'The convicts that are transported here sometimes prove very worthy creatures and entirely forsake their former follies; but the trade has for some time run in another channel; and so many volunteer servants come over, especially Irish, that the other is a commodity much blown over. Several of the best planters, or their ancestors, have, in the two colonies,[14] been originally of the convict class, and therefore are much to be praised and esteemed for forsaking their old courses.' In 1751 (p. 293) is printed the following: 'A LETTER LATELY PUBLISHED IN VIRGINIA. 'SIR: When we see our papers filled continually with accounts of the most audacious robberies, the most cruel murders, and infinite other atrocities perpetrated by convicts transported from Europe, what melancholy, what terrible reflections must it occasion! What will become of our posterity? These are some of thy favors, Britain! Thou art called our mother country; but what good mother ever sent thieves and villains to accompany her children; to corrupt some with their infectious vices, and murder the rest? What father ever endeavored to spread the plague in his family! We do not ask fish, but thou givest us serpents, and worse than serpents! In what can Britain show a more sovereign contempt for us, than by emptying their gaols into our settlements, unless they would likewise empty their offal upon our tables? What must we think of that board, which has advised the repeal of every law we have hitherto made to prevent this deluge of wickedness overwhelming us; and with this cruel sarcasm, that these laws were against the public utility, for they tended to prevent the improvement and well peopling of the colonies! And what must we think of those merchants, who, for the sake of a little paltry gain, will be concerned in importing and disposing of these abominable cargoes?' With these quotations I would leave the subject to the consideration of every unprejudiced judgment. Is it not for the Southerner, even for the Virginian, to produce further evidence of his Cavalier descent before it can be allowed? We see abundant proofs, taken from authorities in no way connected with the present inimical feelings of the North and South, that a very large portion of the English colonists consisted of transported felons. To this direct evidence--which can only be rebutted by evidence of the extinction of the descendants of this class and the infusion of an equal amount of gentle blood--we have thus far only the fact of the presence of a very few good families, and the boasts of prejudiced partisans.