the persons tried; whereas in Great Britain, and even in Ireland, the acquittals are 19 per cent., and the convictions 81 per cent. A strange, but not unaccountable difference, which, so long as it may continue, will furnish a strong argument of the unfitness of the colony for a representative assembly. Men that have not the principle to put good laws into execution, are very ill qualified to make good laws, or to elect good legislators. And when, to suit party purposes, a clamour is raised about the injustice of denying fresh "constitutional rights" to our fellow-subjects in Australia, we may quietly dispose of this (hitherto absurd and mischievous) claim by referring the very parties raising it to the accounts published, under the sanction chiefly of men of their own opinions, respecting the use made of those rights with which the inhabitants of the penal colonies are already invested. When the evils of the system of transportation are to be exposed, the truth may be told respecting the state of the Australian juries;[202] but why should it not be still declared,--why should not truth _always_ be told,--even at the hazard of checking "liberal principles," and delaying representative houses of assembly for the Australian colonies, until the time when they may know how to use them, so that these may prove a benefit instead of an evil to them? [199] Evidence of J. MacArthur, Esq., before the Committee on Transportation, in 1837, No. 3371-2, p. 220. The richest man in the colony, an emancipist, was said, in 1837, to be worth 40,000_l._ or 45,000_l._ a year. For an account of the shameless roguery, and drunken folly, by means of which so vast an income was amassed, see Report of Transp. Com. 1837, p. 14 and 104. [200] Barrington's History of New South Wales, p. 421. [201] For the mode in which the law admitting emancipists into the jurors' box was passed, see Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. p. 317-320. "Two absent members of the Legislative Council were known to be opposed to it. Of those present, the governor (Bourke) and five others were in favour of it, while six were against it. The governor gave a second and casting vote." [202] See Report of Transportation Committee, 1838, p. 31. "A large proportion of the persons who have appeared and served," as jurors, "are publicans," to whose houses prosecutors, parties on bail, or witnesses, resort, for the purpose of drinking, while in attendance upon the court. Once, when a jury was locked up all night, much foul and disgusting language was used; and to gain a release from this association, the disputed point was yielded; "no greater punishment can be inflicted upon a respectable person than to be shut up with such people for a few hours, or for the night."