$SBs 
 
 
 * /* A A*-?kn * k • * - a ! /* 
 
 ■a/vs J** Arm 
 
 
 
 
 ^WEfWsM&M 
 
 !WyiEMEmJJfTTw 
 
 
 
 
 
 "V^WW 
 
 : MM^Atoffi^ k 
 
 w^^dm/m*. 
 
 
 jamw 
 
i 
 
 / 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
c 
 
 A £ v <• 
 
 /sy t 
 
AN HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL 
 ACCOUNT 
 
 OF 
 
 NEW SOUTH WALES, 
 
 BOTH 
 
 AS A PENAL SETTLEMENT 
 AND AS A BRITISH COLONY. 
 
 BY JOHN DUNMORE LANG, D.D., 
 
 SENIOR MINISTER OF THE SCOTS CHURCH, AND PRINCIPAL OF THE 
 AUSTRALIAN COLLEGE, SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 We have seen the land, and, behold, it is very good."— Judges xviii. 9. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, 
 
 WITH NUMEROUS ADDITIONS, BRINGING DOWN THE HISTORY OF THE 
 COLONY TO THE CLOSE OF 1836. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 A. J. VALPY, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET: 
 
 BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH. 
 
 1837. 
 
PRINTED BY A. J. VALPY, 
 ItEU LION COURT, FLEET STREET. 
 
DUUto 
 I S3! 
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE 
 
 PREFATORY ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 FIRST EDITION. 
 
 Having found it necessary to undertake a voyage from 
 New South Wales to England in the month of July, 
 1833, on business connected with the Australian Col- 
 lege, and with the Presbyterian Church in communion 
 with the Church of Scotland, in that colony, and having 
 accordingly obtained leave of absence for twelve months 
 from His Excellency Major-General Sir Richard Bourke, 
 the present Governor of New South Wales, it appeared 
 to me that I could not employ the leisure of a long and 
 dreary voyage more usefully for my adopted country, 
 than in drawing up a series of sketches, for publication 
 in England, illustrative of its past history and of its 
 present condition. 
 
 The following work was accordingly commenced im- 
 mediately after we had lost sight of the Australian land ; 
 and the first seven chapters were written chiefly in the 
 high latitudes of the Southern Pacific, before doubling 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 Cape Horn : the remaining chapters were written 
 during the run from Cape Horn to the British Channel. 
 
 A work written in such circumstances must necessarily 
 have many imperfections. In running to the eastward 
 in the high southern latitudes, in which the first part of 
 the work was written, no fewer than thirteen icebergs 
 were seen from the deck of our vessel ; and the process 
 of writing was frequently interrupted — sometimes by 
 intense cold in my own private cabin, at others by the 
 smoke from the ship's stove in the main cabin ; and at 
 others, again, by a sea occasionally breaking over the 
 vessel's side, and dashing a shower of spray over the 
 manuscript through a broken pane in the window of 
 my apartment. In such circumstances repetitions of 
 the same idea, if not also of the same words, are apt to 
 occur ; dull expletives are apt to intrude themselves, and 
 the balancing of periods is scarcely to be thought of. 
 
 My object in the work has been threefold : — 1st, To 
 afford the reader a correct idea of the history, the ten- 
 dency, and the working of the transportation system, 
 as it regards the Australian colonies ; — 2ndly, To exhibit 
 a faithful representation of the present state of the 
 colony of New South Wales in particular ; and 3rdly, To 
 promote the best interests of that colony, by promoting 
 the emigration of reputable families and individuals to 
 its territory, and by pointing out to the authorities at 
 home the line of policy which it is expedient to pursue 
 for the future, to secure its general welfare and its rapid 
 advancement. 
 
 As a penal settlement, the history of New South 
 Wales is unquestionably much more interesting to the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 general reader than that of any of the other colonies of 
 the empire. That colony has been the scene of an ex- 
 periment on the capabilities of man, the progress and 
 the result of which are interesting not merely to Bri- 
 tain, but to Europe — to the world. The general im- 
 pression in the mother country relative to that ex- 
 periment decidedly is that it has failed — that the whole 
 system of transportation is bad — that its management is 
 worse, and that it ought forthwith to be discontinued. 
 If this impression should be correct, it will nevertheless 
 be of importance to ascertain whether the failure has 
 been owing to the system or to the management, and 
 what are the causes that have operated in producing 
 so unlooked-for and so unfortunate a result. If, on 
 the contrary, the impression should be unfounded, it is 
 high time that the public should be undeceived. 
 
 It is allowed on all hands that there is much in the 
 present state of the Australian colonies to counteract 
 the general tendency and efficiency of the Transportation 
 system. In order, therefore, to show how such a state 
 of things has been arrived at, I found it absolutely 
 necessary, in projecting the present work, to take a 
 retrospective view of the state and progress of the co- 
 lony from its original settlement to the present time. 
 This retrospect, which I am confident has been taken 
 with candour and impartiality, I have reason to believe 
 will sufficiently explain whatever might otherwise have 
 appeared anomalous in the present aspect and con- 
 dition of the Australian colonies. 
 
 It is scarcely possible to relate facts and events of 
 comparatively recent occurrence, in the progress of 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 which the evil passions of individuals may have been 
 strongly developed, without giving great offence. It is 
 quite true, as has been quaintly observed by Dr. Ful- 
 ler, the author of a * History of the University of Cam- 
 bridge, ' that " a man may hold a candle to lighten 
 posterity so near as to burn his own fingers therewith ;" 
 nevertheless, I must add with the worthy Doctor, " I will 
 run the hazard, rather than be wanting to any reason- 
 able desire" on the part of posterity. The history of 
 New South Wales is peculiarly British property ; it 
 ought, therefore, most unquestionably to be dealt out 
 agreeably to the principles of British justice, without 
 fear and without favour. I am confident I have ad- 
 hered to these principles throughout the following- 
 work. If in any instance I have unconsciously erred, 
 either in the estimate I have formed of individuals, or 
 in the narrative I have given of facts, I can only say 
 with the heathen, ilumanum est errare, 
 
 London, April, 1834. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 During the three years that have elapsed since the 
 publication of the first edition of this work, the colony 
 of New South Wales has undergone various important 
 changes, affecting its whole aspect and character as a 
 British colony ; and has made much greater advances 
 in the march of general improvement, than during any 
 period of equal duration in its previous history. Its 
 vast resources, and the ample means it possesses of 
 counteracting and eventually neutralising the evil in- 
 fluences of its original constitution, as well as of a long 
 period of mismanagement on the part of its rulers, 
 under the operation of the colonial convict system, have 
 during that period been developed to a degree un- 
 precedented in the history of British colonies, and 
 never anticipated by the most sanguine of its friends. 
 These changes, together with the animating prospects 
 they have opened up for the colony, are detailed 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 in the following pages ; a great part of the work 
 having been re-written, to bring down the history of 
 the colony, in regard to its intellectual, moral, and re- 
 ligious, as well as to its agricultural, commercial, and 
 political state, to the present time. In short, during 
 the last three years the colony has passed through a 
 crisis of the utmost importance in its results to its 
 general welfare in all time coming, and a new and 
 happier era of its existence has undoubtedly com- 
 menced. I trust the account I have given of that 
 important period will be found not uninteresting to the 
 general reader, as exhibiting a state of rapid transition 
 in a whole community seldom witnessed in other and 
 older countries ; at all events I am confident it will be 
 found accordant with facts. 
 
 As certain exceptions were taken by respectable in- 
 dividuals to the account I had given, in the first edition 
 of this work, of the administration of Governor Bligh, 
 and as it had even been insinuated that that account 
 contained serious misrepresentations, I was led, in 
 making preparations for a second edition, to investigate 
 that portion of our colonial history much more minutely 
 than I had done before. The result of that investigation 
 will be found in its proper place, together with nu- 
 merous extracts from colonial documents published at 
 the time when the transactions referred to were of 
 comparatively recent occurrence, and justifying the 
 conclusions I had been led to form on less extensive 
 information. The publication of these extracts will 
 probably give offence in quarters in which I should 
 wish to stand well ; but as the early history of the 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 colony of New South Wales will acquire additional 
 interest among all classes of its inhabitants, as well as 
 in Great Britain and America, in proportion to its 
 increasing importance, not merely as a British colony, 
 but as the destined seat of future and extensive empire, 
 I could not consent to sacrifice one iota of what I 
 consider the interests of truth, especially in a matter 
 of such moment, to mere personal considerations. 
 
 Neither have I found it necessary to adopt a different 
 opinion from the one to which I had given expression 
 in the first edition of this work, in regard to the colonial 
 administration of the late Governor, General Darling. 
 The general accordance of that opinion with the facts of 
 the case will, perhaps, be inferred by the candid reader 
 from the circumstance of my representation of His Ex- 
 cellency's character and government having been stig- 
 matised as an unwarranted attack by his friends, and as 
 an unmerited vindication by his enemies. In all such 
 cases the truth generally lies between. 
 
 If I had had sufficient leisure to superintend the 
 publication of this work, as well as to prepare it for 
 the press, there are various alterations which I should 
 have made in it, in regard to the arrangement of the 
 matter it comprises, which would have given it a more 
 respectable character in a literary point of view : but 
 the time that has elapsed since my return to England, 
 about seven months ago, has been so completely occu- 
 pied in travelling to and fro — including five journeys 
 to Scotland, three to Ireland, and a pretty long tour in 
 France, Germany, and Holland — in furtherance of the 
 general objects of my visit to the mother country, that 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 it has been altogether out of my power to do justice 
 either to the work or to its author ; the cabins of 
 steam-boats, and travellers' rooms in hotels, in which a 
 considerable portion of the latter part of it has been 
 written, being but indifferent situations for literary 
 labour. In regard to these blemishes, however, the 
 gentle reader is requested to exercise the candour and 
 good feeling for which he was always accustomed to 
 receive credit in the prefaces of the olden time. 
 
 Liverpool, July 15, 1837. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Progressive discovery of the coasts of New Holland . . 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Establishment of a British colony at Port Jackson, under the 
 
 government of Captain Arthur Phillip. R.N. . . 16 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 General state of the colony during the administrations of 
 
 Governors Hunter and King 63 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 State of the colony during the administration of Governor 
 Bligh, with an account of the origin and result of the 
 Colonial Rebellion of 1808 93 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Account of the state and progress of the colony during the 
 
 government of Major-General Macquarie . . . 157 
 
XU CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Account of the state and progress of the colony under the 
 government of Major-General Sir Thomas Brisbane, 
 K.C.B .191 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Account of the state and progress of the colony during the 
 government of Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Dar- 
 ling, K.C.B 231 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 View of the present state of the colony under the government 
 
 of Major-General Sir Richard Bourke, K. C. B. . . 304 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 View of the amount and distribution of the colonial population, 
 of the produce and trade, and of the revenue and expen- 
 diture of New South Wales ..... 344 
 
 | 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 View of the present state of agriculture and of the agricultural 
 
 interest in New South Wales 391 
 
 Appendix 438 
 
AN 
 HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL ACCOUNT 
 
 OF 
 
 NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PROGRESSIVE DISCOVERY OF THE COASTS OF 
 NEW HOLLAND. 
 
 f 
 
 Denique et a nostro diversum gentibus orbem, 
 Diversum coelo, et clarum majoribus astris, 
 Remigio audaci attigimus, ducentibus et Dis. 
 
 Fracastorius. 
 " Under the guidance of Superior Powers, and in the course of our 
 adventurous navigation, we have at length reached a world differing 
 from our own in its nations, in its climate, and in its sky." 
 
 The vast continental island of New Holland, which 
 was long supposed by European philosophers to consti- 
 tute a part of an imaginary southern continent, equal in 
 extent to Asia or America, was discovered by Don Pedro 
 Fernando de Quiros, a Spaniard of noble family, in the 
 year 1609. De Quiros appears to have made the land, 
 
 VOL. 1. A 
 
Z HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 which he named Australia del Espiritu Santo, some- 
 where about the sixteenth parallel of south latitude, in 
 the vicinity of Torres Straits. Conceiving his discovery 
 of much greater importance than it was likely to have 
 proved, even if prosecuted with ardour, in that early 
 period of the history of modern navigation, De Quiros 
 memorialized the court of Madrid for an expedition to 
 ascertain the limits of the country, and for troops to 
 conquer it for the King of Spain. In this application, 
 however, he was unsuccessful: the Spanish monarch, 
 it seems, was no Alexander ; being wisely satisfied, 
 perhaps, with the worlds of which he had already 
 obtained the undisputed sovereignty through the splen- 
 did discoveries of Columbus. # 
 
 The northern and western coasts of the island, from 
 the gulf of Carpentaria to the south-western extremity 
 of the land, together with a portion of the southern 
 coast of the neighbouring island of Van Dieman's Land, 
 were discovered during the next forty years by a suc- 
 cession of Dutch navigators. Of this extensive line of 
 coast, the land extending from the tropic of Capricorn 
 to the twenty-eighth parallel of south latitude, was the 
 first discovered. It was fallen in with in the year 1616, 
 
 * It is not absolutely certain whether the land seen by De Quiros was 
 really the main-land of New Holland, or one of the numerous islands to 
 the north-eastward. The French, the Portuguese, the Spaniards, and 
 the Dutch, have all severally laid claim to the honour of having dis- 
 covered that vast island, or rather continent. It cannot be denied, how- 
 ever, that while De Quiros was the first to maintain the actual existence 
 of a vast southern land, which he asserted he had himself discovered, 
 the Dutch were the first to point out distinctly where it lay ; and it is 
 therefore scarcely fair to allow the name Kieuto ffollandt, which com- 
 memorates the interesting fact, to be entirely forgotten. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 6 
 
 by Captain Dirk Hartog, of the Dutch ship Endraght, 
 or Harmony, and was thence denominated Endraght* s 
 Land. Two years thereafter, the land extending from 
 the north-west cape to the fifteenth parallel of south 
 latitude was discovered by another Dutch captain of 
 the name of Zeachen, who also appears to have dis- 
 covered and surveyed a considerable portion of the 
 northern coast, which he named the Land of Arnheim. 
 In the year following, Captain John Van Edels visited 
 the western coast to the southward of Endraght's Land, 
 and gave his name to apart of it about the twenty-ninth 
 parallel of latitude. In the year 1622 the south-west 
 cape was discovered, with the land extending to the 
 northward as far as Van Edel's Land, and was named, 
 probably from the vessel in which the discovery was 
 effected, Landt van de Leeuwin, or the Land of the 
 Lioness. Five years thereafter, a considerable part of 
 the southern coast was discovered by Captain Peter 
 Van Nuyts, who bequeathed to it his own mellifluous 
 name ; and in 1628, the line of coast, intervening be- 
 tween Endraght's Land and the discoveries of Zeachen, 
 was discovered and surveyed by a vessel belonging to 
 the Dutch East India Company, and named De Witt's 
 Land, in honour of the commodore who then com- 
 manded the Dutch East India squadron. During the 
 same year, Captain Peter Carpenter, a naval com- 
 mander in the service of the same Honourable Com- 
 pany, to whose enlightened intelligence and persevering 
 enterprise geographical science was thus early and 
 deeply indebted, entered and explored the gulf of Car- 
 
4 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 pentaria on the northern coast of the continent ; # and 
 in the year 1642, Abel Jansen Tasman, who was sent 
 from Batavia by His Excellency Anthony Van Dieman, 
 the Dutch Governor General of the Indies, to survey 
 the coast of New Holland, in command of the Heems- 
 kirk yacht and Zeehaen pinnace, discovered Van 
 Dieman' s Land and the island of New Zealand. An- 
 thony Van Dieman had, it seems, a daughter, to whom 
 Tasman was tenderly attached ; and while the latter 
 immortalized his patron by giving his name to a terri- 
 tory, which has since been ascertained to be a separate 
 island, and which is now the seat of a flourishing 
 British colony, he conferred a similar distinction on his 
 daughter, by giving her name to the northern extremity 
 of New Zealand. The circumstance may perhaps appear 
 
 * As an instance of the degree of information which is often evinced 
 hy persons who write about countries and events with which they are 
 comparatively but little acquainted, my authority for this part of the 
 narrative describes Carpenter as a general in the Dutch East India Com- 
 pany's service ; forgetting that in modern times the soldier-officer (as he 
 is usually styled by seafaring men) is always a distinct personage from 
 the sailor-officer, however they may have been anciently identified in 
 Grecian and Roman warfare. The Dutch commander is also stated to 
 have discovered and explored the gulf, which bears his name, on his 
 homeward passage from Batavia to Europe ; although the gulf of Car- 
 pentaria is many degrees of longitude to the eastward of Batavia, and 
 consequently completely out of the track of vessels homeward-bound 
 from the island of Java. Nay, he is stated to have made his survey of 
 the gulf, which, it is evident, from the slightest inspection of the chart, it 
 must have taken him weeks to effect, while he was in charge of five 
 richly-laden homeward-bound East-Indiamen ; as if any naval com- 
 mander, entrusted with so important a charge, would have ventured to 
 spend his time in making a survey and in forming a chart of the coasts 
 of an unknown country. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 5 
 
 trivial to the reader and unworthy of commemoration ; 
 but it happens at this moment to be somewhat interesting 
 to the writer, as Cape Maria Van Dieman is at present 
 the nearest land to our good ship on her passage home- 
 ward from Port Jackson across the boundless Pacific* 
 
 The first English navigator who visited the coasts of 
 New Holland was the accurate and indefatigable Dam- 
 pier, who, it is well known, received his naval education 
 among the Buccaneers of America. Sailing from Aco- 
 mack in Virginia towards the close of the seventeenth 
 century, to cruise against the Spaniards in the Great 
 South Sea, that eminent navigator, after doubling Cape 
 Horn from the eastward, and then stretching across the 
 Pacific towards the Equator, spent some time on the 
 west coast of New Holland ; and the accounts which he 
 published of his observations, on his return to England, 
 having recommended him to the Earl of Pembroke, who 
 was then at the head of the Admiralty, His Majesty 
 King William III. was induced to give him the com- 
 mand of the Roebuck man-of-war, and to send him on 
 a voyage of discovery to New Holland in the year 1699. 
 It would seem, however, that Dampier did not extend 
 his observations beyond the line of coast which had 
 previously been discovered by the Dutch, and his con- 
 tributions to geographical science accordingly consisted 
 chiefly in a more accurate survey of the coast, and in 
 plain but correct and highly graphical descriptions of 
 the country and its inhabitants. 
 
 The east coast of New Holland, extending from the 
 
 * Cape Maria Van Dieman was distant about sixty-five leagues to the 
 eastward when this paragraph was written. 
 
D HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 thirty- eighth parallel of south latitude to the northern 
 extremity of the land, in latitude ]0|° south, was dis- 
 covered by the famous English navigator Captain Cook ; 
 partly during his first voyage in the year 1770, and 
 partly during his third and last, in the year 1777. 
 These voyages were undertaken chiefly to ascertain the 
 existence or non-existence of a great southern conti- 
 nent; but although this problem, which had occupied 
 the minds of European philosophers, and furnished 
 matter for interesting speculation from the days of De 
 Quiros, was at length solved by our illustrious country- 
 man, in a way that disappointed the anticipations and 
 falsified the conclusions of many ; they made known to 
 the world the existence of a vast island, almost equal 
 in extent to the whole continent of Europe, and they 
 led the way to the speedy establishment of a British 
 colony, which at no distant period will unquestion- 
 ably prove the most valuable of the foreign possessions 
 of the British Crown. 
 
 In running along the east coast of New Holland, 
 from the southern extremity of Van Dieman's Land to 
 Port Jackson, in the years 1788 and 1790, Captain 
 Hunter, of His Majesty's ship Sirius, who was after- 
 wards Governor of New South Wales, expressed his 
 opinion that a strait or deep gulf would be found to 
 intersect the land between Maria's Island, to the north- 
 ward of Van Dieman's Land, and the thirty- eighth 
 parallel of south latitude, where the main-land of New 
 Holland had been first fallen in with to the southward 
 by Captain Cook. The reasons he assigned for enter- 
 taining this opinion were, that he had observed a strong 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 current to the eastward on that part of the coast, and 
 that no land had as yet been discovered between the 
 points I have mentioned. It was not, however, till the 
 year 1798 that this opinion was ascertained to be well 
 founded, and Van Dieman's Land, which in all the 
 older charts is represented as the southern extremity of 
 New Holland, discovered to be an island. This im- 
 portant discovery was effected in an open boat by Mr. 
 Bass, a surgeon in the royal navy, who was then sta- 
 tioned on the coast ; and as the strait, which separates 
 Van Dieman's Land from the main-land of New Hol- 
 land, has ever since borne the name of its discoverer, 
 the singularly enterprising spirit of this meritorious 
 officer has very properly been rewarded with that species 
 of immortality, of which men of enterprise and ambition 
 are so passionately fond. 
 
 Shortly after the commencement of the late war, 
 Captain Flinders, a name second only to that of Cook, 
 obtained a commission from the Admiralty to survey the 
 coasts of New Holland. As every available vessel in the 
 British navy was at that period employed in the all- 
 absorbing concerns of the French war, the only machine 
 in the shape of a vessel that could be spared to Cap- 
 tain Flinders to survey a most extensive and interesting 
 coast, on which I trust myriads of British subjects may 
 yet find a country and a home, was a miserable and 
 unmanageable hoy. In this vessel Captain Flinders 
 made an accurate survey of a part of the eastern coast, 
 which had been already surveyed in a more cursory 
 manner by Captain Cook, as well as of that portion of 
 
8 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the southern coast which had previously been altogether 
 unknown. He had the misfortune, however, to suffer 
 shipwreck in the course of his voyage ; but having with 
 great difficulty constructed a small-decked boat from 
 the wreck of his vessel, he sailed for the Isle of France, 
 which he was fortunate enough to reach after a most 
 adventurous and perilous navigation. Trusting to a 
 letter of protection he had obtained from the French 
 government previous to his leaving England, and natu- 
 rally expecting that hospitable reception which a devotee 
 of science had a right to expect in any civilized country 
 in the nineteenth century, Flinders was under no appre- 
 hension in entering Port Louis. But in the exercise of 
 that spirit of tyrannical injustice which pervaded the 
 whole government of Napoleon, the unfortunate English 
 navigator was subjected to a long imprisonment, by 
 command of General Decaen, the French Governor of 
 the Mauritius, while all his papers were seized. The 
 object of this barbarous treatment was at length ascer- 
 tained. A voyage of discovery to the Australian con- 
 tinent had been undertaken by the French govern- 
 ment, at the recommendation of the Parisian savans, 
 and was actually in progress during the imprisonment 
 of Flinders ; and there is reason to believe that the 
 papers of the hapless Englishman, who was pining in 
 jail at Port Louis, saved the gentlemen, to whom the re- 
 sults of that voyage were afterwards entrusted for pub- 
 lication, a world of trouble; for in due time a chart of the 
 Australian continent was published at Paris, in which the 
 numerous bays and capes discovered and described by 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 9 
 
 Flinders were emblazoned with the names of the Em- 
 peror Napoleon, and the other short-lived heroes of his 
 ephemeral empire. 
 
 To the voyage of the French Admiral D'Entrecas^ 
 teaux, who was commissioned by the French Govern- 
 ment to proceed to the South Seas, in search of the 
 unfortunate La Perouse, in the year 1792, and who 
 discovered and surveyed the narrow channel that bears 
 his name, separating Brune's island from Van Dieman's 
 Land ; as well as to those of Captain Freycinet, of the 
 schooner Casuarina, and Captain Baudin, of the cor- 
 vette Geographe — which were undertaken respectively 
 in the years 1803 and 1804 — we are also indebted for 
 much and accurate information respecting the southern 
 and western coasts of New Holland # 
 
 Within the last eighteen years, Captain King, of the 
 
 * D'Entrecasteaux' Channel having recently become notorious in the 
 Australian colonies from the loss of three large ships— the convict-ship 
 George the Third, and the merchant-ships Enchantress and Wallace — 
 in the course of twelve months or thereby, on a reef of rocks at its 
 entrance, the following description of the channel, written by a pas- 
 senger on board the ship Andromeda, in the year 1823, may not be 
 uninteresting to the reader : " The reef at the entrance of the channel 
 is called the Actaeon Reef, from the circumstance of the ship Actaeon, 
 from the Isle of France, having been wrecked on it early in the year 
 1823. The reef, which is partly dry at low water, was unfortunately 
 never surveyed ; and from the three melancholy instances of shipwreck 
 above-mentioned, in only one of which, however, was there a consider- 
 able loss of life, it has been found to extend much farther under water 
 than was supposed. There would have been no danger to apprehend if 
 the entrance of the channel had only been surveyed," 
 
 See ! D'Entrecasteaux' Channel opens fair, 
 
 And Tasman's Head lies on your starboard bow. 
 
 High rocks and stunted trees meet you where'er 
 You look around j 'tis a bold coast enow. 
 
10 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 royal navy, has made two voyages of discovery along 
 the coasts of New Holland, neither of which however 
 has been productive of any important result. There 
 are still therefore many interesting geographical pro- 
 
 "VVith foul wind and crank ship 't were hard to wear ; 
 
 A reef of rocks lies westward long and low. 
 At ebb tide you may see the Actaeon lie 
 A sheer hulk o'er the breakers high and dry. 
 
 "lis a most beauteous strait ! The great South Sea's 
 
 Proud waves keep holiday along its shore ; 
 And as the good ship glides before the breeze, 
 
 Broad bays and isles appear and steep cliffs hoar, 
 With groves on either hand of ancient trees 
 
 Planted by .Nature in the days of yore : 
 Van Dieman 's on the left and Bruny's Isle 
 Forming the starboard shore for many a mile. 
 
 But all is still as death ! Nor voice of man 
 
 Is heard, nor forest warbler's tuneful song. 
 It seems as if this beauteous world began 
 
 To be but yesterday, and the earth still young 
 And unpossess'd. For though the tall black swan 
 
 Sits on her nest and sails stately along, 
 And the green wild-doves their fleet pinions ply, 
 And the grey eagle tempts the azure sky ; 
 
 Yet all is still as death ! Wild solitude 
 
 Reigns undisturb'd along the voiceless shore, 
 
 And every tree seems standing as it stood 
 
 Five thousand years ago. The loud wave's roar 
 
 Were music in these wilds ! The wise and good, 
 That wont of old as hermits to adore 
 
 The God of Nature in the desert drear, 
 
 Might sure have found a fit sojourning here ! 
 
 Aurora Australis ; or, Specimens of Sacred Poetry for the Colonists 
 of Australia, Sydney, 1826. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 11 
 
 blems, relative to the physical conformation of that vast 
 terra incognita, remaining to be solved by the diligence 
 and enterprise of future navigators. 
 
 That many important discoveries will yet be effected 
 along the coasts of New Holland, every intelligent 
 inhabitant of New South Wales is fully persuaded. 
 The line of coast discovered by Captain Cook em- 
 braced an extent of not less than two thousand miles. 
 Was it possible, then, that any thing more than the 
 general outline of a coast of such extent could have been 
 ascertained and determined, during the few weeks that 
 were spent in running along it by our distinguished 
 fellow-countryman ? Captain Cook was himself eight 
 days at anchor in the open and insecure harbour of 
 Botany Bay ; and during that period the naturalists who 
 accompanied him made excursions into the surrounding- 
 country in various directions. But the whole party ulti- 
 mately left the neighbourhood, without even suspecting 
 that they had all the while been lying within eight 
 miles of one of the finest harbours in the world. 
 Moreton Bay, situated between the twenty-seventh and 
 twenty-eighth parallels of south latitude, was in like 
 manner discovered and laid down by Captain Cook, and 
 was afterwards more particularly surveyed by Captain 
 Flinders ; but it was only within the last ten years that 
 a large river was discovered flowing into it from the 
 westward, on the rich alluvial banks of which a penal 
 settlement has since been formed. Long after the 
 formation of that settlement, Captain Rous, of His 
 Majesty's ship Rainbow, ascertained the existence of 
 two other rivers of considerable magnitude, in running 
 
12 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 along the coast between Moreton Bay and Port Jack- 
 son ; and it is the general impression among intelligent 
 men in New South Wales, that a large river or arm 
 of the sea will, sooner or later, be found crossing the 
 continent to the north-westward, and carrying off its in- 
 terior waters into the Indian Ocean; as, independently of 
 other considerations, which render such a conformation 
 extremely probable, an archipelago was ascertained to 
 exist in that direction by Captain Dampier, in which 
 the tide rises to an unusual height, and sweeps with an 
 impetuous current along the shores of islands, whose 
 coasts are still untraced on the chart of the world. 
 
 " Of all the coasts of the continent of Australia," ob- 
 serves Mr. Allan Cunningham, — a gentleman to whom 
 geographical science is much indebted for his indefati- 
 gable exertions in the interior of the Australian con- 
 tinent, in a paper entitled A Brief View of the Progress 
 of Interior Discovert/ in New South Wales, published in 
 the second volume of the Journal of the Royal Geogra- 
 phical Society of London, — " the north-western, as af- 
 fording encouragement to hope that outlets of internally 
 collected waters might be there discovered, calls for pecu- 
 liarly minute and patient examination. Upwards of one 
 hundred and thirty years ago, that celebrated navigator, 
 Dampier, whilst on that coast, found the southern parts 
 of De Witt's Land to consist of a range of islands, (now 
 bearing his name,) among which he remarked such an 
 extraordinary rise and fall of the tides, as induced him 
 to give it as his opinion that the northern part of New 
 Holland was separated from the lands to the south- 
 ward by a strait j unless," says he, " the high tides 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 13 
 
 and indraughts thereabouts should be occasioned by 
 the mouth of some large river, which hath often low 
 lands on either side of the outlet, and many islands 
 and shoals lying at its entrance." " This opinion," 
 says Captain Flinders, "he supports by a fair induction 
 of facts ; and the opening of twelve miles wide, seen 
 near that part of the coast by Vlaming's two vessels, 
 and in which they could find no anchorage, strongly 
 corroborates Dampier's supposition. 
 
 " What those early navigators remarked has been 
 more than abundantly confirmed, lately, by Captain 
 King, whose more extended observations upon the cha- 
 racter of the tides, the rushing force of the currents, 
 and other phenomena on those intertropical shores, all 
 Jead to the conclusion, that if that peculiarly consti- 
 tuted country furnishes any streams of magnitude, 
 worthy to be compared with those of other continents, 
 the estuaries of such will most assuredly be found on 
 that extensive line of coast. 
 
 " At the close of the surveys of this latter very able 
 navigator in 1822, there remained between Dampier's 
 Archipelago, in latitude 22°, and Cape Hay in 14°, 
 about five hundred miles of coast, wholly unsurveyed 
 and unseen. Moreover, there is reason to believe, that 
 even of those portions of that coast which were exa- 
 mined during those voyages, which employed between 
 four and five years, some parts will be found to be 
 rather large groups of islands, the main shore itself 
 being probably far distant to the eastward. 
 
 " To complete the survey of that considerable range 
 of coast, the employment of a vessel, thoroughly 
 
14 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 equipped for so intricate, dangerous, but, at the same 
 time, most interesting service, would at once settle the 
 great geographical question ; viz. whether or not Au- 
 stralia, with a surface equal nearly to that of Europe, 
 discharges on its coast a river of sufficient magnitude 
 to lead, by a long, uninterrupted course of navigation, 
 to its central regions, by which alone a knowledge of 
 the capabilities of such distant parts of the interior 
 may be acquired, and the produce of the soil be one 
 day conveyed to its coast." 
 
 A small steam-boat, or sailing vessel, under the 
 command of an officer of the navy, of the requisite qua- 
 lifications, could be fitted out from Sydney for the sur- 
 vey of particular portions of the coasts of the Great 
 Australian continent at a very small expense, and 
 could solve the interesting problem referred to, together 
 with many others equally interesting and important, in 
 the course of a few months. Many enterprising officers 
 would be delighted at the opportunity of acquiring 
 honourable fame in such an employment ; and when it 
 is borne in mind, that, besides affording additional sti- 
 mulus and extension to the commerce of the mother 
 country, it would either facilitate or lead to the per- 
 manent settlement of myriads of the superabundant po- 
 pulation of Great Britain and Ireland along the fertile 
 shores of the Australian continent, the interesting and im- 
 portant service should not be deferred for a single day. 
 In short, one cannot help wishing, on behalf of the in- 
 terests of geographical science, that His Majesty's 
 Government would cause an expedition of discovery, 
 or rather a series of such expeditions, to be fitted out 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 15 
 
 in New South Wales, to examine every inlet along the 
 extensive coasts of Australia, and to trace every navi- 
 gable stream to its source, that the veil of mystery 
 which still overspreads so large a portion of that great 
 continent may at length be withdrawn. The expedition 
 of Captain Sturt down the Morumbidgee river, in the 
 south-western interior, has fully proved that the best 
 means of penetrating into the interior of the country is 
 by proceeding up the rivers that empty themselves on 
 the coast ; and, as navigable rivers have been ascer- 
 tained to exist in the southern division of the continent, 
 there is reason to believe that the drainage of the other 
 parts of its vast surface will sooner or later be found to 
 be effected in a similar way. 
 
16 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF A BRITISH COLONY AT PORT 
 JACKSON, UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF CAP- 
 TAIN ARTHUR PHILLIP, R.N. 
 
 Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem ! 
 
 Virgil. 
 Vast was the toil to found the Roman state." 
 
 Before the British colonies of North America were 
 violently severed from the mother country, through un- 
 wise if not tyrannical legislation, the southern colonies 
 of North America and the West Indies had for a long 
 time been the only authorized outlets for those crimi- 
 nals in Great Britain and Ireland who had been 
 sentenced to transportation.* During that period 
 
 * By the statute of 39th Eliz. chap. iv. hanishment was decreed for 
 the first time as the punishment of rogues and vagabonds ; but the place 
 of their exile was not particularly specified in that enactment. The 
 practice of transporting criminals to America commenced in the year 
 1619, in the reign of James I. Great abuses however having been disco- 
 vered in the mode of carrying the system into operation, the transporta- 
 tion of criminals to America was at length regulated by parliamentary 
 enactment, in the fourth year of the reign of George I. ; and the causes 
 of that enactment are stated in the preamble to be " the failure of those 
 who undertook to transport themselves" — a very probable occurrence— "and 
 the great want of servants in His Majesty's plantations." 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 17 
 
 various expedients had been put in practice, with 
 indifferent success, for conveying the criminals to 
 their destination. It was at length determined, how- 
 ever, by parliamentary enactment, that they should 
 thenceforth be sent out under the superintendence of 
 contractors, who should be obliged " to prove by certi- 
 ficates that they had disposed of them according to the 
 intention of the law." These contractors were em- 
 powered to hire the convicts, or, in plainer English, to 
 sell them, to the planters for longer or shorter periods, 
 according to their sentence ; and the latter bought 
 them for such sums as they conceived their services 
 during these periods would respectively be worth. This 
 parliamentary slave-trade in the persons of British con- 
 victs subsisted till the war of American independence ; 
 and as it has been calculated that not fewer than two 
 thousand convicts were annually disposed of in this 
 manner for some time previous to that war, at the ave- 
 rage rate of £20 sterling a head, the unchristian and 
 scandalous traffic must have produced a gross revenue 
 to the nation of £40,000 per annum. 
 
 '* By the contest in America, and the subsequent se- 
 paration of the Thirteen Colonies, this traffic" (the author 
 of a work of some authority, relative to the earlier state 
 of the colony of New South Wales, very coolly ob- 
 serves) "was of course destroyed." Other expedients 
 were of course resorted to ; and for some time criminals 
 under sentence of transportation were sent, by way of 
 experiment, to the west coast of Africa.* But the 
 
 * One of these expedients, which was adopted by parliament in 1779, 
 but was subsequently abandoned in consequence of its supposed imprac- 
 
18 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 deadliness of that climate speedily awakened the spirit 
 of humanity, throughout the mother country, in favour 
 of the convicts, and procured the speedy abandonment 
 of a system of transportation, which, under the guise 
 of mercy, was found almost equivalent to an indiscri- 
 minate sentence of death. 
 
 As the jails, however, were in the mean time crowded 
 with criminals, it was at length determined, after much 
 previous deliberation in the British parliament, to form 
 a penal settlement at Botany Bay, on the east coast of 
 New Holland, which had then been but recently disco- 
 vered by Captain Cook, and named New South Wales. 
 
 The main objects of the British Government, in the 
 formation of the proposed settlement, as expressed by 
 the legislature, as well as by the leading philanthro- 
 pists and the public press of the period, were, — 
 
 I. To rid the mother country of the intolerable nui- 
 sance arising from the daily increasing accumulation of 
 criminals in her jails and houses of correction : 
 
 II. To afford a suitable place for the safe custody 
 and the punishment of these criminals, as well as for 
 their ultimate and progressive reformation ; and, 
 
 III. To form a British colony out of those materials 
 which the reformation of these criminals might gra- 
 dually supply to the government, in addition to the 
 families of fr< e emigrants who might from time to time 
 be induced to settle in the newly-discovered territory. 
 
 These, the reader will doubtless acknowledge, were 
 
 ticability, was the establishment of penitentiaries, on a plan devised by 
 the united talents of Judge Blackstone, the Honourable Mr. Eden, and 
 the celebrated Howard. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 19 
 
 objects altogether worthy of the enlightened legislature 
 of a great nation : in fact, it was the most interesting 
 and the noblest experiment that had ever been made on 
 the moral capabilities of man : and if there is joy in 
 heaven among the angels of God over every one sinner 
 that repenteth, we may well conceive the deep interest 
 which superior intelligences would naturally feel at the 
 establishment of the penal colony on the coast of New 
 Holland — all insignificant and contemptible as it might 
 appear to the great majority of mankind — and the loud 
 burst of joy with which they would have hailed the 
 tidings of its ultimate success. 
 
 From the view I have thus given of the objects of 
 government, in forming the proposed settlement, it will 
 appear evident to the reader, that it must have been the 
 intention of the British legislature that the government 
 of the colony of New South Wales should be con- 
 ducted, in the first instance, on those principles of 
 coercion and moral discipline which are suitable for the 
 government of a jail ; and it will also appear equally 
 evident, that it is the first and the proper business of the 
 writer, in proposing to exhibit a general view of the 
 actual state of the colony, to point out the exact degree, 
 in as far as it can possibly be ascertained, in which 
 this intention has hitherto been realized, or in which 
 each successive colonial administration has been in- 
 fluential in promoting the grand objects of its original 
 establishment. Such therefore will be the object of 
 the writer in the following historical sketches of the 
 progress of the colony, from its first establishment to 
 the present day. 
 
20 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 A fleet of eleven sail was assembled at Portsmouth, 
 in the month of March, 1787, for the formation of the 
 proposed settlement on the coast of New Holland. It 
 consisted of His Majesty's frigate Sirius, Captain John 
 Hunter, and His Majesty's armed tender, Supply, 
 Lieutenant Ball; three store-ships— the Golden Grove, 
 the Fishboume, and the Borrowdale; and six trans- 
 ports — the Scarborough, the Lady Penrhyn, the 
 Friendship, the Charlotte, the Prince of Wales, and 
 the Alexander. On board of these vessels there were 
 embarked six hundred male, and two hundred and fifty 
 female convicts ; the guard consisting of one major- 
 commandant and three captains of marines, twelve 
 subalterns, twenty-four non-commissioned officers, and 
 one hundred and sixty-eight privates. Forty women, 
 wives of the marines, were also permitted to accompany 
 the detachment, together with their children. 
 
 Captain Arthur Phillip, of the royal navy, — of whom, 
 as he has thus incidentally become a personage of his- 
 torical interest in the southern hemisphere, the reader 
 will naturally be desirous of knowing something far- 
 ther, — was appointed governor of the proposed colony. 
 Captain Phillip was born in London, in the year 1738. 
 His father, Mr. Jacob Phillip, was a native of Frank- 
 fort in Germany, who, having settled in England, 
 maintained his family and educated his son by teach- 
 ing the languages. Mr. Phillip entered the navy at the 
 age of sixteen, and was present at the taking of Ha- 
 vannah in the year 1761, when he gained some prize- 
 money, and was made lieutenant on board the Stirling 
 Castle, by Admiral Sir George Pococke. At the close 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 21 
 
 of the seven years' war, in 1763, Lieutenant Phillip 
 returned to England, and, having married, settled at 
 Lyndhurst in the New Forest. A rupture, however, 
 having taken place shortly after between Portugal and 
 Spain, he offered his services to the court of Lis- 
 bon, and was employed in the service of Portugal till 
 the year 1778, when, Great Britain being again em- 
 broiled with France, he returned to England. In the 
 year 1779, he was made master and commander, and 
 appointed to the Basilisk fire-ship. Two years after- 
 wards he was promoted to the rank of post-captain, and 
 appointed, first to the Ariadne frigate, and subsequently 
 to the Europe, sixty-four. In January, 1783, he sailed 
 with a reinforcement to the East Indies ; but, returning 
 to England very shortly afterwards, he was not again 
 in active service till he obtained his appointment as 
 Governor of New South Wales in the year 1787. 
 
 The little fleet which was thus placed under the 
 command of Captain Phillip, and which has ever since 
 been designated by the colonists of New South Wales 
 the Jir at fleet, set sail from Portsmouth on the 13th of 
 May, 1787 ; and, having touched for supplies and stock 
 for the settlement at Teneriffe, Rio de Janeiro, and the 
 Cape of Good Hope, arrived at Botany Bay on the 
 18th, 19th, and 20th of January, 1788, after a long 
 but comparatively prosperous voyage of eight months 
 and upwards. 
 
 Captain Phillip soon found, however, that Botany 
 Bay was by no means an eligible harbour ; for although 
 the anchorage was apparently extensive, it was never- 
 theless open to the full sweep of the easterly winds, 
 
■22 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 which, whenever they blow violently, as is not unfre- 
 quently the case, roll in a heavy sea, which raises a 
 tremendous surf all along the shores of the bay. Be- 
 sides, the land in its immediate vicinity, which had 
 been described by Sir Joseph Banks as a series of 
 beautiful meadows, abounding in the richest pasture, 
 was found to be nothing but barren swamps and sterile 
 sand. 
 
 Greatly disappointed, doubtless, at the miserable 
 prospect which the neighbourhood of Botany Bay 
 afforded for the establishment of a colony, Captain 
 Phillip was thus obliged to go in search of a more eli- 
 gible site for the proposed settlement, even before the 
 greater number of the convicts had been permitted to 
 land. For this purpose he took with him three boats 
 and several of the naval officers of the fleet, intending 
 to examine Broken Bay, an extensive inlet, which Cap- 
 tain Cook had described, considerably to the north- 
 ward. In Captain Cook's chart of the coast, however, 
 another opening had been laid down a few miles to the 
 northward of Botany Bay, on the authority of a sea- 
 man of the name of Jackson, who had seen it from the 
 fore-top-mast- head, and from whom Captain Cook, who 
 conceived it might possibly be a boat-harbour which it 
 was not worth his while to examine, called it Port 
 Jackson. This opening, which at first had rather an 
 unpromising appearance, Captain Phillip examined ; 
 and the result of that examination was the splendid 
 discovery of Port Jackson— one of the finest harbours, 
 whether for extent or for security, in the world. To 
 this harbour the fleet was immediately removed ; and 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 23 
 
 the settlement was ultimately formed on the 26th of 
 January, 1788, at the head of Sydney Cove, one of its 
 numerous and romantic inlets, near a small perennial 
 stream of fresh water, which empties itself into the 
 harbour, and is now called The Tanks. 
 
 The following account of the landing in Sydney 
 Cove, and the actual formation of the settlement under 
 Captain Phillip, will not be uninteresting to the reader. 
 It is extracted from Collins's ' Account of the Settlements 
 of Port Jackson and Norfolk Island.' It is only neces- 
 sary to premise that the localities described by Colonel 
 Collins are now the most populous part of the town of 
 Sydney; in which the minimum price of crown land 
 is now £1000 per acre, although in eligible situations 
 it often sells for ten times that amount. 
 
 " The governor, Captain Phillip, with a party of 
 marines, and some artificers selected from among the 
 seamen of the Sirius and the convicts, arrived in Port 
 Jackson, and anchored off the mouth of the cove in- 
 tended for the settlement on the evening of the 25th 
 January, 1788 ; and in the course of the following day 
 sufficient ground was cleared for encamping the officers' 
 guard and the convicts who had been landed in the 
 morning. The spot chosen for this purpose was at the 
 head of the cove, near the run of fresh water, which stole 
 silently along through a very thick wood, the stillness 
 of which had then, for the first time since the creation, 
 been interrupted by the rude sound of the labourer's 
 axe, and the downfall of, its ancient inhabitants; — a 
 stillness and tranquillity, which from that day were to 
 give place to the voice of labour, the confusion of 
 
24 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 camps and towns, and ' the busy hum of its new 
 possessors.' That these did not bring with them 
 
 Minds not to be changed by time or place, 
 
 was fervently to have been wished ; and if it were pos- 
 sible, that on taking possession of Nature, as we had 
 thus done, in her simplest, purest garb, we might not 
 sully that purity by the introduction of vice, profaneness, 
 and immorality. But this, though much to be wished, 
 was little to be expected j — the habits of youth are not 
 easily laid aside ; and the utmost we could hope in our 
 present situation, was to oppose the soft harmonizing 
 arts of peace and civilization to the baneful influence of 
 vice and immorality. 
 
 " In the evening of this day the whole of the party 
 that came round in the Supply were assembled at the 
 point where they had first landed in the morning, and 
 on which a flag-staff had been purposely erected, and 
 an union-jack displayed, when the marines fired several 
 vollies ; between which the governor and the officers 
 who accompanied him drank the healths of His 
 Majesty and the Royal Family, and success to the new 
 colony. The day, which had been uncommonly fine, 
 concluded with the safe arrival of the Sirius and the 
 convoy from Botany Bay, — thus terminating the voyage 
 with the 6ame good fortune that had from its com- 
 mencement been so conspicuously their friend and com- 
 panion. 
 
 " The disembarkation of the troops and convicts took 
 place from the following day until the whole were 
 landed. The confusion that ensued will not be won- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 25 
 
 dered at, when it is considered that every man stepped 
 from the boat literally into a wood. Parties of people 
 were every where heard and seen variously employed : 
 — some in clearing ground for the different encamp- 
 ments ; others in pitching tents, or bringing up such 
 stores as were more immediately wanted ; and the spot 
 which had so lately been the abode of silence and tran- 
 quillity, was now changed to that of noise, clamour, and 
 confusion ; but after a time order gradually prevailed. 
 As the woods were opened and the ground cleared, 
 the various encampments were extended, and all wore 
 the appearance of regularity. 
 
 " A portable canvas house, brought over for the Go- 
 vernor, was erected on the east side of the cove, which 
 was named Sydney, in compliment to the principal 
 Secretary of State for the Home Department, where 
 also a small body of convicts was put under tents. 
 The detachment of marines was encamped at the head 
 of the cove near the stream, and on the west side was 
 placed the main body of the convicts. The women 
 did not disembark until the 6th of February ; when, 
 every person belonging to the settlement being landed, 
 the numbers amounted to 1030 persons. The tents 
 for the sick were placed on the west side, and it was 
 observed with concern that their numbers were fast 
 increasing. The scurvy, that had not appeared during 
 the passage, now broke out, which, aided by a dys- 
 entery, began to fill the hospital, and several died. 
 In addition to the medicines that were administered,, 
 every species of esculent plants that could be found 
 in the country were procured for them : wild celery, 
 
 VOL. I. b 
 
26 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 spinach, and parsley fortunately grew in abundance 
 about the settlement; those who were in health, as 
 well as the sick, were glad to introduce them into 
 their messes, and found them a pleasant as well as 
 wholesome addition to the rations of salt provisions. 
 
 "The public stock, consisting of one bull, four cows, 
 one bull-calf, one stallion, three mares, and three 
 colts, were landed on the east point of the cove, 
 where they remained until they had cropped the little 
 pasturage it afforded ; and were then removed to a 
 spot at the head of the adjoining cove, that was 
 cleared for a small farm, intended to be placed 
 under the direction of a person brought out by the 
 Governor. 
 
 " Some ground having been prepared near his Excel- 
 lency's house on the east side, the plants from Rio 
 de Janeiro and the Cape of Good Hope were safely 
 brought on shore in a few days ; and we soon had 
 the satisfaction of seeing the grape, the fig, the orange, 
 the pear, and the apple, the delicious fruits of the 
 Old, taking root and establishing themselves in our 
 New World. 
 
 " As soon as the hurry and tumult necessarily attend- 
 ing the disembarkation had a little subsided, the Go- 
 vernor caused His Majesty's commission, appointing 
 him to be his Captain-General and Governor-in-chief 
 in and over the territory of New South Wales and its 
 dependencies, to be publicly read, together with the 
 letters patent for establishing the courts of civil and 
 criminal judicature in the territory ; the extent of 
 which, until this publication of it, was but little known 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 27 
 
 even among ourselves. It was now found to extend 
 from Cape York, (the extremity of the coast to the 
 northward,) in the latitude of 20° 37' south, to the 
 South Cape, (the southern extremity of the coast,) in 
 the latitude of 43° 39' south ; and inland to the west- 
 ward as far as 135° of east longitude, comprehending 
 all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean, within 
 the latitudes of the above-mentioned capes." 
 
 On the morning of the 24th of January, previous to 
 the removal of the fleet from Botany Bay, a circum- 
 stance occurred, which, in ancient times, would, doubt- 
 less, have been considered a most favourable omen of 
 the future commercial prosperity of the new settlement, 
 as well as of the wonderful change it was destined to 
 effect in the general aspect and condition of the south- 
 ern hemisphere. Two large ships under French co- 
 lours were seen beating into the bay. They proved 
 to be the Boussole and the Astrolabe, discovery ships, 
 under the command of the unfortunate La Perouse. 
 They had lost M. de TAngle, the junior captain, with 
 several of the officers and seamen, and both the ships* 
 long-boats, in an unfortunate skirmish with the natives 
 at the Navigators' Islands, and had consequently come 
 to Botany Bay to refit for the prosecution of their 
 voyage. M. de la Perouse remained nearly two 
 months in New South Wales ; and during that period 
 M. le Receveur, a French ecclesiastic, of the order of 
 Friars Minims, who accompanied the expedition in the 
 capacity of naturalist, died of wounds he had received 
 at the Navigators' Islands, and was buried at Botany 
 
28 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 13ay. # A mutual interchange of civilities was kept up 
 between the English and French officers while the latter 
 remained on the coast ; and the reader is doubtless aware 
 that this was the last time that either La Perouse or any 
 of his unfortunate fellow-voyagers were either seen or 
 heard of alive by civilized men. After the lapse of forty 
 years, and the unsuccessful issue of a voyage under- 
 taken expressly to ascertain the place and the manner 
 of his fate,f the melancholy truth was at length ascer- 
 tained a few years ago by Captain Dillon, of the Honour- 
 able East India Company's ship Research. Both ves- 
 sels, Captain Dillon ascertained, had struck one stormy 
 night on a dangerous coral reef off the Manicolo or 
 Mallicolo islands, to the northward and eastward of Port 
 Jackson, and had soon gone to pieces. Some of the 
 crew had, it seems, reached the land, and one or two 
 of their number had chosen rather to remain on the 
 island, while the rest had unsuccessfully attempted to 
 reach some civilized country : but the last of the un- 
 fortunate survivors had died several years before Cap- 
 tain Dillon visited the island in search of the evidences 
 of their fate. I went on board the Research, while she 
 lay at anchor in Port Jackson, on her way to Europe, 
 
 * The following epitaph was inscribed on a monument erected to the 
 memory of M. le Receveur, by La Perouse, at Botany Bay :— 
 Hie jacet Le Receveur, 
 e F. F. Minimis Galliae Sacerdos, 
 Physicus, in circumnavigatione 
 Mundi, 
 Duce de la Peyrouse. 
 Ob. 17 Feb., 1788. , 
 t The voyage of Admiral D'Entrecasteaux. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 29 
 
 to see the interesting reliques discovered by Captain 
 Dillon ; and I could not help thinking they possessed 
 an additional interest, from the circumstance of their 
 being thus brought back, in the first instance, to the 
 very country from which the unfortunate navigator him- 
 self had last sailed, with such high expectations, up- 
 wards of forty years before. That country, I could not 
 help thinking also, was then an interminable forest ; 
 and a few miserable convicts from the jails of England 
 had just been landed on its shores. In the interval 
 that had elapsed, the forest had been cleared away ; 
 towns and villages had arisen, as if by magic, in the 
 wilderness ; and the haunts of the solitary savage were 
 already inhabited by eighty thousand Europeans.* 
 
 When Governor Phillip hoisted the British ensign 
 on the shores of Sydney Cove, they were by no means 
 thickly wooded, as compared with the heavily-timbered 
 alluvial land of the colony on the banks of rivers ; but 
 the trees were lofty and of hard timber, and of course 
 difficult to fell.f A sufficient extent of ground had 
 
 * Including the inhabitants of Van Dieman's Land at the period re- 
 ferred to. A monument, bearing the following inscription, has been 
 erected to the memory of M. de la Perouse, at Botany Bay : — 
 
 " A la memoire de Monsieur de la Perouse. Cette terre, qu'il visita 
 en 1788, est la derniere d'oii il a fait parvenir de soi nouvelles. Erige 
 au nom de la France par les soins de MM. Bougainville et Ducampier, 
 commandant la fregate La Thttis et la corvette L'Esptrance, en relache 
 au Port Jackson en 1825. 
 
