28 June 1802 42 N. S. Wales 7

Whether the Ministers, whose system from beginning to end was

directed by a spirit principle of equal

contempt for the laws of the land and those of natural justice —

whether these Ministers at any period subsequent to the commencement of it

have thought fit so far to preserve the forms of respect for the

forms authority

of law the legislation as to employ a sham contract with

[+] with a servant of the Crown the Governor

of the Colony to bring themselves within the letter of the law

— of the Act of 1787 I do not pretend to know. All I can say about

the matter is comprised in this dilemma.

In point of fact what is print and is notorious to

every body is — that somehow or other Convicts on

arrival at South Wales find themselves transferred and made over to

the Governor. This transfer is made either with the intervention of a

Contract — a contract between the transporter who

transferrs the Convict, and the Governor who accepts him

— or it is made without such Contract. In the first case, the letter

alone of the law is complied with by a sham Contract different in the most

essential particulars from the real old-established Contract

which the Nature (or at least the Natures which it professes to copy) had

in view: the spirit of the law being violated: in the other case the

whole proceeding is illegal and void, being without foundation either in

the spirit or so much as the letter of the law in which it

pretends to ground itself.

Contract, or no-Contract. If a Contract, it is a sham Contract, contrary to

the spirit of the law which authorizes it: it no Contract, the

system is illegal throughout, having no law to

authorize it