But this measure, like all the rest, not being founded on the right principle, has entirely failed. The accumulation of offenders in the British islands, from the stoppage of the usual vent by which they were formerly carried off, soon became insupportable. The jails were crowded to suffocation; it was ere long found to be necessary to liberate many persons, transported seven years, at the expiration of two, to make way for new inmates. The liberated convicts were soon back in their old haunts, and at their old practices; and the great increase of _serious_ crimes, such as robberies, burglaries, and murders, demonstrated that the public morals in the great towns were rapidly giving way, under the influence of that worst species of criminals--returned convicts. The judges both of Great Britain and Ireland, in common with every person practically acquainted with the subject, and who had daily proofs, in the discharge of their important official duties, of the total failure of the imprisonment system, were unanimous in recommending a return to transportation. All the temporary expedients adopted, such as Gibraltar, Bermuda, &c., soon failed from the rapid increase of convicts, who greatly exceeded all the means left of taking them off. Government became convinced that they had made a step in the wrong direction; and they most wisely took counsel from experience, and determined to resume the practice of sending convicts abroad. But, on the threshold of the renewed attempt, they were met by the refusal of the colonies to take them. The Cape is almost in rebellion on the subject; and in despair of finding a willing colony, it is said they have in contemplation to send them to be roasted under the White Cliffs, and increase the already redundant population of Malta. It is not necessary to do any such thing. The solution of the transportation question is easy, the method to be followed perfectly efficacious. Government have only _to commence the discharge_ of one of their most important social duties to get rid of all their difficulties, and render the immigration of criminals, as it was in time past, as great a blessing to the colonies, and as ardently desired, as of late years it has been a curse, and earnestly deprecated. Transportation is a blessing to a colony when the convicts are kept in a minority, perhaps in a fourth or a fifth of the community to which they are sent, and when they are not hardened in crime, and all instructed in some useful trade. In such circumstances, they are the greatest possible addition to its strength, riches, and progress, and will always be gladly received.