Having accepted the office of president, Wilmot convened the Tasmanian Society, formed by Franklin, and presented a series of alterations in its organisation. He proposed that it should consist of a president, four vice-presidents, and a council of twelve, to be nominated by the governor; and that at first it should be limited to fifty fellows. The project was distasteful to the original members of the Tasmanian Society, who objected to the summary increase of their body. Wilmot proceeded to incorporate those who concurred with his views as "The Horticultural and Botanical Society of Van Diemen's Land." They were then intrusted with the government garden, and the appropriation of a grant of L400 per annum, required for its cultivation. The discarded society complained of the haste of the proposed revolution. They thought past services demanded a consideration of their wishes. They had received in trust an endowment from Lady Franklin of some prospective value; they corresponded with men of the first scientific circles; and they had published a journal which widely extended the physical knowledge and European fame of this hemisphere. None who are experienced in the causes of political discontent will consider such trifles without serious effect on the tempers of parties and the peace of rulers. Wilmot received the government in a condition most unfavorable to his tranquillity. The arrival of many thousand prisoners had for a time quickened trade, and some months elapsed before they became competitors for the bread of the free mechanics. The universally low price of labor, the demand for dwellings, and the closing of a local bank, which liberated small capitals, occasioned a competition for town allotments, and set all classes to building. But this stimulus was soon exhausted, and workmen of every grade began to suffer distress. They found hundreds of passholders working at a price to them, indeed, ample, but on which a family would starve. The regulations introduced by Lord John Russell discouraged employment of prisoners in the towns, where they could easily indulge every evil inclination, and where they abated the value and respectability of labor; but such was the pressure of numbers on the colonial government that its officers were glad to abandon all reformatory theories to get rid of the crowds which idled their time and burdened the British treasury. The free operative classes appealed to the governor for redress. Wilmot replied by appeals to their humanity: he said that many prisoners of the crown, influenced by bad example, ignorance, and want, had lost their liberty; that it would be unkind and unjust to obstruct their progress to competence and reformation. These excuses for a policy which tended to depress honest workmen only convinced them that it was time to retire from the country. A more powerful class might have shown that the proper office of mercy is to shorten the duration of a sentence, and not to inflict punishment on