PORT PHILLIP.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 391, 2 May 1849, Page 3

PORT PHILLIP.

A. public meeting was held at Melbourne on the 6th Instant,' the Worshipful Mayor in the chair, when the following resolutions were submitted to the raeeeting :—: — It was proposed by Mr. Hill, J.P., seconded by Mr. Balbirnie, and carried — " That this meeting has learned with the utmost astonishment, alarm, and indignation, that notwithstanding the numerous demonstrations of the unwillingness of "the inhabitants of Port Phillip to consent on any terms to the importation of British criminals, and despite the utter failure of the exile system, formerly attempted, the Home Governmeut contemplates constituting, this province a place to which felons may by law be transported ; and that the next ship is actually to bring us convicts of the ticket-of-leave class." Proposed by Mr. Sidney Stephen, barrister, J.P., seconded by Mr. O'Shanessy, and unanimously carried :—": — " That independently of the moral and social evils attendant upon the importation of convicts Into any community, and the contamination and vice inseparable from any penal system, "this meeting is disposed to regard the transportation of convicts to this province, at this period, as absolutely ruinous ; ,' its certain effect beingthe stoppage of the present redundant' supply of

virtuous and industrious immigrants, and the consequent degradation of the population for he respectable citizens and yeomen this province is now in a fair way of obtaining." Proposed by Alderman Johnston, seconded by Mr. Heales, and unanimously carried — ." That being already in possession of the assurance of her Majesty's Government that there exists neither the intention nor desire to take any proceeding in the matter of transportation, except such as may be generally conducive to the interests, and agreeable to the inclinations of thoie whom it will most directly and intimately concern ; feeling also that the importation of convicts to this province would be a direct violation of faith with, the great majority of the inhabitants, who have emigrated from the mother country on the distinct assurance of both the Home and the Colonial Governments that the district of Port Phillip was never to he regarded as a, penal settlement, and that transportation to Now South Wales was entirely to cease from the year 1839, and knowing that no set of Ministers can be justified in degrading the free citizens of a British colony into the mere denizens of a penal settlement ; this meeting thus publicly records the determination of the inhabitants of the province, to resist the landing of convicts upon these shores." Proposed by Alderman Kerr, seconded by Mr. Fawkner, and carried — " That as it is evident from the speeches in Parliament, and the public despatches of the Right Honorable the Secretary of State for the Colonies, that her Majesty's Government has been shamefully imposed upon as to the result of the transmission to this province of Exiles from the Pentonville, Millbank, and Parkhurst prisons, and also as to the wishes and feelings of the colonists in regard to the question of transportation, and as under such circumstances no reliance can be placed on the head of the local executive, the official organ in all past communications on the subject with her Majesty's ministers, this meeting resolves upon the appointment of the following deputation, viz. — His worship the Mayor, Messrs. Sidney Stephen, W. Hull, Simpson, Kerr, and Dr. M'Arthur, to wait on the Governor on his arrival in the province, for the purpose of requesting his Excellency to transmit the resolutions of this meeting to the Queen, and in the name of the whole body of the colonists to impress upon his Excellency the imperative necessity for the preservation of the public peace, and of following the course adopted by the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope under similar circumstances, namely, prohibiting the landing of any convicts that may be sent out, until her Majesty is correctly informed of the wishes of this community. Resolved also, that the same gentlemen be constituted a committee, to act on behalf of this meeting in the event of the convicts arriving."