Note 220 — TRANSPORTATION (continued 4)

"It was the uniform tendency or design of the writings of these individuals, as it has been also that of all other public writers of convict origin in the Australian colonies, to reduce the reputable portion of the community to the same level as themselves; to abolish all the salutary distinctions which the laws of God and man have erected between right and wrong; and if possible to dispossess the whole convict population of all sense of criminality and degradation."—Lang's Transportation and Colonisation, 1837. p. 109. And yet the disappearance of emancipist disqualifications has almost banished a class of writers who were accepted as champions, but who could not seriously affect the ultimate views of public and private morality—they were mere actors.