ABSTRACT
The poison of suspicion which pervaded Australian feeling towards the Imperial Government while Lord Grey was Secretary of State undoubtedly owed much of its virulence to his association with the system of convict transportation. Yet in no matter did he strive more earnestly to shake himself free from the shackles of the past and start afresh. The Transportation Committee of 1837-8 dealt the system a damaging, but not a mortal blow; and so long as the Melbourne Ministry remained in office, the policy of Lord John Russell was to reform the system in the light of its Report. In one colony only did Lord Grey’s efforts to relieve Van Diemen’s Land of part of its burden meet with any better fortune. Lord Grey’s reply to the anti-transportationists was an admission that transportation had brought evils in its train, combined with an assertion that these could be removed and that that was all the colonists had a right to expect.
