The Tasmanian colonists were soon instructed by the press that the theory of dispersion was exploded. They were astonished to find fresh convict vessels hovering on their shores; but more still were they amazed to learn that Earl Grey seriously professed that by sending all the convicts to Van Diemen's Land he substantially realised dispersion. He indeed promised to provide an equal amount of emigration, but they knew that these projects were illusive. They had before them the addition of convict ticket holders, by hundreds, to thousands and tens of thousands already in the colony; there to struggle with their predecessors for bread. Such was the prospect of 1848. SECTION IV. "I hope," said Lord John Russell, "that when the house does come seriously to consider any bill having the question of transportation directly in view, it will consider the benefit of the colonies as well as of the mother country. I own I think it has been too much the custom both to pass acts imposing the penalty of transportation with a view rather to the convenience of this country than to the reformation of persons known to be of vicious habits, or to the interest of the colonies to which they were sent. We are bound to consider those interests likewise. We are bound when we are planting provinces, perhaps what may in future time be empires, to endeavour that they should not be merely seats of malefactors and of convicts, but communities fitted to set an example of virtue and happiness, and not to make plantations, as Lord Bacon says, of the scum of the land" (June, 1847). Such were the sentiments of the prime minister on penal colonisation. The secretary of the home department and the secretary for the colonies had been equally explicit. Could they really believe their own doctrine, when their practice was exactly opposite to its plainest dictates? The revolution in the policy of the crown everywhere excited astonishment and indignation. The minister, who denounced penal colonisation as a national crime--who had pleaded the cause of the colony and pledged the redress of its grievances--who, in short, had professed himself a disciple of Archbishop Whately--continued to pour convicts by thousands where for every free man there were two in bond. Destitute of legislative and physical power, the colonists could do nothing but deprecate. Every principal town and public body renewed their entreaties. To give them in full would be but to repeat statements of similar import. However variously expressed, they could scarcely deepen the unavoidable convictions of the world.