In whatever sense Earl Grey announced abolition in '47, it was clear that free emigration was essential to his plan when he proposed to resume it in '48. The funds he assigned for this purpose were sums,--the cost of their exile--to be exacted from ticket-holders as the price of freedom. But these funds were wholly prospective. Insuperable difficulties opposed their collection. Nor was the principle just. The sickly and unskilful would have stood at a greater distance from liberation than the clever and robust. The successful thief could purchase his freedom, and leave behind his more honest shipmates. The criminal being confounded with the debtor, a penal sentence would have ended in a civil process. Earl Grey proposed to add to the free population by the expenditure of L10,000, granted by the parliament, but it was found that the families of convicts were to be the chief participants. Thus resumption cut off all hope of free emigration. Nor was it even desirable while the laboring classes were in poverty. The settlers had the example of New South Wales before them; where even the sudden stoppage of transportation had been followed by rapid recovery. They were willing to combat their difficulties alone. "Such," said they, "will at no distant period be the condition of this country should the government prove just. And then, with its fertile valleys, clothed with abundance and filled with life, and its pure salubrious atmosphere giving length of days, it will need no other attractions than nature has conferred--no other commerce than the commerce of freedom--no patronage save the enterprise of its children. From the crown we ask nothing except to spare us from further wrong, and to accept our grateful loyalty in return for the uplifting of a burden too heavy to bear."