 Le fondement pose en 1825; 
 Eleve 1828." 
 
 f As an illustration of the size and quality of the timber that occu- 
 pied the site of the large and flourishing town of Sydney about forty-eight 
 years ago, I may mention the following circumstance :— On the summit 
 
30 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 therefore, in the first instance, to be cleared for a settle- 
 ment : houses had then to be erected for the principal 
 officers of the colony, with an hospital for the sick, a 
 barrack for the soldiers, huts for the convicts, and a 
 magazine for the stores and provisions. 
 
 These operations, however, proceeded but very slowly ; 
 for there were only a very few mechanics among the 
 convicts, and still fewer among the sailors and marines. 
 Indeed, there seems to have been a strange want of 
 foresight, on the part of the proper authorities in the 
 mother country, in sending out so very few persons 
 with Governor Phillip, whose abilities could be rendered 
 available in establishing such a settlement as it was 
 intended to form. Besides, the length and confinement 
 of the voyage, and the necessity for subsisting for a 
 long period on salt provisions, as the country afforded 
 no indigenous vegetation for the sustenance of man, 
 subjected the colony to a general attack of the scurvy, 
 under which a number of the convicts, whose consti- 
 tutions were perhaps but ill adapted to withstand so 
 calamitous a visitation, gradually sunk ; while in others 
 it induced that entire prostration of all the energies of 
 
 of the ridge on which the Scots Church was erected in the year 1824, a 
 large hlue-gum-tree, (a variety of the genus Eucalyptus,) of about six or 
 eight feet in diameter, had been cut down about thirty-five years before ; 
 but the stump, which had been left standing in the ground, was still to 
 all appearance as fresh, and the root as firmly fixed in the soil, as if it 
 had been cut down only a few days previous. It was found necessary to 
 remove the stump, as it interfered with the line of the foundation of the 
 proposed building ; and for this purpose a pile of wood and turf was 
 heaped over it and set fire to ; but it took about ten days or a fortnight 
 to burn out the old root. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 31 
 
 our nature, which that singular and malignant disease 
 uniformly occasions. Of the convicts embarked in the 
 first fleet, forty had died on the passage, and twenty- 
 eight during the first five months after the settlement 
 was formed. At the expiration of that period, sixty-six 
 were under medical treatment, and two hundred were 
 unable to work. 
 
 In these circumstances, Governor Phillip's first care 
 was to provide for the future subsistence of the colony, 
 and to render it, as soon as possible, independent of 
 supplies from England : in this particular, however, 
 he had to encounter a serious difficulty, which, it seems, 
 had not been anticipated. Of the convicts, very few 
 comparatively knew any thing of agriculture, and there 
 was scarcely a single free person in the settlement who 
 was able to instruct them. A few individuals had, in- 
 deed, been sent out by Government in the capacity of 
 agricultural superintendents ; but, on putting them to 
 the trial, it was found, that although they professed to 
 have been accustomed to the " farming business" in 
 their youth, they were generally quite unacquainted 
 with agricultural operations. In short, for a consider- 
 able period after the formation of the settlement, there 
 was only a single individual in the colony — a man 
 whom the Governor had hired in England as his body- 
 servant — who could either manage the convicts success- 
 fully or instruct them in agriculture ; and this person, 
 unfortunately, died in the year 1791. In such circum- 
 stances, the reader will easily conceive how much valu- 
 able labour must necessarily have been altogether mis- 
 applied, and how much absolutely lost to the colony. 
 
32 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Notwithstanding these discouraging circumstances, 
 land was cultivated in various localities. The first 
 government-farm in the colony was an extent of nine 
 acres of ground in Farm Cove, a little to the eastward 
 of Sydney ; but the natural sterility of the soil in that 
 vicinity was extremely unfavourable to agricultural ope- 
 rations, and the crop was consequently very inadequate. 
 A more promising situation was soon found, however, 
 at the western extremity of the harbour, on the banks 
 of a small stream of fresh water about fourteen miles 
 from Sydney. An agricultural settlement was accord- 
 ingly formed in that locality, which the Governor named 
 Rosehill ; but finding afterwards that the natives called 
 the place Parramatta, he substituted that name for 
 the one he had given it — thereby exhibiting a degree 
 of common sense, conjoined with a correctness of taste, 
 which, I am sorry to say, has been but seldom evinced 
 by certain of his more ambitious successors. In No- 
 vember, 1791, there were upwards of seven hundred 
 acres of land in cultivation at Parramatta ; but as the 
 ground in that vicinity is now considered of very in- 
 ferior quality, the return could scarcely have been com- 
 mensurate with the cost of its cultivation. In addition 
 to the natural sterility of the soil then under cultiva- 
 tion, the colony was unhappily visited, during the go- 
 vernment of Captain Phillip, with one of those distress- 
 ing droughts to which it seems periodically subject, and 
 which, occurring at that particular crisis, was sufficient 
 to have damped the ardour of the most sanguine of its 
 friends. 
 
 The highly favourable account which Captain Cook 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 33 
 
 had given of the soil and climate of Norfolk Island, 
 which is situated on the twenty-ninth parallel of south 
 latitude, to the northward of New Zealand, and the ex- 
 pectation that the cultivation of New Zealand flax, 
 which is indigenous on that island, might prove bene- 
 ficial to the mother country, had induced His Majesty's 
 Government to desire Captain Phillip to form a settle- 
 ment on Norfolk Island. Mr. King, the second-lieute- 
 nant of His Majesty's ship Sirius, was accordingly sent 
 thither for that purpose with a small detachment of 
 marines and convicts, amounting in all to twenty-seven 
 persons. Mr. King appears to have acquitted himself 
 with much vigour and ability. Notwithstanding the 
 various discouragements arising from droughts and 
 blighting winds, as well as from the serious depre- 
 dations of birds, rats, grubs, and thieves, to which the 
 settlement was at first exposed, a large extent of ground 
 was gradually cleared and cultivated ; and the prospect 
 of raising subsistence for a considerable population ap- 
 peared in every respect more favourable than at Port 
 Jackson. The number of persons on the island was 
 in consequence gradually increased by successive de- 
 tachments of marines and convicts from head-quarters ; 
 and in December 1791, about a thousand bushels of 
 wheat were reaped on the island, and five hundred of 
 maize. Mr. King had in the mean time been ordered 
 to England by Governor Phillip with despatches for 
 Government : and for his services in establishing that 
 promising dependency he was rewarded with the rank 
 of master and commander in the navy, and appointed 
 Lieutenant-Governor of Norfolk Island. 
 
34 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT Of 
 
 Norfolk Island is about seven leagues in circum- 
 ference, and, except in a few places were the landing is 
 exceedingly unsafe and precarious, is bounded by pre- 
 cipitous cliffs, on which the surf breaks frightfully when 
 the wind blows with violence from any quarter. It ap- 
 pears of volcanic origin, and consists entirely of a series 
 of hills and valleys alternating like the waves of the 
 ocean, each of these valleys being watered with a run- 
 ning stream from the hills. The soil, even to the tops 
 of the highest hills, is the richest vegetable mould, and 
 the vegetation partakes of that intermediate character 
 which distinguishes the temperate regions adjoining 
 the tropics. I have already observed that the phor- 
 mium tenax, or New Zealand flax, is indigenous on the 
 island ; and the Norfolk island pine, which attains a 
 diameter of nine feet, and a height of upwards of one 
 hundred and eighty, throwing around it a series of 
 branches at regular intervals, each like a beautiful 
 Prince of Wales' feather, is perhaps the most splendid 
 botanical production in nature. This beautiful island, 
 which appears peculiarly adapted for the cultivation of 
 coffee, if not also for the production of sugar, and in 
 the settlement of which much valuable labour and 
 much British capital had been expended, was at length 
 abandoned, agreeably to instructions to that effect from 
 the Secretary of State for the Colonies, during the govern- 
 ment of Captain Bligh ; the settlers, who were living 
 on it at the time, being unwillingly removed to a settle- 
 ment called New Norfolk, in Van Dieman's Land. The 
 change of circumstances experienced by these settlers, 
 of whom there were no fewer than eighty so early as 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 35 
 
 the year 1791, was by no means so favourable as they 
 had been induced to anticipate ; but the island was 
 again taken possession of in the year 1825, during the 
 government of Sir Thomas Brisbane, and it is now 
 occupied as a penal settlement for the colony of New 
 South Wales. 
 
 Throughout the whole period of his government, 
 Captain Phillip endeavoured, with a zeal and perse- 
 verance, which evinced the correctness of his judgment 
 and the benevolence of his disposition, to conciliate the 
 aborigines of the territory. It was scarcely possible 
 entirely to prevent the injuries they were likely to 
 receive on the part of the wretchedly depraved po- 
 pulation which had been landed on their shores ; but 
 he uniformly punished such aggressions, when they 
 could be brought home to any particular individual, 
 although it not unfrequently happened that either the 
 aggressor himself or some other white man speedily 
 fell a victim to savage revenge. In humanely endea- 
 vouring, on one occasion, to conciliate a large party of 
 the aborigines who had assembled near the mouth of 
 the harbour, by advancing among them alone and un- 
 armed, the Governor was himself speared by a black 
 native, of a tribe residing at some distance from the 
 settlement, who had probably never seen a white man 
 before : but the wound not proving fatal, and the 
 Governor having ascertained that the spear was thrown 
 by the native under misapprehension of his intentions 
 and in self-defence, all measures of retaliation were 
 strictly prohibited. 
 
 But all the efforts of the Governor, as well as of other 
 
36 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 humane individuals in the colony, to effect the perma- 
 nent civilization of any of that miserable people, proved 
 utterly abortive. There was no difficulty in inducing 
 individuals of their number, particularly the young, 
 to reside for a time in European families, and to ac- 
 quire the habits and learn the arts of civilization ; but 
 sooner or later they uniformly rejoined the other chil- 
 dren of the forest, and resumed the habits of savage 
 life. Bennelong, an intelligent native, of some con- 
 sequence in his tribe, had been domesticated in the 
 Governor's family, and could acquit himself at table 
 with the utmost propriety. On returning to England, 
 Captain Phillip carried him along with him, and intro- 
 duced him as an interesting specimen of the abori- 
 gines of the colony, in many of the highest circles in 
 the mother country : on returning, however, to his 
 native land, Bennelong speedily divested himself of his 
 European attire, and rejoined his tribe as a naked sa- 
 vage, apparently unimproved in the least degree by his 
 converse with civilized man. 
 
 In the year 1788, the number of the aborigines in- 
 habiting the shores of Port Jackson was very consider- 
 able : a disease, however, somewhat resembling the 
 small-pox, which appears to have prevailed among 
 them to a great extent, shortly after the establishment 
 of the colony, thinned their ranks very sensibly, and 
 left only a comparatively small number to inherit the 
 invaded patrimony of their forefathers. Numerous dead 
 bodies were from time to time found by the colonists in 
 all directions in the vicinity of the harbour, in the very 
 attitude in which the wretched individuals had died 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 37 
 
 when abandoned by their tribe from fear of the pesti- 
 lence. Besides, the natives could not be supposed so 
 utterly devoid of understanding as not to perceive that 
 the occupation of their country by white men was likely 
 to diminish their means of subsistence. " White-fellow 
 come," said an intelligent black native, of a tribe re- 
 siding beyond the Blue Mountains a few years ago ; 
 — " White-fellow come, kangaroo all gone ! " This im- 
 pression, heightened to madness, as it must often have 
 been, by the positive aggressions of the convicts, led 
 not unfrequently, in the earlier years of the colony, to 
 the desultory and abortive, but murderous efforts of 
 savage warfare. Commandoes,* as they are called by 
 the Dutch colonists of South Africa, (for I am happy 
 to say that the English language does not afford a 
 word expressive of the idea,) were of course fitted out 
 against the wretched aborigines ; and many of their 
 number, I believe often with but little necessity, fell 
 before the bullets of the military. There is black blood, 
 at this moment, on the hands of individuals of good 
 repute in the colony of New South Wales, of which all 
 the waters of New Holland would be insufficient to 
 wash out the deep and indelible stains ! But the 
 vicious example of the convict population of the colony 
 has already done much more to extinguish the mise- 
 rable remnant of this degraded race, in all the more 
 populous districts of the territory, than could have been 
 effected, in a much longer series of years, by the united 
 agency of war and famine and pestilential disease ! 
 
 * Murderous expeditions against the aborigines of a country forcibly 
 taken possession of by Europeans. 
 
38 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 It seems, indeed, to be a general appointment of 
 Divine Providence, that the Indian wigwam of North 
 America, and the miserable bark-hut of the aborigines 
 of New Holland, should be utterly swept away by the 
 flood-tide of European colonization ; or, in other words, 
 that races of uncivilized men should gradually dis- 
 appear before the progress of civilization, in those coun- 
 tries that have been taken possession of by Europeans. 
 Humanity may interpose, for a season, for the preser- 
 vation of the savage man, and the Christian missionary 
 may endeavour, successfully perhaps in some instances, 
 to raise him from the darkness and the slavery of 
 heathenism to the light and liberty of the gospel ; but 
 European vice and demoralization will, even in free 
 colonies, ere long infallibly produce a rich harvest of 
 misery and death among the choicest flowers of the 
 forest ; and the miserable remnant of a once hopeful 
 race will at length gradually disappear from the land 
 of their forefathers, like the snow from the summits of 
 the mountains on the approach of spring ! 
 
 Governor Phillip did all, I believe, which a governor 
 could be expected to do, in the peculiarly unfavourable 
 circumstances in which he was placed, for the encou- 
 ragement and reward of industrious and virtuous per- 
 sons, and the repression of open immorality. Obser- 
 ving, immediately after the formation of the colony, a 
 tendency to the establishment of a system of profligacy, 
 which was afterwards introduced, and but too generally 
 countenanced, by the practice of men of influence in the 
 territory, he endeavoured, in an address which he deli- 
 vered to all the inhabitants of the colony on the 7th of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 39 
 
 February, 1788, when the act of parliament, establish- 
 ing the colonial government, was publicly read, to point 
 out the evils that would infallibly arise from such pro- 
 cedure, and " strongly recommended marriage to the 
 convicts, promising every kind of countenance and as- 
 sistance to those who, by entering into that state, 
 should manifest their willingness to conform to the laws 
 of morality and religion." And the good effect of this 
 highly politic and Christian recommendation was very 
 speedily apparent ; for during the ensuing week no 
 fewer than fourteen marriages were solemnized among 
 the convicts. 
 
 In direct opposition, moreover, to an absurd idea 
 which seems to have been taken up by one of his suc- 
 cessors, viz. " that the colony was intended exclusively 
 for convicts, and that free people had no right to come 
 to it," Governor Phillip very speedily perceived the im- 
 portant advantages which the colony was likely to de- 
 rive from the settlement of virtuous and industrious 
 families of free emigrants in its territory ; and accord- 
 ingly recommended to the home government to hold out 
 every encouragement to such emigrants, and to afford 
 them every assistance. 
 
 The following extracts from Governor Phillip's com- 
 munications on this subject to the Secretary of State 
 may not be peculiarly interesting to the general reader, 
 but they cannot fail to be interesting to all the respect- 
 able inhabitants of New South Wales ; as they serve 
 not only to throw much light on the views and objects 
 of the benevolent founders of that colony in regard to 
 its ultimate character and destination, but to furnish a 
 
40 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 complete refutation of the preposterous idea to which I 
 have just alluded : — ■ 
 
 " Sydney Cove, Feb. 12, 1790. 
 
 " Here I beg leave to observe to your Lordship, that if 
 settlers are sent out, and the convicts divided amongst 
 them, this settlement will very shortly maintain itself; 
 but without which the country cannot be cultivated to 
 advantage. # * # The labour of the convicts em- 
 ployed in cultivation has been very short of what might 
 have been expected." 
 
 " Sydney Cove, Feb. 13, 1790. 
 
 " As the land for several miles to the southward and 
 twenty miles to the westward of Rose Hill, (now 
 Parramatta,) that is, to the banks of the Hawkesbury, 
 is as fine land for tillage as most in England, some few 
 spots excepted, I propose that tract for the settlers who 
 may be sent out. As the labour of clearing the ground 
 of timber will be great, I think each settler should not 
 have less than twenty men on his farm, which I sup- 
 pose to be from 500 to 1000 acres. It will be neces- 
 sary to give that number of convicts to those settlers 
 who come out, and to support them for two years from 
 the public stores. In that time, if they are industrious, 
 they will be in a situation to support themselves, and I 
 do not think they would be able to do so in less time. 
 At the expiration of two years, they may return half 
 the convicts they have been allowed, and would want 
 no farther assistance from Government." 
 
 " Sydney Cove, June 17, 1790. 
 
 " If settlers are sent out, many difficulties will be re- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 41 
 
 .moved: they may choose the situations to which I 
 cannot at this moment detach convicts ; and I have had 
 the honour of observing, in my former dispatches, 
 that settlers appear to me to be absolutely necessary. 
 
 I" As I thought the first settlers sent out might require 
 more encouragement than those who might come hereafter, 
 I proposed, in my last dispatches, giving them a cer- 
 tain number of convicts for two years, and supporting 
 them during that time at the expense of the Crown. 
 Much will depend on ensuring the success of the first 
 settlers sent out ; who, I presume, will be good farmers : 
 the assistance proposed for them will certainly put 
 them at their ease, if they are industrious; and would 
 not, I apprehend, be any great loss to the Crown. 
 
 '*< I am desirous of securing the success of the first set- 
 tlers. # * # The river Hawkesbury will, I doubt not, 
 offer some desirable situations ; and the great advan- 
 tages of a navigable river are obvious. 
 
 " In addition to the officers I shall be able to send to 
 Norfolk Island, I presume that two or three magistrates 
 will be necessary. If settlers come out for that island, 
 perhaps some amongst them may be found to answer the 
 purpose " 
 
 " Sydney Cove, July 17, 1790. 
 
 " The consequence of the failure of a crop when we no 
 longer depend upon any supplies from Great Britain 
 will be obvious ; and to guard against which is one reason 
 for my being so desirous of having a few settlers, to 
 whom, as the first, I think every possible encourage- 
 ment should be given. In them I should have some re- 
 source, and amongst them proper people might be found 
 
42 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 to act in different capacities, at little or no expense to 
 Government : for as the number of convicts and others 
 increase, civil magistrates, fyc. will be necessary. 1 ' 
 
 The following extract from a letter addressed to 
 Governor Phillip by Mr. Secretary Dundas, previous to 
 the date of any of the Governor's dispatches above 
 quoted, will place this matter in a still clearer light, and 
 exhibit the original intentions of His Majesty's minis- 
 ters, in regard to the organization and constitution of 
 colonial society, in a very interesting point of view : — 
 
 M Downing Street, Feb. 10, 1790. 
 
 " Such settlers as have determined to go will embark 
 in about six weeks with a master-miller and a car- 
 penter. What the number of settlers may amount to, I 
 cannot at present ascertain ; but I think it will fall short 
 of that stated in my last letter (No. 2.) as having made 
 proposals to Government." Parliamentary Paper, 1792. 
 
 It was in consequence of these recommendations, on 
 the part of the first Governor of New South Wales, 
 that several families of free emigrants were conveyed 
 to the colony, at the public expense, in the year 1796, 
 and that the free emigrant settlement of Portland-Head 
 on the banks of the Hawkesbury was formed in the 
 year 1802. The families who emigrated to New South 
 Wales at these periods, were allowed a free passage to 
 the colony, at the expense of Government, a grant of 
 land in the territory, and rations, for eighteen months 
 after their arrival, from the king's stores. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 43 
 
 Governor Phillip's practice was in perfect accordance 
 with the idea he had thus formed in regard to the best 
 mode of promoting the advancement and prosperity of 
 the colony ; for of the first four grants of land that 
 were made to private individuals in New South Wales, 
 three — comprising an extent of two hundred and sixty 
 acres — were made to persons who had arrived free in 
 the colony, and one — comprising an extent of thirty 
 acres — to an emancipated convict. These grants were 
 all given on the 30th of March, 1791 ; and the lo- 
 calities assigned them were, the first three on the north, 
 and the fourth on the south side of the creek leading to 
 Parramatta, now called the Parramatta River. On the 
 5th of April following, grants of sixty acres each were 
 given, at the dependency of Norfolk Island, to forty 
 marines, who chose rather to remain in the colony as 
 free settlers, than to return to England with the de- 
 tachment to which they belonged, and which was then 
 ordered home. On the 18th of July, 1791, twenty- 
 three emancipated convicts were admitted as settlers, 
 having grants of twenty, thirty, or fifty acres allotted 
 them, according to circumstances — some at Prospect, a 
 few miles to the westward of Parramatta ; and others 
 between that settlement and the town of Sydney. And 
 on the 17th of August following, twenty additional 
 emancipated convicts received grants of land ; ten of 
 ten acres each in Norfolk Island, and the other ten of 
 thirty, fifty, or sixty acres in New South Wales. In 
 all, therefore, eighty-seven grants of land had been 
 given by Governor Phillip up to the 18th of August, 
 
44 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 1791 ; forty-three to persons who had arrived free in 
 the colony, comprising an extent of two thousand six 
 hundred and sixty acres ; and forty-four to emancipated 
 convicts, comprising an extent of one thousand five 
 hundred acres. 
 
 To each emancipated convict who chose to settle in 
 the colony on the expiration of his sentence, Governor 
 Phillip allotted thirty acres of land ; fifty acres if he 
 was married, and ten acres additional for every child 
 in his family. The settler of this class was also allowed 
 clothing and rations for himself and family from the 
 king's stores, for twelve or eighteen months, together 
 with the necessary implements of husbandry and seed 
 to sow his ground the first year. Two female pigs were 
 added by way of farther indulgence, from the Governor's 
 private stock, to enable the settler to raise a stock of 
 that useful domestic animal for himself; as there was 
 no live stock of any kind in the colony, at the time in 
 question, belonging to the Crown. 
 
 These measures sufficiently evince the theoretical ex- 
 cellence of the system of transportation to New South 
 Wales, as originally devised by the British legislature, 
 and carried into operation by Governor Phillip : they 
 also evince the peculiar adaptation of the means em- 
 ployed for attaining the main object of the settlement 
 of the colony, and the enlightened zeal with which the 
 Governor pursued that object to the utmost of his 
 ability. On the one hand, the length and consequent 
 expense of the voyage to England precluded the con- 
 vict, on the expiration of the period of his sentence, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 45 
 
 from returning thither. I am aware, indeed, that men 
 of morbid sensibility in the mother country have affected 
 to consider this as a great additional hardship. For my 
 own part, as I have very little respect for the patriotism 
 of a thief, or for his love of country, I do think it was 
 not only an allowable, but an admirable device of the 
 legislature, to render the return of such persons to the 
 mother country, in any circumstances, as difficult as pos- 
 sible. On the other hand, the emancipated convict had 
 every inducement to settle in the land of his banishment, 
 and to adopt that mode of life which was certainly the 
 likeliest to wean him from his former habits, and to 
 render him a reputable and a useful member of society. 
 In short, the whole system was admirably devised ; and 
 in order to have proved thoroughly successful, it only 
 required to be managed with the same enlightened 
 zeal and warm benevolence that superintended the first 
 development of its unchecked operation. 
 
 The first free emigrant, and indeed the first person 
 of any class in society, who obtained a grant of land in 
 the colony of New South Wales, was a German, of the 
 name of Philip Schoeffer. He had been sent out in the 
 first fleet as an agricultural superintendent, chiefly with 
 a. view to attempt the cultivation of tobacco, on account 
 of Government ; as the province of Virginia, from which 
 that article had previously been obtained, had then 
 ceased to be a British colony, and as the soil and cli- 
 mate of New South Wales were supposed likely to 
 prove not unfavourable for its cultivation. Schoeffer's 
 grant was the largest of all those I have enumerated, 
 comprising an extent of one hundred and forty acres. 
 
46 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Unfortunately, however, he had contracted habits of 
 intemperance, and accordingly contrived to get rid of it. 
 He afterwards obtained a grant of fifty acres, in what 
 now constitutes an exceedingly valuable locality in the 
 town of Sydney, but was induced to surrender it to the 
 colonial government for public purposes about the year 
 1807 ; receiving as a compensation twenty gallons of 
 rum, which was then worth £3 a gallon, and a grant of 
 similar extent at Pitt Water, one of the inlets of Broken 
 Bay. There had been a female convict in the first fleet — 
 a native of the isle of Skye in Scotland — of the name of 
 Margaret M'Kinnon, who had been transported for the 
 crime of arson, having set fire to her neighbour's house 
 in a fit of jealousy. Schoeffer married this woman and 
 settled on his farm at Pitt Water, where he lived many 
 years ; but old age, poverty, and intemperance induced 
 him at length to sell it by piecemeal, and he died at 
 last in the Benevolent Asylum, or Colonial Poor's House. 
 I took the liberty to state the circumstances I have just 
 detailed, in a memorial I addressed to His Excellency 
 General Darling, on behalf of SchoefTer's widow, in the 
 year 1828 ; adding that a Scotch Highlander, who had 
 formerly been master of the band of His Majesty's 46th 
 regiment, and had settled in the colony when the regi- 
 ment proceeded to India, was willing to maintain the 
 old woman during her lifetime, provided a small com- 
 pensation should be allowed him by the Government. 
 General Darling was pleased to order a hundred acres 
 of land to be measured off to the Highlander at Pitt 
 Water, pledging the Government that a grant of the 
 ground should be made to him at the old woman's 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 47 
 
 death, provided it should appear to the Governor that 
 he had fulfilled the terms of his engagement. About a 
 year after this arrangement had been effected, the High- 
 lander died, and old Peggy is now an inmate of the 
 Benevolent Asylum, where in all likelihood she will 
 spend the remainder of her days.* English, it would 
 seem, had been but little spoken in the isle of Skye 
 about fifty years ago, and Schoeffer appears to have 
 dealt chiefly in his mother tongue ; for the old woman's 
 conversation, in which every sentence commences with 
 the Gaelic particle ogus and concludes with the German 
 verb zerstehen, (used interrogatively to ascertain whether 
 she is fully understood,) is the most singular specimen 
 of the Babylonish dialect I have ever heard. I have 
 introduced this episode, chiefly to point out the sort of 
 accidents on which the acquisition of wealth in a new 
 country not unfrequently depends ; for if Schoeffer had 
 only retained his fifty-acre farm in Sydney for about 
 thirty years longer, he could actually have sold it for at 
 
 * I was not a little surprised and mortified at the same time to find, 
 from a communication made to me on the subject by the Colonial Go- 
 vernment, in the year 1835, that the Highlander's son, a native of the 
 colony, who keeps a public house, had made over all his right and title 
 to the hundred acres of land to Father Therry , a Roman Catholic priest in 
 New South Wales ; I presume in consideration of having a certain number 
 of masses performed for the soul of every sinner of the family— at the 
 regular chapel price ! T wrote to the Government in reply, stating, that 
 neither the Highlander nor bis son had ever any right to the land, 
 which belonged to the Benevolent Asylum, and not to Father Therry, 
 who had no claim to it whatever. I made no farther inquiries on the 
 subject ; but the circumstance is somewhat instructive, as it shows us 
 how church lands used to be acquired — by clever people — in the dark ages. 
 
48 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 least £1 00,000, which, at the usual rate of interest in the 
 colony, would have yielded him a permanent income of 
 £10,000 a year. 
 
 Governor Phillip was particularly active in exploring 
 the country round Sydney, and in ascertaining its 
 capabilities : he caused an accurate survey to be made 
 of Botany Bay, Port Jackson, and Broken Bay; and 
 in examining the numerous inlets of the last of these 
 harbours, he was fortunate enough to discover a large 
 river, which he traced for upwards of a hundred miles 
 from its mouth, and named the Ilawkesbury. The 
 banks of this river, which in the upper part of its 
 course consist chiefly of the richest alluvial soil, were for 
 thirty years afterwards the granary of New South Wales. 
 
 It was in conducting the colony, however, with much 
 firmness and discretion, through a period of distressing 
 privation, to which it was subjected by an unforeseen 
 calamity during his administration, and in alleviating 
 the sufferings of the colonists by every means in his 
 power, that Governor Phillip merited the highest com- 
 mendation. It had been arranged, previous to his 
 leaving England, that the settlement should never be 
 left without a twelvemonth's provisions in the king's 
 stores. In pursuance of this arrangement, His Ma- 
 jesty's store-ship Guardian had been despatched from 
 England in the month of August, 1789, with a large 
 supply of provisions and other stores for the settle- 
 ment. The Guardian was commanded by Lieute- 
 nant Riou, of the royal navy, an officer of great pro- 
 mise, who afterwards commanded a ship of the line, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 49 
 
 and was killed at the battle preceding the seizure of 
 the Danish fleet at Copenhagen ; on which occasion 
 the celebrated Lord Nelson, in alluding to his death in 
 his despatch to government, lamented him as the gallant 
 and the good Riou. Captain Riou had gone consider- 
 ably farther to the southward than the route now gene- 
 rally pursued by vessels bound to New South Wales ; 
 besides, it was the middle of summer when he reached 
 the southern latitudes, and the prevalence of southerly 
 winds for some time before had brought down a quan- 
 tity of ice from the southward ; for during the night of 
 the 23rd December, 1 789, his vessel unfortunately struck 
 an iceberg, in lat. 46° or 47° S. to the southward and east* 
 ward of the Cape of Good Hope, and received so much 
 injury that she was almost immediately afterwards 
 nearly filled with water. Finding her almost a com- 
 plete wreck, Captain Riou assembled the officers, pas- 
 sengers, and crew, and, pointing out to them the state 
 of the vessel, told them that if any of them preferred 
 leaving the ship, they should have boats, provisions, 
 and nautical instruments, to enable them to reach the 
 nearest accessible land ; but that he himself was de- 
 termined to remain on board while she continued to 
 float. Most of the ship's company and passengers pre- 
 ferred leaving the vessel ; and three boats were accord- 
 ingly provisioned and manned, and their crews left the 
 ship on their dreary and almost hopeless voyage up the 
 Indian Ocean ; for as westerly winds are the most pre- 
 valent in these latitudes, they could not expect to reach 
 the Cape of Good Hope. One of them only had the 
 good fortune, after suffering extreme privations, to 
 vol. i. c 
 
50 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 reach the Isle of France, for which, it seems, they had 
 all steered ; the other two never reached the land. 
 
 Most providentially for those who remained on board 
 the Guardian, Captain Riou had caused the water-casks 
 to be carefully bunged up, as they had been succes- 
 sively emptied on the former part of the voyage. The 
 vessel, being thus much more buoyant than she would 
 otherwise have been, continued to float, though nearly 
 full of water ; but as she had lost her rudder, in addition 
 to the other damage she had sustained from her colli- 
 sion with the iceberg, she was tossed about at the 
 mercy of every tempest, and her greatly diminished 
 crew were doomed to suffer the severest privations. A 
 French frigate, however, having at length fallen in with 
 her near the Cape of Good Hope, towed her into Table 
 Bay, where she was afterwards completely wrecked in 
 a gale. 
 
 The disappointment of the colony at the non-arrival 
 of the Guardian may be easily conceived. It was 
 grievously heightened by the arrival of the Lady 
 Juliana transport, with additional convicts from Eng- 
 land, who had been despatched some time after the 
 sailing of the Guardian, in expectation of the previous 
 arrival of the stores forwarded by that vessel. His Ma- 
 jesty's ship Sirius, Captain Hunter, had been des- 
 patched to the Cape of Good Hope by way of Cape 
 Horn for a supply of provisions for the settlement, in 
 the month of September, 1788, and had returned to 
 Sydney, after circumnavigating the globe, in May, 1789; 
 but that supply was at length nearly exhausted, and 
 famine was already beginning to stare the colonists in 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 51 
 
 the face ; for in the month of February, 1790, there 
 were not four months' provisions in the colony, even at 
 half allowance. 
 
 In these circumstances, Governor Phillip deemed it 
 necessary to divide the settlement, by sending the 
 Lieutenant-Governor, Major Ross, with a number of 
 marines and convicts, to Norfolk Island, where he 
 understood there were resources, which Port Jackson 
 and the country around it did not afford. Major Ross 
 and his officers, with two companies of marines and 
 about two hundred convicts, together with a fair pro- 
 portion of the remaining provisions and other stores, 
 were accordingly embarked for Norfolk Island, on 
 board His Majesty's ships Sirius and Supply, and 
 arrived at that island on the 13th of March, 1790. The 
 officers, marines, and convicts, to the number of two 
 hundred and seventy persons, were all safely landed by 
 the 15th ; but the wind suddenly shifting to the east- 
 ward, the two ships, containing all the provisions and 
 stores, were immediately after driven to sea. They 
 made the land again on the 19th ; and observing the 
 customary signal on shore, informing them that a land- 
 ing might be effected without danger from the surf, 
 every exertion was made to bring the vessels into a 
 proper position for that purpose : but, in doing so, the 
 Sirius most unfortunately struck on a reef of coral 
 rocks in the roadstead, and was totally wrecked, within 
 sight of the half-famished settlement. In the evening- 
 after the frigate struck, the wind freshened again, and 
 it was consequently no longer practicable to effect a 
 landing by boats. As it was considered dangerous in 
 
52 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the extreme, however, to remain longer on board the 
 frigate, a strong hawser was carried out from the wreck, 
 and fixed to a tree on shore, by means of a rope which 
 was floated on shore through the surf by an empty 
 cask ; and by that perilous conveyance Captain Hunter 
 and his ship's company were all successively dragged 
 in safety, through a heavy surf and over a ragged reef, 
 to the land. The weather subsequently becoming some- 
 what more favourable, the greater part of the provisions 
 was at length happily saved from the wreck ; but the 
 officers' baggage and the other stores were for the 
 most part lost or destroyed in attempting to float them 
 on shore. 
 
 When the excitement produced by this distressing 
 calamity had somewhat subsided, the Lieutenant-Go- 
 vernor, finding that there were five hundred and six 
 persons on the island with provisions at half allowance 
 for only a very short period, deemed it necessary, in 
 consideration of the alarming situation of the settlement, 
 and the desperate character of the majority of the con- 
 victs, to proclaim martial law in the island. This was 
 accordingly done with great solemnity ; every person 
 on the island, from the Lieutenant-Governor to the 
 meanest convict, testifying his assent to the measure 
 by passing successively under the King's colours. As 
 the Supply had sailed for Port Jackson a few days 
 after the wreck of the frigate, hopes were entertained 
 for several weeks of her speedy return to the island 
 with the joyful intelligence of the arrival of a store-ship 
 with supplies from England : but as week passed after 
 week without any tidings of a vessel, it was at length 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 53 
 
 concluded that no vessel had arrived, and that the 
 Governor had been obliged, as was actually the case, to 
 send off the Supply to Batavia or the Cape for pro- 
 visions for the settlement. In this deplorable situation 
 a council of the officers on the island was held on the 
 14th of May, 1790, and the following " General Order" 
 was published : — 
 
 " At a meeting of the Governor and Council, held to 
 consider of the very exhausted state of the provisions 
 in this settlement, and to consult upon what means are 
 most proper to be pursued, in order to preserve life 
 until such time as we may be relieved by some arrivals 
 from England, of which we have been so long in ex- 
 pectation, but probably disappointed by some unfortu- 
 nate accident having happened to the ships intended 
 for this country ; the state of the provisions having been 
 laid before the Council, and the alarming situation of 
 the settlement having been taken into the most serious 
 consideration, the following ratio of provisions was 
 unanimously resolved and ordered to take place on 
 Saturday the 15th instant; viz.: — 
 
 " Flour — three pounds per week for every grown 
 person. 
 
 " Beef — one pound and a half per ditto ; or, in lieu 
 of the beef, seventeen ounces of pork. 
 
 " Rice — one pound per ditto. 
 " Children above twelve months old, half the above 
 ratio. Children under twelve months old, one pound 
 and a half of flour, and a pound of rice per week. 
 In future, all crimes which may by any three members 
 of the Council be considered as not of a capital nature, 
 
54 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 will be punished at their discretion, by a farther reduction 
 of the present allowance of provisions."* 
 
 In these distressing circumstances, Divine Providence 
 provided a temporary relief for the settlement, equally 
 welcome and unexpected. In the quarter from which 
 it came, it was like the manna that was rained from 
 heaven around the tents of Israel in the wilderness, or 
 rather like the quails that on one occasion fell for an 
 extent of three days' journey around their encampment. 
 " In the month of April," Captain Hunter observes, in 
 his narrative of the proceedings at Norfolk Island, " we 
 found that Mount Pitt, which is the highest ground on 
 the island, was, during the night, crowded with birds. 
 This hill is as full of holes as any rabbit-warren; in 
 these holes at this season these birds burrow and make 
 their nests ; and as they are an aquatic bird, they are, 
 during the day-time, frequently at sea in search of 
 food : as soon as it is dark, they hover in vast flocks 
 over the ground where their nests are. Our people, (I 
 mean seamen, marines, and convicts) who are sent out 
 in parties to provide birds for the general benefit, 
 arrive upon the ground soon after dusk, where they 
 light small fires, which attract the attention of the 
 birds, and they drop down out of the air as fast as the 
 people can take them up and kill them. When they are 
 
 * The insufficiency of the allowance issued at Norfolk Island, at the 
 period in question, may he judged of even hy those who are unaccus- 
 tomed to such a mode of calculating the amount of provisions required 
 for the sustenance of a healthy person, hy comparing it with the ration 
 usually issued to convicts in New South Wales, which is ten pounds 
 and a half of flour and seven pounds of heef per week, with an allowance 
 of tea and sugar. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 55 
 
 upon the ground, the length of their wings prevents 
 their being able to rise ; and until they can ascend an 
 eminence, they are unable to recover the use of their 
 wings : for this purpose nature has provided them with 
 a strong, sharp, and hooked bill, and in their heel a 
 sharp spur, with the assistance of which, and the 
 strength of their bill, they have been seen to climb the 
 stalk of a tree sufficiently high to throw themselves 
 upon the wing. This bird, when deprived of its 
 feathers, is about the size of a pigeon, but when 
 -clothed is considerably larger, for their feathers are 
 exceedingly thick : they are web-footed and of a rusty 
 black colour: they make their holes upon the hills for 
 breeding their young in : they lay but one egg, and 
 that is full as large as a duck's egg. They were, at 
 the end of May, as plentiful as if none had been 
 caught, although for two months before there had not 
 been less taken than from two to three thousand birds 
 every night: most of the females taken in May were 
 with egg, which really fills the whole cavity of the 
 body, and is so heavy, that I think it must fatigue the 
 bird much in flying. This bird of Providence, which 
 I may with great propriety call it, appeared to 
 me to resemble that sea-bird in England called the 
 puffin : they had a strong fishy taste ; but our keen 
 appetites relished them very well : the eggs were excel- 
 lent."* 
 
 The colonists at head-quarters were in the mean time 
 
 * An HistoricalJournal of Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk 
 Island, &c, by John Hunter, Esq., Post-Captain in His Majesty's navy. 
 London, Stockdale, 1793, pages 180 and 181. 
 
56 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 reduced to similar, if not greater extremities, there 
 being no birds, like the Norfolk Island peterel, to be 
 caught near Sydney. The whole colony was for a long 
 time on half allowance ; but even that quantity being 
 found greater than the King's magazines could afford 
 for any length of time, without in all probability sub- 
 jecting the settlement to the horrors of absolute famine, 
 a farther reduction was ordered. Indeed, the priva- 
 tions and sufferings of the first colonists at this period 
 were extreme. A wealthy and respectable inhabitant 
 of Sydney, who arrived in the colony as a free person 
 during the government of Governor Phillip, has told me 
 that his ration for a long period was merely a cob or 
 single head of Indian corn a day, and that for three 
 years he had lived in the colony in the constant belief 
 that he should one day perish of hunger ! And yet, 
 strange and unaccountable as it may seem, there was 
 no such thing as suicide heard of in the colony, in 
 these times of real suffering, when Death was, as it 
 were, paying a daily visit to every inhabitant of the 
 country in one of his most frightful forms. It was not 
 until fulness of bread had induced a spirit of pride on 
 the one hand, and of wasteful extravagance and dissi- 
 pation on the other, that life in New South Wales was 
 in any instance discovered to be a burden too heavy to 
 be borne. 
 
 The energy and decision of character* tempered with 
 the utmost humanity, which Governor Phillip uniformly 
 evinced in these trying circumstances, was a powerful 
 means of inducing the colonists to submit to so calami- 
 tous a dispensation of Providence with unmurmuring 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 57 
 
 patience. The Governor received daily the same 
 ration as the meanest convict in the territory ; and on 
 those occasions on which the established etiquette 
 rendered it necessary that he should invite the officers 
 of the colony to dine with him at Government House, 
 he usually intimated that they must bring their bread 
 along with them, as he had none to spare. On one 
 of these occasions a humorous officer is said to have 
 marched up to Government House with his loaf — 
 one doubtless of very small dimensions — stuck upon 
 the point of his sword. Indeed, it was greatly owing to 
 the prudent management of Governor Phillip, that the 
 settlement was not entirely abandoned (for the proposal 
 to abandon it was actually made, but overruled by the 
 Governor) amid the real hardships that attended its ori- 
 ginal formation. Various interesting traits of his cha- 
 racter in this respect are still mentioned with interest by 
 the older inhabitants of the colony : one of these is suffi- 
 ciently characteristic : — On seeing any person with a 
 dog in the course of his walks through the settlement, 
 indignant at the maintenance of a useless mouth in the 
 colony, and yet desirous that the owner of the dog- 
 should have a more valuable domestic animal, he 
 would say, " Kill your dog, sir, and I will order you a 
 pig from the store." 
 
 During this period of suffering, the whole of the live 
 stock belonging to Government, which had been 
 brought to the colony from the Cape with so much 
 trouble and at so great an expense, was killed for the 
 subsistence of the settlement; and as the insufficiency 
 of the ration issued from the King's store induced a 
 
58 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 state of extreme bodily exhaustion, all the Government 
 works were suspended, and every person, whether free 
 or bond, was allowed to employ himself for his own 
 benefit as he chose. 
 
 The long-expected relief at length arrived. In the 
 end of June, 1790, three transports arrived in Port 
 Jackson, containing part of the stores which had been 
 saved from the Guardian ; and in the course of the 
 year following, His Majesty's ship Gorgon, which had 
 been converted for the time into a store-ship, together 
 with ten transports containing convicts, and consti- 
 tuting what has ever since been known in the colony as 
 the Second fleet, also arrived. On board these vessels 
 there had been embarked in England one thousand six 
 hundred and ninety-five male, and sixty-eight female 
 convicts, of whom no fewer than one hundred and 
 ninety-four males and four females died on the passage 
 out ; and such was the state of debility in which the 
 survivors landed in the colony, that one hundred and 
 sixteen of their number, viz. one hundred and fourteen 
 males and two females, died in the Colonial Hospital 
 before the 15th of December, 1791. 
 
 Indeed, the mortality, both on shore and on the 
 voyages undertaken to and from the colony in the 
 earlier years of its existence, was great beyond all com- 
 parison with the experience of later years. In the 
 transports that are now hired by Government to convey 
 convicts to New South Wales, the average mortality is 
 perhaps not greater than two or three deaths for each 
 vessel during the passage out ; and there are frequent 
 instances of vessels arriving from England without 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 59 
 
 having had a single death during the voyage. In the 
 second fleet, however, the average mortality was 
 twenty for each vessel ; and the survivors, it would 
 seem, were half-dead, or at least quite unfit for labour 
 when they landed.* This argues a prodigious change 
 for the better in the system of transportation, in so far 
 as relates to the passage out, equally creditable to the 
 
 * Mr. E. G. Wakefield has stated, in his evidence before a Committee 
 of the House of Commons, that the mortality during the passage out 
 amounted, in the earlier times of the colony, to one half of the whole 
 numher embarked in many instances, and in some, if I am not greatly 
 mistaken, (for I mention the circumstance merely from memory,) to two- 
 thirds of the original cargo. For my own part, I have never heard of any 
 such mortality on the voyage to New South Wales. Great abuses were 
 undoubtedly practised, so long as convicts were carried out by contract- 
 ors at so much per head; for it appeared, on an investigation which 
 was instituted in the colony at the suggestion of Captain Parker, of His 
 Majesty's ship Gorgon, that some of the captains of transports had very 
 much abridged the convicts of the allowance stipulated by Government 
 for their subsistence ; this inhuman practice having been carried to 
 such an extent in some of the ships, that many of the convicts had been 
 literally starved to death. Still, however, I am confident that Mr. 
 Wakefield's statement is greatly exaggerated. From a parliamentary 
 return, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 6th May, 1810, 
 containing an "Account of the number of convicts who have died in 
 their passage to New South Wales, since the year 1810," it appears, that 
 of nineteen ships, on board of which 3371 convicts had been embarked, 
 there was one ship, The Friends, in which no death had occurred during 
 the passage ; four in which the deaths were one in each ; five in which 
 there had been two deaths in each ; two in which there were three 
 deaths; three in which there were four; one in which there had been 
 five ; one in which there had been ten ; one in which there were as 
 many as thirty -four deaths out of three hundred convicts ; and one, The 
 Surrey, in which there had been no fewer than thirty-six deaths, out of 
 two hundred convicts. In the last of these vessels, a malignant fever, of 
 which the captain, the first and second officers, and several of the crew 
 died, had prevailed during the passage. No such calamity has occurred 
 during the last twenty years. 
 
60 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 British Government, and gratifying to the philan- 
 thropist. 
 
 The mortality on shore during the first years of the 
 colony, contrasted with the universally acknowledged 
 salubrity of the climate of New South "Wales for many 
 years past, may easily be accounted for. It arose, — 
 
 1st, From the effects of the very inferior system of 
 management on ship-board during the voyage out, as 
 evinced in the case of the convicts of the second fleet, 
 contrasted with the high state of health in which con- 
 victs now generally arrive in the colony. 
 
 2nd, From long confinement to a ration of salt pro- 
 visions, sometimes of inferior quality, and generally in 
 insufficient quantity ; and 
 
 3rd, From the mental despondency which an insuf- 
 ficient allowance of provisions, conjoined with the 
 miserable prospect which the colony then appeared to 
 hold forth to all parties, naturally induced. 
 
 The sufferings experienced from the second of these 
 causes on board the vessels constituting the first fleet, 
 on their return to England from Port Jackson, were 
 exceedingly great. Four of these vessels sailed from 
 Sydney, by the northern passage, round the continent 
 of New Holland, under the command of Lieutenant 
 Shortland, agent for transports, in the month of May, 
 1788: but two of their number being separated from 
 their leader, in a gale off the coast to the northward of 
 Port Jackson, stood to the southward, and, doubling 
 the south cape of Van Dieman's Land, reached Rio 
 de Janeiro by the western passage, in such a state of 
 extreme debility and exhaustion, however, that if a fri- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 61 
 
 gate then on the Brazilian coast had not sent her boats 
 to assist them, they would not have been able to work 
 up to the harbour. Lieutenant Shortland proceeded 
 with the two remaining vessels to Batavia ; but the 
 scurvy attacking first the one ship's company, and then 
 the other's, so many on board both vessels died, and so 
 many of the remainder were rendered utterly unfit for 
 service, that he was obliged to scuttle and sink one of 
 the ships off the island of Borneo. 
 
 The sufferings that were thus experienced by all 
 parties connected with the original establishment of the 
 colony of New South Wales were taken advantage of 
 by ignorant or designing persons, to induce numbers 
 of the convicts, and especially the Irish convicts, who, 
 in the colonial phrase, are generally no scholars, to 
 attempt the most desperate expedients to escape from 
 the colony. Under the idea of finding a Chinese settle- 
 ment to the northward, parties were ever and anon 
 made up to travel overland to China ; and many indi- 
 viduals, who either perished of hunger or were speared 
 by the natives, speedily fell victims to this strange infa- 
 tuation. At one time no fewer than forty convicts were 
 absent from the settlement on the way to China ! 
 
 After the arrival of the second fleet in the year 1791, 
 the affairs of the colony began to wear a more favour- 
 able aspect, and the prospect for the future was, on the 
 whole, rather encouraging, when Captain Phillip, 
 whose health had for some time been in a declining 
 state, resigned the government of the colony, and 
 embarked for England on the 11th of December, 1792 ; 
 having administered its affairs with much credit to 
 
62 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 himself, and with general satisfaction to the little com- 
 munity, for nearly five years. During the remainder of 
 his life he lived at Bath, and had a pension of £400 a 
 year allowed him, for his services in establishing the 
 colony, by His Majesty's Government, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES, 63 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 GENERAL STATE OF THE COLONY DURING THE 
 ADMINISTRATIONS OF GOVERNORS HUNTER AND 
 KING. 
 
 " And they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their 
 father, and said, This have we found : know now whether it be thy 
 son's coat or no." — Genes, xxxvii. 32. 
 
 In the years 1790 and 1791, a military corps, desig- 
 nated The New South Wales Corps, which was afterwards 
 embodied as the 102nd regiment of the line, was raised 
 in England for the service of the colony. That service, 
 it may naturally be supposed, was not considered, at so 
 early a period in the history of the Australian colonies, 
 either as the most dignified or the most enviable in 
 which a British officer could be engaged ; and com- 
 missions were consequently procurable in the New 
 South Wales Corps on much easier terms than in cer- 
 tain other military bodies, such as the Guards or the 
 Blues. It was, therefore, quite possible that gentlemen 
 might have found their way into that corps who pos- 
 sessed, only in a very limited degree, that honourable 
 high-mindedness which should ever constitute the proud 
 distinction of the British officer ; combining, as he is 
 supposed to do, the elegant accomplishments of the 
 
64 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 scholar with the unexceptionable morals of the re- 
 putable citizen, and holding in equal abhorrence the 
 practices of the pettifogging dealer and the profligacy 
 of the rake. And if this was actually the case, it was 
 not to be wondered at, that members of the corps I 
 allude to should, in process of time, be found sullying 
 their hands with the slime of colonial pollution, and 
 banded together, on every proper occasion, to main- 
 tain, by violence or injustice, what they had obtained 
 by the sacrifice of honour. In short, (for I have no 
 wish to be a dealer in enigmas) I am decidedly of 
 opinion, that the formation of the New South Wales 
 Corps was, both in a moral and political sense, the 
 most ill-advised and unfortunate measure that the 
 British Government could possibly have adopted to- 
 wards theis infant settlement on the coast of New Hol- 
 land ; and that, like the wrath of Achilles to the Greeks, 
 it entailed ten thousand sorrows on the colony of New 
 South Wales. 
 
 The greater part of the New South Wales Corps 
 arrived in the second fleet ; and, as Captain Phillip's 
 successor did not arrive till the 7th of August, 1795, 
 the government of the colony was administered, for 
 nearly three years, by the commanding officers of that 
 regiment; first by Major (subsequently General) Grose, 
 and afterwards by Captain (subsequently Lieutenant- 
 Colonel) Patterson, as lieutenant-governors of the terri- 
 tory. Of the public character of the former of these 
 gentlemen, who was a near relative of the famous anti- 
 quary of the name, I am unable to speak definitively, 
 excepting that the first use he made of his power was 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 65 
 
 to merge the civil in the military authority, or rather to 
 set aside the former in great measure altogether ; but 
 Captain Patterson appears to have been a highly intel- 
 ligent and amiable man, who did not choose, however, 
 to hold the reins of government with a tight hand, but 
 allowed things to take their natural course. The taste 
 for governing on the small scale, and the means of 
 rendering the resources of the Government indirectly 
 subservient to their own private interests, which were 
 thus acquired by the officers of the New South Wales 
 Corps, were likely, even in less favourable circum- 
 stances, to have operated afterwards as a drag on the 
 wheels of the colonial state-carriage, impeding its mo- 
 tions and rendering its progress irregular and uncertain. 
 In conformity to what might thus have been expected, 
 the history of the colony, for the next fifteen years, ex- 
 hibits little else than a series of struggles for the mas- 
 tery, between the Governor on the one hand and that 
 powerful and influential body on the other ; till at length, 
 the warfare, which had long been carried on covertly 
 and by means of private representations to the au- 
 thorities at home, assumed a less doubtful character ; 
 insomuch that the corps proceeded at last with open 
 violence to wrest the reins of government out of the 
 hands of His Majesty's Representative, and actually 
 forced him out of the colony ! 
 
