Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/604

At the request of the Governor the humane Quakers reported upon what they saw. While thus addressing himself to the task which the penal condition of the island imposed upon him, Colonel Arthur did not neglect the interests of the settlers, and the need of intellectual culture amongst those who were to govern the land in future. He would not yield to the demands of Gellibrand, of Thomas Horne, of T. G. Gregson and others, for representative institutions while the island was but a large gaol. A great meeting was held in 1831, at which Horne (a barrister) revelled in the prospect of prosecution for his opinions. "Let them crush me, and they will associate my name with the record of this meeting, which history will preserve to the latest period of time." He was not persecuted but patronized, and if his name be preserved it will be on some musty record which he signed as a placeman under the government he had denounced. In 1834 the same wild spirit made him talk of the assertion by the hybrid population of their rights if necessary by force of arms:" and some of his coadjutors demanded that every convict on landing should be set free to join the band of reformers.

Colonel Arthur irritated Horne by declining to recognize, without permission from England, Horne's position as secretary of a political association; and a newspaper (edited by Dr. Ross) ridiculed the ostentatious proceedings of the association. A more sagacious effort was about the same period embarked upon by those who, admitting Arthur's contention that a convict legislature would be shocking, sought the discontinuance of transportation to the colony. In those days, however, its horrors had not awakened public remorse, and the government were not prepared to abandon the unwholesome system in which they were entangled. Colonel Arthur had a staunch supporter in all good deeds in the person of the Rev. W. Bedford, the senior chaplain, who succeeded Mr. Knopwood.