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Updated: July 18, 2025
In consequence of this, the last-named class were thrown into the background, a kind of check was given to emigration, and, what was worst of all, two parties were set on foot within the settlement, altogether opposed to each other; the exclusionists, who were free settlers, refused to associate at all with those that had ever been convicts; and the emancipists considered that a convict, after his time of punishment had expired, was just as good as any other man.
Bligh honestly endeavoured in a blundering way to accomplish that which only the sharp lesson of his mistake made possible; Macquarie, backed by a regiment, began his administration with concessions, and continued for many years to govern the colony, chiefly for the benefit of the emancipists instead of for its officials.
But infuse a christian feeling into all classes, get them to meet in the same church, to kneel at the same table, to partake in the same spiritual blessings, and then you may hope that all, whether free or emancipists, will feel themselves to be members of one another, portions of the same body, held in union of heart and soul by means of the same head; "for by One Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into One Spirit."
The convicts whose time of punishment had expired, but who were unable to get a passage to England, were frequently more troublesome and ill-disposed, being less under authority than the others were. These emancipists, as they were called, would occasionally indeed withdraw from receiving the ration allowed by Government; but then it was only in the hope of avoiding labour, and living by pillage.
Barrington's History of New South Wales, p. 421. For the mode in which the law admitting emancipists into the jurors' box was passed, see Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. p. 317-320. "Two absent members of the Legislative Council were known to be opposed to it. The governor gave a second and casting vote." See Report of Transportation Committee, 1838, p. 31.
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