 The extraordinary fluctuations in the value of articles 
 of domestic consumption, to which the colony was sub- 
 ject for many years after its original establishment, and 
 the extraordinary profits that were not unfrequently 
 realized on the investment of a small capital in mercan- 
 
68 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 tile speculation, afforded the officers of the New South 
 Wales Corps both a temptation and an excuse for en- 
 deavouring to eke out their military income, which in 
 such circumstances was often inadequate enough, by 
 engaging either directly or indirectly in such specula- 
 tions. The position, moreover, which they held for a 
 considerable time in the colony, afforded them singular 
 advantages in this respect ; for as the King's stores 
 contained whatever was supposed necessary for the 
 comfortable subsistence of the settlement, there were 
 ways and means of procuring from that source occa- 
 sional supplies of useful articles at prime cost, which 
 could afterwards be retailed at an enormous profit. The 
 article then, and indeed ever since, in most frequent 
 requisition throughout the colony, was rum ; and in 
 process of time it came to be established as a general 
 rule, that there should be certain periodical issues of 
 that article (as, for instance, on the arrival of a mer- 
 chant-ship) to the officers of the corps, in quantities 
 proportioned to the rank of each officer. 
 
 The business of buying and selling, especially when 
 attended with unreasonable profits, is so apt to foster 
 the selfish feelings, and holds out so many temptations 
 to the indulgence of a grovelling disposition, that I 
 have often thought it would be good policy in a Go- 
 vernment administering the affairs of one of those 
 money-making communities called colonies, to counte- 
 nance and encourage what are commonly called the 
 liberal professions, if it were only because they have a 
 powerful tendency to bring into play the higher and 
 nobler feelings of our nature. Certain it is, that the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 67 
 
 man, who devotes all his energies to the mere concerns 
 of buying and selling, will at length come to estimate 
 every thing, not according to what it is really worth, 
 but only according to what it will bring. In this man- 
 ner the very expansion of mind, which success in mer- 
 cantile speculations generally induces, has a tendency 
 to produce a corresponding degree of moral degrada-* 
 tion ; for the man who begins the world by buying and 
 selling oranges, which is a lawful employment, and may 
 therefore be honestly engaged in and honestly con- 
 ducted, will perhaps end the matter by buying and 
 selling seats in the British Parliament ; i. e. by buying 
 and selling the liberties of his country, which it is as 
 infamous to buy as it is traitorous to sell. 
 
 Whether a process of this kind was in progress in the 
 New South Wales Corps, it is not necessary to deter- 
 mine: certain it is, that instead of occupying the high 
 standing which it was incumbent on gentlemen of an 
 honourable profession to have uniformly maintained, 
 especially in a convict colony, the officers of that corps, 
 from being buyers and sellers in general, gradually 
 conceived the idea of establishing themselves as the 
 only buyers and sellers in the colony. When a mer- 
 chant-ship arrived in the harbour, the officers of the 
 corps got the first sight of her Manifest and the choice 
 of her cargo ; and they had ways and means of allow- 
 ing the free or emancipated convict-merchant to follow 
 only at a humble distance in their wake. In short, the 
 Honourable the East India Company were not the only 
 military trading company, at the period in question, be- 
 yond the Cape of Good Hope. In the sale of tea and 
 
68 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 other India or China produce, of West India rum or 
 Bengal arrack, and of soft goods or hardware of British 
 manufacture, their example was diligently and success- 
 fully copied on the small scale by their military brethren 
 in New South Wales. 
 
 The retail-trade was in the mean time variously ma- 
 naged. Most of the non-commissioned officers of the 
 Corps had licenses to sell spirits; and in this manner 
 the superfluous rum of the regiment was disposed of to 
 the greatest advantage. It may be questioned, indeed, 
 whether this was altogether in accordance with the de- 
 clared intentions of the British Government, either in 
 regard to the colony as a place for the reformation of 
 convicts, or in regard to the duties of those to whom 
 their moral guardianship was entrusted ; but then a 
 much more important question recurs ; for in what other 
 way could the gentlemen of the New South Wales 
 Corps have disposed of their surplus rum ? 
 
 I have already pointed out the salutary effects of 
 Governor Phillip's recommendation relative to mar- 
 riage. Had that recommendation been followed up by 
 a suitable practice on the part of those into w r hose 
 hands the government of the colony subsequently fell, 
 the result, I am quite confident, would have been grati- 
 fying in the extreme. But the officers of the New 
 South Wales Corps were neither all married, nor all 
 virtuous men. Some of them, it is true, lived reputa- 
 bly with their families, and set a virtuous example to the 
 colony, even in the worst of times ; but the greater 
 number took female convicts of prepossessing appearance 
 under their protection, and employed them occasionally 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 69 
 
 in the retail-business. In so small a community as that of 
 New South Wales, at the period in question, a liaison 
 of this kind could scarcely be concealed. In fact, 
 there was no attempt at concealment : decency was 
 outraged on all hands ; and the prison population 
 laughed at their superiors for outdoing them in open 
 profligacy, and naturally followed their example ! 
 
 In a colony established for such purposes as that of 
 New South Wales, it was doubtless a matter of the 
 highest importance, nay, even of absolute necessity, 
 that the officers, whether civil or military, in connexion 
 with the government of the colony, should, in the first 
 instance at least, have been married men — men of esta- 
 blished moral character ; and no person can doubt for 
 a moment, that it was quite in the power of the Home 
 Government to have found persons of this description 
 in sufficient number to have enabled them to give ap- 
 pointments in the colony to such persons exclusively. 
 It unfortunately happened, however, in the earlier times 
 of the colony, that a large proportion of the civil and 
 military officers of the settlement were unmarried men, 
 of loose principles and dissolute habits ; who, setting 
 at defiance the laws of God and the opinions of virtuous 
 men, lived in a state of open and avowed profligacy, 
 thereby setting an example which was but too gene- 
 rally followed by the convicts, and the demoralizing 
 and debasing influence of which is still widely percep- 
 tible throughout the territory. For it is a lamentable 
 fact, in the history of New South Wales, that the pro- 
 gress of reformation, which, under a judicious system 
 of management, and under the guidance of virtuous and 
 
70 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 philanthropic men, would have been rapid and gene- 
 ral among the convicts, was checked at the very outset, 
 and has ever since been counteracted at every step, by 
 the vicious practice and the demoralizing example of a 
 large proportion of the free inhabitants of the colony. 
 
 It was not to be supposed that such a system as the 
 one I have described, in regard to the New South 
 Wales Corps, could be witnessed without much per- 
 sonal annoyance by the earlier Governors of the colony, 
 or borne without much murmuring and complaint by 
 the colonists. Acrimonious bickerings on the subject 
 were in consequence incessant ; but every endeavour to 
 put down the obnoxious system was unavailing, and 
 was only met by reiterated clandestine complaints to 
 His Majesty's Ministers, on the part of the injured offi- 
 cers of the corps, which, unfortunately for the colony, 
 were not unfrequently too successful. Besides, there 
 were ladies, connected with the New South Wales 
 Corps, who could wield tongues and hands in support 
 of the favourite system, as well as their protectors could 
 wield pens and swords; and the armed confederacy 
 was consequently much too strong for the sailor-officers, 
 who successively stood singly at the helm of the little 
 colonial state-vessel for the first twenty years after she 
 was launched, and who accordingly relieved each other 
 with a rapidity, which, for so distant a colony, and so 
 apparently undesirable a situation as the governorship 
 of Botany Bay, was perfectly unaccountable. 
 
 The second Governor of New South Wales was John 
 Hunter, Esquire, Post-Captain in the Royal Navy. 
 Captain Hunter was a native of Scotland, and had been 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 71 
 
 appointed, in virtue of a special Order in Council, se- 
 cond captain of the Sirius frigate, in the year 1787, 
 Captain Phillip having the temporary command of that 
 vessel during the voyage to New South Wales, as well 
 as the general command of the expedition for the esta- 
 blishment of the colony. In this capacity, Captain 
 Hunter had made great exertions and undergone great 
 privations ; and the experience he had thus acquired 
 was well calculated to qualify him for the more import- 
 ant charge with which he was afterwards entrusted. 
 After the wreck of the Sirius and his long detention at 
 Norfolk Island, Captain Hunter had returned to Eng- 
 land in the Dutch transport ship Waakwmheyd (Anglice 
 Activity), which had been hired at Batavia to carry 
 provisions to the colony, and was afterwards purchased 
 on account of the Government to convey Captain Hun- 
 ter, with his officers and crew, to England. 
 
 Captain Hunter assumed the government of the 
 colony on the 7th of August, 1795. During his go* 
 vernment, the first free settlers, who emigrated to New 
 South Wales in pursuance of Governor Phillip's recom- 
 mendations, arrived in the territory ; and one of their 
 number — a Scotchman from the neighbourhood of Edin- 
 burgh, whose sons are now substantial landholders in 
 different parts of the territory — has told me, that the 
 Governor went with him in person to superintend the 
 measurement of his land, and to ascertain in what way 
 he could promote his settlement, and render it as com- 
 fortable as possible. Indeed, Governor Hunter appears 
 to have been a man of sound judgment, unexception- 
 able principles, and warm benevolence ; and had he not 
 
72 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 been counteracted by the influence and the practices I 
 have already described, the colony would have pros- 
 pered greatly under his administration, and profligacy 
 would have hidden her head and been ashamed. 
 
 As a specimen of the sort of counteraction to which 
 the earlier Governors of the colony were not unfre- 
 quently subjected, in making arrangements for the 
 general benefit of the settlement, as well as of the spirit 
 in which such interference was regarded by Governor 
 Hunter, I relate the following anecdote, of the period I 
 refer to. A mean and disreputable practice has all 
 along prevailed in the colony of New South Wales, 
 both in regard to Governors and to private individuals 
 of respectable standing in colonial society, viz. that of 
 sending home clandestine, and of course generally false 
 information, relative to their private character or public 
 procedure; either to His Majesty's Ministers, in the 
 case of Governors, or to those influential persons or 
 public bodies with whom it is of consequence to the 
 other individuals I allude to to stand well. Captain 
 Hunter was, on one occasion, the subject of the private 
 communications of some colonial informer-general of 
 this kind ; but His Grace the Duke of Portland, who 
 then presided over the department of the Colonies, 
 would not suffer an honest man to be thus stabbed in 
 secret, and accordingly sent back the identical letter 
 he had received, without note or comment, to the 
 Governor. Captain Hunter handed it one day after 
 dinner to a Scotch medical officer, who happened to be 
 dining with him at Government House. "You will surely 
 take notice of this, Governor,'' said the officer. " No," 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 73 
 
 replied Captain Hunter; "the writer of this letter has 
 a family ; and if I should take any notice of it, I should 
 only ruin his family. I will rather let him alone." 
 
 Governor Hunter soon found that the machine of 
 government was not likely to move as it ought, while 
 its wheels were clogged in the manner I have de- 
 scribed. He accordingly represented the actual state 
 of the colony in this important respect to the author- 
 ities at home, and, to remedy the existing evils I have 
 mentioned, strongly recommended that the New South 
 Wales Corps should as speedily as possible be relieved 
 by a detachment of marines — a species of force, which 
 ought, indeed, never to have been changed, so long as 
 the government of New South Wales was entrusted to 
 an officer of the navy. These representations appear 
 to have been attended to ; for some time afterwards a 
 large body of marines was actually under orders to 
 embark for the colony to relieve the New South Wales 
 Corps ; but the exigencies of the war with France ren- 
 dering their services necessary at the time in some 
 other quarter, their destination was subsequently 
 changed. 
 
 The importance of the measure he had thus recom- 
 mended for the future government of the colony, and 
 the state of uncertainty in which he was long placed 
 by the artful manoeuvring of parties, whose interests 
 were diametrically opposed to such arrangements, at 
 length induced Governor Hunter to embark for Eng- 
 land ; which he did accordingly, in the month of Sep- 
 tember, 1800, to represent the state of the colony in 
 person to His Majesty's Government. On his arrival 
 
 VOL. I. d 
 
74 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 in England, it was understood for some time, both by 
 himself and his friends, that he would return to New 
 South Wales, to resume the government of the colony ; 
 but whether any adverse influence had been employed 
 by individuals connected with the colony to prevent his 
 return, or whether a more favourable prospect had in 
 the mean time opened to him in the mother country, 
 I am not aware : at all events, he never returned to 
 New South Wales. 
 
 Shortly before the arrival of Governor Hunter, Messrs. 
 Muir, Palmer, Skirving, Margarott, and Gerald, who 
 had all been tried and found guilty of stimulating the 
 people of Great Britain to effect a reform of Parliament 
 in the year 1793, arrived in the colony under sentence 
 of transportation;* Mr. Palmer — who had been a clergy- 
 man — for seven years, and the others for fourteen. Mr. 
 Gerald, who was a native of the West Indies, died of 
 consumption on the 16th of March, 1796; and Mr. 
 Skirving of dysentery — probably induced by the use 
 of salt provisions — three days after. Mr. Margarott, 
 I believe, lived to return to Scotland on the expiration 
 of his period of transportation; and Mr. Palmer, if I 
 recollect aright, died subsequently on his way to Eng- 
 land. Mr. Muir's history is well known. He was of 
 highly respectable parentage in the west of Scotland, 
 
 * The sentence passed on these unfortunate men was not merely harsh 
 and vindictive, hut absolutely illegal. By the law of Scotland, on which 
 they were tried, they could only have been sentenced (under the statute 
 of leasing-making, which was passed previous to the union,) to banish- 
 ment from that kingdom ; transportation, or hanishment to a penal settle- 
 ment, being then unknown to the Scottish law. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 75 
 
 and had practised as an advocate at the Scottish bar. 
 His case having excited a deep interest in America, the 
 Otter, an American vessel bound for the north-west 
 coast of that continent, was hired by certain gentlemen 
 in Philadelphia or New York to touch at Port Jackson, 
 for the express purpose of carrying him off from the 
 colony. The plan proved successful ; and, on effecting 
 his escape, Mr. Muir left a letter to the Governor, 
 stating that he did not intend to infringe the laws of his 
 country by returning to Great Britain, but that he would 
 endeavour to reach America, where he would practise 
 as a barrister till the expiration of his sentence should 
 allow of his returning to Scotland. The Otter was un- 
 fortunately wrecked on the west coast of America to 
 the northward of California ; but Mr. Muir was fortu- 
 nate enough, after suffering much hardship and priva- 
 tion in travelling along the coast, to reach the city of 
 Mexico, from whence he obtained a passage to Europe 
 in a Spanish frigate. The frigate was fallen in with, 
 however, by a British man-of-war off Cadiz; and in the 
 action that ensued and that issued in the capture of the 
 frigate, Mr. Muir was dangerously wounded, part of his 
 brain being actually shot away. In this condition, and 
 when lying apparently dead on the deck of the frigate, 
 he was accidentally recognised by a Scotch officer, who 
 had previously known him, from a small pocket Bible 
 which, had been given him by his mother, and which 
 he held in his hand with the grasp of death. The 
 officer humanely concealed the circumstance, but had 
 him conveyed to an hospital on the Spanish coast, where 
 every attention was paid him, and where he recovered 
 
76 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 sufficiently to enable him to proceed to Paris, on the 
 invitation of the French government, where he was 
 treated with the most marked attention. He died, 
 however, shortly after, — I believe in consequence of 
 his wound. Mr. Muir had purchased a cottage near 
 Sydney, where he passed his time chiefly in literary 
 retirement. Every thing that enlightened delicacy 
 could suggest had been done by Governor Hunter to 
 render his situation, and that of his unfortunate friends, 
 as little painful as possible ; and they were only known 
 and regretted in the colony as men who had themselves 
 experienced all the bitterness of misfortune, but who 
 were still willing to exert themselves to the utmost in 
 relieving the miseries of others. 
 
 During the administration of Governor Hunter, agri- 
 culture made considerable progress, and the prospects 
 of the colony consequently improved. The houses of 
 respectable individuals were furnished with most of the 
 comforts, and with not a few of the luxuries of life, 
 through the intercourse that had then been recently 
 opened with India ; and the years of toil and famine 
 were consequently forgotten. To each of the govern- 
 ment or military officers who had agricultural establish- 
 ments in the colony, Governor Hunter allotted ten con- 
 victs as farm-servants, and three as house-servants. To 
 each of the free emigrant settlers he allotted five con- 
 victs ; to superintendents, constables, and storekeepers, 
 four each ; to marine settlers, two ; to emancipated 
 convict settlers, one ; and to sergeants of the New 
 South Wales Corps, one each. The attempts to intro- 
 duce cattle into the colony had generally been unsuc- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 77 
 
 eessful, most of them having died on the passage; 
 horses, sheep, goats, pigs, and poultry, however, had 
 been introduced in greater numbers. The price of a 
 cow, about a year after Governor Hunter arrived in the 
 colony, was £80 j a horse cost £90, and a sheep of the 
 Cape breed £7. 10s. ; a breeding-sow sold for £5, geese 
 and turkeys for a guinea, and ducks for 10s. a couple. 
 Mutton was 2s. a pound, goat's flesh Is. 6d., and 
 butter 3s. Wheat sold for 12s. a bushel, and barley 
 for 10s. Green tea was 16s. a pound, raw sugar \s. 6d., 
 and soap 2s. 
 
 During the government of Captain Hunter, a com- 
 modious harbour for small vessels was discovered on 
 the east coast, about seventy miles to the northward of 
 Port Jackson. It was afterwards found that a navi- 
 gable river, flowing from the westward, discharged its 
 waters into this harbour; and, in following up that 
 river towards its source, two other navigable streams 
 were discovered flowing into it from the northward. 
 The locality around the harbour was subsequently called 
 Newcastle, from the abundance of excellent pit-coal 
 in its immediate vicinity; the main river was named the 
 Hunter, in honour of the Governor, and the two other 
 rivers, the William and the Patterson, in honour of 
 Lieutenant-Colonel William Patterson, the Lieutenant- 
 Governor of the colony. The district watered by these 
 rivers and their tributary streams, is at present, beyond 
 all comparison, the most extensive and the most flou- 
 rishing, both as a pastoral and as an agricultural dis- 
 trict, in the territory. It is now visited twice a week 
 by three large steam-boats, that convey produce and 
 
78 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 passengers to and from the capital ; and the rising town 
 of Maitland, situated at the head of the navigation, can 
 already boast of no fewer than from twelve to seventeen 
 public-houses, in which that species of entertainment 
 for travellers, of which the New South Wales pilgrim 
 is generally so passionately fond, can be furnished of 
 any strength and in any quantity. 
 
 Shortly after his arrival in England, Captain Hunter 
 was appointed to the command of the Venerable, 
 seventy-four. When cruising with that vessel in Tor- 
 bay, one of the seamen accidentally falling overboard, 
 Captain Hunter humanely ordered her to be put about 
 to pick him up. In executing this manoeuvre, the 
 vessel missed stays, ran ashore, and was wrecked. 
 Captain Hunter was in consequence brought to a court- 
 martial for the loss of the vessel, but was honourably 
 acquitted. In the course of the trial, it is reported that 
 when asked what had induced him to put the ship 
 about in such circumstances, he replied (for he was a 
 good man rather than a worldly wise one) that " he 
 considered the life of a British seaman of more value 
 than any ship in His Majesty's navy." He was after- 
 wards promoted to the rank of rear-admiral, and spent 
 the evening of his days in the neighbourhood of Leith 
 in Scotland, where he lived universally esteemed, and 
 died in a good old age. 
 
 At the period of Governor Hunter's embarkation for 
 England, the population of the colony amounted to be- 
 tween six and seven thousand souls : of these, about 
 two thousand were settled in Sydney, and the re- 
 mainder chiefly at Parramatta, Toongabbee, Prospect, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 79 
 
 and Castlehill, agricultural settlements to the west- 
 ward. 
 
 The third Governor of New South Wales was Philip 
 Gidley King, Esquire, also a post-captain in the navy. 
 Captain King was the son of a reputable citizen of 
 Launceston in Cornwall. He had evidently received a 
 good education ; but having been sent very early to 
 sea, he had acquired a roughness of manners, and an 
 uncouthness of language, which were not likely to 
 increase the number of his friends, but which were, 
 nevertheless, by no means inconsistent with bene- 
 volence of disposition. Having served under Captain 
 Phillip on board the Ariadne frigate, and the Europe, 
 sixty-four, he was the more readily induced to accom- 
 pany that officer on his appointment to the government 
 of New South Wales ; and his services in establishing 
 the subordinate settlement of Norfolk* Island had been 
 duly noticed and rewarded by His Majesty's Govern- 
 ment, in the year 1791. He had afterwards gone to 
 England a second time during the administration of 
 Captain Hunter ; and, on returning to the colony, he 
 had been commissioned to act as Governor, in the 
 event of Governor Hunter leaving the settlement. 
 
 Captain King assumed the government of the colony 
 in the month of September, 1800. From the zeal and 
 talent he had exhibited in effecting the settlement of 
 the dependency, or, as it was then called, the colony, of 
 Norfolk Island, it was anticipated that his administra- 
 tion would be distinguished for vigour and general 
 ability : but it by no means follows, that a man, who 
 has acquitted himself to the satisfaction of his consti- 
 
80 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 tuents in a subordinate capacity, will continue to give 
 equal satisfaction in a higher situation, especially when 
 invested with supreme authority. The possession of 
 arbitrary power not unfrequently develops qualities of 
 mind, which, in other circumstances, had escaped the 
 notice of the keenest observer, and which the salutary 
 consciousness of continued subjection to immediate 
 control would have kept in abeyance. Besides, when 
 a man has gained any considerable eminence on the 
 hill of fortune, he is strongly tempted to suppose that 
 the talent and assiduity which it cost him to reach his 
 actual position, are not necessary to enable him to 
 maintain it ; and he therefore intermits his labours, for- 
 getful that it is much easier to fall in the world than it 
 is to rise. In short, there are few comparatively of the 
 haman race — far fewer than one would at first ima- 
 gine—who are born to command. 
 
 Governor King was undoubtedly desirous of pro- 
 moting the welfare of all ranks in the colony ; but he 
 was perhaps seldom judicious enough in selecting and 
 in employing the proper means of attaining his end. 
 Irritable and irascible when thwarted in his measures, 
 as was frequently the case, he seldom evinced the 
 requisite degree of perseverance when unsuccessful ; 
 and he therefore very soon left things to take their 
 natural course, which in the colony of New South 
 Wales, as may well be supposed, was a miserably bad 
 one. He had evidently formed but a low idea of the 
 capabilities of the colony ; and as he found, perhaps at 
 his first trial, that he could not make farmers of pick- 
 pockelSy to use his own expression, he thought it unne- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 81 
 
 Cessary to expend farther labour on the fruitless expe- 
 riment. The comparative unproductiveness of the soil, 
 in the various localities in which the first agricultural 
 settlements were effected, was doubtless unfavourable 
 to the general advancement of the colony in regard to 
 agriculture ; but whether it arose from ignorance or 
 from indifference, the means of rendering the colony 
 independent of supplies from beyond seas were for a 
 long period sadly neglected ; and the consequence was, 
 that periods of scarcity, approaching even to famine, 
 were not unfrequent, while a vast expenditure of Bri- 
 tish money was needlessly incurred in importing pro- 
 visions from India, Batavia, and the Cape. 
 
 During Governor King's administration, the popula- 
 tion of New South Wales consisted chiefly of those 
 who sold rum, and of those who drank it ; and as the 
 general maxim of the colony at that period was, Make 
 money, honestly if you can, but by all means make 
 money ; it may naturally be supposed that the sellers of 
 this article of universal requisition would include per- 
 sons of all ranks and professions. I have already 
 shown to what extent the sale of this precious com- 
 modity was engrossed by the honourable profession of 
 arms. Sergeant A, Corporal B, and even Private C, if 
 a useful and deserving character, had each his licensed 
 house to sell rum by retail, and to prevent, if possible, 
 a consummation so devoutly to be deprecated, as the 
 return of any of His Majesty's emancipated convicts to 
 the paths of virtue ; and as Captain D, Lieutenant E, 
 and Ensign F, had each his permit to land thirty or 
 forty gallons of ardent spirits, which were then selling 
 
82 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 at £2 or £3 a gallon, from every vessel that entered 
 the harbour, the supply (to use the language of poli- 
 tical economy) teas equal to the demand. 
 
 Whether Governor King attempted openly to abridge 
 the corps of their ancient privileges, I am not aware ; 
 but he certainly got embroiled with that body in the 
 course of his administration, insomuch that I have had 
 it from good authority, that he was oftener than once 
 apprehensive of being put under arrest. In fact, the 
 privileges of the corps were defended with a boldness 
 and finesse that would have out-generalled a man of 
 nluch superior ability to Governor King. Of this, I 
 have been told an instance somewhat amusing : — His 
 Excellency having found it necessary to prefer charges 
 against a member of the corps to the Secretary of 
 State, did so accordingly, at considerable length, en- 
 trusting his dispatches to an officer who was proceed- 
 ing, I believe expressly for the purpose, to England : 
 but he was imprudent enough to allow the circum- 
 stance to get abroad rather too soon, and the genius of 
 Botany Bay was therefore immediately set to work, to 
 counteract his measures. His Excellency's box was 
 accordingly picked of its despatches before it left the 
 colony, and, when opened in the Duke of Portland's 
 office in Downing Street, it exhibited only a number of 
 harmless old newspapers. 
 
 It was natural for a man, placed in such circum- 
 stances as Governor King, to endeavour to counter- 
 balance the weight of military influence with which he 
 had thus to contend, by throwing something ponderous 
 into the opposite scale. He did so accordingly, by 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 83 
 
 attempting to bring forward the emancipated convicts 
 as a counterpoise to the corps ; and by what means 
 could His Excellency have secured the attachment of 
 that class of persons more effectually, than by granting 
 them licenses to sell rum? Such licenses were accord- 
 ingly dispensed with a liberality and profusion above 
 all praise ; for even the chief constable of Sydney, 
 whose business it was to repress irregularity, had a 
 license to promote it, under the Governor's hand, by 
 the sale of rum and other ardent liquors ; and although 
 the chief jailer was not exactly permitted to convert 
 His Majesty's jail into a grog-shop, he had a licensed 
 house, in which he sold rum publicly on his own behalf, 
 right opposite the jail-door. 
 
 A general dissolution of morals, and a general re- 
 laxation of penal discipline, were the result of a state 
 of things so outrageously preposterous. Neither mar- 
 rying nor giving in marriage was thought of in the 
 colony ; and as the arm of the civil power was withered 
 under the blasting influence of the miserable system 
 that prevailed, the police of the colony was wretchedly 
 administered, and virtuous industry was neither encou- 
 raged nor protected. Bands of bush-rangers or run- 
 away-convicts traversed the country in all directions, 
 and, entering the houses of the defenceless settlers in 
 open day, committed fearful atrocities. 
 
 I have already made honourable mention of the 
 activity and zeal displayed by Captain King in the 
 formation of the settlement of Norfolk Island. On his 
 arrival in the colony for the third time, as Lieutenant- 
 Governor of that island, he had also a commission to 
 
84 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT Of 
 
 succeed Captain Hunter as Governor of New South 
 Wales, in the event of the retirement of that officer 
 from the government of the colony ; and I have been 
 given to understand, on good authority, that it was by 
 keeping Captain Hunter in profound ignorance of the 
 intentions of His Majesty's Ministers, in regard to the 
 future government of the colony, of which he had been 
 personally apprised before leaving England, that the 
 Governor was induced to embark for Europe. Whether 
 Captain King was desirous that Norfolk Island should 
 in no future instance serve as a stepping-stone to the go- 
 vernment of New South Wales, as it had done so con- 
 veniently in his own particular case, it is difficult at 
 this distance of time to determine : it is at least certain, 
 that, in conjunction with Lieutenant-Colonel Foveaux, 
 he recommended the entire abandonment of that set- 
 tlement ; which was accordingly carried into effect, 
 partly during his own administration, and partly during 
 that of his successor. A more injudicious and impolitic 
 measure, I have no hesitation in saying, could scarcely 
 be conceived ; for, whatever objections might have been 
 originally urged against the formation of a subordinate 
 settlement at Norfolk Island, before the principal set- 
 tlement of Port Jackson was fairly established; common 
 sense would surely have dictated, that, after a settle- 
 ment had actually been effected on that island, at a 
 vast expense to the Government, and especially after 
 that settlement had been maintained in comparative 
 prosperity for fifteen or eighteen years, it should not be 
 abandoned on slight grounds. The climate of Norfolk 
 Island is salubrious in the highest degree, and the soil, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 85 
 
 which is capable of producing all sorts of semi-tropical 
 fruits, of extraordinary fertility. At the period of its 
 abandonment many hundred acres of land had been 
 cleared and brought into cultivation ; and many build- 
 ings, belonging both to government and to private in- 
 dividuals, had been erected. The quantity of stock on 
 the island, consisting chiefly of cattle, pigs, poultry, 
 and goats, was also very considerable ; and it con- 
 tained a population of not fewer than a thousand souls, 
 of whom a considerable number had been born on the 
 island. The prodigious sacrifice and expenditure im- 
 plied in the entire abandonment of a remote settlement 
 in such a state of advancement may be more easily 
 conceived than described. 
 
 " The ground," observes Mr. Windham, who was 
 then Secretary of State for the Colonies, in a despatch 
 to Governor Bligh, of date, " Downing Street, 30th 
 December, 1806," containing directions for the im- 
 mediate evacuation of Norfolk Island, — " The ground 
 on which this measure was determined on, appears to 
 have been the very great expense at which the settle- 
 ment was maintained, and the very great difficulty with 
 which a communication between it and Port Jackson 
 was preserved ; a difficulty, arising from the danger of 
 approaching an island without a port secure from tem- 
 pests, or even a road in which ships could safely 
 anchor. On these and other grounds, it seems that an 
 order was conveyed by Lord Buckinghamshire, when 
 Secretary of State, dated June, 1803, for removing a 
 part of the settlement of Norfolk Island to Port Dal- 
 
86 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 rymple, or to some other situation on Van Dieman's 
 Land." 
 
 In obedience to these instructions of Lord Bucking- 
 hamshire, a considerable number of the convicts had 
 been removed from Norfolk Island to Port Dalrymple 
 in the year 1804 or 1805; but, as an evidence of the 
 dispositions of the free inhabitants in regard to that 
 measure, it is sufficient to observe, that only four of 
 them had embraced the offers of government, and with- 
 drawn from the island. His Majesty's ship Buffalo 
 had afterwards been despatched by Governor King to 
 carry off as many of the free inhabitants as could be 
 induced to leave the island in the latter part of the 
 year 1805 ; but its entire evacuation was at length 
 effected during the government of Captain Bligh, in 
 the year 1807, agreeably to the express orders of Mr. 
 Secretary Windham. 
 
 In regard to these orders, which were issued in con- 
 sequence of representations from New South Wales, 
 there was no necessity whatever for maintaining a 
 separate penal establishment on Norfolk Island. Had 
 the convicts been entirely withdrawn, the free inhabit- 
 ants would have formed a numerous and prosperous 
 community long ago ; and would either have con- 
 structed a harbour, which, it is reported by intelligent 
 persons, is by no means impracticable, or continued to 
 maintain a communication with Port Jackson, as had 
 been done before, and is now done by the colonial 
 government without one. At all events, if the harsh, 
 injudicious, and expensive measure of its entire 
 evacuation had not been enforced, the settlement of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 87 
 
 Norfolk Island would long since have attained a pros- 
 perous condition, without entailing any additional 
 expense on the British government ; and there would 
 have been no temptation to form a penal settlement on 
 the island, as was done during the government of Sir 
 Thomas Brisbane, after the lapse of twenty years, at 
 prodigious expense to the mother country, and without 
 serving any useful purpose for the colony of New South 
 Wales. 
 
 A considerable number of the free settlers at Norfolk 
 Island had originally been marines and seafaring men ; 
 and when Colonel Collins, of the Royal Marines, under 
 whom most of them had served in the colony, was 
 appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Van Dieman's Land, 
 they were the more easily induced to embark for that 
 settlement. Colonel Collins had arrived from England 
 in the year 1804, to form a subordinate settlement either 
 at Port Phillip, on the southern coast of New Holland, or 
 in Van Dieman's Land. He accordingly established him- 
 self in the first instance at Port Phillip ; but finding 
 the land in the immediate vicinity of an unpromising 
 character, he afterwards abandoned that settlement 
 altogether, and proceeded to form another in Van 
 Dieman's Land. Port Phillip is an extensive inlet, 
 running up for thirty-five miles into the main-land of 
 New Holland. Colonel Collins had formed his settle- 
 ment on the eastern shore of that inlet, where the land 
 is undoubtedly of an inferior description ; but it has 
 recently been ascertained that the whole of its western 
 shore consists of land of first-rate quality, whether for 
 grazing or for agriculture ; and it is singular enough, 
 
88 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 that an extensive emigration has recently taken place 
 to this part of the territory of New South Wales, from 
 the very settlements which were formed by Colonel 
 Collins on its abandonment. During the last two years 
 more than two hundred persons have crossed over to 
 Port Phillip from Van Dieman's Land, in the character 
 of squatters, carrying along with them upwards of 
 thirty thousand sheep, besides horses and cattle, to 
 form a permanent settlement in that highly eligible 
 locality. 
 
 During the government of Captain King, several 
 hundred convicts attached to the Government agricul- 
 tural establishment at Castlehill, about twenty miles to 
 the westward of Sydney, were induced, at the instiga- 
 tion of some of their number who had been concerned 
 in the Irish rebellion, to strike for their liberty. They 
 accordingly left the settlement, armed with pikes and 
 such other weapons as they could find. They were 
 encountered by the military under Major Johnston at 
 Vinegar Hill, a few miles beyond Parramatta, on the 
 road to the Hawkesbury. A few of them were shot : 
 several others were taken and hanged immediately, 
 and the rest returned quietly to their labour ; nor has 
 there ever been any insurrection In the colony since 
 that period on the part of the convicts. 
 
 It was also during the administration of Governor 
 King, that about a dozen families of free emigrant 
 settlers, chiefly from the Scottish border, arrived in 
 the colony ; having been induced to emigrate to New 
 South Wales, on receiving a free passage from Govern- 
 ment, with the promise of a grant of one hundred 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 89 
 
 acres of land each on their arrival in the colony, and 
 rations for a certain period afterwards from His Majesty's 
 stores. They arrived in the year 1802. Governor 
 King mustered them on the quarter-deck of their 
 vessel, shortly after their arrival, to ascertain their 
 respective views, resources, and abilities. Observing 
 an old gray-haired man in their number, who acknow- 
 ledged he had been thirty years in business in London, 
 the Governor exclaimed in astonishment, " One foot in 
 the grave, and the other out of it, what brought you 
 here, old man?" It is somewhat remarkable that Cap- 
 tain King himself should have been the first of the 
 two to have both feet in the grave. The moralizing 
 Governor has been dead, I believe, these many years ; 
 but the old gray-haired man was still alive in the colony, 
 and was still able, within the last few years, to perform 
 frequent journeys on horseback from his farm to Syd- 
 ney, a distance of fifty miles. 
 
 The free emigrants I have just mentioned were 
 Presbyterians, and settled on small patches of alluvial 
 land near Portland Head, on the banks of the Hawkes- 
 bury. Their settlement has been, beyond all com- 
 parison, the most orderly and successful of the kind in 
 the colony ; some of them being now wealthy, and the 
 greater number comfortable and independent. The 
 reader may form some idea of the fertility of the dis- 
 trict, from the fact that, since its first settlement in the 
 year 1802, several fields have borne a crop of wheat 
 every year without intermission, and in many years 
 even a second crop of maize or Indian corn. The land 
 in question is indeed occasionally flooded during the 
 
90 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 inundations of the Hawkesbury ; but for eleven years 
 previous to the year 1830 no flood had been ex- 
 perienced. 
 
 The settlement of Portland Head also deserves pecu- 
 liar credit, for having been the first, I might almost say 
 the only one, in the interior of the colony, to make a 
 voluntary and self-originated effort to provide for itself 
 the regular dispensation of the ordinances of religion. 
 So early as the year 1809, the settlers in that district 
 had erected a church — the first that was ever erected in 
 the Australian territory by voluntary subscription — at a 
 cost of upwards of £400, in the hope of obtaining a 
 minister of their own communion from the mother 
 country; and from the very commencement of their 
 settlement they assembled regularly every Sabbath for 
 the public worship of God ; one of their number, Mr. 
 James Mein, a venerable old man who died in the 
 colony a few years ago, reading a sermon and presiding 
 in the exercises of praise and extempore prayer, agree- 
 ably to the practice of the Presbyterian Church. In a 
 Report of a Committee of the House of Commons on the 
 state of the colony, which was printed by order of the 
 House in the year 1812, the circumstance is mentioned 
 to the honour of that individual and of the settlement 
 to which he belonged ; Governor Bligh having stated 
 in his evidence before the Committee, that ** it was the 
 only case of the kind he had ever heard of during his 
 government of the colony." I had the singular gratifi- 
 cation to dispense the sacrament of the Holy Com- 
 munion to this little community in the year 1824, 
 according to the hallowed customs of the Scottish 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 91 
 
 Church. It was the first time it had ever been dispensed 
 on the Australian Continent in such sort as it is written 
 in the standards of the Presbyterian communion. There 
 were twenty communicants ; and the very peculiar cir- 
 cumstances in which the ordinance was solemnized in 
 the little church — situated on a rising ground on the 
 edge of the forest, and overlooking a beautiful and 
 romantic reach of the noble river — rendered the whole 
 scene the most interesting and the most affecting I have 
 ever witnessed. There is now a Presbyterian minister, 
 of the Church of Scotland, settled in the district. 
 
 From his early initiation into the mysteries of a sea- 
 faring life, Governor King was rather fond of those 
 practical jokes which constitute the peculiar delight of 
 the younger inmates of the gun-room, and he some- 
 times indulged his disposition in a way scarcely com- 
 patible with the dignity of his office as the representa- 
 tive of majesty. He was standing on one occasion 
 under the verandah of Government House, when a 
 person, who had once been a marine, approached him as 
 a petitioner for a grant of land. " You have been a 
 marine?" said the Governor, recognising the man. 
 " Yes, please your Excellency," replied the petitioner. 
 " Can you go through the manual exercise yet?" 
 rejoined His Excellency: the petitioner bowed in the 
 affirmative. " Stand at ease, then," said the Governor : 
 the marine did so. "Shoulder arms:" the marine 
 obeyed. " Right about face :" the marine stood with 
 his face looking down the avenue towards the town. 
 " March," said His Excellency : the marine accord- 
 ingly marched down the avenue ; and the Governor, 
 
92 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 delighted at the success of the joke, walked into Govern- 
 ment House without either countermanding the order 
 he had just given, or waiting for the marine's return. I 
 believe, however, he gave the man his grant of land 
 shortly after ; and it was not likely to be any 
 smaller on account of the little piece of innocent 
 pleasantry which he had thus played off at his ex- 
 pense. 
 
 Governor King was succeeded in the government of 
 New South Wales by Captain Bligh, of the royal navy, 
 on the 13th of August, 1806. His administration, it 
 must be acknowledged, was, on the whole, unfortunate 
 for the colony ; but the circumstances in which he was 
 placed were exceedingly peculiar, and the difficulties 
 of his situation exceedingly great. The period of his 
 administration, I have been given to understand, was 
 shortened through the underhand representations of 
 those who had been a thorn in his side all along : and 
 in order, I presume, to neutralize the evidence he might 
 otherwise have given at Downing Street, in regard to 
 the circumstances of the colony, a certificate of character 
 was sent home along with him, of such a kind as to 
 induce His Majesty's Ministers to treat him with 
 neglect — a circumstance which, I am credibly informed, 
 embittered the remainder of. his days. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 93 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 STATE OF THE COLONY DURING THE ADMINISTRA- 
 TION OF GOVERNOR BLIGH, WITH AN ACCOUNT 
 OF THE ORIGIN AND RESULT OF THE COLONIAL 
 REBELLION OF 1808. 
 
 Here— a sheer hulk — lies poor Tom Bowling, 
 The darling of our crew. 
 
 The fourth Governor of New South Wales was William 
 Bligh, Esq., a post-captain in the royal navy. This 
 officer, it is well known, had been sent out by the 
 Lords of the Admiralty in command of His Majesty's 
 ship Bounty, for the purpose of collecting plants of the 
 bread-fruit tree in the South Sea Islands, in order to 
 their being conveyed to the West Indies ; as it was 
 supposed that that singular tree would, if cultivated in 
 the West India islands, afford^, valuable and economical 
 article of food for the slave-population : but the crew 
 of the Bounty having mutinied in the course of their 
 voyage, turned Captain Bligh and his officers adrift in 
 the long-boat, and carried the vessel to one of the 
 numerous groups of islands with which the vast Pacific 
 Ocean is studded, doubtless to lead a life of unre- 
 
94 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 strained and licentious indulgence among their half- 
 civilized inhabitants. The misfortune which Captain 
 Bligh had thus experienced in the service, and the 
 superior seamanship and general ability he had dis- 
 played, in conducting his boat's crew along the north- 
 ern coast of New Holland to the little island of Timor, 
 in the Indian Archipelago, together with his other ser- 
 vices as a Captain in the navy, having strongly recom- 
 mended him to His Majesty's Government, he was 
 appointed to succeed Captain King in the government 
 of New South Wales.* 
 
 The character of Governor Bligh has at different 
 periods, and according as different parties have suc- 
 cessively obtained the management of the colonial 
 press, been pursued with the most unqualified vitupera- 
 tion, and loaded with the most unqualified praise. As 
 is usual in such cases, the truth lies between. That he 
 had faults, I will not attempt to deny ; but that he had 
 also redeeming qualities, which in great measure neutral- 
 ized these faults, and proved him to be a much better 
 man than the greater number of his enemies, will, I 
 conceive, appear equally evident from the following 
 sketch. 
 
 * A second object of the expedition of the Bounty had been to explore 
 Torres Straits, or the passage between New Holland and New Guinea. 
 On the unfortunate termination of that expedition, Captain Bligh was 
 authorized to fit out two vessels in whatever way he might think proper, 
 to proceed a second time to the South Seas for the accomplishment of 
 the same important objects. On that second expedition he was entirely 
 successful ; while His Majesty's ship Pandora, which had been des- 
 patched in the mean time in search of the mutineers of the Bounty, was 
 lost in Torres Straits. 
 

 NEW SOUTH WALES. 95 
 
 I have not been able to ascertain the tenor of 
 Governor Bligh's instructions relative to the New South 
 Wales Corps; but the first object which he undertook 
 with might and main on his arrival in the colony, was 
 the abolition of the military monopoly, and especially 
 in the article of ardent spirits. This monopoly (for 
 such it was in reality) was every where spoken against 
 by those who wished well to the colony. Its evil effects 
 were every where apparent. With a view to its dis- 
 continuance, Governor Hunter had recommended to His 
 Majesty's Government to recall the corps forthwith to 
 England ; and fortunate indeed would it have been for 
 the colony, had that recommendation been attended to. 
 But as there is reason to believe that Captain Hunter 
 was himself removed from the government of New 
 South Wales by that very influence against which he 
 had borne testimony, it was not likely that the gangrene 
 which he had failed to eradicate from its body politic so 
 soon after its first appearance, would readily yield to 
 the lancet of a succeeding governor, after it had pushed 
 its roots into the vitals of the system, and become a 
 wide-spreading and putrefying sore. 
 
 From the unrestrained importation of ardent spirits, 
 which had uniformly prevailed in the colony from its 
 first settlement, a practice of a most pernicious and 
 demoralizing tendency, especially in a convict colony, 
 had grown into general use ; I mean the substitution or 
 employment of ardent spirits as a sort of colonial cur- 
 rency or universal medium of exchange. The subjoined 
 reply, in the evidence of John Macarthur, Esq., to the 
 following question, which he was asked on the trial 
 
96 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 of Colonel Johnstone in the year 1811, exhibits the 
 extent to which this ruinous practice had been carried 
 in New South Wales : — 
 
 " Has not the barter of spirits been always practised 
 by every person in the colony, as a matter of necessity, 
 from the want of currency ?" 
 
 t( I know of no exception ; as far as my observation 
 went, it was universal : officers civil and military, clergy, 
 every description of inhabitants, were under the neces- 
 sity of paying for the necessaries of life, for every article 
 of consumption, in that sort of commodity which the 
 people who had to sell were inclined to take : in many 
 cases you could not get labour performed without it." 
 
 To the same purpose Captain Kemp, of the New 
 South Wales Corps, when asked a similar question on 
 the same occasion, makes a similar reply : — 
 
 " Was the barter of spirits prohibited by Governor 
 Macquarie ; or were the officers of the seventy-third 
 regiment allowed to barter spirits ?" 
 
 " The Governor, clergy, officers civil and military, all 
 ranks and descriptions of people, bartered spirits when 
 I left Sydney,— viz. in May, 1810." 
 
 The breaking up of this monstrous system had been 
 particularly enjoined on Governor Bligh, as appears 
 from the following extract from his instructions, under 
 the sign manual, dated at St. James's, May 25th, 
 1805 .— 
 
 " And whereas it hath been represented to us, that 
 great evils have arisen from the unrestrained importation 
 of spirits into our said settlement, from vessels touching 
 there, whereby both the settlers and convicts have been 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 97 
 
 induced to barter and exchange their live stock and 
 other necessary articles for the said spirits, to their 
 particular loss and detriment, as well as to that of our 
 said settlement at large ; we do therefore strictly en- 
 join you, on pain of our utmost displeasure, to order 
 and direct, that no spirits shall be landed from any 
 vessel coming to our said settlement, without your con- 
 sent, or that of our Governor-in-chief for the time 
 being, previously obtained for that purpose ; which 
 orders and directions you are to signify to all captains 
 or masters of ships immediately on their arrival at our 
 said settlement; and you are at the same time to take 
 the most effectual measures, that the said orders and 
 directions shall be strictly obeyed and complied with." 
 
 The vigorous measures adopted by Governor Bligh, 
 in accordance with these instructions, obtained the ex- 
 press approbation of His Majesty's Government, as is 
 evident from the following extract of a letter to His Ex- 
 cellency from the Right Honourable Lord Castlereagh, 
 of date December 31, 1807:— 
 
 " I am to express His Majesty's approbation of the 
 determination you have adopted to put an end to the 
 barter of spirits, which appears to have been abused, to 
 the great injury and morals of the colony ; and I am 
 to recommend, that whatever regulations you may find 
 it most eligible to establish for the sale of spirits, yet 
 that you will never admit a free importation, but pre- 
 serve the trade under your entire control ; and that you 
 will not fail rigorously to levy the penalties you shall 
 establish for preventing illegal import." 
 
 It was scarcely to be expected, however, that mea- 
 
 VOL. 1. E 
 
98 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 sures of this kind could be carried into effect without 
 giving prodigious offence ; especially to those persons 
 whose rank or office had enabled them to derive pecu- 
 liar advantages from the unrestrained importation of 
 spirits, which prevailed under a different system of 
 management ; and to turn the barter of that commodity, 
 of universal requisition, into a source of great personal 
 profit. The manifestations of this feeling were but too 
 evident in the sequel. 
 
 During the administration of the two preceding 
 Governors, a considerable number of free emigrant and 
 emancipated convict settlers had been located, chiefly 
 with a view to the cultivation of the soil, on the rich 
 alluvial banks of the Nepean and Hawkesbury rivers. 
 The latter of these rivers is merely a continuation of the 
 former, after its junction with a considerable stream 
 called the Grose, which issues from a remarkable cleft 
 in the Blue Mountains, in the vicinity of Richmond, a 
 village beautifully situated at the foot of the mountains, 
 about forty miles from Sydney. The alluvial lands of 
 New South Wales, or what the people of New England 
 would call Interval lands, (I presume because they 
 constitute the interval between the rivers and the open 
 forest-country,) are in general heavily timbered, and, of 
 course, difficult to clear. In such situations the progress 
 of cultivation is necessarily slow, as the felling-axe and 
 the operation of burning off must precede the plough or 
 the hoe ; but as the cost of this comparatively tedious 
 process is uniformly much more than repaid in the 
 wonderful fertility of the soil, land of this description is 
 usually preferred for the purposes of agriculture to the 
 more open forest-land. A considerable extent of land 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 99 
 
 of this kind had been brought into cultivation along the 
 banks of the Hawkesbury, which was thus the principal 
 agricultural settlement of the territory, towards the 
 close of Governor King's administration ; but this im- 
 portant section of the colony was most unfortunately 
 visited, about the time of Governor Bligh's arrival, with 
 a succession of inundations, which swept off the produce 
 of the soil of every description, and left the settlers, in 
 many instances, to poverty and starvation. 
 
 The inundations of the Hawkesbury, unlike those 
 of the Nile and many rivers of America, are not peri- 
 odical. A period of eleven years has elapsed in one 
 instance without a single inundation ; but two inun- 
 dations have in another instance occurred in the course 
 of the same year — one in the month of March, and the 
 other in August, although not a drop of rain had fallen 
 for some time previous in the district in which the inun- 
 dation was most severely felt. These inundations are 
 produced by the fall of rain on the Blue Mountains — a 
 lofty range which runs parallel to the coast, and along 
 the base of which the Hawkesbury flows in a northerly 
 direction, receiving its drainage by numerous mountain- 
 torrents : and so vast is the accumulation of water on 
 these occasions, and so narrow the gorges through 
 which it has to force its way in its circuitous course to 
 the ocean ; that the river has been known to rise, in the 
 neighbourhood of the town of Windsor, upwards of 
 seventy feet above its ordinary level. 
 
 At the period we have arrived at in the history of the 
 colony, the settlers of the Hawkesbury were not pre- 
 pared, as they generally are now, for so fearful a visit- 
 
100 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 ation ; and the loss of grain and of other agricultural 
 produce of every description was proportionally great. 
 A settler, whose house stands on an eminence at a beauti- 
 ful bend of the river, has told me he has seen thirty 
 stacks of wheat at one time floating down the stream 
 during a flood ; some of them covered with pigs and 
 poultry, which had thus vainly sought refuge from the 
 rising of the waters. 
 
 The occurrence of an inundation of this kind, at a 
 time when very little grain was cultivated in any other 
 part of the colony, was peculiarly calamitous, and its 
 consequences were therefore the more generally felt : 
 maize meal and flour of the coarsest quality were sold 
 in Sydney at two shillings and sixpence a pound, and 
 whole families on the Hawkesbury had no bread in 
 their houses for months together. In these circum- 
 stances, Governor Bligh did every thing that a governor 
 could do to alleviate the distress of the colony. He 
 caused a number of the Government cattle, which had 
 now increased to a large herd, to be slaughtered and 
 divided among the settlers ; and in order to encourage 
 them to cultivate as large an extent of ground as pos- 
 sible for the future, he engaged to purchase for the 
 King's stores all the wheat they could dispose of after 
 the next harvest at fifteen shillings a bushel. The con- 
 sequences of this judicious and beneficent measure were 
 speedily apparent. The dispirited settlers were stimu- 
 lated to increased exertions ; a large extent of cleared 
 ground, which had been enriched in the mean time by 
 successive floods, was laid under cultivation ; and Divine 
 Providence blessing the colony with an abundant har- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 101 
 
 vest, plenty and contentment were at length happily 
 restored. 
 
 For his zealous and patriotic exertions on this occa- 
 sion, Governor Bligh subsequently obtained the follow- 
 ing testimony of approval from His Majesty's Govern- 
 ment. It is contained in a letter to His Excellency, 
 from the Under Secretary of State, of date 31st De- 
 cember, 1807 : — 
 
 •' I am to express Lord Castlereagh's approbation of 
 the measures taken by you to relieve the colony from 
 the late calamities, occasioned by the imprudence of 
 the colonists in not taking precautions against possible 
 inundation." 
 
 The Governor had observed, moreover, that inde- 
 pendently of their liability to floods, the agricultural 
 interest, which it behoved the colonial executive at so 
 important a crisis especially to encourage, was ex- 
 tremely depressed, in consequence of the miserable 
 system of traffic to which I have already alluded, and 
 which was then prevalent in the colony ; for rum, and 
 not British money, was at that time the general medium 
 of exchange in the purchase of every thing saleable 
 throughout the territory. Now, to such persons as 
 emancipated convict settlers, who were just beginning 
 to acquire the habits of virtuous industry in the salutary 
 pursuits of agriculture, no state of things could possibly 
 be more injurious, as it daily exposed them to the 
 almost irresistible temptation to barter away their hard- 
 earned produce for what could only contribute to the 
 misery and ruin of their families. Besides, it had not 
 escaped the Governor's observation, that the industrious 
 
102 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 free emigrant settlers of the humbler class were also 
 universally kept down through the operation of the 
 same system, though in a somewhat different way ; for, 
 in disposing of their agricultural produce to the mer- 
 chants or rather dealers in Sydney, they could only 
 obtain payment in property, as it was called, i. e. in 
 rum, tea, sugar, or such other goods as the dealer had 
 to dispose of, at an enormous per-centage above their 
 real value. 
 
