Peel, the settlers at the period alluded to were located on the Swan and
the Canning, by following down which rivers they could have reached in
the course of a single day the towns of Perth or Freemantle.
He has also to confess his ignorance of the colonists having, as stated,
petitioned for convicts--he knows that such a wish was not expressed in
their memorial drawn up in 1832, and laid before His Majesty's
Government by Sir James Stirling in person. The colonists having had
before their eyes, in the neighbouring penal settlements, the serious
evils inflicted on society by the employment of convicts (especially as
indoor servants) have firmly resisted the temptation to seek such a
remedy for their wants. The extreme difficulty, which it is notorious
respectable families there experience, to sufficiently guard the morals
of their offspring, and to secure their being brought up in the
necessary principles of virtue and integrity, is alone a consideration
which, it is believed, will keep the colonists in Western Australia
stedfast on that point.
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