalling results of which have been disclosed by Parliamentary Inquiries, and have been repeatedly attested, and depicted with expressions of horror, by your Majesty's Ministers.

That although your Majesty's Government has beeu pledged to the discontinuance of Transportation to VanDiemen's Land, it nevertheless continues unabated.

That the actual result, if not the avowed object, of the present system is through Van Dieuien's Laud, to inundate all the Australian colonies, with the worst convicts of .the mother country; and that such a policy is not only an outrage upon your petitioners, but a breach of your Majesty's most gracious promise, that no criminals should be transported by Great Britain to her Colonies, without their jeonsent, expressed through their several Legislatures; which promise was conveyed by the Circular Despatch] of the Right Honorable the Earl Grey to the Colonial Governors, dated 7th of August, 1848.

That although the social and moral ■mischiefs of the system render its merely economical results comparatively insignificant your Majesty's petitioners cannot but advert to the fact, that the criminals so cast upon them are, too commonly impt evident and intemperate, and are many of them diseased in body and niind; thus becoming a burthen on the industry and resources of these infant communities.

That by persisting in their present penal policy, your Majesty's Government will make the Australian Dependencies, against their repeated protest, the great receptacle for the crime of the Empire, and will subject them to all the moral and pecuniary evils of direct transportation; evils which are not only the occasion of an exhausting drain upon their charity and benevolent institutions, and of enormously increased taxation for police and :and gaols, but the cause of social depravity, degradation, and wretchedness. That your Majesty's petitioners desire :to transmit to their posterity an inheritance unencumbered by the pauperism, ; and unpolluted by the crime, of the JEmpire.

That the inundating of feeble and dependent Colonies, with the criminals ■of the parent State, is opposed to that arrangement of Providence by which the "virtues of each community is destined to ,«oinbat its own vice.

That although the stupendous power ■of Great Britain may enable her to continue these aggressions with impunity, injustice so revolting has aroused your petitioners $o unite in solomn appeal to $he Eternal principles which preserve the ■weak from the oppression of the strong .and which should more especially restrain A Parent State from thus injuring her offspring. And your Petitioners submit, .th,at tlieir relations with the Mother ipouutry, as colonists s<> far from repeal-

ing, renders of stronger obligation that Rule of Justice which Commonwealths, as well as private persons, nro bound to reverence and practise: and which commands them to do unto others as they would that others should do unto them." Your Majesty's petitioners, therefore, humbly, beseech your Majesty to procure the immediate cessation of Transportation to Van Diemen's Laud: and further,that your Majesty will be graciously pleased to abandon altogether a penal policy, which your Majesty's petitioners feel to be so injurious, so unjust, and so oppressive. And your Majesty's petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.