 Governor Bligh, therefore, immediately set himself 
 to introduce a better order of things, in so far as these 
 interesting classes of the colonial population were con- 
 cerned. With this view he made a tour of inspection 
 in the agricultural districts of the colony, inquiring 
 successively into the circumstances and resources of 
 each of the settlers, and taking a list of the articles of 
 household consumption which each informed him he 
 stood in need of, as well as of the quantity of beef, 
 pork, wheat, or maize, which he thought he was likely 
 to be able to turn, into His Majesty's stores in the 
 course of the ensuing season : and according to the 
 idea he was thus enabled to form of each settler's 
 wants and abilities, he gave him an order forthwith on 
 the commissariat for the articles which he judged it 
 requisite for him to receive, the price of which he was 
 to pay in produce at a certain fixed rate at the ensuing 
 harvest. 
 
 This arrangement was unquestionably the most judi- 
 cious, the most philanthropic, and the most directly 
 conducive to the rapid advancement of a colony, com- 
 posed of such heterogeneous materials as the colony of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 103 
 
 New South Wales, which it was possible for any go- 
 vernor to have adopted at the period in question : for 
 as His Majesty's stores at that time contained almost 
 every article that was required in a family, and as the 
 Governor set a very moderate price on those articles 
 that were thus to be exchanged for produce with the 
 settlers, it was the direct interest of the latter to make 
 immediate payment whenever they were able to do so ; 
 as, in the event of their failure, they were not likely to 
 obtain a second supply from the King's stores, and as 
 every thing they required to purchase was sure to cost 
 them at least four times the price any, where else. 
 
 No wonder then that the memory of Governor Bligh 
 should be warmly cherished, as it certainly is in a 
 very high degree, by the middle and lower classes of 
 the settlers of older standing throughout the colony. 
 " Them were the days for the poor settler," said a lo- 
 quacious personage, of one of these classes, at whose 
 comfortable house I was glad to pass the night on one 
 occasion, after a long and dreary ride of upwards of 
 fifty miles over a mountainous and desert tract of coun- 
 try ; and who, though originally transported many years 
 ago as a notorious smuggler, is now a reputable pro- 
 prietor of land, and the father of a well-reared and in- 
 dustrious family : — " Them were the days, sir, for the 
 poor settler : he had only to tell the Governor what he 
 wanted, and he was sure to get it from the stores; 
 whatever it was, sir, from a needle to an anchor, from 
 a penn'orth o' packthread to a ship's cable." 
 
 This beneficent and patriotic arrangement of the 
 Governor's, however, was directly opposed to the pri- 
 
J04 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 vate interests of that comparatively numerous and 
 powerful class of individuals who had grown corpu- 
 lent on the drunkenness of the colony, and who lived 
 and moved and had their being as men of credit and re- 
 nozcn in the colony, on the increase and perpetuation of 
 that detestable vice. Certain parties of good repute could 
 no longer sell the usual quantity of Bengal rum, Bra- 
 zils tobacco, Siam sugar, young Hyson tea, or British 
 manufactured goods at the usual remunerating prices — 
 a change of system, which of course could not be tole- 
 rated. In short, the craft was in danger, and the rapid 
 falling of the mercury in the barometers of the different 
 harams of the colony portended a storm. 
 
 When a quantity of combustible materials has been 
 industriously heaped together to produce an explosion, 
 it is of little consequence in whose kitchen the match is 
 lighted to fire the train. The gentleman who was the 
 immediate occasion — I should be sorry to style him the 
 cause — of the explosion that ensued in the instance in 
 question, was John Macarthur, Esquire, formerly Cap- 
 tain and Paymaster of the New South Wales Corps, 
 but, for some time previous to Governor Bligh's arrival, 
 a merchant in the colony. This gentleman, who was 
 for several years before his death, which took place in 
 the year 1834, a member of the Legislative Council of 
 New South Wales, deserves the highest credit, not only 
 for having been the first to direct the attention of the 
 colony to the rearing of sheep and the growth of fine 
 wool, but also for the virtuous example which his 
 own well-regulated family has uniformly exhibited to 
 the European inhabitants of the territory. As a mer- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 105 
 
 chant, however, Mr. Macarthur's interest was unques- 
 tionably opposed to the successful accomplishment of 
 the Governor's .measures; and His Excellency, it would 
 seem, being a plain, straight-forward, sea- faring man, 
 was apprehensive of counteraction in carrying these 
 measures into effect from his superior ability. But 
 although this state of feeling unquestionably existed 
 for some time, the unhappy events that ensued were 
 the result of certain overt acts and proceedings, 
 which it is necessary to detail at considerable length, 
 as they relate to a very important period of colonial 
 history, which has not unfrequently been made the 
 subject of the grossest misrepresentation. 
 
 Previous to what was called the March jtood y in the 
 year 1806, the usual price of wheat in the colony was 
 seven shillings and sixpence a bushel, and in mercan- 
 tile transactions promissory notes were frequently given 
 and received for the payment of a certain number of 
 bushels of wdieat of the next ensuing harvest ; the par- 
 ties in such transactions mutually conceiving that the 
 price of that commodity would in the mean time con- 
 tinue nearly stationary. In consequence, however, of 
 the calamitous visitation I have just mentioned, the 
 price of wheat in the year 1807 was as high as £1. Hs. 
 or £1. 10s. per bushel. In these circumstances, Mr. 
 Macarthur, happening to hold a promissory note of the 
 kind referred to, of date previous to the inundation, 
 insisted on its literal fulfilment some time posterior to 
 that calamity : but the person who had given the note, 
 holding that he was bound only to make payment at 
 the rate at which wheat was selling when the note was 
 
106 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 given, and resisting the demand on that ground, the 
 case was referred for decision to the Court of Appeals, 
 in which the Governor decided against Mr. Macarthur, 
 on the broad principle of equity which it seemed to him 
 to involve. Previous to the decision, however, Mr. 
 Macarthur had submitted a paper to the Governor, in 
 which he contended, that as the drawer of the note — an 
 emancipated Scotch convict of the name of Andrew 
 Thomson — was not one of the persons who had suffered 
 from the flood, and would have had the advantage of 
 the terms of payment in the event of a fall in the market 
 occurring previous to the note's becoming due, he was 
 bound to make payment according to its literal mean- 
 ing : but the Governor refusing to hear any thing on 
 the subject, Mr. Macarthur took offence, and never 
 afterwards made his appearance at Government House, 
 although the Governor subsequently called on Mr. Mac- 
 arthur, on being told that he was indisposed. 
 
 In the month of March, 1807, the ship Dart, of 
 which Mr. Macarthur was in part owner, arrived in 
 Sydney from London. Agreeably to the usual practice 
 on such occasions, her Manifest was exhibited by Mr. 
 Harris, the naval officer, to the Governor, who, observing 
 in the list of articles two large stills — the one addressed 
 for Mr. Macarthur, and the other for Captain Abbott, of 
 the New South Wales Corps,* — made a minute on the 
 
 * I have been informed that Captain Abbott had ordered a still to be 
 sent to him by his agent in London ; conceiving, doubtless, from the 
 high price of spirits and the insatiable demand for the article in the 
 colony, that it would prove a good speculation. Captain Abbott's agent 
 was also agent for Mr. Macarthur ; and rightly conceiving that if the 
 speculation was a good one for the former of these gentlemen, it would 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 107 
 
 Manifest, directing the naval officer to place both of the 
 stills in His Majesty's store, in order to their being 
 sent back by the first ship to England, the distillation 
 of spirits being prohibited in the colony : t as the 
 coppers, or boilers of the stills, however, had been 
 packed full of medicine, the naval officer had allowed 
 them to be conveyed to Mr. Macarthur's premises, not- 
 withstanding the Governor's order to the contrary, while 
 the heads and worms were deposited in the King's 
 store. In the month of October following, when the 
 ship Duke of Portland was about to sail for London, 
 it was discovered that the coppers were still in Mr. 
 Macarthur's possession; and the circumstance being 
 notified to the Governor, he ordered the naval officer, 
 Robert Campbell, Esq., now a member of the Legis- 
 lative Council of the Colony, to have them shipped 
 forthwith. Mr. Campbell having accordingly written 
 to that effect to Mr. Blaxcell, Mr. Macarthur's partner, 
 Mr. Macarthur replied, in a letter to the naval officer, 
 stating that " he had nothing to do with Captain 
 Abbott's still, and that he intended to dispose of his 
 own to some ship going to India or China ; but that if 
 that should be objected to, the head and worm could 
 be disposed of as His Excellency thought proper, and 
 that he would apply the copper to some domestic use." 
 
 be equally so for the latter, he had sent Mr. Macarthur a still also, with- 
 out any orders from that gentleman, and entirely of his own accord. 1 
 have reason to believe that this statement is well fouuded. 
 
 * A general Order, forbidding the distillation of spirits in the colony, 
 had been published by Governor Bligh on the 14th of February, 1807. — 
 See Appendix, No. 1. 
 
108 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Mr. Campbell showed this letter to the Governor, who 
 merely directed him to enforce the original order for the 
 re-shipment of the stills complete to England. The naval 
 officer accordingly sent his nephew, Mr. R. Campbell, 
 jun., to Mr. Macarthur, agreeably to the Governor's 
 order, for the two coppers; and on Mr. Macarthur's 
 refusing to give them up without a receipt, Mr. Camp- 
 bell, junior, procured a receipt from the naval officer for 
 " two stills with heads and worms complete.' 1 Mr. 
 Macarthur however refused to take the receipt in that 
 form, as he never had either "heads" or "worms" 
 in his possession; and Mr. Campbell, jun. consequently 
 returned to procure another receipt from his uncle : but 
 the naval officer refusing to give any other receipt than 
 the one he had already given, which, it seems, corre- 
 sponded with the description in his books, Mr. Camp- 
 bell, junior, returned to Mr. Macarthur agreeably to his 
 original order. Mr. Macarthur showed him where the 
 stills were, and told him he might take them away at 
 his own risk ; which he did accordingly. Mr. Macarthur, 
 however, immediately prosecuted Mr. Campbell, junior, 
 before a bench of magistrates for this alleged illegal 
 seizure of his property; and, after the evidence had 
 been fully heard, made a statement in open court, in the 
 presence of a concourse of people, whom the singularity 
 of the case had attracted, to the following effect: — " It 
 would therefore appear that a British subject, in a 
 British settlement, in which the British laws are esta- 
 blished by the royal patent, has had his property wrested 
 from him by a non-accredited individual, without any 
 authority being produced, or any other reason being 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 109 
 
 assigned, than that it was the Governor's order. It is 
 therefore for you, gentlemen, to determine whether this 
 be the tenure on which Englishmen hold their property 
 in New South Wales." 
 
 In the month of November, 1807, a few weeks after 
 the occurrence just mentioned, the schooner Parra- 
 matta, of which Mr. Macarthur was also in part owner, 
 arrived from Otaheite, whither she had sailed from 
 Sydney in the month of June previous, under the com- 
 mand of a Scotchman of the name of Glen, who was 
 afterwards murdered with all his crew on the coast of 
 New Zealand. A convict, it seems, of the name of 
 Hoare, had escaped from the colony by the Parramatta, 
 and had been left by the captain at Otaheite ; and as 
 the missionaries at that island complained of the circum- 
 stance in a letter to Governor Bligh, judicial proceedings 
 were immediately commenced against the vessel on her 
 return to port, to recover the penalty which had thus 
 been incurred by the captain and owners under the 
 colonial regulations. The result of these proceedings 
 was, that a bond for £900, which had been given by 
 the owners to the Colonial Government on the vessel's 
 first arrival in the colony, and deposited in the hands of 
 the naval officer, was declared to have been forfeited, 
 and the penalty duly incurred. From this decision Mr. 
 Macarthur appealed to the Governor, who, however, 
 did not choose to interfere with the decision of the 
 court. In the mean time, the owners refusing to pay 
 the penalty, the naval officer refused to enter the vessel, 
 and seized all her papers ; constables being in the mean 
 
HO HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 time put on board, to prevent the landing of any part of 
 her cargo. 
 
 In consequence of this procedure on the part of the 
 naval officer, Mr. Macarthur notified to Glen and the 
 crew, that he had abandoned the vessel, and that they 
 had consequently nothing farther to expect from him. 
 Glen accordingly went on shore with his crew, inform- 
 ing the naval officer of his being virtually ordered to do 
 so by Mr. Macarthur, and making affidavit to that effect 
 in justification of his procedure in the Judge Advocate's 
 Office, as it was contrary to the colonial regulations for 
 seamen to remain on shore in Sydney. In consequence 
 of this affidavit, the Judge Advocate addressed the 
 following letter to Mr. Macarthur on the day following, 
 to which Mr. Macarthur returned the subjoined reply : — 
 
 " Dec. 14, 1807. 
 " Sir, 
 
 " I have it in command from His Excellency the*Governor, to acquaint 
 you that the master, mariners, and crew of the schooner Parramatta, of 
 which you are the owner, have violated the colonial regulations, hy 
 coming unauthorized on shore ; and that, in their justification, they say, 
 you have deprived them of their usual allowance of provisions ; and 
 they have no means of procuring them on board the schooner. In con- 
 sequence of such their representations, I require your attendance at 
 Sydney to-morrow morning, at ten o'clock, to show cause of such your 
 conduct. 
 
 (Signed) " Richard Atkins, 
 
 " Judge Advocate." 
 " To Mr. John Macarthur." 
 
 MR. MACARTHUR'S REPLY. 
 
 " Parramatta, 14th December, 1807. 
 "Sir, 
 
 " I am to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this date, ac- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. Ill 
 
 quainting me that the master, mates, and crew of the schooner Parra- 
 matta have violated the colonial regulations, hy coming unauthorized on 
 shore; and that they in their justification say, I have deprived them of 
 their usual allowance of provisions, &c. ; for which conduct you require 
 me to come to Sydney to-morrow, and show cause. I have only in reply 
 to say, that- you were many days ago informed I had declined any farther 
 interference with the schooner, in consequence of the illegal conduct of 
 the naval officer in refusing to enter the vessel, and retaining her papers, 
 notwithstanding I had made repeated applications that they might be 
 restored. So circumstanced, I could no longer think of submitting to 
 the expense of paying and victualling the officers and crew of a vessel 
 over which I had no control ; but previously to my declining to do so, 
 my intentions were officially made known to the naval officer. What 
 steps he has since taken respecting the schooner and her people, I am 
 yet to learn ; but as he has had two police officers on board in charge of 
 her, it is reasonable to suppose they are directed to prevent irregu- 
 larities ; and thereof I beg leave to refer you to the naval officer for 
 what farther information you may require upon the subject. 
 
 " I am, sir, your humble servant, 
 
 (Signed) " John Macarthur. 
 
 " Richard Atkins, Esq., Judge Advocate." 
 
 The Judge Advocate, construing Mr. Macarthur's 
 declining to attend at Sydney into a contempt of his 
 authority, issued a warrant # to apprehend his person, 
 and convey him to Sydney, to answer in the case before 
 himself and other justices of the peace on the 16th of 
 December. Mr. Francis Oakes, to whom this warrant 
 was addressed, had been sent out in the ship Duff 
 about ten years before as a missionary to Otaheite, but 
 had left the island in a twelvemonth after, in con- 
 sequence of some demonstration of hostile feeling on 
 the part of the natives ; and was then settled as chief 
 constable at Parramatta, where Mr. Macarthur resided. 
 
 * See Appendix, No. 2. 
 
]12 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Mr. Oakes accordingly waited on Mr. Macarthur on 
 the evening of the 15th, and after many humble apolo- 
 gies presented the Judge Advocate's warrant; on the 
 perusal of which, Mr. Macarthur gave him the following 
 written paper in testimony of his having duly executed 
 it ; observing at the time, agreeably to the tenor of an 
 affidavit subsequently made by Mr. Oakes, " that 
 had the person who issued that warrant served it instead 
 of him, he would have spurned him from his presence;" 
 " that if he came a second time to enforce the warrant, to 
 come well-armed , as he never would submit till blood was 
 shed;" and " that he had been robbed of ten thousand 
 pounds; but let them alone, they will soon make a rope to 
 hang themselves" 
 
 " Parramatta, December 15, 1807. 
 " Mr. Oakes, 
 " You will inform the persons who sent you here with the warrant 
 you have now shown me, and given me a copy of, that I never will 
 submit to the horrid tyranny that is attempted, until I am forced ; that I 
 consider it with scorn and contempt, as I do the persons who have 
 directed it to be executed. 
 
 (Signed) " J. Macarthur." 
 
 Mr. Oakes proceeded to Sydney early next morning, 
 and delivered the note he had received to the Judge 
 Advocate ; relating first to that officer, and afterwards to 
 the Governor in person, the particulars of his interview 
 with Mr. Macarthur, — evidently with the devotedness 
 of a servant who is conscious of being the bearer of im- 
 portant and agreeable intelligence, the relation of which 
 may subsequently prove advantageous to himself. Mr. 
 Oakes's deposition being then taken before a bench of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 113 
 
 magistrates, the Judge Advocate issued a second war- 
 rant, addressed to the chief constables of Sydney and 
 Parramatta, and requiring them to apprehend Mr. Mac- 
 arthur, and lodge him in His Majesty's jail until he 
 should be discharged by due course of law. In pur- 
 suance of this warrant, the two chief constables, with 
 three of their myrmidons, armed with sticks or cut- 
 lasses, apprehended Mr. Macarthur at the house of 
 Mr* Grimes, the Surveyor- General of the colony, in 
 Sydney ; and Mr. Macarthur, being brought before a 
 bench of magistrates held in Sydney on the day fol- 
 lowing, (17th December, 1807,) was forthwith com- 
 mitted for trial for high misdemeanours before a crimi- 
 nal court to be assembled for the purpose, but was 
 immediately liberated on bail. 
 
 The criminal court for the trial of Mr. Macarthur, 
 consisting of the Judge Advocate and six officers of the 
 New South Wales Corps, met at Sydney on the 25th of 
 January, 1808 ; and as the case had excited intense 
 interest, the court was quite crowded, and a number 
 of the private soldiers of the Corps, (into which about 
 fifty emancipated convicts had been enlisted,) armed 
 with their side-arms, were in anxious attendance. The 
 indictment had been prepared by an attorney of the 
 name of Crosley, who had been transported for per- 
 jury, but had afterwards received a colonial pardon 
 from Governor King, and was then living at the 
 Hawkesbury. This person, it seems, had frequently 
 been consulted on matters of law, with the Governor's 
 express permission, by the Judge Advocate ; as the 
 latter had not received a legal education himself, and 
 was consequently unpractised in such matters. The 
 
114 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 indictment charged Mr. Macarthur with a contra- 
 vention of the Governor's express order, in detaining 
 the boilers of the two stills in his premises, and also 
 with an intention to stir up the people of the colony to 
 hatred and contempt of the Governor and government, 
 in the inflammatory and seditious words he had uttered 
 at a bench of magistrates in Sydney, convened at his 
 particular instance to try Mr. R. Campbell, junior, for 
 the seizure of the stills : it also charged him with 
 intent to raise dissatisfaction and discontentment in the 
 colony, and a spirit of hatred and contempt towards the 
 Governor and government, in inducing the master and 
 crew of the Parramatta schooner to come on shore in 
 direct violation of the colonial regulations : and it 
 charged him, moreover, with a seditious contempt of 
 the authority of the Judge Advocate, and with uttering 
 false, scandalous, malicious, defamatory, and seditious 
 words, of His Excellency the Governor, in the paper he 
 had given to the chief constable Oakes, and in the 
 expressions he had used in conversation with that 
 functionary respecting the Governor and govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Previous to the trial, Mr. Macarthur had addressed a 
 letter to the Governor, protesting for several reasons 
 against the Judge Advocate's presiding on the occasion, 
 and requesting that His Excellency would appoint 
 some disinterested person to preside in his room : but 
 the Governor being given to understand that the court 
 could not be constituted without the Judge Advocate, 
 refused to interfere, and replied that the law must take 
 its course. As soon, however, as the Judge Advocate 
 had administered the usual oath to the six officers, and 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 115 
 
 was proceeding to take it himself according to the 
 usual form, Mr. Macarthur, who had in the mean time 
 been surrendered to the court by his bail, interrupted 
 the proceedings by protesting against the Judge Advo- 
 cate's being a member of the court, and presiding on 
 the trial. The Judge Advocate, however, having stated 
 that there could be no court without him, and that he 
 could not be objected to, as by the terms of His 
 Majesty's patent the court could not be formed without 
 him, Captain Kemp, one of the six officers, replied, that 
 the Judge Advocate was nothing more than a juryman, 
 or than one of themselves, and might therefore be ob- 
 jected to ; and then desired Mr. Macarthur to state his 
 objections ; Lieutenant Lawson, another of the officers, 
 exclaiming, " We will hear him ;" and the Judge Advo- 
 cate being in the mean time compelled to remove from 
 his seat as president of the court. 
 
 Mr. Macarthur, being thus allowed liberty of speech, 
 read a long protest,* with great animation both of voice 
 and manner, addressing himself sometimes to the 
 members of the court and sometimes to the by-standers. 
 
 On the conclusion of his address, the Judge Advo- 
 cate called out to Mr. Macarthur, that he would commit 
 him for his contemptuous language ; but Captain Kemp, 
 addressing himself to the Judge Advocate, and calling 
 out, " You commit! No, Sir, I will commit you to 
 jail," or words to that effect; the Judge Advocate, 
 seeing nothing but confusion likely to ensue, and appre* 
 
 * See Appendix, No. 3, 
 
116 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 hensive of personal danger from the number of soldiers 
 with their side-arms in and about the court, called out 
 that he " adjourned the court," and desired the people 
 to disperse ; but Captain Kemp and the other officers 
 called the people back, saying, " Stay, stay ! tell the 
 people not to go out : we are a court." 
 
 The Judge Advocate having then left the court, 
 Mr. Macarthur called out to the officers, " Am I to be 
 cast forth to the mercy of a set of armed ruffians — the 
 police ?" informing them at the same time, that " he 
 had received private information from his friends that 
 there was a set of armed ruffians prepared against him," 
 and requesting, in a deposition # to that effect, that 
 they would give him a military guard. The officers 
 accordingly pledged themselves for Mr. Macarthur's 
 safety, saying, " We will protect you," and desired some 
 of the soldiers in the court to guard him ; but the provost- 
 marshal, Mr. Gore, into whose hands he had been sur- 
 rendered by his bail, considering the court adjourned on 
 the Judge Advocate's proclamation, and regarding this 
 procedure on the part of the officers as a rescue of his 
 prisoner, immediately made affidavit of the circum- 
 stance before the Judge Advocate and three other 
 justices of the peace, and procured their warrant for the 
 apprehension of Mr. Macarthur, in order to his being 
 lodged in His Majesty's jail. 
 
 In the mean time, the six officers addressed the fol- 
 lowing letter to His Excellency the Governor, to which 
 
 * See Appendix, No. 4. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 117 
 
 His Excellency immediately returned the subjoined 
 reply :— 
 
 " Sydney, January 25, 1808. 
 " Sir, 
 
 " We, the officers composing the Criminal Court of Jurisdiction 
 appointed by Your Excellency, beg leave to state to you, that a right of 
 challenge to the Judge Advocate, Richard Atkins, Esq. has been de- 
 manded by the prisoner, John Macarthur, Esq. which we, as a Court, 
 after mature and deliberate consideration, have agreed to allow as a good 
 and lawful objection. We therefore submit to Your Excellency, to 
 determine on the propriety of appointing another Judge Advocate to 
 preside in the present trial. We farther pray Your Excellency's pro- 
 tection in the execution of our duty, having been grossly insulted and 
 threatened by Richard Atkins, Esq., with a seeming view to deter us in 
 our proceedings. 
 
 " We have the honour to be Your Excellency's 
 
 faithful and humble servants, 
 (Signed) " A. F. Kemp, Capt. N. S. W. Corps, 
 
 J. Brabyn, Lieut. N. S. W. Corps, 
 Wm. Moore, Lieut. N. S. W. Corps, 
 Thos. Laycock, Lieut. 
 Wm. Minchin, Lieut. 
 " Addressed, Wm. Lawson, Lieut." 
 
 " On His Majesty's Service, 
 His Excellency Gov. Bligh, tyc." 
 
 " Government House, Sydney, January 25, 1808. 
 (Half past noon.) 
 " Gentlemen, 
 " In answer to your letter just received, I conceive that there could 
 have been no cause of challenge to the Judge Advocate, who is the 
 officer appointed by His Majesty's patent, and without whose presence 
 there can be no Court. 
 
 " And I consider that the Judge Advocate had a right to commit any 
 person who might commit any gross insult to him, while he was in his 
 official capacity as Judge of the Court. I do not consider the Court to 
 be formed without the Judge Advocate ; and when legally convened, I 
 have no right to interpose any authority concerning its legal acts. 
 " I therefore can do no otherwise than direct that the Judge Advocate 
 
118 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 take his seat, and act as directed by His Majesty's Letters Patent, for 
 the constituting the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction ; which, being author- 
 ized by an Act of Parliament, is as follows : — ' And we farther will, 
 ordain, and appoint, that the said Court of Criminal Jurisdiction shall 
 consist of our Judge Advocate for the time being, together with such 
 six officers of our sea and land service, as our Governor, (or, in case of 
 his death or absence, our Lieut. Governor,) shall, by precept issued 
 under his hand and seal, convene from time to time for that purpose.' 
 " I am, gentlemen, 
 " Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 (Signed) " Wm. Bligh. 
 
 To Capt. Anthony Fenn Kemp, 
 Lieut. John Brabyn, 
 Lieut. William Moore, 
 
 Lieut. Thomas Laycock, 
 Lieut. William Minchin, 
 Lieut. William Lawson, 
 
 " Of His Majesty's New South Wales Corps." 
 
 On receiving this letter from the Governor, the offi- 
 cers addressed a second letter to His Excellency, to the 
 following effect : — 
 
 " Sydney, January c 25, 1808. 
 " Sir, 
 " We have had the honour of Your Excellency's opinion with respect 
 to the objection made by a prisoner (John Macarthur, Esq.) to the 
 Judge Advocate, in answer to our letter to Your Excellency on that 
 subject. 
 
 " We beg Your Excellency to be assured that we have at all times the 
 utmost deference to any opinion delivered by you ; but in the present 
 case we cannot, consistent with the oath we have taken, or our con- 
 sciences, sit with Richard Atkins, Esq. in the trial of John Macarthur, 
 Esq. well knowing the hostile enmity which has existed between them 
 for the last thirteen or fourteen years. We therefore pray Your Excel- 
 lency's farther consideration on the subject. 
 
 " We have the honour to be Your Excellency's 
 
 faithful and obedient servants, 
 (Signed) " Anth. Fenn Kemp, Capt. N. S. W. Corps, 
 J. Brabyn, Lieut. N. S. W. Corps, 
 Wm. Moore, Lieut. N. S. W. Corps, 
 Thos. Laycock, Lieut. 
 Wm. Minchin, Lieut. 
 Wm. Lawson, Lieut." 
 •' His Excellency, Gov. Bligh, 
 &Sc5sc." 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 119 
 
 The Judge Advocate having in the mean time 
 addressed a memorial to the Governor, detailing the 
 circumstances above mentioned, and also stating that 
 on leaving the court the officers had refused to deliver 
 up to him the papers connected with the proposed trial, 
 His Excellency addressed to them the following com- 
 munication : — 
 
 " Government House, Sydney, 25th Jan. 1808. 
 
 C Quarter past two o'clock.) 
 " Gentlemen, 
 
 " In reply to your second letter of this date, I require that you deliver 
 
 to Mr. William Gore, Provost Marshal, and Mr. Edmund Griffin, my 
 
 Secretary, who accompanies him on the occasion, all the papers that 
 
 the Judge Advocate left on the tahle, and which were refused to be 
 
 sent to him by the constable ; and also those which the prisoner John 
 
 Macarthur has read before you, that they may be delivered to the Judge 
 
 Advocate, His Majesty's legal officer. 
 
 " I am, gentlemen, 
 
 " Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 (Signed) ". Wm. Bligh." 
 
 " Addressed to 
 Capt. Anthony Fenn Kemp, 
 Lieut. John Brabyn, 
 Lieut. William Moore, 
 
 Lieut. Thomas Laycock, 
 Lieut. William Minchin, 
 Lieut. William Lawson, 
 
 " Of His Majesty's New South Wales Corps." 
 
 To this letter the following replies, enclosing a copy 
 of Mr. Macarthur's deposition, were returned : — 
 
 " Sydney, January 25, 1808. 
 " Sir, 
 
 " We take the liberty of inclosing to Your Excellency a copy of 
 a deposition made before us, as Members of a Criminal Court this day 
 assembled under Your Excellency's precept, by John Macarthur, Esq. a 
 prisoner at the bar. 
 
 " We earnestly entreat Your Excellency will be pleased to order such 
 protection to be given to Mr. Macarthur, as in our humble opinion th© 
 nature of the complaint stated by him before us merits. 
 
120 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 " We beg leave to assure Your Excellency that it is not without the 
 most heart-felt sorrow that we have been eye-witnesses this day of the 
 laws having been grossly violated by Richard Atkins, Esq. the Judge 
 Advocate, in threatening, before the sacred tribunal of a Criminal Court, 
 to commit John Macarthur, Esq. the prisoner at the bar, who was plead- 
 ing his own cause by the Court's order, to jail, as a common felon. 
 " We have the honour to be 
 
 " Your Excellency's most obedient humble servants, 
 (Signed) " Anth. Fenn Kemp, Capt. N. S. W. Corps, 
 J. Brabyn, Lieut. N. S. W. Corps, 
 Wm. Moore, Lieut. N. S. W. Corps, 
 Thos. Laycock, Lieut. 
 Wm. Minchin, Lieut. 
 Wm. Lawson, Lieut." 
 u His Excellency Gov. Bligh, §c." 
 
 " Sydney, January 25, 1808. 
 " Sir, 
 We are honoured with Your Excellency's letter, requiring of us 
 to deliver to Mr. Gore and Mr. Edmund Griffin all the papers the 
 Judge Advocate left on the table, and also those of the prisoner John 
 Macarthur, Esq. read before us. 
 
 " With all due submission to Your Excellency's commands, we beg 
 leave to state, that we are not defensible in giving up the papers alluded 
 to, to any person, unless Your Excellency thinks proper to appoint another 
 Judge Advocate to proceed on the trial of John Macarthur, Esq. 
 " We have the honour to be 
 
 " Your Excellency's most obedient humble servants, 
 (Signed) " Anth. Fenn Kemp, Capt. N. S. W. Corps, 
 J. Brabyn, Lieut. 
 Wm. Moore, Lieut. 
 Thos. Laycock, Lieut. 
 Wm. Minchin, Lieut. 
 Wm. Lawson, Lieut." 
 " His Excellency Gov. Bligh, fyc." 
 
 In answer to these letters, the following communica- 
 tion was sent by His Excellency, to which the sub- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 121 
 
 joined reply was returned by the officers at five o'clock 
 p.m. : — 
 
 " Government House, Sydney, 25th Jan. 1808. 
 
 (Three-quarters past three o'clock.) 
 " Gentlemen, 
 
 " I have required the Judge Advocate's papers, with those that were 
 
 read by Mr. John Macartbur, and I now demand finally your answer, in 
 
 writing, whether you will deliver these papers or not; and I again repeat, 
 
 that you are no Court without the Judge Advocate. 
 
 " I am, gentlemen, 
 
 " Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 (Signed) " Wm. Bligh. 
 
 " Addressed to 
 
 Capt. Anthony Fenn Kemp, 
 Lieut. John Brabyn, 
 Lieut. William Moore, 
 
 Lieut. Thomas Laycock, 
 Lieut. William Minchin, 
 Lieut. William Lawson, 
 
 " Of His Majesty's New South Wales Corps." 
 
 " Sydney, January 25, 1808. 
 " Sir, 
 ." In answer to Your Excellency's letter, we beg leave to say, that we 
 are ready to furnish Your Excellency with an attested copy of all the 
 papers required ; but the originals we are compelled to keep in justifica- 
 tion of our conduct ; or, should Your Excellency be pleased for the fur- 
 therance of the public service to appoint a Judge Advocate for the trial 
 of Mr. Macarthur, we are ready to deliver them up to the person so ap- 
 pointed. 
 
 " The Court constituted by Your Excellency's precept, and sworn in 
 by the Judge Advocate, beg leave to acquaint you they have adjourned 
 to wait Your Excellency's farther pleasure. 
 " We have the honour to be 
 
 " Your Excellency's most obedient humble servants, 
 (Signed) " A. F. Kemp, Capt. N. S. W. Corps. 
 J. Brabyn, Lieut. 
 Wm. Moore, Lieut. 
 Tuos. Laycock, Lieut. 
 Wm. Minchin, Lieut. 
 Wm. Lawson, Lieut. 
 " His Excellency Governor Bligh, &c. &c. &c." 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
122 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 In the mean time, the Governor being in the utmost 
 perplexity as to what ought to be done in the case, a 
 messenger was dispatched to Major Johnston, com- 
 manding the New South Wales Corps, with the follow- 
 ing letter : — 
 
 " Government House, Sydney, 25th January, 1808. 
 (Half -past five o'clock.) 
 " Sir, 
 " His Excellency, under particular public circumstances which have 
 occurred, desires me to request you will see him without delay. I have 
 the honour to be, sir, 
 
 " Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 (Signed) " Edmund Griffin, 
 " Secretary. 
 " To Major Johnston, commanding His 
 Majesty's New South Wales Corps." 
 
 To this letter, Major Johnston, who lived about four 
 miles out of town, and had very recently received an 
 injury by a fall from his chaise, merely returned a 
 verbal message, intimating that " he was too ill to come 
 to Sydney, and that he was unable to write." 
 
 Early on the morning of the 26th of January, the 
 provost marshal apprehended Mr. Macarthur, on the 
 warrant granted by the Judge Advocate and the other 
 three magistrates, to whom he had made affidavit on the 
 preceding day that Mr. Macarthur was no longer in 
 his custody, and lodged him in His Majesty's jail. 
 The six officers being apprised of this circumstance, on 
 their re-assembling pursuant to adjournment at ten 
 o'clock, addressed the following letter to his Excellency 
 on the subject : — 
 
 " Court House, Sydney, 26th January, 1808. 
 " Sir, 
 
 " We have the honour to inclose Your Excellency an attested copy of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 323 
 
 the Address delivered to the Court yesterday, by John Macarthur, Esq. 
 a prisoner at our bar. The Address, we trust, will induce Your Excel- 
 lency to concur in the opinion we have given, that the Judge Advocate, 
 Richard Atkins, Esq. has been challenged on good and lawful grounds, 
 and is ineligible to sit as a Judge in the cause before us. 
 
 " We also take the liberty to submit to Your Excellency, that having 
 taken an oath, 'well and truly to try, and a true deliverance make, 
 between our Sovereign Lord the King and the prisoner at the bar, and a 
 true verdict give according to evidence,' that we are bound to proceed to 
 the trial of John Macarthur, Esq. or to violate our oath. We therefore 
 pray that Your Excellency will be pleased to nominate some impartial 
 person to execute the office of Judge Advocate. 
 
 " It is with much concern we have learned by the inclosed deposition 
 made before us by G. Blaxcell, Esq. and N. Bayly, Esq. that the body of 
 John Macarthur, Esq. the prisoner arraigned before us yesterday, has 
 been forcibly arrested from the bail which the Court remanded him in ; 
 which illegal act of the Magistrates, (grounded on the false deposition of 
 Mr. William Gore, Provost Marshal,) we beg leave to represent to Your 
 Excellency, is in our opinion calculated to subvert the legal authority 
 and independence of the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction, constituted in 
 this colony by His Majesty's letters patent; and we therefore pray that 
 Your Excellency will discountenance such magisterial proceedings, 
 pregnant with the most serious consequences to the community at large ; 
 and that Your Excellency will be pleased to take measures to restore 
 John Macarthur, Esq. to his former bail, that the Court may proceed on 
 his trial. 
 
 " We are Your Excellency's 
 
 faithful and obedient humble servants, 
 (Signed) " A. F. Kemp, Capt. N. S. W. Corps. 
 
 J. Brabyn, Lieut. 
 
 Wm. Moore, Lieut. 
 
 Thos. Laycock, Lieut. 
 
 Wm. Minchin, Lieut. 
 
 Wm. Lawson, Lieut. 
 " To His Excellency Governor Bligh, &c. &c. &c." 
 
 No answer having been sent by the Governor to this 
 letter, the officers again adjourned at three o'clock, p.m. 
 In the mean time, the Judge Advocate, having accused 
 
124 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the officers, in his memorial to His Excellency above 
 mentioned, of " crimes amounting to a usurpation of His 
 Majesty's government, and tending to incite or create 
 rebellion, or other outrageous treason, in the people of 
 the territory," and having prayed His Excellency " to 
 take such measures in the case, as the nature thereof, 
 in His Excellency's judgment, might require," the 
 Governor determined to issue a summons to the 
 officers requiring them to appear before him at Govern- 
 ment House on the following day. A summons was 
 accordingly addressed to each of the officers to the 
 following effect : — 
 
 " By His Excellency William Bligh, Esq. Captain-General and Go- 
 vernor-in-chief in and over His Majesty's Territory of New- 
 South Wales and its Dependencies, &c. &c. 
 " The Judge Advocate having presented a memorial to me, in which 
 you are charged with certain crimes, you are therefore hereby required 
 to appear before me at Government House, at nine o'clock to-morrow 
 morning, to answer in the premises. 
 
 " Given under my hand and seal at Government House, 
 Sydney, this 26th day of January, 1808. 
 
 (Signed) « Wm. Bligh, (L.S.) 
 
 " To Capt. Anthony Fenn Kemp, of His 
 Majesty's New South Wales Corps. 
 
 " By command of His Excellency, 
 
 (Signed) " Edmund Griffin, Secretary." 
 
 At the same time, the Governor wrote as follows to 
 Major Johnston : — 
 
 " Government House, Sydney, 26th January, 1808. 
 " Sir, 
 " In answer to my letter of yesterday I received a verbal message by 
 my orderly from you, that you was rendered by illness totally incapable 
 of being at Sydney : I apprehend the same illness will deprive me of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 125 
 
 your assistance at this time ; and the Judge Advocate having laid a 
 memorial before me against six of your Officers, for practices which he 
 conceives treasonable, I am under the necessity of summoning them 
 before me, and all the Magistrates have directions to attend at nine 
 o'clock to-morrow morning. 
 
 " I leave it for you to judge whether Capt. Abbott should be directed 
 to attend at Sydney, to command the troops in your absence. 
 " I am, sir, 
 
 " Your most obedient humble servant, 
 (Signed) " William Bligh. 
 " To Major Johnston, commanding His 
 Majesty's New South Wales Corps." 
 
 To this letter a verbal message was again brought in 
 reply by the Governor's orderly, intimating " that 
 Major Johnston desired him to inform the Governor 
 that he was so ill as to be unable to write, but that he 
 would get a person to write an answer in the evening." 
 The object of the Governor in these measures was that 
 the six officers should be brought before himself and a 
 bench of magistrates, as a grand jury, to ascertain 
 whether there was ground sufficient for committing 
 them for trial before a criminal court, for treasonable 
 practices or other high misdemeanours. 
 
 In this stage of the proceedings it would seem that 
 the six officers took it for granted that the Governor 
 intended to set aside the criminal court altogether, and to 
 invest the magistrates with its powers, after having first 
 imprisoned the officers ; and it would seem also that Mr. 
 Macarthur's friends were incessant in their endeavours 
 to prepossess them with this idea. It appears, how- 
 ever, from the testimony of Mr. Griffin, the Governor's 
 secretary, that His Excellency had no such intention ; 
 but that, in the event of sufficient ground for com- 
 
126 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 mitting the officers for trial being found on their exami- 
 nation, the magistrates were in future to take cog- 
 nisance of all such minor cases as should come within 
 their jurisdiction, while all cases of a criminal charac- 
 ter were to lie over till the Governor should hear from 
 England. 
 
 On receiving the Governor's second letter, Major 
 Johnston, though still suffering considerably from his 
 fall, came to Sydney about five p. m., and drove up to 
 the military barrack, where, the officers of the New 
 South Wales Corps and a few other persons gathering 
 around him, and representing the state of things in as 
 dismal colours as possible, persuaded him to usurp the 
 government of the colony, and to place the Governor 
 under arrest. 
 
 The first overt act committed in accordance with this 
 advice, was an order for the liberation of Mr. Macarthur 
 from His Majesty's jail. # On being liberated from 
 the jail, Mr. Macarthur went direct to the military 
 barrack, where Major Johnston and the officers and 
 other persons, by whose advice he was acting, were still 
 assembled. It would be absurd to doubt whether Mr. 
 Macarthur was not previously well acquainted with the 
 measures in contemplation ; but on being formally ap- 
 prised of these measures, he represented to Major 
 Johnston the propriety of having a requisition addressed 
 to him, on the part of the inhabitants, urging him to 
 provide for the public safety by placing the Governor 
 under arrest. Mr. Macarthur was accordingly em- 
 
 * See Appendix, No. 5. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 127 
 
 powered to draw up such a requisition, which he did 
 forthwith to the following effect ; placing his own name 
 at the head of the list, which comprised only a very- 
 few names, at the utmost not more than nine, and proba- 
 bly not more than six, when the violent measure which 
 it recommended was actually carried into effect. 
 
 " January 26, 1808. 
 " Sir, 
 " The present alarming state of this colony, in which every man's 
 property, liberty, and life are endangered, induces us most earnestly to 
 implore you instantly to place Gov. Bligh under arrest, and to assume 
 the command of the colony. We pledge ourselves, at a moment of less 
 agitation, to come forward to support the measure with our fortunes and 
 our lives. 
 
 '* We are with great respect, sir, 
 
 " Your most obedient servants. 
 
 " To Major Johnston, Lieut. Governor, &c. 
 commanding the New South Wales Corps." 
 
 Of the persons who signed this requisition, as well 
 before as after the measure which it professed to recom- 
 mend had been carried into effect, the greater number 
 consisted of dissatisfied, discontented persons, — a de- 
 scription of persons, of whom there will always be found 
 a sufficient number under any government under the 
 sun. In addition to Mr. Macarthur, for instance, there 
 was his partner Mr. Blaxcell, who was doubtless equally 
 concerned in the affair of the schooner Parramatta ; 
 there was Mr. John Blaxland, now a member of the 
 Legislative Council of the Colony, and his brother, Mr. 
 Gregory Blaxland, who had private grievances of their 
 own, of the usual colonial character, in having neither 
 
128 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 got as much land nor as much convict labour as they 
 thought themselves entitled to ; there was Mr. Simeon 
 Lord, whose right to an allotment of ground adjoining 
 the Government domain the Governor had recently- 
 called in question ; there was Mr. D'Arcy Wentworth, 
 whom the Governor had suspended from his office as 
 assistant surgeon, after he had been publicly repri- 
 manded by Major Johnston for disobedience of orders, 
 pursuant to the sentence of a general court martial ; and 
 there was Mr. Nicholas Bayly, who by some unfortu- 
 nate mistake had no office at all under Governor Bligh, 
 but was immediately made Provost-marshal and Pri- 
 vate Secretary by Major Johnston. 
 
 The necessary arrangements having thus been made, 
 orders were immediately given for the regiment to form, 
 and the drum was accordingly beat loud and hard 
 between six and seven o'clock the same evening. The 
 regiment was instantly formed in the barrack-square, and 
 marched immediately at a quick pace towards Govern- 
 ment House, with bayonets fixed, colours displayed, 
 and military music. Lieutenant Bell, now a member of 
 the Legislative Council of the Colony, commanded the 
 Governor's guard at the time: whether he had been 
 regularly relieved of that important charge or not, I do 
 not know ; but he was observed from Government 
 House ordering his men to prime and load before the regi- 
 ment had come up, and he immediately afterwards joined 
 the rest of the corps. Mrs. Putland, the Governor's 
 daughter, whose husband, a lieutenant in the navy, 
 had been interred only a few days before, (on which 
 occasion Major Johnston was chief mourner,) presented 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 129 
 
 herself at the gate of Government House, and en- 
 deavoured to prevent Mr. Bell's entrance ; but the 
 house being immediately surrounded by the soldiery, 
 an entrance was soon effected. The Governor, how- 
 ever, was for some time not to be found ; but every 
 room and crevice in the house being eagerly searched 
 for him by the soldiers, he was at length discovered 
 standing behind a cot which was hanging in a back 
 apartment, to which he had retired on the approach of 
 the military, in the act of concealing certain papers of 
 importance.* 
 
 Governor Bligh has been much reprobated for his 
 conduct on this occasion ; and the charge of tyranny, 
 which has often been brought against him with great 
 virulence, has been generally acquiesced in the more 
 readily, because of its being supported by the addi- 
 tional charge of cowardice. Had the Governor stood 
 boldly forward, and shot the commanding officer of the 
 New South Wales Corps at the head of his regiment, 
 as certain colonial wiseacres think he ought to have 
 done, his own life would in all likelihood have been in- 
 stantly sacrificed ; but then the last act of his administra- 
 tion would have sanctified all that had preceded it, and 
 the memory of his alleged misgovernment would have 
 been buried for ever in the grave of a hero. It is some- 
 what singular that the world reserves all its sympathy 
 for what is merely splendid in action, and will scarcely 
 
 * The account of this part of the affair subsequently given by the 
 Governor on the trial of Major (then Colonel) Johnston, before a court- 
 martial held at Chelsea Hospital in the year 1811, will be found in the 
 Appendix, No. 6. 
 
130 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 allow the award of common justice to what is merely 
 right. As things happened, I will allow that it would 
 have been better for the Governor to have met Major 
 Johnston at the gate of Government House, and expos- 
 tulated with him on the impropriety and the danger of 
 his procedure ; and, after a full and explicit declaration 
 of his intentions, in regard to the officers, to have re- 
 commended and commanded his immediate return to 
 his duty. But it was the Governor's intention, on 
 ascertaining that an insurrection had actually taken 
 place, to effect his escape, if possible, to the interior of 
 the colony ; where he felt satisfied he would have been 
 gladly received by the free settlers, in whose hands he 
 would have been perfectly safe, if not in a condition to 
 set the corps at defiance : and the circumstance of his 
 being discovered and seized, when endeavouring to 
 carry this prudent intention into effect — a circumstance 
 which sufficiently demonstrates the suddenness of the 
 movement, and the Governor's entire freedom from all 
 suspicion of any thing of the kind — was not one whit 
 more disgraceful to his character as a British officer, 
 than it would have been disgraceful to King Charles II., 
 to have been discovered and apprehended by the soldiers 
 of Oliver Cromwell, when concealed in the thick foliage 
 of the royal oak. 
 
 In reviewing the series of anomalous transactions I 
 have thus narrated, it would seem that there was a sin- 
 gular want of courtesy on the part of the naval officer, 
 Robert Campbell, Esquire, in not giving Mr. Macarthur 
 such a receipt, in the matter of the stills, as that gen- 
 tleman required, and as would have merely expressed 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 131 
 
 the simple fact in the case in question. Nay, it may- 
 even be questioned whether any of the subsequent 
 events would have happened at all, if an occasion of 
 offence had not been given by this apparently trivial 
 circumstance. We are apt to suppose that great and 
 important events must uniformly have their origin and 
 commencement in circumstances equally important. 
 They more frequently originate in what the world 
 calls trifles. 
 
 On the other hand, Mr. Macarthur's procedure in 
 prosecuting Mr. Campbell, jun. before a bench of ma- 
 gistrates for an alleged illegal seizure of his property, 
 and in making the statement he emitted on the occa- 
 sion, was evidently and strongly reprehensible. The 
 distillation of spirits had been prohibited in the colony, 
 and the Governor had therefore an undoubted right to 
 forbid the landing of every thing in the shape of stills 
 in the territory. He had merely exercised that right in 
 the case in question ; and it was in direct contravention 
 of his orders, that the copper boilers of the stills had 
 been allowed by the naval officer for the time being, 
 (J. Harris, Esquire, formerly Surgeon of the New South 
 Wales Corps,) to be conveyed to Mr. Macarthur's pre- 
 mises instead of the King's store. Mr. Macarthur, or 
 at least his partner, had been duly apprised of all this ; 
 and although it might have suited Mr. Macarthur's 
 convenience to have used the coppers in some other 
 way, every candid person will allow that the Governor 
 was perfectly in the right to enforce his original order, 
 and to desire the naval officer to see that every part and 
 pendicle of the stills should be sent out of the colony ; 
 
132 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 for, independently of other considerations, the Governor 
 could not be ignorant that there was mechanical ability 
 enough in the colony to manufacture heads and worms 
 for the boilers, and notorious smugglers enough to use 
 them for the purpose for which they had evidently 
 been intended. No blame could therefore be attached 
 to the Governor throughout the whole transaction. The 
 procedure of Mr. Campbell, jun. in carrying off the 
 boilers, was clearly quite different from such a seizure 
 of private property as is punishable by the laws of 
 England : the prosecution of Mr. Campbell before a 
 bench of magistrates was consequently a most ano- 
 malous transaction ; and Mr. Macarthur's speech before 
 the bench and in open court, was, under all the circum- 
 stances, uncalled for, and calculated to give great 
 offence to a man of so exceedingly irascible a disposi- 
 tion as Governor Bligh. 
 
 The escape of the convict Hoare in the Parramatta 
 schooner undoubtedly constituted a sufficient ground 
 of action, on the part of the colonial government, 
 against the captain and owners of that vessel. It 
 would seem, however, that there had been some delay 
 on the part of the colonial government in bringing the 
 matter to a proper bearing ; but this delay had evidently 
 arisen from the non-compliance of the owners with the 
 colonial regulations, in refusing to give the requisite secu- 
 rity for the payment of the penalty they had incurred. 
 Mr. Macarthur's subsequent procedure, in abandoning 
 the vessel, and ordering the master and crew ashore, in 
 contravention of another government regulation, appears 
 to have been a mere stratagem, intended to bring the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 133 
 
 government to an immediate decision of the case in 
 favour of the owners ; for it appears that the master of 
 the schooner provoked the Governor exceedingly (inso- 
 much that His Excellency actually swore at him,) by 
 dunning him on the subject personally at Government 
 House. 
 
 It does not appear that the method which the Judge 
 Advocate employed to bring Mr. Macarthur to reason 
 was indefensible. The Judge Advocate's letter, requi- 
 ring Mr. Macarthur's attendance in Sydney, was doubt- 
 less not a summons properly so called in the eye of the 
 law ; but as it commenced with " I have it in command 
 from his Excellency," Mr. Macarthur ought surely to 
 have received it in that light, and yielded obedience 
 accordingly. When the Judge Advocate found, how- 
 ever, that Mr. Macarthur had not regarded it in that 
 light, his proper course was to have sent a summons 
 for his attendance in due form : but instead of doing 
 so, he interprets his non-attendance as a contempt of 
 authority, and sends a warrant for his apprehension to 
 the chief-constable at Parramatta, as if he had been a 
 rogue and a vagabond ; and because Mr. Macarthur ex- 
 pressed himself in regard to this warrant in the indig- 
 nant manner in which an honest man was likely to have 
 expressed himself in such circumstances, he posts off 
 with the constable who gives him the information to 
 Government House, to hatch up a criminal indictment 
 against Mr. Macarthur, and to have him apprehended, 
 imprisoned, tried, and punished as a traitor. 
 
 Much blame was attached by Mr. Macarthur to the 
 ex-missionary constable Mr. Oakes, in having given to 
 
134 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 his conversation a totally different construction from 
 what Mr. Macarthur alleged it was intended to bear ; 
 for it was evidently the report of this very zealous emis- 
 sary that occasioned the criminal prosecution to which 
 Mr. Macarthur was subjected, with all its calamitous 
 results. It is difficult, however, to determine the exact 
 degree in which Mr. Oakes was blamable, or whether 
 he was to blame at all : he was bound to tell all he 
 heard, for he was put to his oath; and it seems, the 
 information he had to communicate was neither unim- 
 portant to his betters nor unpalateable. 
 
 It was the official incapacity and the personal worth- 
 lessness of the Judge Advocate, however, that contri- 
 buted mainly to the catastrophe that ensued. This 
 individual, it seems, had been the broken-down relative 
 and dependent of some person in power, through whose 
 influence he had obtained the highly important and 
 responsible situation which he held in the colony. Not 
 having received a legal education, however, he was 
 quite unable to afford the Governor that information 
 which was sometimes essentially requisite in matters of 
 law, and His Excellency was therefore reduced to the 
 humiliating necessity of receiving such information from 
 a perjured, pilloried, and transported attorney: dissi- 
 pated in his habits, and disreputable in his conduct, it 
 was impossible that the Governor could treat him either 
 with confidence or respect ; for he had even been pro- 
 secuted in the colony on a charge of swindling. Had 
 this colonial dispenser of justice been a lawyer, he 
 would not have rendered it necessary to have recourse 
 to objectionable and polluted sources for legal in forma- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 135 
 
 tion : had he been a man of character, of firmness, 
 and integrity, he would in all likelihood have prevented 
 the prosecution of Mr. Macarthur. At all events, he 
 would not have afforded that gentleman the singular 
 advantage he derived from his own moral worthlessness 
 and official incapacity. 
 
