But it may be doubted whether the colony would have lived at all without an influx of convicts. They who at last asked for them,--so unwillingly,--were clearly of that opinion. There are many in the colony now who express much regret that the settlement should ever have been contaminated by a criminal class, and who profess to believe that nothing but evil has come from the measure. Such regrets are natural, but cannot be taken as indicating any true conception of the difficulties which caused the settlers to ask for convicts. Others declare, and I think with more reason, that the colony could not have lived but for the questionable boon. The parent colony, New South Wales, could not have been founded without convicts. The land was not a land of promise, overflowing with milk and honey. It was a hard land, with much barren soil, often deficient in water, with but few good gifts apparent to the eye of the first comers. The gold was lying hidden and unsuspected among the distant water-courses, and in the bosom of the mountains. The large pastures had to be reached across mountains which were long impervious to explorers. In telling the early tale of New South Wales I have endeavoured to explain how great was the struggle to maintain life on the first settlement; and the struggle was made only because it was necessary to Great Britain that she should find a distant home for her criminal exiles. The convicts were sent; and the attendants on the convicts, with convict assistance, made a new world. The same thing has been done in Western Australia, and the results will at last be the same. As soon as the exiles arrived at the Swan River imperial money fostered and comforted the struggling settlement. Not only was work done by the men who were sent, but for every man sent money was expended. There were imperial officers, comptroller-generals, commissary-generals, commandants, superintendents, surveyors, chaplains, accountants,--all paid from home. And the convicts did work,--not indeed so well or with such result as paid labourers,--but still, after the convict fashion, with considerable effect. If the men individually were bad workmen, yet their number was great. And it was work gratis,--costing the colony nothing. Such roads have been made as the other colonies,--always excepting Tasmania,--do not possess. Public buildings have been erected, and an air of prosperity has been given to the two towns,--Perth and Freemantle, the only towns in the colony,--which could hardly have come to them yet but for this aid. And imperial funds are still spent largely,--though no doubt the money flowing into Western Australia from that source will yearly become less and less. The comptroller-general has gone home, and there is doubt whether there will be another comptroller-general. The comfortable and somewhat imposing house, in which the old comptroller used to live, at Freemantle,--in dignity only second to that of the governor,--has been made a hospital.