In 1849 the colony yielded to its fate, and at a public meeting in the capital, with the sheriff in the chair, a deputation was appointed to ask the governor to take steps to make Western Australia a penal settlement. And so the deed was done. Steps were taken which were very quickly successful, and from that time,--or rather from 1st June, 1850, when the first convict arrived, down to 9th January, 1868, when the last convict was put on shore at Freemantle, over 10,000 of these exiles have been sent to a colony which still possesses a population of only 25,000 white persons. Of this same year, 1849, two other memorable statements are made. It is said that coal was discovered in Western Australia, and that gas admirably fitted for domestic purposes had been extracted from the shrub called the “blackboy.” I regret to state that neither the gas nor the coal are at present known in the colony. Whether there be coal or not in this part of Australia is still one of the secrets of nature. Search is being made for it now under government auspices, by the process of boring,--not I fear with much promise of success. I am told that geologists say that there is coal, but that it lies very deep in the earth. From 1850 down to 1868,--and indeed to the present day and for many a day to come,--the history of Western Australia is and will be that of a convict colony. Whether it is well that a young and struggling settlement should be assisted after such a fashion is a question on which they who have studied the subject in regard to Australia differ very much. As regards the colony now under review, I am inclined to think that it could not have been kept alive without extraneous aid; and I do not know what other sufficient extraneous aid could have been given to it. It may be well to explain here that the exportation of convicts to Western Australia was discontinued, not in deference to the wishes of the colony itself, nor because the mother country was tired of sending them,--but because the other colonies complained. The convicts when released got away to South Australia and Victoria,--or, at any rate, the Victorians and South Australians so reported; and thus the stain was still continued to the young Eastern world. The other colonies remonstrated, and therefore convicts are no longer sent to the Swan River.