 When a prosecution degenerates into a persecution, 
 the injured party has an undoubted right to employ 
 every lawful and available expedient to set it aside ; 
 but I am altogether at a loss to discover the propriety 
 of the measure to which Mr. Macarthur resorted in pro- 
 testing against the Judge Advocate. " It was utterly 
 impossible under any circumstances," observes the 
 Right Honourable Charles Manners Sutton, Judge 
 Advocate- General of His Majesty's Forces, on the trial 
 of Colonel Johnston in 1811; " it was utterly impos- 
 sible under any circumstances, and not speaking with a 
 view to this particular charge, it was perfectly incom- 
 petent to any person brought before that court, to offer 
 a challenge against the Judge Advocate sitting upon it ; 
 he might as well offer a challenge against a judge in 
 this country sitting at the assizes. The Governor has 
 no more right to change the Judge Advocate who sits 
 upon that court, than he has to change a judge in 
 England or any where else." But the policy of the 
 measure to which Mr. Macarthur had recourse in 
 challenging the Judge Advocate was not less question- 
 able than its propriety. Taking it for granted that it 
 was a vexatious and unjust prosecution that had been 
 got up against him by the Government, and that the 
 judge was actuated with the most hostile feelings 
 towards him, had he no confidence in his own ability to 
 
136 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 manage his defence, or in the integrity of the six 
 officers who were to constitute his jury, and who seem, 
 for the most part, to have been devoted to his inter- 
 ests? In short, Mr. Macarthur's procedure in challen- 
 ging the Judge Advocate, was impolitic in the highest 
 degree. 
 
 As to what followed — the arrest of the Governor and 
 the usurpation of the Government — there can be but one 
 opinion ; it was downright rebellion. Nay, what is 
 worse, it cannot be regarded as the result of the mere 
 impulse of a moment ; it appears rather to have been 
 the concluding scene of a plot which had been 
 long concocting. Previous to Governor Bligh's arrival, 
 every thing disrespectful had been industriously circu- 
 lated respecting him in the colony ; and there seems to 
 have been a latent determination in certain quarters to 
 resist his authority, and to put him down. This deter- 
 mination was speedily roused into action by the Go- 
 vernor's zealous and successful endeavours to put down 
 the barter of spirits, and by a salutary regulation he 
 established, shortly after his arrival in the colony, in 
 regard to the colonial currency; for as both of these 
 measures had the good effect of discountenancing 
 that system of rapacity and oppression which had long- 
 prevailed in the colony, and of extending the shield of 
 the Governor's protection to the industrious classes 
 of the community, they were the more obnoxious in 
 certain influential quarters : and when the prosecution 
 of Mr. Macarthur — an old officer of the New South 
 Wales, or rum-bartering Corps — had afforded a centre 
 of attraction for all the discontentment of that body, as 
 well as for all the latent dissatisfaction of the colony, the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 137 
 
 spirit it had aroused evinced itself in a manner equally- 
 offensive and unequivocal : for on the day preceding 
 the trial, Mr. Macarthurs son and nephew and two 
 bailsmen were all dining along with the six officers who 
 were to sit in judgment on Mr. Macarthur, under the 
 Governor's precept, on the following day, at a pub- 
 lic mess-dinner in Sydney ; the colours of the regi- 
 ment being displayed on the occasion, and the military 
 band playing till a late hour in the evening. Mr. Mac- 
 arthur, it is true, was not at the dinner himself; but 
 he spent the evening in walking to and fro on the 
 parade in front of the mess-room, doubtless enjoying 
 the exhibition, and listening to the music ! 
 
 After Governor Bligh had written a second time to 
 Major Johnston on the afternoon of the 26th, it was 
 evidently in the power of that officer to have preserved 
 tranquillity. Had he only gone to Government House, 
 and in strong terms supported the measure of his 
 brother officers, in refusing to receive as their president 
 a Judge, of whose impartiality in the particular case for 
 trial they were more than doubtful, requesting and 
 conjuring His Excellency to appoint some disinterested 
 person in his room, there is no doubt whatever but that 
 the King's peace would have been preserved, and the 
 matter have ended to his entire satisfaction. But there 
 was evidently no wish to preserve the King's peace : 
 it had been resolved by the Corps that the Governor's 
 authority should be subverted, and it was done forth- 
 with. 
 
 Major Johnston was by no means a man of strong 
 mind, and the position he occupied as the commanding 
 
]38 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 officer of the New South Wales Corps, at the head of 
 this insurrectionary and rebellious movement, was 
 purely accidental ; Colonel Patterson, who commanded 
 the regiment, having been for some time previous at 
 Port Dalrymple in Van Dieman's Land, and Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Foveaux being absent on leave in England. 
 Indeed, if Major Johnston had been a man of com- 
 manding intellect, he would have perceived the danger 
 and the criminality of his enterprise, and the result 
 would in all likelihood have been very different : but 
 he was merely an unfortunate instrument in the hands 
 of others ; and the circumstance illustrates the import- 
 ant truth, that power is often far more dangerous to the 
 liberties and the welfare of the people in the hands of 
 a good-natured, easily-advised, weak man, than in those 
 of a man of much inferior moral principle, but of mas- 
 culine understanding. 
 
 It was on the 26th of January, 1808, the twentieth 
 anniversary of the founding of the colony, that Major 
 Johnston assumed the government of New South 
 Wales, as Lieutenant-Governor of the territory. 
 
 On the 27th the following general order was pub- 
 lished, together with a proclamation to the inhabitants 
 and the soldiery, concluding in the following grandilo- 
 quent style : — 
 
 " Soldiers ! 
 
 ** Your conduct Las endeared you to every well-disposed inhabitant 
 in this settlement ! Persevere in the same honourable path, and you 
 will establish the credit of the New South Wales Corps on a basis not to 
 be shaken. 
 
 " God save the King !" 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 139 
 
 GENERAL ORDER. 
 
 " Richard Atkins, Esq., Judge Advocate, is superseded from that 
 office, and Edward Abbott, Esq. is appointed Judge Advocate during his 
 suspension. Anthony Fenn Kemp, Esq., John Harris, Esq., Thomas 
 Jamieson, Esq., Charles Grimes, Esq., William Minchin, Esq., Garnham 
 Blaxcell, Esq., John Blaxland, Esq., and Archibald Bell, Esq., are 
 appointed Magistrates ; and those persons who heretofore performed the 
 duties of that office are to consider themselves dismissed. Lieut. Law- 
 son is appointed Aide-de-camp to His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor. 
 Nicholas Bayly, Esq. is appointed Secretary to His Honour the Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor, and to be Provost Marshal during the suspension of 
 William Gore, Esq., who is hereby suspended from that office. John 
 Palmer, Esq. Commissary, is suspended from that office ; and James 
 Williamson, Esq. is directed to take upon himself the charge of His 
 Majesty's stores, and act as Commissary during his suspension. 
 
 " Robert Campbell, Esq. is dismissed from the office of treasurer to 
 
 the public funds, naval officer, and collector of taxes, and is hereby 
 
 directed to balance his accounts, and to deliver them to His Honour the 
 
 Lieutenant-Governor. Thomas Jamieson, Esq. is appointed naval 
 
 officer. 
 
 " By command of His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor, 
 
 (Signed) '« Nicholas Bayly, Secretary. 
 
 " Head Quarters, 27th of January, 1808." 
 
 On the 30th of January another general order was 
 published, of which the following is an extract. Whe- 
 ther piety or hypocrisy is its leading feature, the 
 reader will of course determine for himself : — 
 
 " The Rev. Henry Fulton is suspended from discharging in future the 
 office of Chaplain in the colony. [N. B. He had adhered to the Governor.] 
 
 " The Officers, civil and military, are ordered to attend divine worship 
 on Sunday next, at the New Church, and every well-disposed inhabitant 
 is requested to be present to join in thanks to Almighty God, for his 
 merciful interposition in their favour, by relieving them without blood- 
 shed from the awful situation in which they stood before the memorable 
 26th instant." 
 
 On the 12th of February Mr. Macarthur was ap- 
 
140 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 pointed a magistrate of the territory and colonial secre- 
 tary : on the second of that month he had been tried, 
 on the indictment prepared by Judge Advocate Atkins, 
 before a criminal court held under the precept of the 
 Lieutenant-Governor, and consisting of the six officers 
 who had been appointed to act in the same capacity on 
 the 25th of January by Governor Bligh ; Charles Grimes, 
 Esq., Surveyor-General of the colony, acting as Judge 
 Advocate on the occasion. The result of that trial was 
 his unanimous acquittal — a result which confirms the 
 opinion I have already expressed ; viz. that with such 
 jurors as the six officers, Mr. Macarthur had nothing to 
 fear, and might therefore have gone to his trial before 
 Judge Advocate Atkins with perfect safety. In regard 
 to his official appointment — without derogating in the 
 least from Mr. Macarthur's personal character and 
 intellectual ability — it would surely have been much 
 better for Major Johnston, if, under such circum- 
 stances as had occurred, it had not taken place. 
 
 In the mean time, different classes of persons 
 throughout the colony regarded the subversion of 
 Governor Bligh's authority very differently, according 
 as they were severally influenced by their particular 
 views and interests. The military and the grog-sellers 
 of Sydney were quite vociferous in praise of the new 
 regime, celebrating the accession of Major Johnston 
 with bonfires, laudatory addresses, and the other cus- 
 tomary demonstrations of joy. To increase the number 
 of these addresses, and thereby to demonstrate to the 
 British Government the universality of the feeling of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 141 
 
 satisfaction that pervaded the colony in regard to the 
 subversion of the late Governor's authority, wholesome 
 stimulants were opportunely administered in various 
 directions ; the fears of some individuals being adroitly 
 wrought upon, while others were won over by un- 
 merited indulgences. Mr. Arndell, one of Governor 
 Bligh's magistrates, signed one of these laudatory 
 addresses to Major Johnston, but addressed a pri- 
 vate letter to Governor Bligh immediately after, as- 
 suring him that he had so done under the influence of 
 fear. There was some ground for this feeling, it must 
 be allowed ; Mr. Gore, the Provost-Marshal, having 
 not only been suspended from his office, but imprisoned 
 in one of the condemned cells of the jail for eleven 
 weeks and four days, on a charge of perjury, forsooth, 
 in having made affidavit that Mr. Macarthur was out of 
 his custody on the 25th, for which offence he was after- 
 wards torn from his wife and infant family, and sent to 
 the coal mines at Newcastle for four months ; while 
 Crosley, the emancipist attorney, who had merely acted 
 at the request of the Judge Advocate, with the Go- 
 vernor's express permission, in preparing the indictment 
 against Mr. Macarthur, was sentenced to seven years' 
 transportation. On the other hand, rum from the King's 
 store, permits to land and licenses to retail ardent 
 spirits, grants of land and government cattle, were dis- 
 tributed largely to that part of the free population that 
 either approved of the late measures, or were likely to 
 do so with proper encouragement ; free pardons and 
 other lesser indulgences being dealt out with equal 
 profusion to the bond. 
 
142 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 In this way a number of persons of the worst charac- 
 ter were turned loose upon the colony, to the great 
 annoyance of the free settlers ; # and as an idea had 
 also got abroad among the convicts that the colony had 
 now become free, and that it was no longer obligatory 
 to labour, the result was a state of anarchy that pro- 
 duced a general neglect of the cultivation of the soil, 
 and was otherwise distressing in the extreme to the 
 well-disposed part of the population. 
 
 The encouragement which Governor Bligh had uni- 
 formly extended to that part of the population, during 
 the short period of his government, had rendered him 
 extremely popular, both among the free emigrant and 
 the better part of the emancipated convict settlers, and 
 united them strongly in his favour. To prevent a re- 
 action,f therefore, all public meetings (saving and except 
 
 * In Major Johnston's despatch to Lord Castlereagh, of date April 12, 
 1808, which was written by the Colonial Secretary, much credit is taken 
 for having relieved the King's stores of the maintenance and clothing of 
 three hundred persons. It is easy to do His Majesty a service of this kind 
 at any time in New South Wales, simply by throwing open the jail door, 
 or turning loose the jail gang. 
 
 t That something of this kind was actually apprehended is rather 
 insinuated than expressed, in the following paragraph of Major John- 
 ston's despatch to Lord Castlereagh, referred to in the preceding note : — 
 " I am now, my Lord, arrived at the most painful part of my task — an 
 explanation of the causes that have prevented me from preparing a better 
 and arranged statement of the transactions in which I have been engaged : 
 it is with deep concern I find myself obliged to report to your lordship, 
 that the opposition of those persons from whom I had most- reason to 
 expect support, has been one of the principal obstacles I have had to 
 encounter." And again; "The unanimity in which I felt so much 
 pleasure, I quickly discovered was not to be preserved without a sacri- 
 fice of His Majesty's interests, and a departure from the regulations 
 that have been made to check the importation of spirituous liquors into 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 143 
 
 for the purpose of addressing the existing authorities) 
 were strictly prohibited ; and so vigilant was the super- 
 intendence of the dominant party in this particular, that 
 information having been given that meetings were, 
 nevertheless, held weekly by the Presbyterian settlers 
 of Portland Head, Lieutenant Bell was despatched with 
 a constable on the day of meeting to take cognisance of 
 the matter, and, if necessary, to disperse the unlawful 
 assembly : but finding them all peacefully engaged in 
 the public worship of God, (for the day of meeting was 
 the Sabbath,) he remained till the conclusion of the 
 service, and then assured them they should experience 
 no farther annoyance. The Presbyterian settlers had, 
 probably, incurred suspicion by their refusal to attend 
 the muster of their district, which had been ordered 
 by the existing authorities shortly after the Governor 
 had been deposed ; or to recognise these authorities in 
 any way. 
 
 But though prevented from making any open demon- 
 stration in favour of the Governor, the free settlers were 
 still anxious to do every thing in their power for His 
 "Excellency, now especially that his back was at the wall. 
 
 With this view, two respectable individuals of that 
 class, viz. Mr. George Suttor, and, if I recollect aright, 
 Mr. Smith or Mr. M'Dougall, both of Baulkham 
 Hills — a small settlement beyond Parramatta, long de- 
 servedly famous in the colony for its valuable orange- 
 groves — exerted themselves in getting a memorial to His 
 
 the colony." In fact, it was a scramble that Major Johnston's supporters 
 wanted, and not a mere change of government. Like sailors when a 
 ship is sinking, they wanted to get at the rum casks. 
 
144 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Majesty's Government, in favour of Governor Bligh, 
 drawn up and signed by the free settlers, and forwarded 
 to England : but the circumstance being discovered by 
 the existing authorities, they were both subjected to a 
 long imprisonment, for going about, forsooth, to disturb 
 the 'peace of the colony ; and ways and means were 
 adopted to counteract their memorial by vilifying the 
 character of the whole body to which they belonged. 
 
 This procedure on the part of the free settlers ren- 
 dered it expedient for the existing authorities to get rid 
 of Governor Bligh as soon as possible : for this purpose 
 he was at length forced to leave Government House, 
 where he had uniformly been kept under the closest re- 
 straint, being followed by a sentry wherever he went, 
 and was thenceforth confined with his daughter to a 
 subaltern's apartments in the military barracks, where 
 he was kept a close prisoner, and was not permitted to 
 have any intercourse with his friends. After much fruitless 
 negociation, however, he was allowed, in the month of 
 March, 1809, on condition of his proceeding forthwith 
 to England, to resume the command of His Majesty's 
 ship Porpoise, which was then lying in the harbour, and 
 on board of which he accordingly embarked : but instead 
 of proceeding direct to England, he sailed for the Derwent 
 River in Van Dieman's Land, which was then a de- 
 pendency of New South Wales. He was there treated 
 at first with every degree of respect; but despatches 
 being forwarded in the mean time from head-quarters, 
 giving information of the conditions on which he had 
 been permitted to leave the parent colony, an attempt 
 was made to seize his person, and he was obliged to re- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 145 
 
 embark. He remained on the coast of that island, in 
 daily expectation of despatches from England, during 
 the remainder of the year 1809, and was lying in Ad- 
 venture Bay, when Colonel Macquarie arrived in Syd- 
 ney, on the 28th of December of that year, as Governor 
 of New South Wales ; the affairs of the colony having 
 been successively administered during the period that 
 had elapsed from the subversion of his authority, on the 
 26th of January, 1808, by Major Johnston, Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Foveaux, and Colonel Patterson, of the New 
 South Wales Corps. Colonel Macquarie had been 
 ordered to reinstate him in the government of the 
 colony for the period of twenty-four hours after his own 
 arrival ; but in consequence of his absence at the time, 
 this was not done. He was apprised, however, by Lord 
 Castlereagh, who was then Secretary of State for the 
 Colonies, that " the mutinous outrage committed upon 
 him had caused the strongest sensation, and that His 
 Majesty had ordered Major Johnston to be sent home 
 in strict arrest, to be brought to trial for his conduct^ 
 and the New South Wales Corps to be relieved by the 
 73rd regiment." He was empowered at the same time 
 to carry home with him to England all such persons as 
 he should think necessary to appear in evidence, " to 
 substantiate the charge of that officer's mutinous pro- 
 ceedings." 
 
 Much credit has been claimed for superior manage- 
 ment by the friends of the interim government, on the 
 ground that no bills were drawn for a considerable 
 period on His Majesty's Treasury, for the public ex- 
 penses of the colony : but who would have taken such 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
146 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 bills in such circumstances? The government herds, 
 however, were sadly diminished in number during that 
 period ; duties on imports were imposed, and levied, 
 and expended ; and the King's stores, which were well 
 replenished under Governor Bligh's administration, 
 soon presented a beggarly account of empty boxes. The 
 gentlemen of the New South Wales Corps were not 
 the men to govern a colony for nothing ; for I conceive 
 it is much the same whether the King's debts are paid 
 by bills on his Treasury, or by selling his goods. 
 
 Captain Bligh arrived in Sydney from Van Dieman's 
 Land in the month of January, 1810, a few weeks after 
 the arrival of Governor Macquarie : he sailed for 
 England on the 12th of May, and arrived on the 25th 
 of October following. There had been a change of 
 ministry in the mean time, and the new authorities were 
 for some time wonderfully indifferent about the colony. 
 Besides, every means which the ingenuity of malignity 
 could devise, had been used by Governor Bligh's 
 enemies, — and, I am sorry to add, not altogether unsuc- 
 cessfully in certain quarters, — to ruin his character, and 
 to render him an object of universal detestation. He 
 was immediately promoted, however, to the rank of 
 Rear Admiral in the navy, and was employed in active 
 service ; and on his application to the proper author- 
 ities, Lieutenant-Colonel Johnston, who had in the 
 mean time obtained a step through the death of Colonel 
 Patterson, was at length brought to his trial before a 
 court-martial held at Chelsea Hospital on the seventh of 
 May, 1811, Lieutenant-General Keppel, president. 
 The trial lasted for thirteen days, many witnesses having 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 147 
 
 been examined who had been brought home to England 
 from New South Wales, both on the part of the pro- 
 secution and on that of the defence, at a prodigious 
 expense to the public. For the decision of the Court, 
 see Appendix, No. 7. 
 
 In the course of the trial the most frivolous and un- 
 founded charges were brought by Colonel Johnston's 
 witnesses against Governor Bligh. It was attempted to 
 be established, for instance, that he had been in the 
 habit of pulling down the houses of private individuals, 
 and preventing them from building on their allotments. 
 In answer to this charge, it was proved satisfactorily 
 that a line of demarcation had been drawn around 
 Government House by Governor Phillip, within which 
 no private individual was allowed to erect any building: 
 Governor King had, however, allowed a few cottages 
 to be built within the line by private individuals, to the 
 great inconvenience and annoyance of his successor. 
 These cottages, which at best had been but paltry erec- 
 tions, Governor Bligh had ordered to be removed with- 
 in a certain limited period, which was afterwards ex- 
 tended ; offering the proprietors, however, eligible 
 allotments in other situations, together with assistance 
 from Government for the erection of other cottages. A 
 similar line of demarcation had, it seems, been drawn by 
 a former Governor around St. Philip's church in the 
 town of Sydney ; within which, however, Governor 
 King had granted an allotment to Mr. Macarthur a few 
 months before he left the colony. That allotment 
 remained unoccupied and unenclosed till the middle of 
 January, 1808, when the affair of the Parramatta 
 
148 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 schooner had placed Mr. Macarthur in some measure 
 at variance with the authorities. In the mean time, the 
 Governor had signified to Mr. Macarthur, through the 
 Surveyor-General of the colony, that he was not to 
 fence in the allotment, as he had written to the Secre- 
 tary of State on the subject of its appropriation ; but 
 that he might have any other vacant or unappropriated 
 allotment in the town. Mr. Macarthur accordingly 
 pointed out three different allotments, all of which he 
 was told, however, had already been appropriated for 
 other purposes. Not choosing to make any other 
 selection, he then notified to the Surveyor-General that 
 he was determined to keep the allotment he had got 
 from Governor King, and accordingly hired certain sol- 
 diers of the New South Wales Corps to enclose it with 
 a fence : the Governor, however, having ordered the 
 superintendent of convicts to prevent the enclosure of 
 the ground, the latter did so accordingly by pulling up 
 the first post that was erected for the rail fence. To 
 the charge of unjustly interfering with private property, 
 founded on this transaction, the Governor replied, that in 
 addition to the allotment having been expressly included 
 in a previous reservation for the church — on which 
 subject he had particularly solicited the Secretary of 
 State's commands — it contained a public well, which 
 had long supplied many of the inhabitants of Sydney 
 with water. To the truth of this statement I can bear 
 testimony, as part of the allotment in question, inclu- 
 ding the well, was afterwards granted by Sir Thomas 
 Brisbane to the Scots church ; and, singular as 
 the coincidence may appear to the reader, when the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 149 
 
 parties in charge of the ground proceeded to fence it 
 in, during the year 1824, at a time when Sir Thomas 
 Brisbane was absent at Moreton Bay, and the writer in 
 England, the civil engineer of the colony, who wished 
 to have a part of it appropriated for some other public 
 purpose, caused the fence to be torn down, and erected 
 a house, for Government purposes, on a portion of the 
 allotment, observing that " the Government had given 
 the Scots church nothing that could not be resumed." 
 Governor Bligh's principle was very different : it was 
 merely that no Governor could grant to any private 
 individual what had already been appropriated by a 
 former Governor for the public service. But, even 
 supposing that His Excellency's endeavour to dis- 
 possess Mr. Macarthur of the allotment in question 
 was an unjustifiable interference with private property, 
 and that the fine awarded in the case of the Parra- 
 matta schooner was equally unjustifiable ; redress could 
 have been had in either of these cases by an appeal to 
 the Secretary of State ; and the circumstance of there 
 having been no such appeal presented in any case 
 during Governor Bligh's administration, and no com- 
 plaint made against him from the colony previous to 
 his arrest, is a sufficient proof that proper means had 
 not been resorted to by the parties concerned in that 
 violent measure, before proceeding to extremities. 
 
 It was also asserted, that Governor Bligh had inter- 
 fered with the sentences of courts of justice, and had 
 even caused individuals to be punished twice for the 
 same offence. This allegation was most distinctly and 
 satisfactorily disproved in every instance, without ex- 
 
150 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 ception, to which it referred. Nay, it was even proved 
 that Governor Bligh had caused the practice of in- 
 flicting arbitrary and illegal punishments, (as in the 
 case of the imprisonment and subsequent liberation of 
 convicts without a magistrate's warrant,) which had 
 been in use under his predecessors, to be discontinued. 
 The testimony of Richard Atkins, Esq., Judge Advo- 
 cate of the colony, both on this particular and in 
 regard to Governor Bligh's general character as a lover 
 of impartial justice, was most remarkable. That in- 
 dividual was one of Colonel Johnston's principal wit- 
 nesses : he had been reinstated by that officer some 
 time after Governor Bligh's arrest, having been pre- 
 viously shown a private letter of the Governor to the 
 Secretary of State, recommending his dismissal from 
 the office of Judge Advocate. That letter, which had 
 been seized along with all the other private and con- 
 fidential papers of that unfortunate officer, contained 
 the following character of Mr. Atkins ; Governor Bligh 
 having been desired by the Secretary of State to 
 inform him privately of the characters of individuals 
 holding office in the colony : — 
 
 » " He has been accustomed to inebriety ; he has been the ridicule of 
 the community ; sentence of death has been pronounced in moments of 
 intoxication ; his determination is weak ; his opinion floating and 
 infirm ; his knowledge of the law is insignificant, and subject to private 
 inclination ; and confidential causes of the Crown, where due secresy is 
 required, he is not to be trusted with." 
 
 But notwithstanding; his knowledge of this most un- 
 favourable testimony, which had been given of himself 
 by Governor Bligh, and urged by that officer as a 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 151 
 
 ground for his dismissal from office, it is never- 
 theless the fact, and it is much to the credit of Mr. 
 Atkins, that when asked by the Court on Colonel 
 Johnston's trial, " if Governor Bligh," whom he had 
 every opportunity of knowing thoroughly, " conducted 
 himself during his government as an honourable, up- 
 right, and honest man ;" he replied, " as an honourable, 
 honest man, Sir ; upon my word, I believe he did : 
 taking from the first day that Governor Bligh assumed 
 the government to the last day when it concluded, I 
 have no reason to think otherwise." 
 
 It was even attempted to be proved against Governor 
 Bligh, as an evidence of his utter unfitness for the 
 situation to which His Majesty had appointed him, 
 that he had allowed the public buildings to fall into a 
 state of dilapidation. It was admitted, however, that 
 he had completed the church in Sydney, which had 
 only been commenced by his predecessor ; and that he 
 had also done what was requisite to improve the 
 appearance of the other public buildings previously 
 erected. It must be borne in mind, however, that 
 Governor Bligh had only been allowed to retain the 
 government of the colony for seventeen months ; and 
 that whereas he had found the colony at the commence- 
 ment of that period in a state of misery and starvation, 
 he had brought it, through his judicious measures, and 
 the blessing of Divine Providence, into a state of 
 plenty and prosperity. It would have tended much 
 more to the general advancement of the colony, if his 
 successor, Major-General Macquarie, had been less 
 ambitious than he actually was in the article of public 
 
152 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 buildings, and equally solicitous about the moral wel- 
 fare of the people. 
 
 That Governor Bligh was a passionate man, ex- 
 tremely irascible in his disposition, and disposed oc- 
 casionally to give utterance to his angry feelings in 
 language unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, I 
 willingly admit; but that he had any other end in 
 view than the administration of impartial justice, and 
 the general welfare of the colony he was deputed to 
 govern, I can find no ground whatever for believing. On 
 the contrary, "his very failings lean'd to virtue's side." 
 He found individuals in the colony who had received 
 extraordinary indulgences from the home Government ; 
 and it was evidently his desire that all deserving 
 persons, of the class of free settlers, should in future 
 share alike. 
 
 But Colonel Johnston and his supporters, and 
 especially Mr. William Wentworth, the barrister, whose 
 father, Mr. D'Arcy Wentworth, he had suspended from 
 office, say he was a coward ; and Colonel Johnston 
 and Mr. Wentworth are both honourable men. I shall 
 leave Governor Bligh to reply to this charge in person : — 
 
 " My situation is embarrassed," observes the old Admiral, in his 
 reply to Colonel Johnston's defence, " by Col. Johnston having made a 
 personal and invidious contrast between himself and me. He has said, 
 ' That to him the situation of prosecutor or defendant is new and painful ; 
 but that such have been the misfortunes attending my service, that a 
 series of prosecutions by and against me, and always referring to my 
 personal conduct, have marked ray career; mutiny and insubordination 
 are the charges I have repeatedly preferred ; tyranny and oppression are 
 the offences for which I have been tried, and on full proof reprimanded.' 
 He adds, that it is painful to speak in terms of censure of a British 
 officer ; but what pain will it give him to learn that the statement is 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 153 
 
 false, and the censure misapplied 1 I never before preferred a charge of 
 mutiny, nor have I ever been in any way involved in one, except in the 
 case of the Bounty, and the mutiny at the Nore. As to the first, on my 
 return I was instantly promoted from the rank of lieutenant, and within 
 a month after was made a post-captain : the mutineers were tried in my 
 absence ; and it fully appeared that no severity on my part gave occasion 
 to the offence. As to the mutiny at the Nore, I little thought any 
 officer would have looked back to such an event, and least of all for the 
 purpose of calumniating a captain in the navy. Twice only have I been 
 defendant at a court-martial ; once for the loss of the Bounty, when I was 
 honourably acquitted ; and on another occasion, when I was only desired 
 to be more guarded in my language. Three times T have been a prose- 
 cutor, and in one instance the charge arose out of the very mutiny which 
 is now before the Court : but in a case of mutiny I never before was 
 prosecutor — and of tyranny and oppression I was never found guilty. 
 I am the more anxious about this, because this is not the only instance 
 in which a needless attack has been made on my reputation. A hope- 
 less defence was protracted for the purpose of putting on the minutes an 
 imputation of cowardice, equally false with respect to myself, and 
 useless to Col. Johnston ; to explain which, I must trespass a moment 
 on the time of the Court. 
 
 " Just before I was arrested, on learning the approach of the regiment, 
 I called for my uniform, which is not a dress adapted to concealment ; 
 and going into the room where the papers were kept, I selected a few 
 which I thought most important, either to retain for the protection of 
 my character, or to prevent from falling into the hands of the insur- 
 gents : — among the latter were copies of my private and confidential 
 communications to the Secretary of State, on the conduct of several per- 
 sons then in the colony : with these I retired up stairs, and, having 
 concealed some about my person, I proceeded to tear the remainder. 
 In the attitude of stooping for this purpose, with my papers about on the 
 floor, T was discovered by the soldiers on the other side of the bed. As 
 to the situation in which it is said I was found, I can prove by two wit- 
 nesses that it was utterly impossible; and I should have done so in the 
 first instance, had 1 not thought that Col. Johnston was incapable of 
 degrading his defence by the admission of a slander, which, if true, 
 affords him no excuse ; and, if false, is highly disgraceful. I know that 
 Mr. Macarthur wrote the despatch in which this circumstance is men- 
 tioned with vulgar triumph ; but I could not anticipate that Col. John- 
 ston's address to the Court would be written in the same spirit ; and 
 that after being the victim of Mr. Macarthur's intrigues, he would allow 
 
154 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 himself to be made the tool of his revenge. It has been said that this 
 circumstance would make the heroes of the British navy blush with 
 shame and burn with indignation : I certainly at such a suggestion burn 
 with indignation; but who ought to blush with shame, I leave others to 
 determine. 
 
 " The Court will forgive me if I intrude a moment on their time, to 
 mention the services in which I have been employed. For twenty-one 
 years I have been a post-captain, and have been engaged in services of 
 danger, not falling within the ordinary duties of my profession : — for 
 four years with Capt. Cook in the Resolution, and four years more as a 
 commander myself, I traversed unknown seas, braving difficulties more 
 terrible because less frequently encountered. In subordinate situations 
 I fought under Admiral Parker at the Dogger Bank, and Lord Howe at 
 Gibraltar. In the battle of Camperdown, the Director, under my com- 
 mand, first silenced and then boarded the ship of Admiral de Winter ; 
 and after the battle of Copenhagen, where I commanded the Glatton, I 
 was sent for by Lord Nelson to receive his thanks publicly on the 
 quarter-deck. Was it forme then to sully my reputation and to disgrace 
 the medal I wear by shrinking from death, which I had braved in every 
 shape?— An honourable mind will look for some other motive for my 
 retirement, and will find it in my anxiety for those papers, which during 
 this inquiry have been occasionally produced, to the confusion of those 
 witnesses who thought they no longer existed. * * 
 
 " I left the command of a seventy-four gun ship in the Channel to take 
 the government of the colony. In all my general orders or public re- 
 gulations, not one appears founded on private interest, or even friendly 
 partiality. The barter of spirits, a source of emolument to other Go- 
 vernors, I prohibited ; the confined distribution, an advantage to 
 myself in common with all the officers, I extended; the former prac- 
 tice of irregular committal to prison I abolished ; the limits of arbitrary 
 punishment I contracted. I consulted the general good of the colony, 
 instead of allowing myself to be guided by the selfish policy of a few 
 individuals ; and I determined that all ranks alike should be respectful 
 and obedient to the law. But these were the offences which rendered 
 me unfit to govern." 
 
 It is well known that the proceedings of courts-mar- 
 tial are never published till the sentence has either been 
 pronounced or ratified by the Commander-in-chief. On 
 the occasion, however, of the trial of Colonel Johnston, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 155 
 
 a surreptitious and false document, purporting to be a 
 copy of the sentence, and containing various severe 
 reflections on Governor Bligh, which formed no part of 
 the real judgment of the Court, was drawn up by 
 some party interested in the issue of the trial, and pub- 
 lished in a newspaper of the period, called " The British 
 Express," from which it was immediately copied verbatim 
 into most of the other periodicals of the kingdom. A 
 copy of the Express, containing the document I allude 
 to, was folded up, wet from the printing-office, and 
 forwarded in an envelope to Admiral Bligh ; and in the 
 inside of the envelope there was sketched the figure of a 
 pistol, intimating, doubtless, that the old Admiral had 
 now nothing farther to do than to use that instrument 
 effectually, and be off! In taking leave of the subject, 
 on which I flatter myself the reader will not suppose I 
 have dwelt too long, when he recollects that the pre- 
 ceding details involve the vindication of the character 
 of a deeply injured and most unfortunate, but really 
 meritorious British officer, I cannot help remarking, 
 that although Governor Bligh by no means merited un- 
 qualified commendation for his government of New 
 South Wales, his adversaries were evidently conscious 
 that their own cause was utterly indefensible when they 
 deemed it required such diabolical support. 
 
 As the reader will doubtless feel somewhat interested 
 in the subsequent history of Colonel Johnston, whose 
 criminality in the whole course of this untoward affair 
 was rather the result of misfortune than of misconduct, 
 I shall only add, that he returned to New South Wales 
 shortly after his trial, and spent the remainder of his 
 
156 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 days in the colony, where he died universally regretted 
 during the government of Major-General Macquarie. 
 Colonel Johnston was of a highly respectable family in 
 Annandale in Scotland ; and having obtained a com- 
 mission in the army at the early .age of twelve years, 
 he commenced his military career in America ; and had 
 served both in India and on the coast of Africa, before 
 embarking for New South Wales on the first establish- 
 ment of the colony. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 157 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ACCOUNT OF THE STATE AND PROGRESS OF THE 
 COLONY DURING THE GOVERNMENT OF MAJOR- 
 GENERAL MACQUARIE. 
 
 Who would not live a year or two in Sydney, 
 
 To get acquaint with all its nonpareils ; 
 To dine with people of a certain kidney, 
 
 And bask all in the sunshine of their smiles ? 
 They don't live quiet as they ought, and hid. Nay ; 
 
 Proud of expulsion from the British Isles, 
 Some glory in their shame ! Very strange tales 
 Are told of gentlemen of New South Wales ! 
 
 Diary of an Officer in the East. 
 
 Lachlan Macquarie, Esq., the fifth Governor of 
 New South Wales, was lieutenant-colonel of the 73rd 
 regiment, on his arrival in the colony ; but before the 
 close of his government he had attained the rank of a 
 major-general in the army. He assumed the govern- 
 ment of the colony on the 28th of December, 1809, 
 and retained it for the long period of twelve years, or 
 till the first of December, 1821. 
 
 The era of Governor Macquarie is not unfrequently 
 referred to as the commencement of the prosperity and 
 
]58 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the rising greatness of the British colony of New South 
 Wales. He is styled the father of the colony ; and one 
 of the favourite modes of exciting the popular feeling 
 against the late colonial administration was to contrast 
 
 s 
 
 it with that of Governor Macquarie. I was induced, for 
 a time, to receive these representations myself without 
 hesitation and without suspicion ; but a closer exami- 
 nation has induced me to qualify them with a few grains 
 of salt. 
 
 Governor Macquarie entered on the government of 
 New South Wales under the most favourable auspices. 
 The New South Wales Corps, which had long controlled 
 the government and repressed the energies of the colony, 
 being at length ordered home to England, there was no 
 organized body in the country to counteract his mea- 
 sures ; and he had the 73rd regiment of the line, which 
 had no previous connexion with its inhabitants, to sup- 
 port them. With a comparatively unlimited command 
 of British money and convict labour, he had the ex- 
 perience of upwards of twenty years to guide him in 
 regard to the best mode of expending the one, and of 
 employing the other, for the benefit of the settlement ; 
 and as the grand experiment for which the colony had 
 been originally established had now been under trial for 
 a long series of years, it required only common dis- 
 cernment to ascertain, and common sense to pursue, 
 what was best calculated to promote the welfare of the 
 free, and to hasten the reformation of the convict po- 
 pulation. In short, Governor Macquarie had the re- 
 modelling of the whole political and moral frame-work 
 of the colony most completely in his power ; and the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 159 
 
 position he thus occupied for a long series of years was 
 consequently, in a moral and political light, much more 
 commanding, much more influential, and much more 
 important to the colony in all future time, than that of 
 any of his successors. 
 
 Governor Macquarie commenced his administration 
 by issuing two proclamations, agreeably to the instruc- 
 tions with which he had been charged by His Majesty's 
 Ministers : the first was declaratory of the King's dis- 
 pleasure at the late mutinous proceedings in the colony ; 
 the second rendered null and void all the acts of the 
 interim government ; leaving the Governor, however, 
 a discretionary power to act, both in regard to the past 
 and the future, agreeably to the dictates of his own 
 judgment. In the exercise of this power, he ratified 
 most of the acts of the provisional government, honoured 
 its bills on the Treasury, and confirmed for the most 
 part its grants of land. 
 
 The general advancement of the colony during the 
 government of Major-General Macquarie was evident 
 and undeniable, and was doubtless owing in no small 
 degree to his vigorous administration. # 
 
 One of the first duties of a Governor in a new colony 
 is to open practicable lines of communication be- 
 tween its different settlements, and to render its avail- 
 able territory easily accessible ; and there is no colony 
 in the empire so happily circumstanced in this respect, 
 or in which the Governor can discharge this part of his 
 duty with so much efficiency, as New South Wales. 
 
 * See extracts from Governor Macquarie's Report to Earl Bathurst, in 
 the Appendix, No. 8. 
 
160 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 The unlimited command of convict labour for this pur- 
 pose is an advantage of inestimable value to that colony ; 
 while, on the other hand, the formation of roads and 
 bridges is unquestionably the most appropriate employ- 
 ment in which persons of that description can possibly 
 be engaged : for as it is the intention of the law that 
 the convict should be punished, it is doubtless the busi- 
 ness of the Colonial Executive not only to carry that in- 
 tention into effect, but to render the punishment at the 
 same time as beneficial as possible to the colony ; and, 
 in my opinion, it would be difficult to point out any 
 method of employing the convict labour of the colony, 
 in which these two important objects could, under a 
 proper system of management, be more fully or more 
 unexceptionably attained. 
 
 Governor Macquarie's exertions in this respect were 
 above all praise. There had been a sort of road pre- 
 vious to his arrival between Sydney and Parramatta, 
 which had been continued to Windsor and Richmond, 
 to afford the numerous settlers on the Hawkesbury an 
 easy access to the capital. This line of road, extend- 
 ing about forty-five miles, Governor Macquarie greatly 
 improved. He also constructed a good road to Liver- 
 pool, a settlement about twenty miles from Sydney, 
 which he had formed on the banks of George's river, 
 a navigable stream of minor consequence, which empties 
 itself into Botany Bay ; and he subsequently continued 
 it in three different directions to the westward and 
 south-westward, viz. to the Cow-pastures, the district of 
 Bringelly, and the agricultural settlements of Campbell- 
 town, Airds, and Appin. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 161 
 
 The Cow-pastures is an extensive agricultural and 
 grazing district, situated about forty miles to the south- 
 westward of Sydney, and watered by a river called the 
 Cow-pasture River ; which, after its junction with the 
 Warragumby, a stream issuing from the Blue Moun- 
 tains, forms the Nepean. It was discovered during the 
 government of Captain Hunter, in the year 1796, and 
 derived its name from a herd of wild cattle which were 
 found ranging over its untraversed wilds when it was 
 first discovered by civilized man. These cattle, it was 
 afterwards ascertained, were the offspring of two bulls 
 and three cows, of the Cape of Good Hope buffalo 
 breed, which had been landed in the colony by Governor 
 Phillip, but had strayed into the woods during the first 
 week after the formation of the settlement, and could 
 never afterwards be recovered. 
 
 But the greatest achievement effected by Governor 
 Macquarie in the way of road-making, was the road 
 across the Blue Mountains to Bathurst, a flourishing 
 settlement about one hundred and thirty miles to the 
 westward of Sydney. In the year 1813, three gentle- 
 men, whose names deserve to be honourably mentioned, 
 viz. Mr. Wentworth the barrister, and Messrs. Lawson 
 and Blaxland, two respectable settlers of old standing 
 in the colony, determined, during a severe drought 
 which had burnt up the herbage in the eastern part of 
 the territory, and caused a severe mortality among the 
 cattle, to cross the Blue Mountains, the seemingly im- 
 passable adamantine wall of the colony, in search of a 
 pastoral country to the westward. The attempt had 
 repeatedly been made before, but always without sue- 
 
162 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 cess. Mr. Caley, a botanist, had penetrated to the 
 greatest distance reached by any previous adven- 
 turer among the mountain ranges ; but had been ob- 
 liged at last to give up the attempt to cross the moun- 
 tains, after erecting a heap of stones at a spot which has 
 since been called Caley's Repulse, and which he con- 
 sidered the ne plus ultra of Australian discovery to the 
 westward. The place was pointed out to me by a 
 respectable settler of the Bathurst district on crossing 
 the mountains for the first time in the year 1826, on 
 Governor Macquarie's road. It is certainly a most re- 
 markable locality; nothing being visible in any direction 
 but immense masses of weather-beaten sandstone rock 
 towering over each other in all the sublimity of desola- 
 tion ; while a deep chasm, intersecting a lofty ridge 
 covered with blasted trees, seems to present an insur- 
 mountable barrier to all farther progress. This barrier, 
 however, was happily surmounted, though with incre- 
 dible difficulty, and the loss of several of their beasts of 
 burden, by the gentlemen I have mentioned ; who suc- 
 ceeded at length in reaching a most extensive tract of 
 open pastoral country to the westward, to which thou- 
 sands of the famished sheep and cattle of the colony 
 were immediately driven across the mountains from the 
 eastern section of the territory. 
 
 As it was of great importance to the colony, in the 
 circumstances in which it was then placed, to render the 
 vast extent of available country which had thus been laid 
 open easily accessible, Governor Macquarie immediately 
 placed the whole of the disposable convict labour of the 
 colony on the mountain-tract, which the resolute dis- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 163 
 
 coverers had successfully pursued, and in a period of 
 time incredibly short succeeded, chiefly by dint of pro- 
 mises and rewards, in forming a good road to Bathurst, 
 of which at least fifty miles traverse an extent of country 
 the most rugged, mountainous, and sterile imaginable. 
 Indeed, there was a vigour about Governor Macquarie's 
 administration, of which even at this distance of time 
 it is quite refreshing to contemplate the effects ; and 
 which, under the guidance of a better- regulated judg- 
 ment, would have led to the happiest results. The 
 whole extent of road constructed during Governor 
 Macquarie's administration was two hundred and 
 seventy-six miles; and along this whole extent sub- 
 stantial wooden bridges were constructed wherever they 
 were required. 
 
 The number of public buildings of every description 
 erected by Governor Macquarie, not only in Sydney 
 and Parramatta, but in all the other settlements of the 
 colony, as well as in the principal settlements of Van 
 Dieman's Land, which was then a dependency of New 
 South Wales, would almost exceed belief. The list 
 occupies ten closely printed folio pages of a Parlia- 
 mentary Report, and includes not fewer than two hun- 
 dred and fifty particulars. In short, if brick and mortar 
 could have ensured immortality, Governor Macquarie 
 erected public buildings enough in New South Wales 
 to render his colonial fame imperishable. 
 
 I am not prepared, however, to regard this part of 
 Governor Macquarie's procedure with unqualified ap- 
 probation. " It has been his misfortune," observes 
 Mr. Commissioner Bigge, in his report to the House of 
 
164 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Commons on the state of the colony of New South 
 Wales during Governor Macquarie's administration, 
 " to mistake the improvement and embellishment of 
 the towns for proofs of the solid prosperity of the colo- 
 nists, and to forget that the labour by which these 
 objects have been procured, was a source of heavy 
 expense to the British treasury, and that other means 
 of employment might have been tried and resorted to ; 
 the effect of which would have been to regulate in a 
 cheaper and less ostentatious form, the progress of 
 colonization and of punishment." 
 
 Indeed, Governor Macquarie appears to have been 
 remarkably distinguished for what the phrenologists 
 would denominate " a remarkably full development of 
 the organ of constructiveness, together with a somewhat 
 sizeable organ of vanity." Now, in so far as the former 
 of these propensities led His Excellency to lay down an 
 entirely new plan for the town of Sydney, (which, pre- 
 vious to his arrival, was a mere assemblage of paltry 
 erections holding a sort of intermediate place between a 
 hut and a house, and disposed in every possible form of 
 irregularity and confusion,) and to inspire its inha- 
 bitants with a laudable regard for external appearances, 
 it was evidently highly beneficial to the colony ; for in 
 these respects the town of Sydney undoubtedly owes 
 every thing to Governor Macquarie. But, in so far as 
 these propensities led His Excellency to erect numerous 
 public buildings, of very questionable utility, or rather 
 of no utility whatever in the actual circumstances of 
 the colony, for the purpose apparently of transmitting 
 his own Celtic name to succeeding generations, and 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 165 
 
 thereby to keep whole hordes of convict mechanics and 
 labourers congregated in the towns of the colony, in- 
 stead of dispersing them as widely as possible, and 
 employing them in the clearing of land and the forma- 
 tion of agricultural settlements all over the territory ; — 
 they occasioned a most extravagant and wasteful ex- 
 penditure of British money, and proved a fruitful source 
 of colonial demoralization. 
 
 There is doubtless some allowance to be made for 
 Governor Macquarie's peculiar situation, in being left 
 by the British Government to find employment as he 
 could for the constantly increasing convict population 
 of the colony, for whose labour there was necessarily but 
 a very inadequate demand on the part of the free emi- 
 grant inhabitants of the territory. Referring to the 
 circumstances of the colony and the method of distri- 
 buting the convicts, who were then comparatively few 
 in number, at the commencement of his own admini- 
 stration, Governor Macquarie observes, in his letter to 
 Earl Bathurst, as follows ; viz. : — 
 
 " On their arrival they were distributed amongst such settlers as 
 required them, without favour or partiality ; the government only re- 
 taining such useful mechanics and proportion of labourers as were 
 required for carrying on the public works : but the influx of male con- 
 - victs for the last five years has been so great, and so very far exceeding 
 that of former years, that the settlers had not employment for above one- 
 eighth of the number that annually arrived in the colony ; the remaining 
 seven-eighths being left to be maintained and employed by government. 
 Hence it became necessary to employ this large sui°plus of men in some 
 useful manner, so that their labour might in some degree cover the 
 expense of their feeding and clothing." 
 
 As there was thus comparatively little demand for 
 
]66 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 convict labour for agricultural purposes on the part of 
 private individuals, or for opening new settlements 
 for the location of additional free settlers, from the 
 almost total cessation of emigration to the territory, 
 Governor Macquarie was tempted to employ a large 
 number of the convicts in the erection of public build- 
 ings, of very little utility to the colony generally, in the 
 chief towns of the territory. 
 
 To a person of genuine philanthropy it cannot fail to 
 be a subject of regret, that the whole of the money 
 which was thus unnecessarily and extravagantly ex- 
 pended, should have been extracted from the pockets of 
 a people already overburdened with the triple load of 
 taxes, and tithes, and poor-rates ; but it is aggravating 
 in the highest degree to reflect, that through the mis- 
 taken policy, I might almost call it the absolute infa- 
 tuation, of Major-General Macquarie, in this particular, 
 a very large proportion pf that expenditure, which was 
 so willingly borne by the representatives of a right- 
 generous and noble nation, under the idea of its being 
 all carefully and judiciously applied in promoting the 
 moral and general welfare of their own miserable out- 
 casts, should have been actually incurred in carrying 
 on a process of demoralization in the convict colony of 
 New South Wales, and in preventing the attainment of 
 the chief end for which that colony was originally esta- 
 blished — the reformation of its convict population. 
 
 That a process of this kind was actually going on 
 during the government of Major-General Macquarie, 
 even while he was persuading himself that he was 
 doing his best for the general welfare of the colonv, no 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 167 
 
 person who gives the least attention to the subject can 
 doubt for a moment. Had buildings only of absolute 
 necessity for the public service been erected at head- 
 quarters, and had these buildings been of such mode- 
 rate cost as befitted the circumstances of a penal settle- 
 ment, the numerous emancipated convicts, who obtained 
 small grants of land on the expiration of their sentences 
 of transportation, would have been obliged to settle on 
 these grants, to obtain a livelihood, and would thus in all 
 likelihood have become industrious, temperate, and frugal. 
 But the lavish expenditure of British money in the 
 erection of public buildings in the colonial capital and 
 in the other towns of the colony, formed an irresistible 
 attraction to the great majority of this class of persons ; 
 and they accordingly sold their land forthwith, and settled 
 in Sydney and the othercolonial towns — some as labourers 
 or mechanics, others as petty constables ; some as dealers 
 in general, others as dealers in rum. In short, there was 
 plenty of employment, plenty of money, and plenty of 
 rum, to be had in Sydney in the good old times of 
 Governor Macquarie ; and who that liked the last of 
 these articles, would in such circumstances think of 
 ooino- elsewhere in search of the other two ? 
 
 There are political economists of some note in the 
 mother country who are perpetually recommending to 
 Government the concentration of the population of the 
 colonies ; but a short residence in New South Wales 
 would be sufficient to convince such persons of the utter 
 inapplicability of their principle to the circumstances 
 of a penal settlement. In fact, the concentration of 
 an emancipated convict population, as Governor Mac- 
 
168 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 quarie's experiment sufficiently proves, will infallibly 
 be a concentration of vice and villany, profligacy and 
 misery, dissipation and ruin. In such circumstances, 
 Divide et impera, (Separate and command,) is as good a 
 maxim in the moral, as it is generally in the political 
 code. 
 
 The demoralizing influence indirectly resulting from 
 the gratification of Governor Maequarie's taste for 
 public buildings, cannot be more fitly illustrated than in 
 the plan he pursued for the erection of a general hos- 
 pital in Sydney. Had the convicts been dispersed 
 over the territory in the way I have suggested, an hos- 
 pital of comparatively small dimensions would have 
 been sufficient at head-quarters : at all events, a plain, 
 substantial edifice was all that was wanted for such a 
 purpose, till the expense of erecting ornamental build- 
 ings could be borne by the revenue of the colony. The 
 colonial architect, however, having submitted to Go- 
 vernor Macquarie a plan of a spacious and costly edi- 
 fice, consisting of a centre building and two detached 
 wings, to be erected of cut stone, with a double veran- 
 dah or covered portico completely surrounding each of 
 the three piles of building, he determined that it should 
 by all means be carried into effect. With this view, 
 as there were comparatively few artificers among the 
 convicts at the time when this measure was resolved 
 on, he made an agreement, on the part of the colonial 
 government, with Messrs. D'Arcy Wentworth, Blaxcell, 
 and Riley, by which these gentlemen stipulated to 
 erect a building agreeably to the plan proposed, on con- 
 dition of receiving a certain quantity of rum from the 
 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 169 
 
 King's store, and of having the sole right to purchase, 
 or to land free of duty, all the ardent spirits that 
 should be imported into the colony for a term of years. 
 The Rum Hospital, as it was called at the time, was 
 accordingly erected on these conditions ; and, standing, 
 as it does, on the summit of one of the two ridges on 
 which the town of Sydney is built, with a valley ter- 
 minating in the beautiful inlet called Sydney Cove 
 between, it is doubtless a highly interesting and 
 striking feature in the general aspect of one of the 
 most thriving and best situated commercial towns in 
 the world. 
 
 I leave to the mere financier the task of reprobating 
 the arrangement I have just mentioned, (which, it was 
 universally believed at the time, was a highly gainful 
 one to the parties concerned,) on the ground of its 
 gross injustice to the community at large, as well as to 
 those persons in particular who imported ardent spirits 
 into the colony, and who were consequently obliged 
 either to sell their commodity at whatever price the 
 monopolists chose to offer them, or to keep it in bond 
 for three or four years.* My sole concern with the 
 
 * In the year 1824, the Rum Hospital was calculated to be worth 
 ,£20,000. I am confident as good a building could now be erected for 
 ^'10,000. The quantity of Bengal rum which the contractors received 
 from Government was 60,000 gallons, which at the time was worth the 
 whole estimated cost of the building. The monopoly was for three 
 years; it was afterwards extended to three and a half, or four; and, as 
 the contractors could purchase spirits at three shillings and retail them 
 at forty, it was supposed to be worth at least ^100,000. In short, the 
 monopoly was a sort of regium donum, or royal gift, over and above the 
 fair market-price of the article bargained for. 
 
