ccess.

#6. Introduction of Convicts.#--This little improvement consisted of a
message received from Earl Grey in 1848 asking the settlers if they were
willing to accept convicts in their midst. The other colonies had
refused them, but it was thought not unlikely that West Australia might
be glad to get them. Opinions were divided as to the reply which ought
to be given: while some were averse to the idea, others believed that
the money sent out by the British Government to maintain the convicts
and soldiers would originate a trade which might give to the colony new
life and fresh prospects. These arguments prevailed, and in 1849 the
first shipload of convicts arrived. From time to time new gangs were
received, and the place began to be much more populous than before. The
shopkeepers in Perth became rich, and the farmer squatters of the
surrounding districts found a ready market for their produce. Yet this
success was only partial; and there was nothing which might be said to
constitute general prosperity. In the little town of Fremantle, the few
and scattered houses had still a rural aspect, and the streets echoed to
the sound of no commercial bustle. In Perth the main street was still a
grassy walk, shaded by avenues of trees, and even in the business
quarter the houses stood each in the midst of its spacious garden.

#7. Evils of Convictism.#--West Australia had now to suffer the
consequences of having become a penal settlement. Many of the convicts,
on being liberated, took up their abode in the colony; but their
dispositions were seldom either amiable or virtuous, and from the vices
of these men the whole population began to lose character in the eyes of
other countries. A large number of the prisoners were no sooner
liberated than they set off for the goldfields in the eastern colonies,
which thus began to share in the evils of convictism. These colonies
were not inclined to suffer long in this manner; and, to defend
themselves, they refused admission to any person who came from West
Australia, unless he could show that he had never been a convict. Thus
the colony at Swan River was branded, and held to be contaminated; no
free immigrants sought its shores, and many of its best inhabitants
departed.

This stigma continued to rest on West Australia until the year 1868,
when the transportation of criminals from Great Britain altogether
ceased, and the colony no longer received its periodical supply of
convicts