Meanwhile, the history of Cape Colony was by no means confined to conflicts with border natives or to the controversies with the Orange Free State, which have been detailed in preceding pages. In 1850 occurred one ol the most striking illustrations of what mistakes a fair-minded and well-meaning Home Government may at times be involved in when dealing with far-away regions. There seems to have been no perception in those days of the wrong which might be inflicted upon a Colony by the exportation of convicts undergoing various terms of penal servitude. Confinement in Australia or South Africa seemed to British statesmen, and especially to Earl Grey, who presided over the Colonial Office at this time, no more objectionable on principle than it would be if they were kept at home in the British Isles. They forgot that on being released these men--some punished for serious crimes, some for slight offenses--were let loose upon a community widely scattered and isolated and composed of many persons who, taken in this way, were easy victims to robbery or attack. And they entirely overlooked the danger of allowing hundreds, or in time thousands, of men without personal responsibility or character, to roam at will amongst a large and restless population of natives. They appear to have felt only that in the vast and vacant spaces of the Colonies there was room and verge for a released convict, or a ticket-of-leave man, to make for himself a new career untrammelled by the past, or by the danger of drifting again into the deeps of the great cities at home. [Sidenote: Penal Settlement in the Colony] When it was understood at the Cape that the Imperial Government proposed to establish a penal settlement in the Colony, similar to the one which had been formed at Botany Bay, the indignation aroused was immediate and intense, petitions and protests were sent in great number to London, meetings were held throughout the Colony, and when the _Neptune_ arrived in Simon's Bay, Cape Town, with convicts on board, nearly all the people of the Peninsula bound themselves together in a pledge to supply nothing to the ship or to have any dealings with persons connected with it. Sir Harry Smith, who was then Governor, had expressed his own strong opposition to the plan; but he was compelled to obey his orders from home and could not therefore send the vessel back. For five months it lay in the Harbor, supplied from passing men-of-war and treated by the Colonists as though the plague were within its wooden walls. And then, at last, came the order--in frank and acknowledged response to the petitions of the Colonists--transferring its convict cargo to Tasmania. [Sidenote: A New Constitution]