 The particulars contained in this note I have derived from a notandum 
 VOL. I. H 
 
170 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 transaction is to calculate its true bearings on the pro- 
 fessed object of General Macquarie's administration— 
 the reformation of the convict population of New South 
 Wales : and this is by no means a work of difficulty. 
 The wages of the artificers and labourers, and the 
 prices of the materials employed in the erection of the 
 hospital, were, agreeably to the usual practice of the 
 colony at the time, paid half in money and half in 
 property, i. e., in tea, sugar, ardent spirits, wine, 
 clothing, or any other article, either of necessity or of 
 luxury, which the employer happened to have in his 
 store, and which was uniformly charged to the labourer 
 at an enormous per-centage above its real value, or even 
 above its market-price in the colony. Determined, 
 however, that not a single shilling of the money-half of 
 the wages should, if it could possibly be prevented, 
 ultimately find its way into any other pockets than 
 their own, the worthy contractors erected one or more 
 public-houses in the immediate vicinity of the place, 
 where their numerous convict and emancipated convict 
 mechanics and labourers received that moiety of their 
 wages ; doubtless, to induce the miserable wretches, 
 whose inability to withstand such temptation may well 
 be conceived, to expend the last farthing of their 
 earnings in the purchase of their exorbitantly priced 
 and accursed liquor. In providing, therefore, for the 
 
 I happened to make in the year 1824 ; but from what sources the inform- 
 ation was obtained — whether from documents or from persons ac- 
 quainted with the circumstances of the transaction — I cannot at this 
 moment recollect. If the statement should be erroneous in any parti- 
 cular, I shall be happy to stand corrected. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 171 
 
 physical health of the colony, Governor Macquarie was 
 actually overspreading the whole surface of its body 
 politic, in a moral and spiritual sense, with wounds, and 
 bruises, and putrefying sores, which have hitherto sur- 
 passed the skill of the ablest chirurgeon to bind up, 
 or the efficacy of the most powerful ointment to mol- 
 
 The lavish expenditure of British money in the erec- 
 tion of numerous public buildings of minor utility, and 
 the extraordinary facility which was thus afforded to 
 the emancipated convict population for indulging in 
 every species of unhallowed dissipation, tended even to 
 neutralize the most judicious measures which Governor 
 Macquarie had himself adopted for their progressive 
 reformation. A measure, for instance, of vast import- 
 ance to the colony, which Governor Macquarie pur- 
 sued with much greater zeal than success, was the form- 
 ation of an agricultural population from the class of 
 emancipated convicts. Adhering to the principle on 
 which Governor Phillip had been empowered to act by 
 the British Government, Governor Macquarie gave 
 grants of thirty acres of land each to persons of this 
 class on attaining their freedom. But there was this 
 important difference between the system pursued by 
 Governor Phillip and that of Governor Macquarie : 
 Governor Phillip gave such grants of land only to indi- 
 viduals of good character, who, he had reason to believe, 
 would settle upon the land, and make a good use of it ; 
 Governor Macquarie, on the contrary, appears to have 
 given them indiscriminately to all : and whereas it was 
 certainly by no means the intention of the British 
 
172 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Government that such grants of land should in any 
 case be given to emancipated convicts for the purpose 
 of being sold, it is nevertheless a notorious fact, that by- 
 far the greater number of Governor Macquarie's grants 
 of this kind were never taken possession of by the 
 grantees, but were sold immediately, and generally 
 for rum. 
 
 I had once occasion to inspect a chart in the Surveyor- 
 General's office, to ascertain something relative to a 
 grant of land belonging to a reputable Scotchman, who 
 had unfortunately fallen into pecuniary difficulties in 
 the colony. On glancing at the chart, I observed that 
 the land was bounded in one direction by a whole colony 
 of small settlers, or proprietors of farms of thirty or forty 
 acres each; but in afterwards adverting to the circum- 
 stance in conversation with the landholder, and asking 
 him what sort of a neighbourhood he had got, I was 
 somewhat surprised to find that he had no neighbours 
 at all in that direction, and that what seemed on the 
 Surveyor- General's chart a number of small farms, was 
 merely a portion of the large and undivided estate of a 
 colonial proprietor, who had been a merchant in Sydney 
 during the government of Major-General Macquarie, 
 and who had purchased in the way of his business, and 
 in all probability for ardent spirits, a number of the 
 Governor's orders for small grants of land, which, it 
 seems, he had kept in abeyance till their united acres 
 amounted to an extent which it was worth while for 
 him to select in that particular locality. 
 
 " It appears to me," says Mr. Commissioner Bigge, 
 in his Report to the House of Commons, already re- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 173 
 
 ferred to, M that the system that has hitherto been 
 pursued, of granting thirty acres of land to emancipated 
 convicts without reference to their means of cultivation, 
 is not attended with the beneficial results that were 
 expected from it They have, in many instances, been 
 disposed of to obtain relief from pressing necessities, 
 occasioned either by unfavourable seasons, bad soil, or 
 the effects of dissipation or indulgence ; and Governor 
 Macquarie felt assured that many of the applicants that 
 appeared before him, on the occasion to which I have 
 just now alluded, had alienated by private and previous 
 sales all right to the land for which they were applying. 
 
 41 A rule had been promulgated by him, at an early 
 period, and it forms a condition of every grant, that it 
 shall not be disposed of or alienated within five years. 
 This rule, however, has been violated by persons of 
 every class in the colony." 
 
 All this malversation, which was not less ruinous to 
 the individuals themselves than injurious to the commu- 
 nity, might have been entirely obviated by a very simple 
 arrangement. Had the Governor, for instance, merely 
 made it a rule not to issue deeds or to give permanent 
 possession of grants of land of this kind, until the 
 grantees had, in each particular instance, resided upon 
 the land for a certain period and effected certain specific 
 improvements, an attachment to the spot would in all 
 likelihood have been generated by residence and hard 
 labour, ere the condition of proprietorship could have 
 been fulfilled ; and the disposition to sell would in all 
 probability have been annihilated before the power to 
 ftell had been obtained. It was quite preposterous to 
 
174 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 imagine that the pickpocket would become & farmer, to 
 use Governor King's expression, by merely giving him 
 an order for thirty acres of forest land, which he could 
 instantly exchange for ten or fifteen gallons of rum in 
 the town of Sydney, and be no poorer than he was 
 before. As well might we expect the leopard to change 
 his spots or the Ethiopian his skin, as expect that 
 under such a system those who have been accustomed 
 to do evil should learn to do well. 
 
 During the long course of his administration, however, 
 Governor Macquarie did succeed in settling many fami- 
 lies of emancipated convicts on small farms in various 
 parts of the territory ; as for instance, along the banks of 
 the Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers, and at the agricul- 
 tural settlements of Campbelltown and Appin; and had 
 subsequent events not reduced many of these families 
 to debts and difficulties, and obliged them at last to 
 sell their farms, the result would doubtless have been 
 exceedingly pleasing to the eye of philanthropy. 
 
 Governor Macquarie's situation as the Governor of 
 a British colony was doubtless very peculiar. On his 
 arrival in New South Wales, he found that but only a 
 small portion of the ten thousand inhabitants of the 
 territory consisted of free emigrants ; and from the large 
 annual influx of convicts, and the almost total cessation 
 of free emigration during the whole period of his 
 government, the proportion of that class of the general 
 population of the colony was continually decreasing. 
 In such circumstances it was almost to be expected that 
 Governor Macquarie should entirely misapprehend the 
 great end which the founders of the colony originally 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 175 
 
 had in view, or rather the means by which that end 
 was to be accomplished ; — that instead of endeavouring 
 on the one hand to work out the reformation of the 
 convicts by means of a numerous and industrious free 
 emigrant population, and to induce the British Govern- 
 ment on the other, as his predecessor, Captain Phillip, 
 had done, to hold out the requisite encouragement for 
 the settlement of such emigrants throughout the terri- 
 tory, he should come to consider the free emigrant 
 population of the colony as a mere excrescence on its 
 body politic, or rather as a positive incumbrance and 
 dead-weight on the community — constituting no part of 
 the Government scheme in regard to the reformation of 
 the convicts, and likely to prove a source of annoyance 
 and counteraction to the colonial authorities. We find, 
 accordingly, that although these may not have been 
 the maxims which Governor Macquarie avowed, they 
 were those, at least, that regulated his procedure. 
 
 It is allowed on all hands, that Governor Macquarie 
 neither countenanced nor encouraged the class of free 
 emigrant settlers throughout the colony, and that his 
 procedure in this respect operated in so far as a com- 
 plete check to emigration. He had been expressly en- 
 joined in his letter of instructions from His Majesty's 
 Ministers, to pay particular attention to those free 
 settlers who had exerted themselves in favour of Go- 
 vernor Bligh ; but he entirely neglected them. In 
 short, His Excellency's maxim was, " New South 
 Wales is a country for the reformation of convicts ; free 
 people have no right to come to it." He had doubtless 
 
176 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 been strongly prejudiced against the class generally by 
 the officers of the New South Wales Corps, to whom 
 the free settlers were of course politically obnoxious, in 
 consequence of their adhering to the deposed Governor. 
 
 Besides, it is reported on good authority, that im- 
 mediately after his arrival in the colony, Governor Mac- 
 quarie was advised by Lieutenant-Colonel (now Gene- 
 ral) Foveaux, who then commanded the New South 
 Wales Corps, to bring forward, as much as possible, the 
 emancipated convicts, or, as they are technically styled 
 in the colony, the emancipists. This advice appears to 
 have been followed with all the promptness and deci- 
 sion of his energetic character; for on the 12th of 
 January, 1810, that is, before he had been a month in 
 the colony, he appointed Andrew Thomson, a Scotch- 
 man of this class, to the office of the magistracy — an 
 appointment, for which there had been no precedent in 
 the previous history of the colony, and which can 
 scarcely be justified on the plea of necessity. Governor 
 Macquarie had, it seems, given some personal offence to 
 Colonel Foveaux, and this apparently benevolent advice 
 was the method which that officer employed of repaying 
 the compliment ; for, in reference to that advice, Colonel 
 Foveaux is reported to have observed to his secretary, 
 Lieutenant Finucane, " that he had now placed a 
 blister on Governor Macquarie which he would never 
 be able to remove/' 
 
 As the case of Andrew Thomson affords an illustra- 
 tion of the general policy pursued by Governor Mac- 
 quarie in regard to the emancipists generally, it may 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 177 
 
 not be out of place to insert the following character and 
 history of that individual from Mr. Bigge's Report to 
 the House of Commons : — 
 
 " From the account of the executor of A. Thomson, it appears that he 
 was a native of Scotland, and that his relations there were itinerant traders 
 in goods. He was transported to New South Wales at the age of sixteen, 
 and on his first arrival in the colony served as a labourer in the stone- 
 masons' gang at Parramatta. On the expiration of his sentence, he went 
 to Windsor to reside as a settler, and he there engaged in business as a 
 retail shop-keeper, and built some small vessels, in which he traded to 
 Sydney : he also became superintendent of some of the convict la- 
 bourers in the employ of government at Windsor. In all these occu- 
 pations he was successful ; his trade extended ; he became possessed of 
 farms ; and made an establishment for the manufacture of salt, on a 
 small island at the mouth of the river Hawkesbury, where he also con- 
 tinued to build small vessels ; and it was here, and on the banks of the 
 river, that, according to the accounts of several persons whom I found 
 at Windsor, Andrew Thomson carried on the illicit distillation of 
 spirits. 
 
 " To his other employments, he added those of constable and public- 
 house keeper, and through liberal credit and forbearance he acquired a 
 great deal of influence amongst the class of smaller settlers in the 
 neighbouring districts of the Hawkesbury. To a considerable share of 
 natural shrewdness he added great activity of mind and body ; and though 
 quite uneducated when he arrived in the colony, he succeeded after- 
 wards in acquiring the ordinary knowledge of a retail shop-keeper. 
 
 " His conduct in these several capacities is considered to have been 
 correct ; but the habits of his domestic life were immoral. 
 
 " I have been induced to make these observations upon the character 
 and conduct of A. Thomson, not from any wish to detract from his merit 
 as an individual, but because it is stated b> Governor Macquarie, in 
 the epitaph before alluded to, that ' it was in consequence of his cha- 
 racter and conduct that he appointed him to be a magistrate of the 
 colony, and that by the same act he restored him to that rank in society 
 which he had lost.' These circumstances are also of still farther im- 
 portance, as the appointment of A. Thomson to the magistracy was one 
 of those acts of Governor Macquarie that has been urged most strongly 
 against him by his enemies, and has been most questioned by his 
 friends. * * * 
 
178 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 " Andrew Thomson was thenceforth admitted to the table of Governor 
 Macquarie, and to that of the officers of the 73rd regiment, by a change 
 of regulation, but not of feeling in the military hody, that was no less 
 remarkable than the change that had taken place in the sentiments of the 
 civil chief." 
 
 Governor Macquarie was certainly of an arbitrary dis- 
 position ; and his prejudices, in regard to the two classes 
 of the free population of the colony, may perhaps have 
 been a little embittered by the personal opposition he 
 sometimes experienced, in regard to his favourite mea- 
 sures, from some of the free emigrant settlers. It is 
 related, at least, that a reputable individual of this class 
 having transmitted representations against his measures 
 to the Secretary of State, Governor Macquarie, doubtless 
 under the influence of strong irritation, observed in 
 reply, " that there were only two classes of individuals 
 in New South Wales — those who had been convicted, 
 and those who ought to have been so." If His Excel- 
 lency really made so gratuitous and so illiberal a re- 
 mark, the circumstance sufficiently accounts for the 
 seemingly anomalous fact, that he sometimes selected 
 his friends and favourites from the class of those " who 
 ought to have been convicted : " — whether they had 
 ever been so in reality or not, I conceive it is of little 
 consequence to inquire. 
 
 In short, Governor Macquarie appears to have been 
 very sceptical in regard to the existence of virtue in any 
 class of persons in the colony ; and another of the 
 maxims, therefore, on which he seems to have acted 
 was, that " prosperous vice ought to be encouraged and 
 rewarded. " The emancipated convict publican, who 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES, 
 
 179 
 
 had been successful in selling rum by the gill, generally 
 ended the matter by converting his tap into a store, and 
 selling it by the puncheon. At his outset in the colo-' 
 nial world, he was in the habit of supplying the small 
 settlers of his own class in society with ardent spririts 
 in small quantities, in exchange for proportionably small 
 quantities of grain ; but having now written himself a 
 merchant, he was in a fit condition to take a mortgage 
 on the settler's farm in lieu of his annual supply of tea, 
 sugar, slop-clothing, and rum, all of which were booked 
 to him at a hundred per cent at least above the real 
 value of the articles ; and by watching his opportunity, 
 he was able at last to pounce upon the farm itself, like 
 a vulture on its prey, and to hold the settler in future as 
 a tenant-at-will on the land which he had cleared and 
 cultivated with the sweat of his brow, and for which he 
 had probably not received goods in all more than equi- 
 valent in real value to a single year's rent of the farm. # 
 When wealth had in the process of time been acquired by 
 such processes as this, Governor Macquarie considered 
 
 * " Pressed by their necessities, as well as by their love of excessive 
 indulgence, and unable, from the want of proper buildings, to secure 
 their produce when gathered, these thoughtless persons hasten to 
 Sydney at the first opening of the King's store ; and if unable to obtain 
 immediate admission for their grain, or baffled in their expectations by 
 the confusion and want of regulation that prevails there, they sell it to 
 the publicans, who are the only persons in the colony that possess the 
 means of storing grain. They then buy dearly a few articles of the first 
 necessity, which, with a supply of spirituous liquors, are soon con- 
 sumed, and leave them in poverty and wretchedness, until the return of 
 the next harvest brings with it a diminished return of produce, but 
 affords a repetition of the same improvident indulgence."— -Report of the 
 Commissioner of Inquiry on New South Wales. 
 
180 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the individual in a fit condition to be restored to the 
 place in society which he had lost, not so much by his 
 criminality as by his transportation ; and consequently, 
 after a course of life tenfold more criminal perhaps in 
 the eye of God than the one that had issued in his sen- 
 tence of banishment, and a hundred-fold more injurious 
 to society, — the wealthy emancipist could cherish the 
 hope of being received at Government House, and pre- 
 sented as a fit associate for reputable men. 
 
 In short, it was not the retiring emancipated convict 
 in the lower walks of life that Governor Macquarie 
 especially delighted to encourage, by endeavouring to 
 rescue him, as his predecessor Governor Bligh was 
 in reality deposed for doing, from the iron gripe of his 
 oppressor : it was that prominence in society which 
 wealth uniformly gives its possessor in New South 
 Wales, as well as in every other country, that attracted 
 the notice of the Governor. The circumstance of being 
 notorious for the violation of every principle of honour 
 and integrity was no obstacle to the attainment of His 
 Excellency's favour. The circumstance of being noto- 
 rious for a life of open and outrageous profligacy, was no 
 impediment to employment or promotion under the 
 government of Major-General Macquarie. 
 
 It will not appear strange, however, that Governor 
 Macquarie's measures should have rendered him ex- 
 tremely popular among certain classes in the colony, 
 and caused this egregious mis-statement to be propa- 
 gated and believed respecting him, viz. thai he was the 
 real friend and patron of the emancipists. For my 
 own part, I conceive there is abundant reason to believe 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 181 
 
 that he was in reality the worst enemy of that class as 
 a body that ever trod Australian ground. He patron- 
 ized and befriended a few of their number, it is true ; 
 but that patronage was undoubtedly the ruin of the 
 many. Had he followed up the truly wise and bene- 
 volent plans of his unfortunate predecessor, during the 
 long course of his government, he would infallibly have 
 transformed the great majority of the emancipists into 
 an industrious and comparatively virtuous peasantry, 
 with whose descendants the free emigrants and their 
 offspring would in time have become gradually and 
 undistinguishably blended ; and he would thus have 
 caused the moral wilderness to blossom as the rose : 
 but the course he actually, pursued has in great 
 measure converted the colony, in so far as that nume- 
 rous class of its population is concerned, into a great 
 nursery of publicans and sinners. 
 
 As involving a system of penal discipline and reform, 
 Governor Macquarie's administration of the government 
 of New South Wales was unquestionably a failure. In 
 the disposal and employment of the convicts during 
 his government, these great objects of the original esta- 
 blishment of the colony were, if not uniformly, at least 
 too frequently, postponed by objects of far inferior im- 
 portance. In this opinion I am not singular. After 
 enumerating the different kinds of labour in which con- 
 victs were employed on the government establishments 
 of the colony during Governor Macquarie's adminis- 
 tration, Mr. Commissioner Bigge makes the following 
 judicious observations : — 
 
 " Such are the several kinds of labour performed by the convicts re- 
 tained in the service of government in New South Wales and Van Die- 
 
182 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 man's Land ; and as they have grown altogether out of the presumed 
 wants of the local governments, little consideration has been afforded by 
 them to the effects that they have produced, either in the shape of punishment or 
 of reform. 
 
 " The distribution of the convicts in the first instance, the resumption 
 of their services at subsequent periods, the extension of them beyond 
 the terms assigned to others, have contributed to create an universal 
 impression upon the minds of the convicts, that skilfulness in work, 
 rather than immoral conduct, was the cause of their first enthralment, 
 and the measure of its continuance. This feelingproduces discourage- 
 ment, carelessness, and not unfrequently malicious and wanton destruc- 
 tion of the property of government. 
 
 " The local temptations to plunder that assail the convict employed 
 in the towns, and the habits of luxurious indulgence that he acquires 
 during his period of compulsory service, tend to fix his residence there 
 when he is emancipated ; and while the price of mechanical labour is 
 thus enhanced to the settlers in the country, the habits of the mechanic 
 himself become permanently depraved and licentious." 
 
 The salutary effect of employment on the public 
 works of the colony in the earlier period of its history, 
 whether considered as a means of insuring the re- 
 formation of the convict, or of rendering him really 
 useful to the community, is strongly contrasted by Mr. 
 Bigge with the general effect of such employment 
 during Governor Macquarie's administration. After 
 observing that, " in the years 1792 and 1793, many 
 circumstances concurred to stimulate the exertions of 
 the convicts," such as the scarcity of food, the great 
 demand for labour, and the infliction of summary and 
 severe punishment for idleness or dishonesty, Mr. 
 Bigge proceeds as follows : — 
 
 " The agricultural operations, although limited to the use of the hatchet 
 and the hoe, admitted both the employment of the most unpractised 
 labourers, as well as an exact and severe apportionment of their labour 
 to their skill and strength. The labour of government was not at that 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 183 
 
 time the labour that the convicts preferred : it was conducted at two 
 places not then in the immediate neighbourhood of any settlers ; and one 
 of these places was distant three, and the other five miles, from the 
 town of Parramatta ; and neither were infected by the luxurious dissi- 
 pation of that place, or by the temptations to plunder, that the increasing 
 opulence and property of the settlers have since afforded. 
 
 " The species of labour likewise, in which they were instructed, was 
 one that was in general use and demand ; and when a convict was 
 assigned to a settler from the government works, he was not, as at 
 present, an useless incumbrance or expense, but he was capable of im- 
 mediately affording some return by his labour, for the subsistence and 
 clothing that was furnished to him. The superintendents themselves 
 were, from circumstances of the moment, equally interested in aug- 
 menting the produce of the government labour ; and they did not then, 
 as many of them do at present, possess an interest that lies exactly the 
 other way." 
 
 I am also constrained, from a sovereign regard to 
 truth, to remark, that the principle on which eman- 
 cipations, tickets of leave, and other indulgences, were 
 too frequently granted to convicts by Governor Mac- 
 quarie, had a direct tendency to preclude the re- 
 formation of the convict, and to obliterate from his mind 
 all sense of criminality. Convicts who had either 
 brought money with them to the colony, — the fruit, 
 perhaps, of their knavery in England,— or whose wives 
 had followed them out with their accumulated and dis- 
 honest savings, or who had originally moved in a 
 higher sphere in society than the mere labourer, — not 
 unfrequently received tickets of leave on their arrival 
 in Sydney, and were immediately placed in as com- 
 fortable circumstances as they had ever known in 
 England, besides possessing facilities for making money 
 such as they could never have anticipated in the 
 mother country. Persons in these circumstances, 
 
184 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 moreover, bad only to render some small service to the 
 government, as in supplying horses and carts for an 
 expedition of discovery, for conveying the Governor's 
 baggage when travelling in the interior, or for carrying 
 stores and provisions to some road party, to obtain 
 emancipation or entire freedom in the colony ; while it 
 not unfrequently happened that others obtained similar 
 indulgences through the recommendations of unprin- 
 cipled magistrates, superintendents, or overseers, to 
 whom they had rendered private services as the price of 
 their corrupt influence. Of thirty-nine convict labourers 
 on the Bathurst road, three obtained free pardons ; one, 
 a ticket of leave ; and thirty-five, emancipations ; while 
 seven convicts holding; tickets of leave received eman- 
 cipations merely for supplying horses and carts for the 
 carriage of provisions and stores : nay, a convict who 
 had been transported for the second time, and who, 
 on his arrival in Sydney, had obtained a ticket of leave, 
 and was allowed to open a public-house at Parramatta, 
 obtained his emancipation for merely sending a horse 
 and cart, under the charge of his assigned convict 
 servant, to assist in conveying provisions and stores to 
 the road-parties. Governor Macquarie had doubtless 
 established regulations shortly after his arrival in the 
 colony for the granting of indulgences to convicts on 
 their good conduct only ; but as there had been no fewer 
 than four hundred and fifty exceptions to these rules up 
 to the time when Mr. Bigge commenced his inquiry, it 
 is evident that the maxim of exceptio probat regulam, 
 was, in Governor Macquarie's case, to be translated, 
 '* the numerous exceptions prove the rule to be of no 
 value whatever." The effect of such a state of things 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 185 
 
 on the convict population of the colony may be easily 
 conceived ; for, although the Governor was himself 
 above suspicion, both in regard to the purity of his 
 motives and the integrity of his conduct, a general 
 belief was induced in the colony that " the rewards of 
 good conduct had become the subjects of sale and 
 barter through the corruption of his agents." 
 
 Governor Macquarie's early efforts " to bring for- 
 ward" the emancipists had received much and per- 
 haps injudicious commendation from the Parliamentary 
 Committee on Transportation in the year 1812 ; and, 
 although Earl Bathurst endeavoured afterwards to put 
 him on his guard against the evil consequences that 
 might ensue from incautiously pushing such a principle 
 to extremities ; the circumstance appears to have not 
 only confirmed him in his adherence to the course 
 he was pursuing, but to have induced him to adopt 
 every possible means of rendering it virtually im- 
 perative on all and sundry to follow his example. 
 
 That Governor Macquarie was right in the abstract, 
 in endeavouring to restore to society individuals who had 
 given undoubted evidence of their thorough reformation, 
 is undeniable ; but the method he employed in effect- 
 ing that praiseworthy object was not less objectionable, 
 than his selection of individual emancipists for putting 
 his benevolent experiment to the test was peculiarly 
 injudicious. It may be laid down as a general prin- 
 ciple, that if an individual who has been a convict be- 
 comes thoroughly reformed, he will exhibit a retiring 
 disposition, and court obscurity; and that, on the con- 
 trary, if a person of this class is obtrusive in his 
 
186 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 demeanour, and ready on every occasion to thrust him- 
 self on the society of those who still regard him with 
 aversion or suspicion, there is a moral certainty of his 
 not being reformed at all. Governor Macquarie's re- 
 formed characters were unfortunately of the latter de- 
 scription ; and His Excellency having taken extraordinary 
 pains to have them forced into society, it was not at all 
 wonderful that a considerable majority of the reputable 
 portion of the inhabitants of the colony should refuse 
 to submit to his dictation in a matter so entirely beyond 
 the province of a Governor, and that much bitterness 
 of feeling should be the unhappy result of the ill- 
 managed experiment. 
 
 These efforts of Governor Macquarie were par- 
 ticularly obnoxious to most of the officers of the forty- 
 sixth and forty-eighth regiments, as well as to certain 
 of the civil officers and other respectable inhabitants of 
 the colony ; and as Governor Macquarie was unfor- 
 tunately subject to the common weakness of military 
 governors, in regarding as the enemies of his person 
 and government all who were not disposed to make 
 an entire surrender of their own judgments and 
 feelings to his ; the usual scenes of colonial warfare, 
 crimination, and recrimination, ensued ; and these jar- 
 rings had, in this particular instance, the singularly 
 unhappy effect of making the two classes, of which 
 society is composed in the Australian colonies, regard 
 each other with much more unfriendly feelings than if 
 no such injudicious attempts to unite them had ever 
 been made. These feelings still subsist ; but, as the 
 management of the colonial press, which, in the hands 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 187 
 
 of thoroughly unprincipled and worthless characters of 
 the class of emancipated convicts, has hitherto been the 
 most influential agent in keeping them alive for the 
 worst of purposes, has at length passed into other and 
 better hands ; — there is reason to hope that the moral 
 evils of which they have long been productive in colo- 
 nial society will now be gradually neutralized. 
 
 I should be sorry, however, to do so much injury to 
 the memory of Governor Macquarie, as not to inform 
 the reader that his errors were rather errors of the 
 understanding than of the heart. He had evidently 
 taken up a wrong idea of his duty in the very peculiar 
 circumstances in which he was placed ; and being a 
 man of much decision of character on the one hand, 
 and a stranger on the other to that acuteness of moral 
 sense which often compensates for obtuseness of intel- 
 lectual vision, he was apt to push every thing to ex- 
 tremes. He encouraged and promoted marriage in 
 those quarters in which a very different mode of life 
 had been previously connived at; and, in externals at 
 least, the colony assumed quite a different aspect under 
 his vigorous and energetic management from what it 
 had previously worn. Towns were planned or im- 
 proved during his government; and the inhabitants were 
 encouraged, by grants of land or other inexpensive 
 gratuities, to erect substantial buildings. I have already 
 noticed the discovery of the Bathurst country : the dis- 
 trict of Argyle, the grand outlet to a well-watered agri- 
 cultural and pastoral country of vast extent to the 
 south-westward, was also discovered during his admi- 
 
188 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 nistration. The Lachlan and Macquarie rivers, to the 
 westward of the Blue Mountains, were traced by Mr. 
 Oxley, the Surveyor-General, till they gradually dis- 
 appeared in vast swamps in the western interior ; and 
 the river Hastings, with a large extent of pastoral 
 country to the westward, called Liverpool Plains, was 
 discovered to the northward. The agricultural penal 
 settlement of Emu Plains, at the eastern base of the 
 Blue Mountains, was formed during the government of 
 Major-General Macquarie, as also the penal settlements 
 of Newcastle at the mouth of the River Hunter, and of 
 Port Macquarie at the mouth of the Hastings. 
 
 The highest talents and the most extensive acquire- 
 ments are uniformly found conjoined with some weak- 
 ness or other, to remind us of the condition of our 
 mortal existence. Governor Macquarie's weakness was 
 a rabid desire for immortality, that took a singular 
 delight in having his name affixed to every thing that 
 required a name in the colony ; whether public build- 
 ings or remarkable localities, places, persons, or things. 
 It was said of Greece by one of the ancient Roman 
 poets, " There's not a stone i' the land without a 
 name."* On my first arrival in the colony, shortly 
 after the close of Governor Macquarie's administration, 
 it appeared to me that a similar remark might with 
 almost equal propriety have been made of New South 
 Wales ; with this difference, however, — that in the latter 
 case the name for every thing was Macquarie. The 
 
 * Nullum sine nomine saxum. — Juvenal. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 189 
 
 Governor's weakness in this particular being easily dis- 
 covered, the calculating colonists found it their interest 
 to affix His Excellency's name to any thing he had 
 given them in the shape of landed property, as in that 
 case they were almost sure to obtain an extension of 
 their grants. A worthy colonist, with whom I was 
 sufficiently acquainted to learn the circumstance a few 
 years ago, had at one time no fewer than two farms and 
 a son — all called Macquarie. 
 
 A propensity of this kind on the part of the ruler was 
 likely to be a fruitful subject of ridicule with those who 
 were dissatisfied with his measures ; and the following 
 instance of this species of colonial humour is not unde- 
 serving of preservation. The late Dr. Townson, LL.D., 
 a gentleman of very superior literary and scientific 
 acquirements, who had published a volume of Travels in 
 Hungary, and had afterwards settled in New South 
 Wales, was on some occasion entertaining a party of 
 visitors at his residence, a few miles beyond the settle- 
 ment of Liverpool, by showing them his extensive and 
 well-stocked garden and orchard. One of the party, 
 observing an insect on one of the trees in the grounds, 
 asked the doctor, who was an eminent naturalist, what 
 its name was. The doctor replied, with the utmost 
 .gravity, " It is a species of bug that abounds in the 
 live timber of the colony : it has not yet got a name ; 
 but I propose that it should be called Cimex Macqua- 
 rianus, or the Macquarie Bug." 
 
 After a long and laborious administration of nearly 
 twelve years, Major-General Macquarie was succeeded 
 
190 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 in the government of New South Wales, on the first 
 of December, 1821, by Major- General Sir Thomas 
 Brisbane, K. C. B. He returned to his native land 
 immediately after, and died, much and justly re- 
 gretted by a large proportion of the colonists, in the 
 year 1824. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 191 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ACCOUNT OF THE STATE AND PROGRESS OF THE 
 COLONY UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF MAJOR- 
 GENERAL SIR THOMAS BRISBANE, K.C.B. 
 
 " Tanta benignitate praeditus erat, ut neminera unquam a se, nisi 
 hilarem ac spe plenum, discedere pateretur; omnia enim benigne polli- 
 cebatur, neque quicquam unquam petenti denegabat : quod si promissa 
 praestitisset, tantam tamque inauditam in principe bonitatem omnilaude, 
 praedicatione, litteris, monumentisque decorandam existimarem : sed 
 quanto gratior laudabiliorque ejus in promittendo facilitas ac liberalitas 
 videbatur, tanto acerbior turpiorque in frangenda fide vanitas atque in- 
 constantia judicabatur ; promissa enim reposcentibus solituseratrespon- 
 dere, Non memineram me alteri promisisse." — Vita Papae Leonis X., ab 
 incerto auctore rescripta. 
 
 Major-General Sir Thomas Brisbane, K.C.B. 
 was the sixth Governor of New South Wales, and 
 entered on the government of the colony on the first of 
 December, 1821. Sprung from an ancient family of 
 high standing in the west of Scotland, of approved 
 valour and ability as a general officer in the army, and 
 distinguished among military men and men of rank by 
 the fame of his scientific acquirements in the department 
 of astronomy, the appointment of Sir Thomas Brisbane 
 
192 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 to the government of New South Wales was univer- 
 sally regarded as a circumstance of the happiest omen 
 for the colony ; and the most sanguine anticipations 
 were formed of its rapid progress and general advance- 
 ment under his administration. 
 
 In these anticipations, I confess, I fully participated ; 
 and as my forefathers had resided considerably up- 
 wards of a century on a small property which had 
 originally formed part of the Brisbane estate, and 
 which they sold at last to emigrate to New South 
 Wales, it was natural that I should look forward with 
 the fondest anticipations to the benefits which I ex- 
 pected would accrue to my adopted country from the 
 government of Sir Thomas Brisbane, and that I should 
 have esteemed it the highest pleasure to have been the 
 recorder of his fame. I am reluctantly compelled to 
 acknowledge, that these anticipations were but indif- 
 ferently realized. 
 
 Sir Thomas Brisbane was a man (to use the language 
 of the world) of the very best intentions. If good 
 wishes, or even liberal promises, could have been of any 
 avail to individuals who required his assistance as the 
 Governor of a British colony, he was not the man to 
 withhold them ; but being constitutionally disinclined 
 to business, he was at the same time singularly deficient 
 of that energy of mind which was requisite to carry his 
 purposes into action ; and the consequence was, that 
 though possessing for a considerable period the delegated 
 powers of royalty, his good intentions were seldom real- 
 ized, and his promises too frequently forgotten. It 
 happened, therefore, as a matter of course, that while 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 193 
 
 overflowing with the milk of human kindness in his 
 intercourse with all, he attached few, if any, to his 
 person and government, and unhappily converted into 
 his bitterest enemies those who would otherwise have 
 been his warmest friends. In short, Sir Thomas Brisbane 
 presents an instance of that singular assemblage of ap- 
 parently inconsistent qualities of mind, which we are so 
 frequently called to witness in actual combination in the 
 anomalous history of man. Brave even to heroism on 
 the field of battle, and possessing a keen discernment in 
 the field of telescopic vision, he was nevertheless desti- 
 tute of that decision of character which is indispensably 
 necessary to ensure pre-eminence in the field of the 
 world ; and which, moreover, in so far as my own ex- 
 perience and observation extend, constitutes the rarest, 
 as it is perhaps the noblest, attribute of humanity. 
 
 I have said that Sir Thomas Brisbane had little 
 inclination for business — I mean for such business as the 
 Governor of New South Wales must make his daily 
 employment, if he would discharge his duty to His 
 Majesty or consult the welfare of His Majesty's sub- 
 jects. The government of the colony was accordingly 
 entrusted in great measure, for a considerable period 
 after his arrival in the colony, to irresponsible inferiors, 
 some of whom were as remarkable for their want of in- 
 tegrity as others for their incapacity : and the necessary 
 consequence of this unhappy arrangement was, that 
 while the general advancement of the colony was but in- 
 differently studied, arbitrary acts — acts of injustice and 
 oppression — were sometimes done, in His Excellency's 
 name and under his authority, which his own better 
 VOL. i. i 
 
194 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 feelings and better judgment would in other circum- 
 stances have disallowed. 
 
 It was in these circumstances that a despicable system 
 of espionage, which prevailed in the colony to a certain 
 extent up to the period of the present Governor's arrival, 
 and under which no honest man was safe for a moment, 
 was introduced and encouraged ; for although Sir Tho- 
 mas Brisbane would, in as far as he was personally 
 concerned, have held such an instrument of govern- 
 ment in perfect abhorrence ; those who from time to 
 time administered the government in his name had each 
 his peculiar antipathies and predilections, which were 
 diligently fostered by certain listen-and-tell-all aspirants 
 for the honour and emoluments of informer-general of 
 the colony : and, in a colony like New South Wales, 
 abounding in needy adventurers, not less bankrupt in 
 character than in fortune, the voluntary and undefinable 
 duties of an office of this kind were likely to be sedu- 
 lously discharged. 
 
 The government of Sir Thomas Brisbane will always 
 be memorable in the annals of New South Wales as the 
 era of free emigration. A few respectable families 
 of the class of free emigrants had from time to time 
 arrived in the colony, under the patronage of Govern- 
 ment, during the administration of the preceding go- 
 vernors — a free passage being given them by the 
 Government, and a grant of land on their arrival in the 
 territory, with rations for their families and servants for 
 a certain period afterwards from the King's stores. This 
 system was discontinued, however, about the year 1818; 
 Mr. Michael Henderson, a respectable free emigrant 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 195 
 
 from the south of Scotland, who arrived in the colony 
 during that year, and who is now settled on the river 
 Hunter, having been the first free emigrant who paid 
 his own passage to New South Wales. 
 
 Towards the close of Governor Macquarie's adminis- 
 tration, the capabilities of the colony became somewhat 
 better known in the mother country, and the tide of 
 emigration consequently began to set in towards its 
 shores on the arrival of Sir Thomas Brisbane, and con- 
 tinued to flow with a steadily increasing velocity during 
 the whole period of his government. The great dis- 
 tance of the colony, however, from the mother country, 
 and the consequent expense of the passage-out, almost 
 entirely precluded that class of emigrants, which chiefly 
 abounds in the British colonies of North America, 
 from emigrating to New South Wales ; and, as it was 
 chiefly persons who possessed the means of affording 
 employment to the convicts that the Government wished 
 to emigrate to that colony, grants of land in the ter- 
 ritory, duly proportioned to the amount of their real and 
 available capital, were held out by the home Govern- 
 ment to those only who could produce satisfactory cer- 
 tificates of their possessing a capital of at least £500. 
 From these circumstances, the numerous free emigrants 
 who arrived in New South Wales during the government 
 of Sir Thomas Brisbane were generally of a higher 
 standing in society than the generality of the free emi- 
 grants who have settled in the British provinces of 
 North America : some of them had been gentlemen- 
 farmers, others were the sons of respectable landholders 
 in the mother country; some of them had been unfortu- 
 
]96 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 nate in mercantile speculations, and others had just 
 saved the remains of a property which they found daily 
 diminishing at home, to form the nucleus of a better for- 
 tune abroad ; some were actuated by the spirit of ad- 
 venture, while others had been impelled to emigrate by 
 the pressure of the times. 
 
 These emigrants, according as each preferred a par- 
 ticular locality, settled, for the most part, either in the 
 pastoral country adjoining the Cow-pastures, or on the 
 open plains of Bathurst, beyond the Blue Mountains ; 
 along the thickly-wooded alluvial banks of the Hunter 
 and its two tributary rivers, or in what was then called 
 the New Country, or the district of Argyle. The general 
 extent of their grants was from five hundred to two 
 thousand acres. Rations from the King's stores were at 
 first allowed to each settler, and to a certain number of 
 convict servants proportioned to the extent of his grant, 
 for the term of six months after he had taken possession 
 of his land ; and he was also allowed a certain number 
 of cattle from the Government herds, as a loan to be 
 repaid in kind in seven years : but, in consequence of 
 the number of emigrants rapidly increasing, these in- 
 dulgences were afterwards discontinued. 
 
 The immense advantages resulting to the colony on 
 the one hand, and to the Government on the other, 
 from this influx of respectable free emigrants, during 
 the administration of Sir Thomas Brisbane, cannot be 
 better illustrated, than by contrasting the state of things 
 in regard to the prison population at the close of 
 Governor Macquarie's administration, when the tide 
 of emigration was just beginning to flow to the colony ; 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 197 
 
 with its state shortly after the commencement of General 
 Darling's, when it had been flowing steadily for several 
 successive years. 
 
 I have already shown how Governor Macquarie's 
 endeavours to transform the emancipated convicts into 
 an agricultural population generally failed of success. 
 In fact, agriculture was a sort of employment to which 
 the great majority of the convicts were decidedly averse ; 
 and the first use, therefore, which they usually made of 
 their freedom, on the expiration of their respective sen- 
 tences, was to betake themselves to the towns. From 
 this cause the agricultural population of the colony was 
 for a long period quite inadequate to supply the com- 
 munity with the means of subsistence ; insomuch, that 
 so late as twenty-five years after its first establishment, 
 recourse had repeatedly to be had to India for grain at 
 a prodigious expense to the Government. But as con- 
 victs continued to be poured into the territory every 
 year, and as employment could not possibly be found 
 for them all in the towns, Governor Macquarie was 
 tempted to form agricultural and penal settlements in 
 various parts of the territory ; as, for instance, at Emu 
 Plains, on the alluvial banks of the Nepean River, and 
 at Newcastle, at the mouth of the river Hunter ; where 
 numerous convicts were employed, on account of Govern- 
 ment, in felling timber, and in the processes of agri- 
 culture. Land was accordingly cleared to a considerable 
 extent, and buildings erected in these localities at a vast 
 expense to the British Government. But when the rapid 
 progress of the colony, from the influx of free emigrants 
 during the government of Sir Thomas Brisbane, had 
 
198 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 rendered these establishments quite unnecessary, in the 
 way of securing employment for the convicts, it was found 
 that the value of the land in their immediate vicinity 
 had been but little increased by all the labour that had 
 been expended upon it; while the buildings were of no 
 value at all, and were suffered, for the most part, to go 
 to ruin. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the great number of convicts 
 that were employed at these expensive government 
 establishments towards the close of Governor Mac- 
 quarie's administration, convict labour was so com- 
 plete a drug in the colony, on the arrival of Sir Thomas 
 Brisbane, and the colonial executive was so utterly 
 unable to find suitable employment for the constantly 
 increasing number on their hands, that any respectable 
 person who pledged himself to the Government to em- 
 ploy and to maintain twenty convict servants, could 
 immediately, and without any other recommendation 
 whatever, obtain a grant of two thousand acres of land, 
 or one hundred acres for each convict servant. My 
 late father, Mr. W. Lang, arrived in the colony as a 
 free settler in the month of January, 1824, having an 
 order for a grant of land from Earl Bathurst. On pre- 
 senting the order at the Colonial Secretary's Office, he 
 merely pledged himself to employ twenty convict ser- 
 vants, and accordingly obtained a grant of two thousand 
 acres; but in the year 1822, my younger brother, who 
 had no order from the Home Government, but merely 
 offered to maintain ten servants, on applying for a grant 
 of land, obtained a grant of one thousand acres ; while 
 other young men of the same standing and in the same 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 199 
 
 employment, but a little more politic, by merely pledging 
 themselves to maintain double the number of convicts, 
 obtained double the quantity of land. 
 
 It was soon found, however, that in consequence of 
 the continued influx of free settlers, the colonial go- 
 vernment had by no means such a number of convict 
 labourers to dispose of as they had anticipated, and 
 were consequently so far from either requiring or com- 
 pelling the grantees to fulfil their engagements by main- 
 taining the number of convicts they had respectively- 
 pledged themselves to employ, that they were even 
 unable to supply them with the number they actually 
 applied for. One government farm was therefore wisely 
 abandoned, and one penal settlement broken up after 
 another; and the numerous convicts were distributed 
 forthwith among the free settlers, who of course had 
 comparatively little difficulty in devising ways and 
 means of employing them advantageously in the culti- 
 vation and improvement of their respective farms. And 
 so steadily did the demand for convict labour increase 
 on the part of the free settlers, that during the govern- 
 ment of Lieutenant-Generai Darling there were at one 
 time applications for no fewer than two thousand convict 
 labourers lying unsatisfied in the office of the principal 
 superintendent of convicts. 
 
 I am, therefore, decidedly of opinion that Governor 
 Macquarie's procedure in discouraging free emigration 
 to New South Wales was impolitic and preposterous in 
 the extreme; and I am equally confident, that if the 
 British Government had steadily followed up the pru- 
 dent suggestions of Governor Phillip, by encouraging 
 
200 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the emigration of free persons of reputable character in 
 the earlier times of the colony, and by doing every thing 
 that was requisite to promote their comfortable settle- 
 ment throughout the territory; not only would the colony 
 have raised sufficient grain for its own consumption at a 
 much earlier period than it actually did, and thereby 
 saved the enormous expense incurred by the frequent 
 importations from India and Batavia ; but flourishing 
 agricultural settlements would have been gradually 
 formed with the utmost facility, and at little or no ex- 
 pense to Government, all over the territory ; while the 
 highly important process of converting the prison popu- 
 lation into an agricultural population would have gone 
 on progressively and successfully ; and the British Go- 
 vernment would have been saved the enormous expendi- 
 ture incurred on the government and experiment farms 
 of the colony — an expenditure, which, I am fully per- 
 suaded, has proved of as little real benefit to the colony, 
 as if the money had been thrown at once into the Pacific 
 Ocean. 
 
 But, independently of these considerations, the long- 
 continued neglect of the highly judicious recommend- 
 ation of Governor Phillip, and the impolitic procedure 
 of Governor Macquarie, have given rise to a most 
 anomalous feature in the political constitution of New 
 South Wales, which has hitherto been a fruitful source 
 of perplexity to the governors, and of disunion in the 
 colony: — I allude to the rise and influence of the eman- 
 cipist body as a separate class in the community. Had 
 a system of free emigration been duly encouraged and 
 steadily pursued from the first settlement of the colony, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 201 
 
 it would have been impossible for tbe class of emanci- 
 pated convicts to have acquired any thing like political 
 preponderance in the country. They would have been 
 subject to no political disabilities, to which they are 
 strangers at present ; they would have bought and sold, 
 and got gain as freely as they do now; and individuals 
 of their number would ever and anon have been regain- 
 ing, by the sheer force of their meritorious conduct, the 
 place in society from which they had fallen, and the 
 estimation they had lost. But their existence as a 
 separate and prominent class in the colony, — a class on 
 which political demagogues might successfully practise 
 their O'Connellish arts of agitation, on whose universal 
 suffrage they might count at all times, and on whose 
 shoulders they might raise themselves to colonial dis- 
 tinction—would never have been dreamt of. The reader 
 will doubtless perceive, that such a state of things would 
 assuredly have been much more favourable than the 
 present, to the peace and good government and general 
 advancement of the colony; nay, much more conducive 
 to the ultimate reformation of its convict, and emanci- 
 pated convict, population. 
 
 In the more recently established penal colony of Van 
 Dieman's Land, this better order of things has been 
 happily realised. The emancipists of that colony are 
 never heard of as a separate and influential body. 
 Why ? Not, certainly, because there are no such per- 
 sons, or because they are subject to political dis- 
 abilities unknown in New South Wales; but, simply 
 because there has been a greater influx of free emi- 
 grants into that colony, in proportion to its size, than 
 
202 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 into New South Wales ; and because the great majority 
 of these emigrants arrived at a much earlier period in 
 its history as a colony, than the corresponding era of 
 free emigration to New South Wales ; and last, though 
 not least, because there was no Governor Macquarie to 
 disturb the natural order of things that ensued by 
 casting his military sword and belt into the emancipist 
 scale. 
 
 In Great Britain and the other states of Europe, the 
 regulations of Government respecting the currency and 
 the provisioning of the forces can only have a very 
 distant and indirect bearing on the general prosperity of 
 the country, and can have no perceptible influence 
 on the national morality : in the small community of 
 New South Wales, however, the case was so very differ- 
 ent during the administration of Sir Thomas Brisbane, 
 that two injudicious measures of government, relative 
 to the currency and the supply of the King's stores, 
 had a most unfavourable bearing on the general ad- 
 vancement of the colony, and on one of the grand 
 objects of its original settlement — the reformation of 
 the convict population. 
 
 Previous to the period I allude to, the King's stores 
 had generally been open to the small settlers for the 
 reception of wheat at the rate of ten shillings a bushel, 
 and all business in the way of sale or purchase had been 
 transacted in sterling money. During the prevalence 
 of this system, the small settlers, or emancipated con- 
 victs, whom Governor Macquarie had succeeded in 
 settling in various parts of the territory on farms of 
 thirty, forty, fifty, or a hundred acres each, were in the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 203 
 
 habit of purchasing their supplies of tea, sugar, clothing, 
 rum, &c, from the Sydney merchants, and paying for 
 them with the receipts they got from the commissariat 
 officer in charge of His Majesty's stores for wheat 
 supplied to Government at the usual rate. And it 
 is not to be wondered at, that many persons, who had 
 originally commenced their agricultural operations in 
 a state of absolute poverty, and were only beginning 
 to acquire those habits of economy which are usually 
 found among the lower classes in other countries, should 
 in such circumstances be indebted for the most part to 
 these merchants, or should generally have received the 
 value of their harvest before that harvest was reaped. 
 In fact, nine-tenths of the small settlers were in debt at 
 the time I allude to ; and they had nothing but their 
 crops, and the continuance of the system 1 have men- 
 tioned, to look to for the payment of their creditors. 
 
 In such circumstances it will appear evident to the 
 reader, that any sudden or violent interference with the 
 currency of the country, or with the mode so long 
 adopted for the supply of His Majesty's stores, must 
 have been fraught with ruin and desolation and moral 
 debasement to the lower classes of the colony. Sir 
 Thomas Brisbane was induced, however, at the recom- 
 mendation of W. Wemyss, Esq., Deputy Commis- 
 sary-General, and of Major Goulburn, Colonial Secre- 
 tary, suddenly to change the circulating medium from 
 sterling to a colonial currency, on the plea of effecting a 
 great saving to the British Government by establishing 
 a high premium on Treasury bills ; and the immediate 
 effect of the measure was to raise the pound sterling 
 
204 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 twenty-five per cent above the pound currency. Be- 
 sides, as Mr. Commissioner Bigge, who had been 
 appointed to examine into the state of the colony 
 during the government of Major-General Macquarie, 
 had recommended to His Majesty's Government to 
 adopt the system of tenders instead of the one in use 
 in the colony, for the supply of the King's stores, but 
 had also recommended the propriety of receiving into 
 the stores as much superfluous grain as possible, that 
 there might always be a supply in the event of drought 
 or inundation ; the rulers of the colony at the period in 
 question adopted the one part of his advice, but neg- 
 lected the other — apprising the public that in future all 
 the supplies required for the Government should be 
 furnished by tender ; but that no grain, &c. should be 
 received at any one time beyond the quantity required 
 for the next ensuing quarter. 
 
 I arrived in the colony in the month of May, 1823, 
 just in time to witness the impolicy of these measures, 
 in the utter disappointment of their authors in regard to 
 the contemplated saving to Government, as well as their 
 truly lamentable and demoralizing effect on the lower 
 classes of the colonial population. The harvest of that 
 year was scanty, but withal sufficient for the colony if it 
 had been duly husbanded : but in consequence of the 
 operation of the tender system, the limited quantity of 
 grain which it was known would be received by Govern- 
 ment, and the eagerness of the small settlers to get their 
 harvest disposed of to answer the pressing demands of 
 their creditors, and to procure additional supplies, wheat, 
 which had generally been sold before at from 7s. 6d. to 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 205 
 
 10s. sterling, was offered to Government at 3s. 9d. cur- 
 rency a bushel. This remarkable circumstance natu- 
 rally deluded the colonists into the belief that the 
 country was overflowing with grain, and a great quantity 
 was consequently wasted, as is usually the case in such 
 circumstances ; and much was even given to the swine by 
 those of the settlers who were not compelled to sell, and 
 who had more grain than they required for their own con- 
 sumption. The result was, that as the season advanced, 
 the mistake was discovered when it was too late to rectify 
 it, and when the colony began to be threatened with the 
 miseries of famine. In short, wheat rose to £\. 4s. a 
 bushel in the course of the season ; and as nobody had 
 any to tender the Government, the latter were obliged 
 to adopt whatever ways and means they could devise to 
 procure it. One of these had a very singular issue. A 
 vessel was chartered by Government, on the recom- 
 mendation of the officer in charge of the commissariat, 
 and sent to Batavia for rice, wheat, &c. On her arrival 
 in Sydney harbour, some of the colonial merchants, 
 jealous of the interference of Government with their pe- 
 culiar department as traders and importers for the colony, 
 gave information against the vessel to the captain of a 
 King's ship then lying in the harbour, who seized her in 
 open defiance of the Colonial Government, and carried 
 her off as a prize with all her cargo to India, on the 
 ground of her alleged violation of the East India Com- 
 pany's charter in carrying tea, of which she had a small 
 quantity on board for some of the Government officers, 
 without a license. 
 
