, they would be able to amass, each and all of them, enormous fortunes -
a fact which would be easily provable by a reference to statistics. I have no
doubt that a very great number might be thus induced to come back with us in the
larger boats, and that we could fill our vessel with emigrants in three or four
journeys.
    Should we be attacked, our course would be even simpler, for the Erewhonians
have no gunpowder, and would be so surprised with its effects that we should be
able to capture as many as we chose; in this case we should feel able to engage
them on more advantageous terms, for they would be prisoners of war. But even
though we were to meet with no violence, I doubt not that a cargo of seven or
eight hundred Erewhonians could be induced, when they were once on board the
vessel, to sign an agreement which should be mutually advantageous both to us
and them.
    We should then proceed to Queensland, and dispose of our engagement with the
Erewhonians to the sugar-growers of that settlement, who are in great want of
labour; it is believed that the money thus realized would enable us to declare a
handsome dividend, and leave a considerable balance, which might be spent in
repeating our operations, and bringing over other cargoes of Erewhonians, with
fresh consequent profits. In fact we could go backwards and forwards as long as
there was a demand for labour in Queensland, or indeed in any other Christian
colony, for the supply of Erewhonians would be unlimited, and they could be
packed closely and fed at a very reasonable cost.
    It would be my duty and Arowhena's to see that our emigrants should be
boarded and lodged in the households of religious sugar-growers; these persons
would give them the benefit of that instruction whereof they stand so greatly in
need. Each day, as soon as they could be spared from their work in the
plantations, they would be assembled for praise, and be thoroughly grounded in
the Church Catechism, while the whole of every Sabbath should be devoted to
singing psalms and church-going.
    This must be insisted upon, both in order to put a stop to any uneasy
feeling which might show itself either in Queensland or in the mother country as
to the means whereby the Erewhonians had been obtained, and also because it
would give our own shareholders the comfort of reflecting that they were saving
souls and filling their own pockets at one and the same moment. By the time the
emigrants had got too old for work they would have become thoroughly instructed
in religion; they could then be