See Burton's Letter, Appendix to Transportation Committee's Report, 1837, p. 301-2. Dr. Lang's book on New South Wales abounds in wretched puns, but one rather favourable specimen may be given, when, in allusion to the Englishman's right of being tried by his peers, the Doctor styles the jurors above described "_the Colonial Peerage!_" Respecting the last and highest class of society in our penal colonies, the _free population_, no great deal need be said in particular, since, except from peculiar circumstances, they are pretty much the same in character with the bulk of the population in any other country. But their peculiar circumstances must, in fairness to the class last mentioned, be briefly noticed. Undoubtedly, without any disrespect to emigrants, it may be laid down as an acknowledged fact, that hitherto this class, though it has comprised many excellent, clever, and good men, has not usually been composed of the flower of the English nation. Supposing that things are now altered for the better, time was--and that not many years ago--when "every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented," was apt to swell the tide of emigration to our British colonies in Australia. Upon arriving there they found a regular system of _caste_ established; and since as members of the _free_ population they were at once exalted to the highest places, this was a system which in most cases flattered the pride of the settlers. Possibly many of the faults of the emancipist class might be traced to the treatment they have received at the hands of the free, and these faults react again as causes and excuses for keeping them at still greater distance than ever. And however natural, however necessary, a distinction of ranks is and must be in every society of men, yet nothing can be more unnatural or mischievous than a system of dividing men into _castes_. Unhappily, this division, the fruitful source of all kinds of evil feeling, has to a great extent prevailed in our penal colonies; and nothing, it may be boldly asserted, except religion will ever root it out. Attempt to continue the exclusive privilege of _caste_ to the free population, and you sow the seeds of a servile rebellion. Open your hands to give concessions and privileges to the emancipists, and you scatter good seed upon the stony rock, you vainly endeavour to satisfy the daughters of the horse-leech. But infuse a christian feeling into all classes, get them to meet in the same church, to kneel at the same table, to partake in the same spiritual blessings, and then you may hope that all, whether free or emancipists, will feel themselves to be members of one another, portions of the same body, held in union of heart and soul by means of the same head; "for by One Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into One Spirit."[203]