 This, however, was not the worst effect of the measure 
 
206 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 in question. The debts of the small settlers had all been 
 contracted in sterling, and the price they received for 
 their wheat, which was sold at the low rate I have already 
 mentioned, was in currency : they were therefore to- 
 tally unable to meet the demand of their rapacious and 
 unfeeling creditors, and their farms were consequently 
 seized and sold, frequently at one-fourth of their value. 
 A magistrate of the territory pointed out to me a small 
 but very valuable farm in the vicinity of his own estate in 
 the year 1826, which at the time I allude to had belonged 
 to an emancipated convict settler, who had reared a 
 large family on the land, and who bore a fair character in 
 the neighbourhood as an industrious man. At the time 
 in question the settler owed a merchant in Sydney, for 
 goods which had been supplied to him on credit, at from 
 fifty to one hundred per cent above the price for which the 
 same description of goods could have been purchased for 
 ready money, about £140. It was understood when the 
 debt was contracted that it should be discharged imme- 
 diately after the harvest of 1823; but the injudicious 
 changes, which the Government had so violently and in- 
 considerately effected in the currency of the country and 
 the mode of supplying the King's stores, rendered the 
 fulfilment of that agreement, on the part of the poor set- 
 tler, utterly impracticable. The creditor, however, was 
 urgent in his demands; and the poor man, having no al- 
 ternative, transferred to him all his own right and title to 
 the farm for the discharge of a debt which a single har- 
 vest would in happier circumstances have enabled him to 
 cancel. At the time the farm was pointed out to me, in 
 the beginning of the year 1826, it was let to its former 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 207 
 
 proprietor for £70 per annum ; but the unfortunate man 
 had been reduced in the mean time from the respectable 
 standing of an independent landholder to the rank of a 
 day-labourer or a tenant-at-will. In this very disre- 
 putable manner, large estates were acquired on the one 
 hand by those who were unfeeling enough to take advan- 
 tage of the times ; and numerous families, that had been 
 gradually but slowly acquiring habits of industry and 
 economy, became reckless and debased on the other, in 
 proportion as they saw ruin staring them in the face. In 
 short, at the period I allude to, the colony of New South 
 Wales was evidently in that sickly state, in regard to the 
 general character of the lower orders of its free popu- 
 lation, which peculiarly called for the delicate treatuient 
 of an able and judicious physician. Unfortunately, how- 
 ever, it seemed to have fallen into the hands of unskilful 
 apothecaries, who drenched it with horse-medicines, of 
 such strength and in such quantity, that the patient 
 almost expired in their hands. 
 
 I trust the reader will not suppose, from the pre- 
 ceding details, that I profess to have any skill in matters 
 of finance. Whether the measure adopted by Sir Tho- 
 mas Brisbane, in changing the circulating medium from 
 sterling to currency, was a good measure or not in a 
 financial point of view, I do not pretend to determine ; 
 but as it was disapproved of by His Majesty's Govern- 
 ment, and as the system previously in operation was re- 
 stored by orders from home under the government of his 
 successor, I presume it was not. All I contend for is, that 
 in the peculiar circumstances of the colony, its sudden 
 adoption was injudicious in the highest degree, inasmuch 
 
208 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 as it was fraught with ruin and moral debasement to a 
 very considerable portion of its emancipated convict 
 population. 
 
 The reader will also observe that I do not presume to 
 question the propriety of the change that was effected 
 by Government, in the system of purchasing grain from 
 the colonists for the supply of the King's stores : the 
 extension of the colony rendered that change highly ex- 
 pedient, and the system recommended by Mr. Bigge is 
 now in general and beneficial operation. All I contend 
 for is, that the violence with which that change was 
 effected by Sir Thomas Brisbane was fraught in a very 
 high degree with ruin and moral degradation to many 
 hopeful families throughout the territory. On the 
 voyage from New South Wales to England, the mercury 
 in the thermometer frequently stands in the high 
 southern latitudes as low as eight or ten degrees below 
 the freezing point ; while it rises within the tropics, 
 perhaps in the course of a fortnight after, as high as 
 ninety degrees. The health of the voyagers, however, 
 is but little affected in either of these temperatures, be- 
 cause the transition is effected gradually ; whereas, were 
 that transition immediate, fatal effects would in all pro- 
 bability ensue. 
 
 After the statements I have made relative to the prin- 
 ciples and the acts of Sir Thomas Brisbane's adminis- 
 tration, it will not excite much surprise that his govern- 
 ment should have been exceedingly unpopular in the 
 colony. In short, he was universally spoken against ; 
 but, what was of much more consequence, he was writ- 
 ten against, I believe, by individuals who had the mean- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 209 
 
 ness to commend his measures in his own presence, and 
 who, it may be, had but slight reason to congratulate 
 themselves on the change that ensued. He was accord- 
 ingly relieved by orders from home ; and he left the 
 colony in displeasure, previous to the arrival of his suc- 
 cessor, on the 1st of December, 1825, at the close of the 
 fourth year of his government. 
 
 Before he left the colony, however, he was fortunate 
 enough, in the estimation of many of the colonists, to 
 cover a multitude of his political errors, and to acquire 
 a lasting accession to his colonial fame. In direct oppo- 
 sition to the maxims of Governor Macquarie's adminis- 
 tration, Sir Thomas Brisbane had, for nearly four years, 
 uniformly looked askaunce at the whole body of eman- 
 cipists : but, just before he left the colony, it was 
 understood that he would accept of an invitation to dine 
 with the elite of that body ; and he was accordingly in- 
 vited, and accordingly dined with them. Holding as I 
 do, that it is influential individuals among the originally 
 free population of New South. Wales who have all along 
 been the most unmindful of their duty, and the most 
 highly culpable of the inhabitants of that colony, it will 
 not be supposed that I would visit Sir Thomas Bris- 
 bane with censure for any act of his government, the 
 obvious tendency of which was to conciliate and en- 
 courage deserving individuals of the class of emanci- 
 pists : still, however, as the act in question was de- 
 cidedly an act of censure passed by himself on the whole 
 tenor of his previous administration, it was rather un- 
 fortunate that there was also some reason to regard it 
 as a mere ruse de guerre to attain popularity, when it 
 
210 HISTOEICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 was no longer attainable in a less equivocal way. I am 
 truly happy to be enabled to testify, that, during my 
 own residence in the colony, I have found many indi- 
 viduals of the class of emancipists who have really re- 
 turned to those paths of virtue from which they had 
 unhappily swerved in earlier life, and become exemplary 
 husbands and exemplary wives, and reared highly in- 
 teresting and promising children. Such individuals de- 
 serve every encouragement, and it is the duty of every 
 governor and of every respectable inhabitant of the 
 colony to conciliate and encourage them to the utmost 
 of their power. At the same time, it cannot be denied 
 that individuals of this character do not constitute the 
 majority of those who either could or would invite the 
 Governor to dinner. 
 
 Besides, there was a moral signifTcancy in this act of 
 the Governor's, which rendered it of far more import- 
 ance in a political light than he was perhaps aware. 
 The rapid progress of the colony, during the eleven 
 years that have now elapsed since the close of Sir 
 Thomas Brisbane's administration, has enabled many 
 reputable individuals of the class of emancipists to 
 acquire considerable property in the colony, in a fair 
 and creditable and unexceptionable way : but the 
 great majority of those of that class, who had acquired 
 wealth in the colony at the period in question, had 
 done so by the sale of rum and the practice of enormous 
 extortion, by grinding the faces of their poorer bre- 
 thren, and by getting possession of their property 
 through oppressive and iniquitous law-suits. In such 
 circumstances, it was the bounden duty of Sir Thomas 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 211 
 
 Brisbane to consider beforehand, whether an act of his, 
 in his capacity of Governor, which should proclaim to 
 the world that individuals who had become wealthy by 
 such processes as these were in every respect reputable 
 men, and fit associates for His Majesty's representative, 
 would not be tantamount to an authoritative lowering 
 of the standard of morals throughout the territory. 
 
 Had Sir Thomas Brisbane deemed it accordant with his 
 public duty, as the Governor of New South Wales, to 
 testify his ardent desire to encourage virtuous conduct 
 on the part of the emancipists, by honouring any of 
 their number with his presence at dinner, how much 
 better would it not have been to have invited to Go- 
 vernment House a few of those who had established an 
 unblemished reputation in the colony, both in their 
 public and their private relations ! An act of this kind 
 would have been full of meaning, and that meaning 
 would have been generally understood and fully appre- 
 ciated ; for it would doubtless have operated as a strong 
 incentive to virtuous conduct throughout the territory : 
 and if Sir Thomas Brisbane had been visited for such 
 an act of vice-regal condescension with the censure of 
 little men, either in England or in New South Wales, 
 he could have met their contemptuous sneers with the 
 silent and indignant scorn of a high-minded and vir- 
 tuous man. But to identify himself publicly with cer- 
 tain of the veriest blood-suckers in the colony, under 
 colour of testifying his good feeling towards the gene- 
 ral body of the emancipists, was certainly a compro- 
 mising of his own reputation, while it was the worst 
 step he could possibly have taken for the really meri- 
 
212 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 torious portion of the body he professed to patronize, 
 as it virtually sanctified the oppression under which 
 they had groaned so long, on the part of individuals of 
 the same class and of the same origin with themselves. 
 
 I should not have taken such particular notice of this 
 act of Sir Thomas Brisbane's administration, had it stood 
 solitary and unconnected with any thing remarkable in 
 the subsequent history of the colony : but, insignificant 
 as it may seem in itself, I have reason to believe that it 
 had a most important bearing on the subsequent poli- 
 tical state and condition of New South Wales ; and for 
 this reason I conceive it especially deserves note and 
 comment ; while other acts of apparently much greater 
 importance, but which had no particular influence on 
 the general state of the colony, may be allowed to pass 
 in silence. 
 
 I happened to be absent on a voyage to England 
 during the last fifteen months of Sir Thomas Brisbane's 
 administration ; but on returning to the colony, a few 
 weeks after he had sailed for England, I was inci- 
 dentally shown a copy of a document which had just 
 been forwarded for the inspection of Earl Bathurst, His 
 Majesty's principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
 by certain of the leaders of the exclusionist party, as a 
 set-off against the addresses which the Governor had 
 received from the emancipists and their friends on 
 leaving the colony. It was what the French would call 
 a Catalogue Raisonnee of the emancipists whom His 
 Excellency had honoured with his presence at the public 
 dinner ; and it not only described their rise and progress 
 in the colony, but raked up the ashes of crimes com- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 2J3 
 
 mitted in England, of which the memory was probably- 
 supposed to have been long since buried in oblivion. I 
 could not help regarding with a strong feeling of repro- 
 bation the superlatively evil spirit which this precious 
 document evinced, while at the same time I could not 
 help admiring the consummate artifice with which it 
 was concocted. It accompanied a petition to Earl 
 Bathurst, thanking his Lordship for granting the colony 
 a Legislative Council, and praying for the appointment 
 of a few additional members to that body, which, it 
 was doubless presumed, would consist of thorough-bred 
 exclusionists — men whose information is generally as 
 limited hi regard to the real interests of the colony as 
 their views are selfish and illiberal. Such a petition, 
 with such an accompaniment, could not fail to be well 
 received at head-quarters in the year 1S26; and the 
 more general petition fur a House of Assembly, which 
 had been got up chiefly by the emancipists and their 
 friends, and which Sir Thomas Brisbane had en^a^ed 
 to recommend, was consequently treated with derision. 
 
 General Darling is well known to have kept himself 
 at a great distance from the whole body of the emanci- 
 pists during the entire course of his government, and to 
 have strongly discouraged every effort on the part of 
 the colonists to obtain a House of Assembly. How far 
 he acted in these respects agreeably to instructions from 
 home, I am not prepared to say ; but as he was doubt- 
 less favoured with a copy of the document I have just 
 described on his arrival in the colony, there is reason to 
 believe that his throwing himself at once into the hands 
 of the exclusionists, and thereby adopting a line of 
 
214 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 policy, the very reverse of the one of which his prede- 
 cessor had just left him an example, arose in great 
 measure from an indistinct apprehension that he should 
 otherwise have incurred the ridicule of wise and honour- 
 able men. A man who both knew his duty and could 
 fearlessly perform it, whatever the world chose to think 
 or say of him, would doubtless have been superior to 
 such considerations ; but General Darling's well-known 
 feverish sensitiveness in regard to the public press, 
 clearly shows that he was subject to influences of this 
 kind in no ordinary degree. 
 
 But there was a worse feature in this concluding act 
 of Sir Thomas Brisbane's administration than any I 
 have yet noticed. Shortly before his departure, he had 
 been invited to a parting dinner by a deputation from 
 the respectable free emigrant inhabitants of the colony : 
 of this invitation he at once expressed his entire 
 willingness to accept, provided that certain of the lead- 
 ing emancipists should also be invited. The deputation, 
 however, having no previous authority to accept any 
 such conditions, requested permission to consult their 
 constituents on the subject ; and the result of that con- 
 sultation was, that the honour of Sir Thomas Brisbane's 
 presence should, on such conditions, be respectfully 
 declined. A public dinner is the usual recipe of all 
 unskilful speculators on the chemical affinities of dif- 
 ferent classes of men ; and Sir Thomas Brisbane was 
 doubtless induced, as Governor Macquarie had been 
 before him, to believe that by that notable expedient he 
 could unite together in one beautiful harmonious whole 
 the heterogeneous and discordant materials of which 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 215 
 
 Australian society is composed. But in assuming a 
 right to dictate to reputable men as to who should be 
 invited to their company or society, Sir Thomas Bris- 
 bane was carrying his viceregal prerogative a step 
 farther than even Governor Macquarie had done, and 
 was making effectual provision for the perpetuation and 
 exasperation of those evil feelings which he was vainly 
 professing to allay. 
 
 Governor Macquarie had not only invited to his 
 table individuals of the class of emancipists on certain 
 public occasions, when the officers of the regiments 
 then stationed in the colony, to whom these individuals 
 were peculiarly obnoxious, were bound to be present ; 
 but had even got them privately invited by the com- 
 manding officer to the regimental mess-dinners, on oc- 
 casions when Governor Macquarie dined with the regi- 
 ments, without the knowledge or concurrence of the 
 majority of the officers. But these injudicious attempts 
 at amalgamation uniformly produced effects the very 
 opposite to those intended ; and it is only remarkable, 
 that after they had been strongly and decorously repro- 
 bated by the Commissioner of Inquiry, in his printed Re- 
 port to the House of Commons, they should have been re- 
 peated so very shortly after by Sir Thomas Brisbane. 
 
 The following are the judicious remarks of Mr. 
 Commissioner Bigge, to which I allude :— 
 
 " The influence of the Governor's example should he limited to those 
 occasions alone, when his notice of the emancipated convicts cannot 
 give offence to the feelings of others, or to persons whose objections to 
 associate with them are known. The introduction of them on public 
 occasions should in my opinion be discontinued ; and when it is known 
 that they have been so far noticed by the Governor of New South 
 
^16 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Wales, as to be admitted to his private table and society, the benefit of 
 the Governor's example may be expected to operate ; and it will also be 
 exempt from the fatal suspicion of any exercise of his authority." 
 
 There was a Turf-Club established under the auspices 
 of Sir Thomas Brisbane shortly before his leaving the 
 colony, ostensibly for the improvement of the breed of 
 horses, but in reality for the periodical exhibition of 
 horse-races. I am not singular in supposing that this 
 institution was not likely to be of much service to the 
 colony, even in the way of improving the breed of 
 horses ; for the horse likely to be generally useful for 
 agricultural purposes, i. e. the horse chiefly required in 
 the colony, is surely not the race-horse. To this view 
 of the matter, however, I attach no importance. Sir 
 Thomas Brisbane, doubtless, thought the Club would 
 be useful in the way I have mentioned, and accordingly 
 took it under his special patronage, and set apart funds 
 for the purchase of a silver cup, to be called The Bris- 
 bane Cup, and to be run for under its management. 
 
 There are sentimentalists in New South Wales, as 
 there are in the mother country, whose tender hearts, 
 forsooth, overflow with compassion for the poor horses on 
 such occasions : I confess I have no such mawkish 
 feeling. If the race-horse is made for running, as he 
 evidently is — why, let him run by all means. But 
 there are real and not imaginary evils of a different 
 kind, and of prodigious magnitude, necessarily con- 
 nected with all such exhibitions, in a colony so pecu- 
 liarly constituted as that of New South Wales — evils, 
 which the Governor of that colony should have fore- 
 seen on such an occasion as the formation of a Turf- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 217 
 
 Club, and against the occurrence of which he ought 
 carefully to have provided by very different means from 
 those which Sir Thomas Brisbane adopted. For the 
 races of New South Wales are not merely the signal 
 for " the periodical assemblage of all the wealth and 
 beauty of the colony," (to use the appropriate phrase,) 
 but the signal for the periodical assemblage and con- 
 centration of all its vice and villany, and for the con- 
 sequent recurrence of scenes of gambling, and drunken- 
 ness, and dissipation, which it is unnecessary to de- 
 scribe. A judicious Governor of that colony would 
 therefore, I conceive, have hesitated ere he patronized 
 and encouraged an association, the certain tendency of 
 which was to deteriorate and to debase the breed of 
 men, notwithstanding its holding forth the chance of 
 improving the breed of horses : for although it often 
 happens in New South Wales, as it does sometimes in 
 England, that the horse is by far the nobler animal 
 of the two, he is not the one who is capable of the 
 highest improvement, or whom it is of the greatest con- 
 sequence to society to improve ; he is not the one who 
 was originally made bat a little lower than the angels, 
 and who, notwithstanding his present debasement, may 
 yet be enabled to re-ascend to that height of glory 
 from which he fell. 
 
 There had been occasional races in the colony during 
 the government of Major-General Macquarie ; but the 
 organization of a regular system of yearly or half- 
 yearly races all over the territory dates from the ad- 
 ministration of Sir Thomas Brisbane. There are the 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
218 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Sydney and the Parramatta races, as distinct as those 
 of Epsom and Doncaster, although the towns are only 
 fourteen miles distant from each other. There are the 
 Windsor races for the dwellers on the Hawkesbury, and 
 the Liverpool and the Campbelltown races for the 
 inhabitants of these minor colonial towns and their 
 adjoining vicinities. There are races at Maitland and 
 Patrick's Plains, two different stations on Hunter's 
 River ; at Illawarra on the coast ; at Bathurst, beyond 
 the Blue Mountains ; and at Goulburn Plains, two hun- 
 dred miles from Sydney, in the district of Argyle. In 
 short, the march of improvement is much too weak a 
 phrase for the meridian of New South Wales : we 
 must there speak of the race of improvement ; for the 
 three appropriate and never-failing accompaniments of 
 advancing civilization in that colony are a race-course, 
 a public-house, and a jail. 
 
 The colonial publicans are, for obvious reasons, ex- 
 tremely active in getting up races wherever they fix 
 themselves. I was travelling on one occasion to a dis- 
 tant district in the interior, and took a place on the top 
 of one of the colonial coaches, as far as it went in the 
 direction in which I was about to proceed on horse- 
 back for the remainder of the journey. I was seated 
 behind the driver, who had a well-dressed person along- 
 side of him on the box, from whose loud and voluble 
 conversation I soon learned that he was a free emigrant 
 Englishman, recently arrived in the colony, who had 
 just taken a public-house at a short distance from the 
 town towards which we were travelling. There was a 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 219 
 
 large open field adjoining the house, which, it naturally 
 occurred to him, was admirably adapted for a race- 
 course, and he had accordingly proposed the matter to 
 the nearest racing-club, who it seems were just looking 
 out for such a thing, offering them free stabling for 
 their 'osses, provided they made the race-course on the 
 field in question. Besides, I was enabled to learn that 
 he had a skittle-ground on his premises for people to 
 amuse themselves of a Sunday, — and it had this pecu- 
 liar recommendation ; that it was " out o' sight of your 
 church-going people, who mightn't like much to see 
 such a thing on their way to prayers." 
 
 It is peculiarly unfortunate for the real welfare of the 
 colony, that gentlemen of the first rank in its limited 
 society should condescend to league themselves in this 
 manner with the veriest publicans and sinners to demo- 
 ralize and to ruin the colony. The race of fools and 
 spendthrifts is happily neither numerous nor influential in 
 the mother country, and may therefore be left, with per- 
 fect safety, to the nation at large, to pursue their proper 
 course of extravagance and folly ; but, utterly un- 
 furnished, as they have hitherto been unhappily left, 
 with the good principles that are elsewhere derived from 
 a manly education, it is natural for the native youth of 
 the colony of New South Wales to look up to the free 
 emigrant gentlemen of the territory, and to follow their 
 example ; and when they see the latter busily employed 
 in training up race-horses and betting lustily on their 
 performances, perspiring at a cricket-match, or huzzaing 
 at a regatta ; what can they possibly suppose, but that 
 
220 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 such puerile and contemptible employments are fit for 
 men ? # 
 
 Let the reader turn over a file of colonial newspapers 
 for the last few years, and he will accordingly find 
 them stuffed, almost to nausea, with advertisements and 
 accounts of races, cricket-matches, boxing-matches, and 
 regattas ; with challenges to fight, to run, or to row, 
 addressed by one obscure candidate for notoriety to 
 another ; and with lengthy descriptions of contests 
 either by land or by water, between the colonial youth 
 and natives of England, or, to use the phrase of the 
 colony, between currency and sterling. In short, the 
 energy of the native mind of the colony seems of late to 
 have been diverted almost exclusively into this frivolous 
 channel, and the circumstance is owing entirely to the 
 highly influential but pernicious example of those who 
 
 * " Horse-racing," observes the late Rev. Dr. Dwight, President of 
 Yale College in America, " has for a long period been a favourite pur- 
 suit. This gross amusement turns polished men into clowns, and clowns 
 into brutes."— Dwight's Travels, vol. in. p. 56. 
 
 " Some farrier should prescribe his proper course, 
 Whose only fit companion is his horse ; 
 Or if, deserving of a better doom, 
 Tbe noble beast judge otherwise,— his groom. 
 If neither horse nor groom affect the squire, 
 Where can at last his jockeyship retire 1 
 O, to the club, the scene of savage joys, 
 The school of coarse good-fellowship and noise. 
 There, in the sweet society of those 
 Whose friendship from his boyish years he chose, 
 Let him improve his talent if he can, 
 Till none but beasts acknowledge him a man." 
 
 Cowper. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 221 
 
 ought to have taught them better things. If such em- 
 ployments were merely frivolous, they might well be 
 tolerated ; but the course to which they almost inevitably 
 lead is a course of gambling and dissipation, ruinous to 
 the morals of the country, and of course destructive of 
 its general prosperity. 
 
 Arriving, therefore, in New South Wales with all the 
 recollections of my boyhood — the time when returning 
 from the parish school in the north of Ayrshire, I was 
 proud to be noticed by Sir Thomas Brisbane, and to be 
 asked the meaning of some line in Virgil or Ovid — I 
 could not help wishing from the very bottom of my 
 heart, that His Excellency's name might be associated 
 in every future age with the intellectual and the moral 
 advancement of my adopted country. Alas ! the hopes 
 I had formed were crowned with disappointment ; for 
 when I ask, What Sir Thomas Brisbane did for Neio 
 South Wales; I pause in vain for a reply. 
 
 During the government of Sir Thomas Brisbane, con- 
 siderable progress was made in the way of discovery in 
 the interior. In the year 1819, a large river flowing 
 inland, like the Lachlan and Macquarie rivers beyond 
 the Blue Mountains, and called by the black natives 
 the Morumbidgee, had been discovered in the coun- 
 try to the southward and westward, generally known as 
 the New Country, or Argyle ; and in the year 1823, 
 Captain Currie, R. N., in the course of an expedition to 
 the southward, discovered an extensive tract of undu- 
 lating country, naturally clear of timber, and watered 
 by the Morumbidgee, at a point much nearer to its 
 source than had previously been reached by any Euro- 
 
222 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 pean. In honour of the Governor, this valuable tract of 
 new-found land was named by its discoverer " Brisbane 
 Downs," but it has since been much more generally 
 known by its native name of Monaroo, or Maneira 
 Plains. It has since been ascertained to extend from 
 the Great Warragong Chain, the Snowy Mountains, or 
 Australian Alps of the present colonists, in the 149th 
 degree of east longitude, to the mountain range which 
 runs parallel to the east coast, and from the present 
 limits of the colony to Bass's Straits. Maneira Plains, 
 which are at least from two to three thousand feet 
 above the level of the sea, and of which the climate in 
 winter is exceedingly cold, are now occupied by a 
 daily increasing multitude of colonial squatters, having 
 each herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, as numerous as 
 the flocks and herds of the patriarch Job. 
 
 In the following year, Messrs. Hovell and Hume, the 
 former a retired ship-master, who has been for many 
 years a respectable settler in the colony, and the latter 
 a highly enterprising native of New South Wales, 
 undertook a journey, chiefly at their own charges, from 
 Lake George, in the county of i\rgyle, to Bass's Straits. 
 The following is a brief sketch of the course and results 
 of that interesting journey, from the pen of Allan Cun- 
 ningham, Esq. :-— 
 
 " Our travellers took their departure from a stock 
 station near Lake George, with the intention of pur- 
 suing a direct course to the south-west : finding this 
 impracticable, however, from the broken and moun- 
 tainous character of the country, they stood consider- 
 ably to the westward. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 223 
 
 " Having passed to the westward of the meridian of 
 148°, they found no farther impediments in their route 
 to the south-west, having broadly on their left hand, or 
 a little to the eastward of them, the great Warragong 
 Chain. In latitude 36° the party crossed a river, which 
 derived its source from those snow-clad mountains, and 
 was flowing with considerable rapidity among the hills 
 towards the north-west. To that stream, which, in conse- 
 quence of its depth and width (exceeding one hundred 
 yards), they had some difficulty in passing, they gave 
 the name of ' Hume/ Their journey was now con- 
 ducted through a fine, open, thinly-timbered country ; 
 its surface was, for the most part, hilly, or moderately 
 undulated ; and occasionally, to diversify the scene, 
 there broke upon the view a patch of plain, without a 
 tree, but abundantly clothed with a grassy vegetation. 
 This pastoral country was found, even in the summer 
 months, well watered by streamlets from the hills 
 around ; the waters of which, collecting, had formed a 
 second river, to which our travellers gave the name of 
 the l Ovens,' upon fording it in latitude 36° 40'. This 
 was described as being of less magnitude than the 
 Hume ; but its stream was of equal velocity ; and the 
 direction given it by a break in the hills, and the ap- 
 parent inclination of the country, was also to the north- 
 west ; in which bearing, wherever a commanding position 
 on the hills afforded the party a view, a declining 
 wooded country was observed, with scarcely a single 
 elevation. 
 
 " Southerly, the land continued equally good, but, 
 rising in altitude, presented a more broken, irregular 
 
224 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 surface to our travellers, who, however, patiently sur- 
 mounting the difficulties which lay in their way, at 
 length came to a third stream, to which they gave the 
 name of ' Goulburn.' This river, which was formed by 
 a junction of several streamlets which came from the 
 hills to the eastward, ran southerly in the direction of 
 the course pursued by the expedition as far as latitude 
 37°, when it also took a decided bend towards the 
 north-west. 
 
 " The exploring party now passed the meridian of 
 146°, and beheld before them the coast-range of hills. 
 This proved to them a source of no small encourage- 
 ment to continue their journey, for they had begun to 
 despair of reaching the sea-coast, in consequence of the 
 exhausted condition of their burdened beasts, and of the 
 loss which they had sustained in their stock of provi- 
 sions, by accidents and the great heat of the weather. 
 A beautiful country, however, appeared before them ; and 
 as it exhibited an alternation of plain and woodland of 
 like interest, as affording an unlimited range of sheep 
 and cattle pasture, they had the more inducement to 
 pursue their route to the southward cheerfully; and this 
 they did, until at length they reached salt-water and a 
 sandy shore," viz. at Port Phillip, in Bass's Straits.* 
 
 In the year 1825, Mr. Cunningham discovered a 
 practicable pass, which he named Pandora's Pass, from 
 the upper part of the district of Hunter's River into 
 Liverpool Plains, an extensive pastoral country to the 
 
 * " Brief View of the Progress of Interior Discovery in New South 
 Wales, by Allan Cunningham, Es<}." — Journal of the Royal Geogra- 
 phical Society, vol. n. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 225 
 
 northward and westward, previously discovered by Mr. 
 Oxley ; and also ascertained the limits of the plains to 
 the westward and northward. These plains are now 
 occupied by numerous colonial squatters with their 
 numerous flocks and herds. 
 
 But the most important discovery effected during the 
 government of Sir Thomas Brisbane was that of a 
 large navigable river in the extensive bight on the east 
 coast, called Moreton Bay, of which the general outline 
 had been laid down by Captain Cook, and which was 
 afterwards partially surveyed by Captain Flinders. In 
 consequence of the recommendation of Mr. Commis- 
 sioner Bigge, that a new penal settlement should be 
 formed either at Port Bowen, Port Curtis, or Moreton 
 Bay, to the northward of Port Jackson, and of orders 
 to that effect from Earl Bathurst, the late Mr. Oxley, 
 who was then Surveyor-General of New South Wales, 
 was directed by Sir Thomas Brisbane to proceed to 
 Port Bowen in the year 1823, to fix on a proper site 
 for the proposed settlement, and to examine Moreton 
 Bay on his voyage thither. Mr. Oxley accordingly 
 embarked at Sydney, in the month of October, 1823 ; 
 and the following is the account he gives of his unex- 
 pected and important discovery : — 
 
 " I sailed from this port (Sydney) in His Majesty's 
 cutter Mermaid, on the 23rd of October, 1823 ; and 
 early on the 2nd day of December following, when 
 examining Moreton Bay, we had the satisfaction to 
 find the tide sweeping us up a considerable inlet be- 
 tween the first mangrove island and the main-land. 
 The muddiness and taste of the water, together with 
 
226 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the abundance of fresh-water molluscse, assured us we 
 were entering a large river ; and a few hours ended our 
 anxiety on that point, by the water becoming perfectly 
 fresh, while no diminution had taken place in the size 
 of the river after passing what I called Sea Reach. 
 
 " Our progress up the river was necessarily retarded 
 by the necessity we were under of making a running 
 survey during our passage. At sunset we had pro- 
 ceeded about twenty miles by the river. The scenery 
 was peculiarly beautiful ; the country along the banks 
 alternately hilly and level, but not flooded ; the soil of 
 the finest description of brushwood-land, on which grew 
 timber of great magnitude and of various species, some 
 of which were unknown to us. Among others, a mag- 
 nificent species of pine was in great abundance. The 
 timber on the hills was also good ; and to the south- 
 east, a little distance from the river, were several 
 brushes or forests of the cupressas australis, of a very 
 large size. 
 
 u Up to this point the river was navigable for vessels 
 not drawing more than sixteen feet water. The tide 
 rose about five feet, being the same as at the entrance. 
 The next day the examination was resumed, and with 
 increased satisfaction. We proceeded about thirty 
 miles farther, no diminution having taken place either 
 in the breadth or depth of the river, excepting in one 
 place for the extent of about thirty yards, where a 
 ridge of detached rocks extended across, having not 
 more than twelve feet on them at high water. From 
 this point to Termination Hill, the river continued of 
 nearly uniform size. The country on either side is of a 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 227 
 
 very superior description, and equally well adapted for 
 cultivation or grazing ; the timber being abundant, and 
 fit for all the purposes of domestic use or exportation. 
 The pine-trees, if they should prove of good quality, 
 were of a scantling sufficient for the top-masts of large 
 ships. Some measured upwards of thirty inches in 
 diameter, and from fifty to eighty feet without a 
 branch. 
 
 " The boat's crew were so exhausted by their con- 
 tinued exertions under a vertical sun, that I was re- 
 luctantly compelled to relinquish my intention of pro- 
 ceeding to the termination of tide-water at this time. 
 At this place the tide rose but four feet six inches, the 
 force of the ebb-tide and current together being little 
 greater than the flood-tide, — a proof of its flowing 
 through a very level country. Having concluded on 
 terminating at this point the examination of the river, 
 being seventy miles from the vessel, and our stock of 
 provisions expended, not having anticipated such a dis- 
 covery, I landed on the south shore for the purpose of 
 examining the surrounding country. On ascending a 
 low hill, rising about twenty-five feet above the level of 
 the river, we saw a distant mountain, which I conjec- 
 tured to be the High Peak of Captain Flinders, bearing 
 south 1| east, distant from twenty-five to thirty miles. 
 Round from this point to the north-west the country 
 declined considerably in elevation, and had much the 
 appearance of extended plains and low undulating hills, 
 well, but not heavily, wooded. The only elevations of 
 magnitude were some hills seven or eight hundred feet 
 high, which we had passed to the northward. The ap- 
 
228 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 pearance and formation of the country, the slowness of 
 the current, even at ebb tide, and the depth of the water, 
 induced me to conclude that the river would be found 
 navigable for vessels of burden to a much greater dis- 
 tance, probably not less than fifty miles. There was 
 no appearance of the river being ever flooded, no mark 
 being found more than seven feet above the level of the 
 water, which is little more than would be caused by 
 flood-tide at high water forcing back any accumulation 
 of water in rainy seasons. 
 
 " A consideration of all the circumstances connected 
 with the appearance of the river justified me in enter- 
 taining a strong belief that the sources of this river 
 will not be found in a mountainous country. Most 
 probably it issues from some large collection of interior 
 waters, the reservoir of those streams crossed by me 
 during an expedition of discovery in 1818, and which 
 had a northerly course. # Whatever may be its origin, 
 it is by far the largest fresh-water river on the east 
 coast of New South Wales, and promises to be of the 
 utmost importance to the colony ; as, besides affording 
 a water communication with the southern country 
 
 * This idea has not been verified by subsequent discovery. There is 
 no such collection of interior waters as Mr. Oxley supposed, at least in 
 that part of the Australian continent to which he refers ; and the streams 
 crossed by Mr. Oxley in 1818 have since been found by Captain Sturt, 
 of the thirty-ninth regiment, to empty themselves into a large river 
 which the latter officer discovered in the year 1829, and named the 
 Darling ; in which, pursuing a southerly course, is supposed to be the 
 same river which ultimately unites its waters with those of the Murray 
 and the Morumbidgee, and disembogues at length into the lake Alexan- 
 dria on the southern coast. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 229 
 
 bounding upon Liverpool Plains, it waters a vast extent 
 of country, of which a great portion appears to me capable 
 of supporting the culture of the richest productions of the 
 tropics. I afterwards proceeded a few miles to the 
 south-east from the river, through a gently broken 
 country of good soil, declining in elevation towards the 
 south ; the high peak before mentioned being the only 
 remarkable eminence from north-east to south. 
 
 " As the position of the entrance of the river was 
 still to be fixed, and the channel to be examined, I lost 
 no time in returning down the river with the ebb-tide, 
 and stopped for the night at the base of the Green Hills ; 
 the highest of which was ascended the next morning, 
 and the view from it was found more extensive than I 
 anticipated. 
 
 " So much time was spent in the examination of the 
 country above Sea Reach, that it was quite dark when 
 we got to the entrance of the river ; which, out of re- 
 spect to His Excellency the Governor, under whose 
 orders the bay was examined, was now honoured with 
 the name of Brisbane River. The whole of the next 
 day was spent in sounding the entrance and traversing 
 the country in the vicinity of Red Cliff Point, and we 
 did not reach the vessel until late in the night of the 
 fifth of December, amply gratified in the discovery of 
 this important river, as we sanguinely anticipated the 
 most beneficial consequences as likely to result to 
 the colony by the formation of a settlement on its 
 banks." 
 
 A penal settlement was accordingly formed in the 
 year 1824, on the banks of the Brisbane, in lat. 27i° 
 
230 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 south, and the river has since been traced to its 
 sources in ranges of moderate elevation, but at no great 
 distance, to the northward. It receives several con- 
 siderable streams in its course, which, together with 
 the main river, traverse a large extent of eligible country, 
 capable in every respect of supporting a numerous 
 population. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 231 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ACCOUNT OF THE STATE AND PROGRESS OF THE 
 COLONY DURING THE GOVERNMENT OF LIEU- 
 TENANT-GENERAL SIR RALPH DARLING, K.C.B. 
 
 O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona ndrint, 
 Agricolas ! Virgil. 
 
 The agriculturists of New South Wales would have enjoyed much 
 higher prosperity, and escaped much disappointment and disaster, had 
 they made a proper improvement of their opportunities. 
 
 Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Darling was 
 the seventh Governor of New South Wales. He as- 
 sumed the government on the 19th of December, 1825 ; 
 the affairs of the colony having been administered for 
 eighteen days previous to his arrival by Colonel Stewart, 
 of His Majesty's Third Regiment, or Buffs, now a 
 resident landholder in the colony and a Major-General 
 in the army. 
 
 The reputation of General Darling has suffered ex- 
 tremely in the estimation of the public, from the ill- 
 judged officiousness of his friends, as well as from the 
 malice of his enemies : it is my intention to rescue it 
 from the hands, and to do it justice in the face, 
 of both : and as I cannot charge my recollection with 
 
232 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 having received any personal favours from His Excel- 
 lency, and as his ungracious refusal to attend to certain 
 suggestions which I had done myself the honour to 
 submit to him, with a view to promote the interests of 
 education and religion in the colony, occasioned me the 
 inconvenience and the hardship of a voyage to England, 
 besides exposing me incidentally to much personal 
 suffering; I can scarcely be suspected of partiality, 
 if my estimate of his character and government should 
 be somewhat less unfavourable than the one generally 
 current. 
 
 It was commonly understood in the colony that Gene- 
 ral Darling had attained the rank he held in the army, 
 rather through his literary than his military prowess ; and 
 the circumstance was often referred to by the colonial 
 opposition newspapers, to his discredit. For my own 
 part, I conceive it was j ust the circumstance that rendered 
 him the fittest military man for the government of a 
 colony. In such cases, I apprehend it is quite imma- 
 terial whether an officer has merited distinction by his 
 pen or by his sword ; but it is a sad prospect for a 
 colony, for its governor to be able to wield only the 
 latter of these weapons with dexterity and effect. 
 Courage, whether active or passive, is by no means a 
 rare virtue, either in savage or in civilized society ; but 
 the higher qualities of mind, which are essential for 
 situations of extensive command, are exceedingly rare. 
 The question of importance, therefore, is not how these 
 qualities have been elicited, but whether they exist at 
 all in the candidate for power. 
 
 General Darling's was by no means a mind of the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 233 
 
 first order, but his talents were perhaps superior to 
 those of the generality of mankind. He had naturally 
 a correct judgment, a strong sense of justice, and a 
 keen discernment of propriety : neither was he desti- 
 tute of those qualities of the heart, without which 
 the higher powers of intellect are oftener a curse than 
 a blessing to mankind. Indeed, I am fully persuaded, 
 that on his arrival in New South Wales, General Dar- 
 ling was sincerely desirous of discharging the duties of 
 his station with credit to himself, with satisfaction to his 
 superiors, and with general benefit to the colony. 
 
 There are certain impressions, however, to which 
 men of particular classes and professions are peculiarly 
 subject, (Bacon gives them the singular appellation of 
 idols of the den,) which often serve to neutralize the 
 proper qualities of the individual, and to exert a power- 
 ful influence on the whole course of his conduct. The 
 military man, for instance, is always under authority ; 
 he is consequently much less a free agent than the rest 
 of mankind : he waits uniformly for the word of com- 
 mand ; and instead of regulating his procedure ac- 
 cording to his own sense of propriety, he looks up- 
 wards for direction to some superior authority, who, like 
 the Jupiter of the ancients, shakes Olympus with his 
 nod. It is impossible but that such a state of things 
 should exert a powerful influence on minds originally 
 formed of second-rate materials : hence it follows 
 that in cases of emergency, and when thrown entirely 
 on their own resources, military men, who, we should 
 expect, would always evince the greatest decision of 
 character, sometimes exhibit the least. 
 
234 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 The military man, moreover, is also peculiarly un- 
 fitted by his previous habitudes of mind for dealing 
 with opposition, when he happens to be invested with 
 civil authority. Opposition, in the various forms which 
 it assumes in reference to such classes of men, is the 
 natural element, so to speak, of the statesman, the 
 lawyer, and the merchant. It is the atmosphere they 
 breathe : it is the food that supplies nourishment 
 to those intellectual powers that contribute the most 
 materially to their ultimate success. So far from con- 
 sidering its occurrence as a thing unreasonable, they 
 view it as a matter of course, and regard it only as 
 affording a proper and perhaps desirable opportunity for 
 the development of their own superior tact and ability. 
 But the military man, when invested with civil author- 
 ity, is apt to regard opposition to his measures on the 
 part of private individuals in a very different light. 
 Accustomed to yield implicit obedience to the superior 
 authority to which he has himself been subject, he is 
 apt to expect implicit submission from those whom he 
 naturally looks upon as his own inferiors ; and the 
 very idea of a demonstration of resistance to his author- 
 ity is consequently apt to make him stiffen his sinews, 
 stretch his nostrils wide, and place himself at once in the 
 attitude of offensive warfare. In short, so far from 
 inducing compliance or concession, opposition is apt to 
 confirm the military man in the determined pursuit of 
 those obnoxious measures which he has once adopted. 
 
 The extreme unpopularity of General Darling's go- 
 vernment arose, I apprehend, in great measure, from his 
 being under the influence of these idols of the den — a 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 235 
 
 species of idolatry, under which minds of a higher order 
 would doubtless not have bowed. Naturally desirous 
 to stand well with his superior officer, and holding it a 
 sort of disobedience of orders either to think or to act 
 for himself, in any case in which it was possible to 
 ascertain or to guess at his opinion, he unhappily 
 distrusted his own judgment, which in most cases 
 would have pointed out to him the proper course, and 
 allowed himself to be guided by the opinions of men 
 who were unqualified to direct him. In a colony in 
 which the measures of Government are uniformly open 
 to the most jealous, and frequently to the most illiberal 
 criticism, it was not wonderful that circumstances 
 should arise in General Darling's administration of 
 public affairs, to form the plausible groundwork of a 
 regular opposition on the part of an influential portion 
 of the colonial press. This opposition would at best 
 have been exceedingly feeble, and would speedily have 
 been entirely annihilated, had he merely pursued a 
 straight-forward course, without ever condescending to 
 notice it ; or silently adopted a hint occasionally for the 
 improvement of his plans. But his friends persuading 
 him that his government was in danger — the old hue 
 and cry of incapacity — and that it was necessary to put 
 down opposition with the strong hand of power, hostile 
 and vindictive measures on the part of Government 
 were eagerly resorted to : nay, whoever presumed to 
 entertain a different opinion on so important a subject, 
 and to hold intercourse with those who had been gra- 
 tuitously branded as the enemies of the state, was 
 
236 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 immediately marked as a disaffected person, and treated 
 accordingly. 
 
 In such circumstances, it was soon found necessary to 
 strengthen the government party, by attaching the indi- 
 viduals who composed it as strongly as possible to His 
 Excellency's person and government. Their loyalty 
 was of course rewarded by lucrative employments, and 
 by all the other indulgences that the Government could 
 bestow ; and the system of egregious partiality that was 
 thus notoriously practised served only to originate and 
 to embitter disaffection. In short, instead of acting 
 with the magnanimity and decision which befitted his 
 high station as the representative of royalty, General 
 Darling followed the course of short-sighted policy 
 which was recommended for his adoption by the selfish 
 politicians in petto whom he admitted to his counsels ; 
 for he was unhappily surrounded by men of hopeless 
 mediocrity, whose incessant cry was that of the daugh- 
 ters of the horse-leech, " Give, give ; " and whose con- 
 temptible cupidity was only equalled by their narrow- 
 mindedness and vindictiveness. 
 
 I have already hinted, that the persons into whose 
 hands the Governor thus virtually surrendered himself 
 were of the sect of exclusionists. They were exclu- 
 sionists in politics, and would willingly have subjected, 
 not only the whole class of emancipists, but moderate 
 persons of all classes throughout the colony, to political 
 disabilities. They were exclusionists in place and pro- 
 perty, eagerly endeavouring, that whatever the Governor 
 had to give in the shape of land or town allotments, or 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 237 
 
 appointments of emoluments, should be given exclusively 
 to themselves or their dependents. They were exclu- 
 sionists in religion, which a few of them professed 
 by paying tithes of mint, and anise, and cummin, in the 
 shape of paltry subscriptions to religious societies ; and 
 their motto and device was, We are the people. Stand 
 back, for we are holier than ye. 
 
 It will doubtless be considered greatly in favour of 
 General Darling, that he devoted all his time and talents 
 to the personal discharge of the duties of his office. If 
 there was a single individual in the colony who allowed 
 himself no unnecessary rest and no unnecessary recrea- 
 tion, it was the Governor. Every case, even of minor 
 importance, that occurred, received his personal con- 
 sideration ; every letter had to be submitted for his 
 personal perusal. Mistakes and errors of judgment 
 might occur under such a system ; but whensoever and 
 wheresoever they occurred, they could not be imputed 
 to the Governor's neglect. 
 
 General Darling also deserved well of the colony for 
 the regularity and the system he introduced into every 
 department of the public service. Previous to his 
 arrival, the colonial state machine was frequently out 
 of order; and it was often a matter of difficulty to 
 ascertain which of its wheels should be touched, to set 
 it a-going in a particular direction. In General Dar- 
 ling's time it was remarkable for the regularity and 
 precision of its movements. The duties of each de- 
 partment were ascertained and fixed, so that one could 
 not interfere with another. Forms of application and 
 
238 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 forms of procedure were established, which greatly 
 facilitated the transaction of public business, though, to 
 the eye of ignorance, or prejudice, or malice, they 
 rather tended to retard and to perplex it. A dispo- 
 sition of this kind, however, is apt to run to extremes. 
 General Darling was too much a man of forms and 
 system ; and. his successor, Sir Richard Bourke, has 
 found, that by simplifying his arrangements, he can 
 get through more business with fewer hands. 
 
 In the apportionment of grants of waste land on the 
 part of Government, General Darling has been accused 
 of great partiality to certain parties, and of great injus- 
 tice and oppression to others. It was certainly unfor- 
 tunate for his popularity, that his person was beset by 
 individuals, who were not restrained by any considera- 
 tions of propriety from possessing themselves of what- 
 ever their personal influence could procure ; and it is 
 equally undeniable that a strange want of feeling was 
 evinced on different occasions towards reputable per- 
 sons who were desirous of settling in the country, and 
 who were thus obliged to expend their time and their 
 means in Sydney to no purpose whatever. In this re- 
 spect, the government of General Darling was decidedly 
 unfavourable to emigration, and was therefore in so far 
 unfortunate for New South Wales. At the same time, 
 I have reason to believe that the errors of his govern- 
 ment, on both of these points, were greatly exaggerated 
 by interested or disappointed individuals ; and that 
 what were trumpeted about as acts of oppression, some- 
 times arose from a system of management, which the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 239 
 
 Governor had established for the public benefit, and 
 with the details of which he could not properly interfere. 
 
 Great irregularities had certainly arisen from the 
 operation of the system adopted in the granting of land 
 during the government of Sir Thomas Brisbane ; for I 
 have myself heard of the case of an individual, who, 
 having come to the colony from the Isle of France for 
 the recovery of his health, was induced, on hearing of 
 the facility with which land could be obtained from the 
 colonial government by persons newly arrived in New 
 South Wales, to apply for a grant of two thousand acres 
 of land ; which he accordingly received, and immediately 
 sold to an old resident in the country, without ever 
 having seen it himself, for the sum of five hundred 
 pounds. He left the colony very shortly after, with 
 his health restored, and his purse unexpectedly and 
 very agreeably replenished. 
 
 To correct such abuses, General Darling instituted a 
 Board of Inquiry, under the designation of the Land 
 Board, and established certain regulations for the 
 granting of land, shortly after his arrival in the colony. 
 Agreeably to these regulations, land was thenceforth to 
 be granted in proportion to the property or means of the 
 applicant, and not to be granted to such applicant at 
 all unless there was reason to believe that he was able 
 and willing and likely to improve it. The operation of 
 these regulations, which were doubtless conducive to 
 the general welfare of the colony, may perhaps, like all 
 other general rules of policy, have been oppressive in par- 
 ticular cases : but I am also able to refer to other 
 cases, in which, on a plain and candid statement of the 
 
240 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 circumstances of the applicant being laid before him, 
 General Darling was induced to depart from the strict 
 letter of his own regulations, and in which his doing so 
 evinced equal discrimination and humanity. 
 
 An Englishman who had married a Scotchwoman in 
 London, by whom he had an interesting family of very 
 fine children, had arrived in the colony as an indented 
 free servant of the Australian Agricultural Company. 
 After about two years' service, his indenture was given 
 up to him, and he was allowed, in the technical phrase 
 of the colony, " to go upon his own hands." During 
 their period of service, and especially after they had 
 acquired their entire freedom, the industry of the hus- 
 band and the economy of the wife had enabled them to 
 accumulate a considerable sum of money — as much in- 
 deed, if I recollect aright, as two hundred pounds. 
 After they had resided for some time in the town of 
 Sydney, where they had settled on leaving the service 
 of the Company, I had the honour of a visit from my 
 virtuous countrywoman, to apprise me that her husband 
 and herself thought they could do better for their 
 family on a farm than by continuing to live in Sydney, 
 and that they were accordingly desirous of obtaining a 
 grant of land. I offered to assist them in the attain- 
 ment of their object, and with this view procured one 
 of the printed forms, with which I went on the day fol- 
 lowing to their little cottage. There the whole savings 
 of the family were displayed for my inspection, in all 
 the endless variety of coin with which the money- 
 changers of Sydney become acquainted. After having 
 duly ascertained the amount, I made a short statement 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 241 
 
 of the history, circumstances, and property of the 
 family, on a blank corner of the printed form, which 
 I attested forthwith, and forwarded to the Governor. 
 In a very few days afterwards, and without the ap- 
 plication being referred to the Land Board at all, 
 the happy family received a letter, informing them that 
 the Governor had been pleased to allow them 320 acres 
 of land in the first instance ; on their taking possession 
 of which they were to have 320 more, i. e. a square 
 mile altogether. 
 
 I have reason to believe that, during General Darling's 
 administration, more of this sort of work passed through 
 my own hands and those of my fellow-labourer, the 
 Rev. John M'Garvie, A.M., who was then Presbyterian 
 Minister of the Church of Scotland at Portland Head, 
 than fell to the lot of any two of the other clergy of the 
 eolony ; and I am happy to say, that in almost every 
 instance we had both abundant reason to speak well of 
 the judiciousness and humanity of General Darling. 
 
 The value of land in the interior of a colony is in- 
 creased in proportion as facility is afforded for direct 
 and frequent communication with the capital. In this 
 respect General Darling certainly merited commenda- 
 tion ; rather, however, for the magnitude and extent of 
 his undertakings than for their uniform judiciousness : 
 for as this important branch of the public service was 
 most preposterously made an affair of patronage, and as 
 petty jealousies and antipathies unhappily interfered to 
 prevent the employment of that particular kind of 
 talent which was required for the economical and 
 efficient discharge of the duties it implies, much public 
 vol. i. L 
 
242 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 money was expended with comparatively little benefit 
 to the public. The road to Bathurst across the Blue 
 Mountains was greatly improved, however, during 
 General Darling's administration. A good road was 
 also constructed, by the labour of convicts who had 
 been found guilty of minor offences in the colony, to 
 the very important settlement of Hunter's River — a 
 distance of one hundred and thirty miles — not to 
 mention various cross-roads in that settlement ; while 
 numerous gangs were employed in opening a per- 
 manent line of communication with the extensive pas- 
 toral country to the southward and westward, beyond 
 the county of Argyle. 
 
 It cannot be denied, however, that in carrying into 
 effect the sentences of the law, which consigned a 
 portion of the prison population of the colony to hard 
 labour on the roads, or at penal settlements, there was 
 much unnecessary severity practised under the authority 
 of General Darling. He had doubtless received orders 
 from home to subject the convicts to a more rigorous 
 discipline than the one to which they had previously 
 been subjected : but in enforcing these orders, the 
 convicts under colonial sentences were not unfrequently 
 treated by his subordinate agents, who had always 
 discernment enough to discover that severity was the 
 order of the day, with a reckless indifference to their 
 feelings as men, which their situation as criminals could 
 never have warranted. 
 
 There were four remarkable epochs in the govern- 
 ment of General Darling, each of which might almost 
 constitute an era in the history of the colony. The 
 first of these was the era of agricultural excitement ; the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 243 
 
 second the era of agricultural depression ; the third was 
 the era of drought ; and the fourth the era of libels. 
 
 I. In the year 1825 — so memorable for the rise and 
 fall of numerous joint-stock companies in England— a 
 company of that nature was established in connexion 
 with the colony of New South Wales, by certain Mem- 
 bers of Parliament and other gentlemen connected 
 with the wool trade, in the city of London. It was 
 incorporated by royal charter, under the designation of 
 the Australian Agricultural Company ; its object being 
 the cultivation of land in New South Wales, the rearing 
 of fine-woolled sheep, cattle, and horses, and the ge- 
 neral improvement of the colony. Its capital was a 
 million sterling ; and, in consideration of its highly im- 
 portant objects, His Majesty's Government agreed to 
 give it a million of acres of land free of cost, in what- 
 ever part of the territory the agents of the company 
 might choose to select their grant. About the same 
 period, extensive grants were also obtained by certain 
 Members of Parliament and private gentlemen of pro- 
 perty in England, whose agents arrived in the colony 
 with their host of retainers, about the same time as 
 those of the Agricultural Company, or shortly before 
 the arrival of General Darling. 
 
 The colony was at that period in a state of pro- 
 gressive, but by no means rapid improvement: agri- 
 cultural stock was obtainable by the free emigrant 
 settler at a moderate rate, and agricultural produce bore 
 a remunerating price. The first time I visited the 
 settlement of Portland Head, in the year 1823, the old 
 Presbyterian settler, whom I have already mentioned as 
 
244 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the voluntary cateehist of his district from the time of 
 its first settlement in the year 1802, accompanied me on 
 horseback to one of the neighbouring farms on the left 
 bank of the Hawkesbury. Observing me looking par- 
 ticularly at the old mare he rode, of which he was ever 
 and anon kindly patting the neck and stroking the 
 mane, he told me, with no small degree of complacency,, 
 that he had had her for about eighteen years, and that 
 she had originally cost him £130 sterling. She was 
 rather a plain-looking animal ; but, in the earlier times 
 of the colony, horses and all other kinds of agricultural 
 stock were exceedingly high-priced. Another respect- 
 able free settler, of old standing, has told me that the 
 first cow he purchased in the colony, shortly after his 
 arrival in Governor King's time, cost him fifty-five 
 guineas. In the year 1823, however, cattle and horses 
 had fallen in price very considerably ; for a good horse 
 could then be purchased for £30 to £50 currency, or 
 in dollars at five shillings each, a good cow for £5 to £7, 
 and sheep in proportion. During the succeeding years 
 of the government of Sir Thomas Brisbane, the price of 
 agricultural stock advanced considerably in consequence 
 of the influx of free emigrants from Great Britain, and 
 the numerous grants of land that were then taken 
 possession of in the districts of Hunter's River, Ba- 
 thurst, and Argyle : for as these grants had all to be 
 stocked with sheep and cattle, the old settlers found a 
 ready and improving market for their superabundant 
 stock among the new arrivals. 
 
 The Australian Agricultural Company commenced its 
 operations in the colony early in the year 1826; but 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. "245 
 
 these operations were too prominent in their character, 
 and too extensive, not to have a powerful and immediate 
 influence on a community so limited as that of New South 
 Wales : for as cattle and sheep and horses had to be 
 purchased for the company, wherever they could be got, 
 the price of these descriptions of agricultural stock in- 
 stantly rose -rapidly throughout the colony ; insomuch 
 that -cattle of colonial breeds were actually sold to the 
 company's agent for twelve guineas, and sheep for 
 four or five guineas sterling a-head. The exten- 
 sive purchases of agricultural stock that were made 
 about the same period for the large tracts of land granted 
 to private individuals, doubtless contributed also in no 
 small degree to enhance its price in the colonial 
 market. 
 
 Those only who witnessed the infatuation of multi- 
 tudes in England on the formation of the joint-stock 
 companies of I 825, will be able to form any idea of the 
 state of things that immediately ensued in New South 
 Wales: for no sooner had the existence of the Agri- 
 cultural Company been duly announced, and its opera- 
 tions commenced in right earnest, than the sheep and 
 cattle mania — a species of madness undescribed by 
 Cullen, and formerly unknown even in the colony — 
 instantly seized on all ranks and classes of its in- 
 habitants. We are told by the historian Thucydides, 
 that, during the prevalence of the plague in Athens, the 
 wretched victims of that hopeless disease were impelled 
 by their intolerable thirst to the fountains and streams 
 of water, around which they died in great numbers. 
 The colonial mania I have j ust mentioned evinced itself 
 
246 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF , 
 
 in like manner in impelling whomsoever it seized to the 
 cattle-market; and as my own residence in Sydney for 
 about three years after my return to the colony, in the 
 month of January, 1826, was in the immediate vicinity 
 of that busy scene, I had frequent opportunities of 
 observing the congregated patients, and abundant reason 
 to wonder how the matter would end : for barristers 
 and attorneys; military officers of every rank, and civi- 
 lians of every department; clergymen and medical 
 men ; merchants, settlers, and dealers in general, were 
 .there seen promiscuously mingled together every Thurs- 
 day, and outbidding each other in the most determined 
 manner, either in their own persons or by proxies of 
 certified agricultural character, for the purchase of every 
 scabbed sheep or scarecrow horse or buffalo-cow that 
 was offered for sale in the colony. In short, it was 
 universally allowed, that the calculations of the pro- 
 jectors of the Agricultural Company could not possibly 
 be inaccurate. Their statements and reasonings were 
 supported by arithmetical — which every person allowed 
 were the best of all — arguments ; and it was made as 
 clear as the day-light to the comprehension of stupidity 
 itself, that the owner of a certain number of sheep or 
 cattle in New South Wales, must, in a certain number 
 of years, infallibly make an independent fortune. It 
 was consequently determined on all hands and by all 
 sorts of persons, that the Agricultural Company should 
 not be the only reaper of this golden harvest. The 
 professional men and the Sydney merchants, who had 
 become extensive sheep and cattle owners, generally 
 employed hired overseers to manage their stock in the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 247 
 
 interior ; but there were individuals even among these 
 classes who thought the matter too momentous to be 
 entrusted to a deputy, and accordingly followed their 
 purchase to the interior themselves. Nay, (and the 
 reader will observe I do not speak at all metaphor- 
 ically,) even the soldier unbuttoned his military belt to 
 become a keeper of sheep ; and the priest, reversing the 
 ancient metamorphosis in the case of the prophet Amos, 
 forsook his altar to become a herdrnan of cattle. 
 
 In all cases in which the purchaser had money to pay 
 for his sheep and cattle, money was paid ; but where 
 money was not forthcoming, as was generally the case, 
 credit was allowed if the individual was supposed to be 
 a person of substance, and security was often tendered 
 and accepted on the purchaser's land. One gentleman, 
 who had a large herd of inferior cattle, got them disposed 
 of in this way to respectable free settlers, at the rate of 
 ten guineas a-head, with security on the purchasers' 
 land for two years, and ten per cent interest besides on 
 the whole amount of the purchase till its ultimate pay- 
 ment. 
 
 The reader may perhaps imagine that I must have 
 been a dealer in sheep and cattle myself, to have ac- 
 quired all this unclerical knowledge : I have never, 
 however, had the honour to be the owner of a single 
 head of either in the colony. But it was impossible to 
 live in New South Wales at the time I allude to, with- 
 out acquiring much more knowledge of this kind than 
 was at all desirable. " Their talk," as Dr. Johnson 
 remarks of some of his friends in the country, " was all 
 of runts," or heifers. If an advice was given in com- 
 
248 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 pany, it was by all means to get into a good stock, for 
 there was nothing like it. If a difference of opinion 
 arose, it was either whether Saxon or Merino, fine or 
 coarse-woolled sheep were the most profitable ; or 
 whether it was advantageous to attend exclusively to 
 the wool, or to combine with all due attention to that 
 matter of universally acknowledged interest a proper 
 regard to the carcase. Again and again I have had 
 specimens of wool submitted to my own inspection by 
 Saxon or Merino enthusiasts, who were in the habit of 
 carrying them about with them in their pockets; and 
 if the excuse of imperfect vision and entire inacquaint- 
 ance with the subject was insufficient to relieve me from 
 the very invidious task of deciding in a matter so much 
 above my capacity, I was generally unfortunate in 
 selecting a different specimen from the one which had 
 been previously determined to be the finest. In short, 
 the whole colonial community seemed for a considerable 
 period to have only one idea ; and this exclusive and 
 universally predominant idea was, that of rapidly ac- 
 quiring an independent fortune by the rearing of sheep 
 and cattle. 
 
 It was not at all to be wondered at, that persons who 
 were so speedily to be enriched beyond their highest 
 previous expectations, should begin to speculate pre- 
 maturely on their good fortune. If a matrimonial alli- 
 ance with the Sultan's daughter was not projected, as 
 in the case of the crystal-seller of Bagdad, it was at all 
 events fitting that articles of dress, and furniture, and 
 equipage, suitable for a consummation so devoutly to 
 be wished, and so reasonably to be expected, should not 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 249 
 
 only be bespoken, but actually procured. Such articles 
 were accordingly ordered, and bills were given for their 
 due payment ; and so favourable was the prospect of 
 demand for the future, that the colonial merchants or 
 importers were induced to order large quantities of 
 British and other foreign goods, till their warehouses 
 were completely filled, and till almost every article of 
 British manufacture could be obtained in Sydney at a 
 much cheaper rate than in London. 
 
 What might have been the ultimate issue of the sheep 
 and cattle mania, had the seasons continued as favour- 
 able after the harvests of 1825 and 1826, as they had 
 been for a long time previous, I do not know. It was 
 evident indeed to every person of understanding, that 
 as cattle, and sheep, and horses, must increase in a 
 geometrical ratio, in a country so admirably adapted 
 for the rearing of agricultural stock as New South 
 Wales, while the population of the colony could in- 
 crease only in an arithmetical ratio ; — a time must arrive, 
 sooner or later, when their numbers would so far exceed 
 those of man, that the price of them must fall prodi- 
 giously. But although this was admitted on all hands, 
 every purchaser persuaded himself that his own fortune 
 at least would be made long before the price of agri- 
 cultural stock could experience any considerable de- 
 pression. 
 
 It pleased Divine Providence, however, to visit the 
 colony in the midst of these speculations with a most 
 afflictive and unprecedented drought of nearly three 
 years' continuance ; the effect of which, combined with 
 the natural result of the sheep and cattle mania, was 
 
250 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 completely to open the eyes of the colonists to their 
 own folly and madness, to blast the golden hopes of 
 multitudes, and to bring many respectable families to 
 poverty and ruin. In short, the body politic of the 
 colony had passed through a crisis of violent and un- 
 natural excitement, which, according to the well-known 
 maxim of Hippocrates, the father of medicine, must 
 necessarily be followed by a corresponding crisis of 
 unnatural depression. 
 
 II. During the years of drought, the sheep and cattle, 
 which had been purchased so extensively in the years 
 1826 and 1827, increased in number very rapidly; for 
 the native grass of New South Wales is so nutritious, 
 that cattle especially, that are able to obtain abundance 
 of good water, continue to thrive even in the driest 
 seasons. A few cattle, it is true, were lost in several 
 parts of the colony in attempting to find water where 
 it was scarce ; but the number was very inconsiderable. 
 Indeed, some idea of the capabilities of the colony, in 
 regard to the rearing of cattle, may be formed from the 
 unparalleled fact, that within six months after the ter- 
 mination of a drought of nearly three years' continu- 
 ance, butcher-meat of the very best quality could be 
 purchased in Sydney, in quantities of not less than the 
 half or the fourth of a carcase, at three farthings a 
 pound — a price which was scarcely exceeded during the 
 three following years. 
 
 During the prevalence of the drought, however, 
 many of the settlers or landholders throughout the ter- 
 ritory were brought into considerable difficulties from 
 having to purchase grain at a high price for their 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 251 
 
 families and servants; for during one of the years of 
 drought grain was imported from Van Dieman's Land 
 and elsewhere for the internal consumption of the co- 
 lony, to the amount of not less than £50,000. In 
 the mean time, the numerous bills granted for the sheep 
 and cattle purchased in the years 1826 and 1827 began 
 to fall due, while the high interest (from ten to fifteen 
 per cent) on mortgages given for the same purpose 
 rapidly accumulated ; till at length creditors became 
 imperative in their demands for payment, being them- 
 selves generally pressed by other creditors either in the 
 colony or in England ; and debtors, who had nothing but 
 their stock and their land to look to, found themselves 
 suddenly and unexpectedly ruined. Month after month 
 herds of cattle and flocks of sheep were seized and sold 
 for the payment of the debts incurred by their original 
 purchase ; and this process was so frequently repeated, 
 and the price of sheep and cattle consequently fell so 
 rapidly ; that when the original stock, with its whole 
 increase during three successive years, failed to realize 
 any thing like the amount of its original price, which 
 very soon proved to be the case in many instances, the 
 settler's farm was seized and sold also, and himself per- 
 haps ultimately lodged in jail. The reader will easily 
 conceive, that the distress and ruin which were thus 
 experienced in all directions throughout the territory, 
 would just be a little less extensive than the mania 
 which had originally caused them. In short, those 
 who had commenced with capital, found they had lost 
 it in great measure ; those who had salaries from Go- 
 vernment, found that these salaries must in future be 
 
252 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 appropriated for the payment of the debts which their 
 own cupidity and infatuation had led them to contract ; 
 and those who had neither had capital nor salaries at 
 the first, had their property brought to the hammer, 
 and themselves to poverty or to prison. 
 
 In the course of an excursion to the settlement of 
 Hunter's River, for the performance of clerical duty in 
 the month of March, 1830, I went a few miles out of 
 my way to see an interesting and sequestered part of 
 the country I had not previously visited, and to call on 
 a respectable settler with whom I had previously formed 
 some acquaintance. On my way to the settler's farm, 
 my horse happening to prick up his ears at something 
 he seemed to observe near the pathway, I looked in 
 the direction to which the animal's attention was at- 
 tracted, and observed two eagles in the act of killing a 
 young kangaroo of one of the larger varieties, which it 
 appeared they had just succeeded in hunting down. 
 The eagles were scared at my approach, and accord- 
 ingly, leaving their prey and perching themselves very 
 leisurely on the low branches of trees almost over-head, 
 looked down at me with as much apparent inquisitive- 
 ness and dissatisfaction as if they would have said, 
 " Pray, sir, how came you to deprive us of our game V 
 while the poor kangaroo, which had only been stunned 
 or slightly wounded, instantly sprung up, and bounded 
 off with prodigious leaps down the valley. The species 
 of hunt which I had thus unconsciously interrupted is 
 always managed by two eagles in concert, the one of 
 which continues from time to time to fly at the kan- 
 garoo's face till the poor animal becomes confused ; 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 253 
 
 while the other is ready, whenever it stands still, to 
 pounce upon its head, and sink his talons into its brain. 
 
 On my arrival at the settler's residence, I was gratified 
 to find him at home, and to experience a very cordial 
 welcome. His house was well enough for the bush, as 
 the country is generally termed in the colony — half- 
 shingled and half-covered with bark. The furniture 
 was rude in the highest degree; but the plain and 
 substantial repast, of which I was invited to partake 
 before resuming my journey, was all the produce of the 
 farm, and was accompanied with a sort of seasoning 
 which is not always to be had in the colony — I mean 
 genuine Attic salt : for the settler, having received 
 a liberal education in his youth, quoted in the course of 
 my short visit a well-known Greek epigram, which the 
 classical reader will doubtless recollect, and the subject 
 of which was the circumstance of the statue of Victory 
 in the Senate-House of Rome being accidentally de- 
 spoiled of its wings. I was sorry to find in the course 
 of my visit that the quotation was capable of a personal 
 reference to the settler himself, as the following circum- 
 stances, which he told me ere I took my leave of him, 
 will probably enable the reader to discover. 
 
 In the year 1826, his stock of sheep and cattle was 
 very considerable for the colony, and quite sufficient, if 
 he had only been content with it, to have rendered him 
 completely independent : but being seized, like many 
 around him, with the colonial mania, he had purchased 
 a number of heifers at £10 each on credit for two years, 
 ten per cent interest being payable on the whole amount 
 of his purchase till the final payment of the principal. 
 
254 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 At the time he made the bargain, he was given to un- 
 derstand, that if it were not convenient for him to pay 
 the money on its becoming due, he should be allowed 
 to retain it during his pleasure at the same rate of 
 interest as before. The creditor, however, being pro- 
 bably tempted by the prospect of obtaining a higher 
 interest for his money, put his bills into the hands of a 
 lawyer, and authorized him to demand payment. It 
 was not convenient for the settler to pay the bills, but, 
 having sheep and cattle in great numbers, he was 
 obliged to sacrifice them to meet the demand of his 
 creditor. In fact, his cattle, to the number of four 
 hundred, were actually collected in his stock-yard at 
 the time I reached his farm, and himself and one of 
 his servants had been making preparations to drive two 
 hundred of them over the mountains to Sydney — a 
 distance of about two hundred miles, by the circuitous 
 route they had to travel — on the following morning. 
 " They are M.'s breed," he observed ; " they will at 
 all events fetch two pounds a head, and that will set me 
 up again." 
 
 I left Hunter's River next morning also to return to 
 Sydney by a shorter route ; and on my solitary journey 
 of three days across the mountains I met with another 
 incident, which the reader will doubtless excuse me for 
 relating, as it illustrates the scenes and circumstances of 
 travelling in Australia. I was trotting along the side of 
 a hill, when a black snake of upwards of four feet in 
 length, which had been basking in the sun on the bare 
 foot-path— for such was the only road at the time for a 
 considerable distance among the mountains — sprang out 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 255 
 
 from among my horse's feet and tried to escape. As it 
 is considered a matter of duty in the colony to kill an 
 animal of this kind, when it can be done without dan- 
 ger or inconvenience, I immediately dismounted, and, 
 breaking off a twig from a bush, pursued and wounded 
 the venomous reptile. I had struck it across the back 
 a few inches from the head : it immediately turned 
 itself round, and glared fiercely with its little dark eyes, 
 while the portion of its body between the wound and 
 the head instantly swelled to thrice its usual thickness. 
 Finding itself, however, unable to spring at me, it tried 
 again to escape, when I easily despatched it with a few 
 additional strokes. It is usual in such cases to leave 
 the animal extended, as a sort of trophy, across the 
 footpath, to inform the next traveller that the country 
 has been cleared of another nuisance, and to remind 
 him perhaps of his own duty to do all that in him lies 
 to clear it of every remaining nuisance ; that it may 
 become a goodly and a pleasant land, in which there 
 shall be nothing left to hurt or to destroy.* 
 
 It was many weeks after my return to Sydney ere I 
 
 * I was so much gratified, a few days after the occurrence of the 
 incident I have related, at accidentally observing the following beautiful 
 and most accurate description of the appearances the snake exhibited 
 when half-dead, that I shall take the liberty to subjoin it : — 
 
 Qualis saepe viae deprensus in aggere serpens, 
 
 iErea quem obliquum rota transiit ; aut gravis ictu 
 
 Seminecem liquit saxo lacerumque viator ; 
 
 Nequicquam longos fugiens dat corpore tortus, 
 
 Parte ferox, ardensque oculis, et sibila coLla 
 
 Arduus attollens ; pars vulnere clauda retentat 
 
 Nexantem nodos, seque in sua membra plicantem. 
 
 Virg. ^neid, v, <273. 
 
256 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 heard any thing more of the Hunter's River settler. 
 There had been a flood on the Hawkesbury during his 
 journey, which had greatly retarded his arrival in Syd- 
 ney : cattle had been falling in price in the mean time 
 every day ; and I was truly sorry to learn, that when his 
 large herd was ultimately brought to the hammer, and 
 all the expenses of the sale discharged, they had realized 
 only twelve shillings and sixpence each. The settler's 
 farm was afterwards sold by the sheriff. 
 
 I have no hesitation in stating it as my belief, that 
 the colony of New South Wales was indebted, in great 
 measure, for this calamitous state of its affairs, to the 
 establishment of the Australian Agricultural Company ; 
 which, in thus incidentally occasioning the ruin of 
 many respectable and hopeful families and individuals 
 throughout the territory, was productive of a hundred- 
 fold more harm to the colony, than any advantage it is 
 ever likely to derive from the future operations of that 
 company will counterbalance. The influx of free emi- 
 grants during the government of General Darling was 
 inconsiderable when compared with the numbers that 
 arrived during the administration of Sir Thomas Bris- 
 bane ; and there were sheep and cattle enough in the 
 colony, at the close of Sir Thomas Brisbane's adminis- 
 tration, to have enabled all these emigrants to have 
 stocked their farms sufficiently at a very moderate 
 price. Had this been done, therefore, and had the 
 progress and prosperity of the colony not been violently 
 interfered with from without, there were few settlers 
 comparatively who would not have passed through the 
 years of drought with but little inconvenience ; for that 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 257 
 
 calamity was greatly aggravated by a direct conse- 
 quence of the sheep and cattle mania, which I shall 
 mention more particularly in the sequel, and which 
 would otherwise never have occurred — a general in- 
 attention to agriculture throughout the territory. But 
 this salutary and natural order of things was unhappily 
 interrupted : for, when the agent of the Australian 
 Agricultural Company suddenly appeared in the colony 
 with a million sterling in his pockets to purchase all the 
 sheep, and cattle, and horses in the country, a nominal 
 and imaginary value was given for a short period to all 
 property of that particular description, and the colonist* 
 were in consequence completely infatuated for a season. 
 Extensive ruin, however, was the natural result of the 
 subsequent reaction. 
 
 I shall perhaps be told, that as the money so unprofit- 
 ably embarked in the purchase of sheep and cattle was 
 all expended in the colony, it was of little consequence, 
 as far as the general welfare of the colony was con- 
 cerned, into whose hands it eventually passed : but it 
 does constitute a material difference to a country so 
 peculiarly situated as New South Wales, whether the 
 landed property it comprises shall be subdivided into 
 estates of moderate extent, held and cultivated by resi- 
 dent and respectable proprietors, or form vast wilder- 
 nesses in the hands of grasping monopolists and usu- 
 rious money-lenders. It does constitute a material 
 difference to a country so peculiarly situated, whether 
 the resources of a large proportion of its most respect- 
 able inhabitants shall be expended in giving their 
 offspring a liberal education , in improving their lands, 
 
258 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 and in diffusing happiness in their respective vicinities, 
 or be employed in fattening a daily increasing host of 
 rapacious lawyers. 
 
 The Company's extensive grant was selected by 
 Mr. Dawson, their agent in the colony ; and the late 
 Mr. Oxley, Surveyor-General of New South Wales. 
 The locality fixed upon was the neighbourhood of Port 
 Stephens to the northward of Hunter's River, where a 
 large agricultural and grazing establishment was of 
 course speedily formed ; a considerable number of 
 clerks, superintendents, and indented servants having 
 been carried out for that purpose from England. But 
 the Company naturally experienced the consequences of 
 the rapid rise and the equally rapid fall of agricultural 
 property, of which its own establishment was the pri- 
 mary cause ; and the speculation of course did not 
 succeed to the expectation of its projectors. Besides, 
 many of the sheep contracted disease and died, and 
 charges of gross mismanagement were in consequence 
 preferred by the resident Colonial Committee against 
 the agent, who was accused in particular of having 
 made a hasty and improper selection of the Company's 
 land, and of having placed the sheep on unwholesome 
 pasture. The result was Mr. Dawson's dismissal, and 
 a very general opinion that the Company's affairs had 
 been ill-managed, and were by no means in a prosperous 
 condition. Sir Edward Parry, the celebrated Polar 
 navigator, was subsequently appointed by the Directors 
 Resident Commissioner for the Company for the period 
 of four years, with a salary of £2000 per annum, and an 
 annuity of JE300 on the expiration of his engagement. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 259 
 
 The Company were authorized, moreover, through 
 their powerful influence at Downing Street, (no such 
 permission being ever granted to private individuals,) 
 to make a second selection, of 600,000 acres of their 
 land in a different and more eligible situation ; which 
 was accordingly made by Sir Edward on their behalf in 
 the district of Liverpool Plains and on the banks of 
 Peel's river — open pastoral tracts of country, of great 
 beauty and extent, intervening between the sources of 
 the Hunter and the River Hastings to the northward of 
 Port Jackson. 
 
 Agricultural settlements have been formed on the 
 Company's estate at Carrington and Stroud, near Port 
 Stephens, and sheep-stations at Peel's River and Liver- 
 pool Plains ; all of which, I have uniformly been given 
 to understand were judiciously managed, during the 
 whole period of his engagement, by Sir Edward Parry. 
 Complaints, I am sorry to state, were repeatedly made 
 against that distinguished officer, both in the colony and 
 in England, for harsh and arbitrary procedure, in dis- 
 missing, on apparently frivolous grounds, two gentlemen 
 of the Company's establishment, both of whom had 
 been appointed in England with considerable salaries — 
 the one as an accountant, and the other as an agri- 
 culturist — and both of whom had large families. I am 
 not sufficiently acquainted with the facts in these c ases 
 to offer any opinion of my own on the subject : but that 
 a disposition to arbitrary procedure does exist on the part 
 of the celebrated Polar navigator, I confess I suspect ; 
 for I have seen certain of his general orders to the in- 
 ferior officers of the Company's establishment, which 
 
£60 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 had more the resemblance of a Russian manifesto for 
 the Duchy of Warsaw* than the orders of a superin- 
 tendent of a joint-stock company's farm. 
 
 Since the return of Sir Edward Parry to England in 
 the year 1834, the Company's estate has been under 
 the management of Lieutenant- Colonel Dumaresq — a 
 brother-in-law of Sir Ralph Darling — as resident com- 
 missioner, at a salary of £700 per annum. The Com- 
 pany have now about forty thousand fine-wooled sheep, 
 with cattle and horses in proportion ; and the specula- 
 tion, to use the mercantile phrase, is now beginning to 
 answer. It will be a splendid affair for the proprietors 
 in a few years hence* 
 
 Any person, however, at all interested in the moral 
 welfare and the general advancement of the colony of 
 New South Wales, will scarcely fail to regard the 
 establishment and continued existence of this mammoth 
 Company with sincere regret, and will naturally feel 
 grateful to the present Whig administration for having 
 put it completely out of the power of any future ministry 
 to effect such Tory jobs in the Australian Colonies here- 
 after, by entirely discontinuing the practice of granting 
 waste land in these colonies, and by ordering that all 
 such land shall in future be sold by public auction, and 
 the proceeds devoted to the encouragement and promo- 
 tion of emigration. A considerable portion of the Com- 
 pany's land at Liverpool Plains and Peel's River would, 
 if sold on these terms, in the present comparatively 
 advanced and prosperous state of the colony, fetch ten 
 shillings per acre ; but supposing that the whole grant 
 were now to be sold by the Government at the minimum 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 261 
 
 price, it would at all events realize £250,000, which, at 
 the rate of £30 for each family — the bounty on emi- 
 gration, allowed from the land revenue by the govern- 
 ment of New South Wales — would be sufficient to im- 
 port into the colony eight thousand three hundred and 
 thirty-three virtuous and industrious families from Great 
 Britain and Ireland. And what service, I ask, has the 
 Australian Agricultural Company — the result and off- 
 spring of an egregious Tory job— ever yet rendered, oi- 
 ls likely to render, the colony of New South Wales, in 
 comparison with the results which would thus have 
 ensued from the earlier prevalence and adoption of the 
 principles of Whig policy ? 
 
 On receiving their charter, the Company expressed 
 their intention of introducing into the colony numerous 
 free emigrants of superior qualifications, not only from 
 the mother country, but from the continent of Europe. 
 But what is the fact? Why, as a mere Presbyterian 
 minister, humbly endeavouring to promote the intel- 
 lectual, the moral, and the spiritual welfare of my 
 adopted country, I have myself been the means of 
 introducing and settling in the colonial territory, a 
 larger number of individuals — men, women, and chil- 
 dren — than the London Company have done during the 
 last ten years, with all their parliamentary influence, 
 with all their capital, and with all their land ! And 
 notwithstanding their professed intentions to promote 
 the moral and religious interests, not merely of the 
 European inhabitants of their estate, but of the wretched 
 Aborigines of the territory, they had actually been 
 about eight years in possession of that estate, — during 
 
262 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the whole of which period they had many free, and 
 many more convict servants in their employment— and 
 had expended nearly a quarter of a million sterling in 
 their agricultural and grazing operations, before ever a 
 Sabbath bell was heard on their land, or any rational 
 effort made to provide their establishment with the 
 regular dispensation of the ordinances of religion. Sir 
 Edward Parry engaged a missionary of the Independent 
 connexion, whom he found accidentally in the colony, 
 to perform divine service at the Company's settlements 
 during the latter part of the stipulated period of his 
 own engagement in New South Wales ; but it was not 
 till the year 1836, that is, ten years after the Company 
 had taken possession of their grant, that the Rev. 
 Macquarie Cowper, a native of New South Wales, who 
 had been educated and ordained as an episcopal 
 clergyman in England, arrived in the colony to under- 
 take the spiritual charge of their extensive establish- 
 ment. If in such circumstances the Company's indented 
 servants proved, as they actually did, in not a few in- 
 stances, unfaithful and unworthy characters, who, I 
 ask, is to blame ? 
 
 It was doubtless wrong, in the first instance, for the 
 Australian Agricultural Company to enter into the field 
 of competition with the private agriculturists and graziers 
 of New South Wales; for the proper and legitimate 
 object of any chartered company either is, or ought 
 to be, doing something of importance to the com- 
 munity, which cannot be done either so fully or so well 
 by individuals. If; for instance, the Australian Agricul- 
 tural Company had been merely a Land Company, like 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 263 
 
 those of British America, and if in that capacity they 
 had been bound by the Government, as they ought un- 
 questionably to have been, to introduce into the colony 
 a certain number of useful emigrants, of the classes of 
 mechanics and agriculturists, proportioned to the esti- 
 mated value of their grant ; — they would have rendered 
 an essential service to the country by doing that which 
 individuals could not accomplish, while, in all likeli- 
 hood, they would have greatly benefited themselves. 
 It is not too late, however, for the Directors to combine 
 this really praiseworthy object with their present agri- 
 cultural and grazing speculations ; and as my only 
 object in these remarks is the good of the colony, I 
 trust they will, ere long, be induced to do so, on the 
 ground of private interest as well as on that of public 
 obligation : for, as it cannot be supposed, that such ex- 
 tensive concerns as the Company's flocks and herds are 
 likely to become in a few years hence, can possibly be 
 managed profitably by a joint stock corporation, it will 
 be good policy on the part of the Company, while it would 
 doubtless be conferring a real service on the colony, 
 to carry out a number of virtuous and industrious free 
 emigrants both from the mother country and from the 
 south of Europe, to be settled on a suitable portion of 
 their estate, on condition of their subsequently paying, 
 by instalments, both for their passage-out and for their 
 allotments of land. 
 
 III. The third remarkable era in the government of 
 General Darling was the era of drought. For three 
 successive years during the government of Sir Ralph 
 Darling the usual supply of rain was in great measure 
 
264 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 withheld from the colony, insomuch that, in the em- 
 phatic language of Scripture, the heavens became as 
 brass, and the earth as iron. An entire failure of the 
 crop in some districts, and a partial failure in others, 
 were the necessary consequences of so direful a cala- 
 mity ; while the pasture-grounds presented in general 
 the aspect of a beaten highway, and the cattle were 
 reduced to extremities from the scarcity of water. So 
 remarkable a feature in the meteorology of a country, 
 of the physical constitution of which so little is accu- 
 rately known, might well induce suspicion in regard to 
 the eligibility of that country as a place for the resi^ 
 dence of intending emigrants, if left wholly unexplained. 
 I deem it expedient, therefore, to make a few remarks 
 on the subject ; chiefly to satisfy the reader, that the 
 calamity with which the colony was thus so extensively 
 afflicted during the government of General Darling, 
 may reasonably be supposed of very unfrequent occur- 
 rence ; and that although it doubtless arose from the 
 visitation of God, it was greatly aggravated by the 
 folly and infatuation of man. 
 
 My brother, Mr. Andrew Lang, has a farm or estate 
 of two thousand four hundred acres on the Yimmang 
 or Patterson's River, a few miles from its junction with 
 the Hunter, in the principal agricultural district of the 
 colony : it is partly intersected by a picturesque lagoon 
 of a mile and a quarter in length, which, on the district 
 being first settled, was eighteen feet deep at the one 
 end of it, though considerably shallower at the other. 
 The first time I visited Hunter's River, in the year 1827, 
 the bed of this lagoon was full of water, and I had one 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 265 
 
 day the curiosity to borrow the little bark-canoe of a 
 black native whom I found fishing in puris naturalibus 
 on its bank, to ascertain the comparative conveniences 
 of aboriginal navigation. # For nearly two years, how- 
 ever, during the prevalence of the drought, it was com- 
 pletely dry, and part of its rich alluvial bed was 
 planted with tobacco, which grew most luxuriantly; 
 and with maize or Indian corn, the produce of which 
 was at the rate of eighty bushels an acre. It occurred 
 to me at the time, that this circumstance might afford a 
 cue to ascertain the period at which the last drought of 
 equal severity had occurred in the country, and I there- 
 fore suggested to my brother to make inquiries on the 
 subject of the older and more intelligent aborigines of the 
 district. He did so accordingly ; and they uniformly 
 stated in reply, that they had never seen the lagoon dry 
 before, but that their fathers had told them that they 
 had seen it dry once. A drought, therefore, of equal 
 severity with the one experienced in the colony during 
 the government of General Darling, does not occur, 
 we may reasonably suppose, oftener than once in fifty 
 years. 
 
 The afflictive character of the drought, however, 
 was greatly increased by the imprudence of the settlers 
 themselves ; many of whom, conceiving that agriculture 
 was beneath the notice of those who were so speedily 
 to make their fortunes by the rearing of sheep and 
 cattle, chose rather to run the risk of buying wheat for 
 
 * The first or rudest ship does not appear to have been a tree hollowed 
 out, agreeably to the ancient Roman adage, Prima navis fuit cavata arbos : 
 in all probability it was a bark-canoe. 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
266 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 their families and convict-servants, than incur the 
 trouble and expense of growing it. The result was, 
 that there were far more buyers of wheat in the country 
 than there ought to have been ; and that many had to 
 purchase grain imported from Van Dieman's Land, who 
 might have grown it, partially at least, themselves. 
 
 Calamitous though it was, however, the drought was 
 only partial, whole districts having either entirely or in 
 great measure escaped its influence. It was much 
 less felt, for instance, in the county of Argyle, to the 
 southward and westward, than in the lowlands or 
 earlier settled districts of the colony. In the lower 
 parts of the settlement of Hunter's River, or on what 
 the Americans would call the sea-board, it was by 
 no means so severe as at a greater distance from the 
 coast : and in Illawarra, an extensive and highly fertile 
 district about fifty miles to the southward of Port 
 Jackson, the few settlers who had cultivated grain 
 in any quantity never lost a crop. Such also, I have 
 ascertained, was the case at the settlements of Port 
 Macquarie and Moreton Bay, to the northward ; the 
 former of which, containing a large extent of alluvial 
 land on the banks of the river Hastings, has for six or 
 seven years past been discontinued as a place of punish- 
 ment, and occupied by free settlers : and I may add, 
 moreover, that at Patrick's Plains, an extensive tract of 
 uncommonly fertile land on Hunter's River, naturally 
 destitute of timber, where the crop was nearly all 
 destroyed in the year 1828, a good crop was reaped in 
 the first year of the drought. In short, common in 
 dustry and common precaution will always secure the 
 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 267 
 
 colony, even in a series of seasons as unfavourable as 
 those of the long drought during the administration of 
 General Darling, from the calamities arising from a 
 scarcity of grain; for, although the crop should en- 
 tirely fail in one district, it is likely to prove abundant 
 in others. 
 
 In the year 1828, the second year of the drought, the 
 failure of the crop in the upper parts of Hunter's 
 River, and in certain other districts of the territory, was 
 not attributable to the drought at all, but to blighting 
 north-westerly winds. In the course of that season, 
 when the settlers had a second time begun to despair of 
 their crops, there was a copious and seasonable fall 
 of rain, the almost instantaneous effect of which on 
 the vegetation of the country was truly astonishing. 
 The wheat crop immediately revived, and hopes were 
 universally entertained of an abundant harvest. Just, 
 however, as the wheat had got into ear, a north-westerly 
 wind, blowing as if from the mouth of a furnace, 
 swept across the country, and in one hour destroyed 
 many hundred acres of highly promising wheat. As I 
 had occasion to visit the district of Hunter's River 
 in the discharge of clerical duty, immediately after this 
 calamitous visitation, I made a few cursory observations 
 on the subject, which on my return to Sydney I embo- 
 died in a paper, of which the following is an extract : — 
 
 " The disease called the blight undoubtedly arises 
 from the north-westerly winds, which occasionally blow 
 from the arid regions of the interior of this continental 
 island, and exert a most destructive influence on vege- 
 tation of every description wherever they extend. 
 
268 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 These winds prevail to a greater or less degree every 
 season ; but it is only in particular seasons, like the 
 present, when, from causes unknown to us, they 
 acquire a higher temperature, and blow for longer 
 periods and with greater violence than in ordinary 
 seasons, that they prove fatal to vegetation, and blast 
 the hopes of the husbandman : and this result will 
 doubtless be accelerated, if, as unfortunately happened 
 this season, the vegetation is of that peculiar character 
 which it uniformly acquires in a warm climate, when 
 heavy rain succeeds a long continuance of drought. 
 
 " Let the settler therefore, when about to clear land 
 for cultivation, endeavour to select land having a south- 
 easterly aspect ; or, if that is impracticable, let him 
 leave a pretty broad belt of trees at the north-western 
 extremity of his cultivated land. If both of these 
 objects can be attained, so much the better. Even a 
 common rail-fence running in a transverse direction to 
 that of the blighting winds, will break their force to 
 such a degree, as to leave a narrow stripe of healthy 
 wheat on the leeward side of it, while the rest of the 
 field is entirely blighted. This is particularly observable 
 on Patrick's Plains : nay, it is remarkable also, that, in 
 such exposed situations, the growth in the furrows and 
 along the edges of the furrows is the only part of the 
 crop that is worth reaping, the greater elevation of the 
 rest protecting it from the direct influence of the winds. 
 For a similar reason, the Cape or bearded wheat is 
 found to be less subject to blight than any other 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 269 
 
 variety of that grain, the line of spears which surround 
 the ear breaking the force of the wind, and preventing 
 it from reaching the grain in an unbroken stream. It 
 was on this principle that Sir Humphrey Davy con- 
 structed his famous safety-lamp, which consists merely 
 of a net-work of wire enveloping a common lamp ; for 
 although the meshes are pretty large, the intervention 
 of the wire prevents the inflammable air from reaching 
 the flame in an unbroken stream, and thereby prevents 
 explosion. For the very opposite reason, the creeping 
 wheat, which is remarkably thin-skinned, and is prized 
 on account of its greater weight and superior quality, is 
 more subject to blight than other varieties of that 
 
 grain. 
 
 # # # # # 
 
 " Although the north-westerly winds have prevailed 
 for a considerable time past along the whole extent of 
 Hunter's River, as well as along the first and second 
 branches of that river, it is obvious, from the present 
 state both of the pasturage and of the crops in the lower 
 part of its course, that their destructive influence has 
 not been felt, or has been felt only in a very small 
 degree, in that vicinity. It appears therefore, that 
 in that part of the district the blighting influence of the 
 N. W\ winds is almost entirely counteracted by the 
 proximity of the ocean, and the consequent diminution 
 of temperature which that proximity must occasion. 
 This result, however, is not produced by the mere 
 mechanical effect of the sea-breeze, which generally 
 alternates with the land wind along this coast during 
 the summer months ; for when the north-west wind 
 
270 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 blows with sufficient violence to oocasion blight in tie 
 interior, there is no sea-breeze on the coast : but the 
 ocean not only cools the atmosphere above itself, but 
 refrigerates the air, counteracts the noxious influence of 
 the land wind, and promotes vegetation to the distance 
 of about twenty-five miles on the coast. If it should be 
 asked however, why the districts of Bathurst and Argyle 
 are less subject to blight than the upper parts of Hun- 
 ter's River, — it may be stated in reply, that the Argyle 
 country is two degrees farther to the southward, and 
 consists in great measure of elevated table-land, situated 
 within a moderate distance of the coast. The plain of 
 Bathurst, on the other hand, is two thousand feet above 
 the level of the sea, while the upper part of the district 
 of Hunter's River is almost on a level with the ocean. 
 Now, it is perfectly obvious, that at so great an eleva- 
 tion the atmosphere must be much less dense than on 
 lower levels, and consequently much less pernicious 
 to vegetation when heated to a high degree. 
 
 " From these premises we may infer that cultivation 
 in this colony ought to be confined in a great measure 
 to what the Americans call the sea-board, or to elevated 
 table-land in the interior : and we have reason to con- 
 gratulate ourselves that there is a sufficiency of ex- 
 cellent arable land on the lower parts of Hunter's River 
 and the other rivers to the northward, to afford the requi- 
 site supply of grain to a very large population, without 
 taking into account the banks of the Hawkesbury and 
 the highly fertile district of Illawarra, in which the 
 wheat crop has never yet failed. Let the land, there- 
 fore, in these localities be thrown into cultivation as ex- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 271 
 
 tensively as possible, and the prevalence of blight in 
 the interior will be much less severely felt by the 
 colony at large, than it is likely to be in other circum- 
 stances. 
 
 "Sydney, 2Ut Nov., 1828." 
 
 IV. The fourth remarkable era in the government of 
 General Darling was the era of libels. 
 
 About a year after Sir Ralph Darling arrived in the 
 colony, a worthless soldier of the 5?th regiment, of the 
 name of Thompson, wishing, it seems, to get quit of the 
 service, and conceiving that the situation of a convict 
 in New South Wales was in some respects superior to 
 his own, persuaded another soldier of the same regiment 
 of the name of Sudds — a peaceable, well-behaved man, 
 bnt unfortunately not of sufficient firmness to resist the 
 insidious influence of his comrade's bad advice — to join 
 with him in the commission of a felony, for the express 
 purpose of being dismissed the service. They accord- 
 ingly went in company to the shop of a dealer in 
 Sydney, on pretence of intending to purchase some 
 article, and contrived to steal a piece of cloth, which 
 they immediately cut in two, each secreting a part of 
 it about his person : but the theft was designedly so 
 very awkwardly managed, that its perpetrators were 
 instantly detected, and delivered over to the civil power. 
 They were accordingly tried, convicted, and sentenced 
 to transportation to a penal settlement — Moreton Bay 
 or Norfolk Island — for seven years. 
 
 In the course of the trial the object and design of the 
 theft were ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt, 
 
272 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 and the case accordingly assumed in the eye of the Go- 
 vernor a very different character from that of a common 
 case of theft. The thieves were soldiers in His Majesty's 
 service, and they had taken up the intolerable and 
 highly dangerous idea, that the situation of a soldier 
 was worse than that of a convict or transported felon : 
 nay, acting on this idea, they had not only deserted 
 His Majesty's service, which they were paid, and main- 
 tained, and sworn to uphold ; but had actually made 
 common cause and identified themselves with those 
 very disturbers of the public peace, from whose vicious 
 propensities or actual violence they were bound to pro- 
 tect his Majesty's subjects. In short, their example, 
 in so far as it was likely to be contagious, was evidently 
 highly dangerous to the peace and good government 
 of the colony ; and the Governor therefore, who in 
 common with all other governors of British colonies is 
 authorized to provide for all such extreme cases as in- 
 volve the very existence of the government to the best 
 of his own judgment, conceived this was just such a 
 case. Whether he may not have attached too much 
 importance to the case, or whether he may not have 
 magnified the danger that was likely to accrue from it, 
 if treated in the ordinary way, it is unnecessary to 
 inquire. 
 
 With a view, therefore, to obviate the evils appre- 
 hended, the Governor, in his capacity of Lieutenant- 
 General and Commander of the Forces, issued a general 
 order, in virtue of which the two soldiers were taken 
 out of the hands of the civil power, and brought, on a 
 day appointed, to the barrack-square in Sydney, where 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 273 
 
 their crime was publicly announced to all the other 
 soldiers in garrison ; their sentence of transportation to 
 a penal settlement for seven years was declared to be 
 commuted into that of hard labour in irons on the roads 
 of the colony for the same period, — doubtless that they 
 might be occasionally seen by other soldiers in going 
 to and from their places of detachment in the interior ; 
 and it was formally announced to them, that at the ex- 
 piration of their period of sentence they should return 
 to the regiment and serve in the ranks as before. 
 Immediately after they were publicly stripped of 
 their uniform, and arrayed in the dress of convicts; 
 iron collars of considerable weight, prepared expressly 
 for the purpose, with projecting iron spikes and chains 
 of the same metal attached to fetters for the legs, — 
 such it seems as are used in the Isle of France or the 
 West Indies for the punishment or confinement of run- 
 away negroes,* — were affixed to their necks ; and they 
 
 * The device of the iron-collars has hitherto been uniformly repre- 
 sented as a thing previously unheard of in New South Wales, and as 
 evincing the peculiarly inhuman disposition of General Darling. What 
 will be thought of the following sentence of a bench of magistrates iiv 
 the town of Sydney, in the year 1807, from which it appears that iron- 
 collars had been in use in the colony, as an aggravation of punishment, 
 not less than twenty years- previous to the case of Sudds and Thompson I 
 
 "Thomas Prosser, Robert Matthews, Patrick Mitchell, Tristram 
 Moore, Patrick Galvin, Wm. Saunders, Francis Allen, convicts, are 
 charged with absconding from the settlement; and Wm. Blake, a free- 
 man, charged with aiding and assisting the above-named prisoners at 
 absconding as above stated. 
 
 " The charges above stated being read to the several prisoners, and to 
 Wm. Blake, the freeman, they acknowledge themselves guilty of the 
 respective crimes they are charged with. 
 
 "The bench of Magistrates, finding them guilty of a breach of tha 
 
274 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 were drummed out of the regiment with the Rogue's 
 March to the common jail. 
 
 All this procedure, in so far as it was evidently an 
 interference with the due course of law, was, according 
 to all the approved maxims of British jurisprudence, 
 undoubtedly illegal and indefensible. Whether there 
 was a case of urgent necessity to justify it on any 
 ground, — whether the peace and good government of 
 the colony would have been endangered by adopting the 
 ordinary course of procedure, — that is the question ; 
 and it is one on which there was room for a difference 
 of opinion. For my own part, even although there had 
 actually been such a case as I have shown the Governor 
 supposed there was, I should have been disposed to 
 say, " Let the law have its due course." At the same 
 time, as punishment is intended not merely for the cor- 
 rection of the offender, but as a means of deterring 
 others from imitating his pernicious example, it was 
 the part of a good Governor to consider how he could 
 render the punishment of the two culprits in the case in 
 
 colonial regulations of the 18th of November, 1800, do sentence Matthews, 
 as a principal, to receive one thousand lashes ; Moore, Galvin, and 
 Saunders, five hundred lashes ; Francis Allen, to hard labour, with an 
 iron collar, at Newcastle; Wm. Blake, free from servitude, two hundred 
 lashes, and three years' hard labour ; Thomas Prosser, emancipated, two 
 hundred lashes, and three years' hard labour ; and Patrick Mitchell, two 
 hundred lashes, and three years' hard labour, and to work in the jail 
 gang until farther orders. 
 
 (Signed) Richard Atkins, 
 
 John Harris, 
 Thomas Jamieson." 
 
 Proceedings of a Bench of Magistrates in Sydney. Vide " Colonel John- 
 son's Trial," p. 333. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 275 
 
 question effectual, in the most extensive manner, in pre- 
 venting the recurrence of their crime : and if in doing 
 so he made the punishment extremely degrading on the 
 one hand, and unfeelingly severe on the other, such a 
 result could only have arisen from an error of judgment ; 
 for it was absolutely incredible that in such a case 
 personal feeling could exist, or that the Governor could 
 have had any other object in view than the public 
 good. This was indeed so generally acknowledged 
 throughout the colony at the time when the circum- 
 stance occurred, that if no extraordinary and unex- 
 pected result had ensued, the anomalous character of 
 the punishment would neither have been discovered nor 
 complained of; for even the able Opposition paper of 
 the day admitted that the offence of the soldiers was a 
 serious and dangerous offence, and one that required 
 extraordinary treatment. 
 
 The man Sudds, however, was labouring at the time 
 under some chronic affection of the liver, which had 
 been unfortunately overlooked, through inattention, I 
 believe, on the part of the medical officer of the jail ; 
 and which, if reported to the Governor beforehand, 
 would in all probability have prevented the man's ex- 
 posure to the scenes of the barrack-square. But the 
 public disgrace to which he had been subjected in the 
 presence of all his former comrades, and his exposure 
 in a state of bodily illness to the heat of a burning sun, 
 the utter disappointment of the hopes which his wicked 
 associate had led him to entertain, and the miserable 
 prospect that lay before him — all these circumstances 
 operating in conjunction with his hepatic affection, and 
 doubtless considerably aggravated by the action of his 
 
276 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 iron collar, — immediately plunged the wretched man 
 into a state of hopeless despondency, in which he was 
 at length removed from the jail to the general hospital, 
 where he died in a few days. 
 
 This was a most unfortunate and a most unlooked- 
 for termination of the case of the two soldiers : still, 
 however, as it was evident to all parties that there was 
 no ground whatever for the imputation of improper mo- 
 tives ; if a fair statement of the case, such as I have 
 attempted to give, had been indirectly given on the 
 part of the Government — admitting the error of judg- 
 ment which evil-disposed persons were now beginning 
 to discover, and lamenting the unfortunate and unfore- 
 seen issue of the affair, — the matter would very soon 
 have been forgotten, and disaffection itself would have 
 been entirely disarmed. 
 
 General Darling, however, was peculiarly unfortunate 
 at the time in question in having a supporter, forsooth, 
 in the person of the late Mr. Robert Howe, editor of the 
 " Sydney Gazette." This redoubtable champion of the 
 colonial government, in a spirit of infatuation which I 
 have never seen equalled in the whole course of my 
 life, listened with the utmost eagerness to the first 
 murmurs of disapprobation ; and not only commenced a 
 regular defence of the measures adopted by the colo- 
 nial government in the case of the two soldiers, and 
 held them forth to the colony as highly proper and 
 praiseworthy, but ever and anon launched forth whole 
 paragraphs of the most provoking and unprovoked 
 personal vituperation at the heads of all and sundry 
 who presumed to think or speak or write otherwise. 
 
 This was more than human nature unaided by Divine 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 277 
 
 grace could be expected to endure ; and accordingly 
 Dr. Wardell, a colonial barrister of eminent talent, 
 who was then the editor of the "Australian" news- 
 paper, and whose frail nature had evidently no such 
 supernatural assistance, gradually discovered more and 
 more illegality, and more and more enormity in the 
 Governor's procedure, till he came at length to write of 
 it in a style and manner to the last degree unjustifiable 
 and unbecoming. The u Australian" newspaper subse- 
 quently passed into other hands of far inferior ability ; 
 in which, however, its lack of talent was abundantly 
 compensated by the plenitude and the depth of its vitu- 
 peration. The " Sydney Gazette" happened also to fall 
 into the hands of other editors, who in this particular 
 inherited the principles and followed the steps of their 
 predecessor : and the " Monitor," a third colonial 
 newspaper, conducted on the radical principles and as 
 much as possible in the vituperative style of Mr. Cob- 
 bett, appeared in the mean time on the colonial carpet, 
 and, summoning the whole prison population to con- 
 template the contest, fiercely threw down the gauntlet of 
 opposition. On this high and dignified arena, where 
 " Greek met Greek," forsooth, the case of Sudds and 
 Thompson continued, during the last four years of 
 General Darling's administration, to afford an inex- 
 haustible subject for the display of every thing but 
 argument and ability, and the common proprieties of 
 literary warfare : it constituted the dead weight of 
 every paragraph and the burden of every song. The 
 Governor was defended, forsooth, and bepraised on 
 the one hand with all the nauseating fulsomeness of 
 
278 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 literary prostitution ; # he was attacked on the other 
 with absolute and incessant scurrility. If he had been 
 an angel of light, and if his government had trans- 
 formed the colony from a frightful solitude to a bloom- 
 ing Eden, stronger language of commendation relative 
 to his person and government could not possibly have 
 been used, than that which one department of the 
 colonial press most absurdly and most perseveringly 
 employed in his praise : if he had been a murderer 
 and a parricide— if his government had reduced the 
 colony from a paradise to a pandemonium, he could 
 not have been spoken of in more vile and opprobrious 
 language, than other departments of that press used 
 respecting him ; nor could more strenuous and un- 
 remitting efforts have been made to bring his person 
 and his administration into utter contempt. 
 
 From the preceding statement, it will doubtless ap- 
 pear sufficiently obvious, that General Darling was him- 
 self greatly to blame in reference to this undignified 
 contest. It was the " Sydney Gazette " that originated 
 and provoked the discussion ; and as that paper was 
 virtually paid by the government during General Dar- 
 ling's administration, being supported in great measure 
 by government patronage, it was fully in the Governor's 
 power to have commanded silence in that quarter, on a 
 subject on which silence alone could have been ex- 
 pressive of his praise. But as General Darling lacked 
 magnanimity in the first instance to disclaim the attri- 
 
 * " He that has flattery ready for all whom the vicissitudes of the 
 world happen to exalt, must be scorned as a prostituted mind." — John- 
 son's Life of Waller. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 279 
 
 bute of infallibility, by not allowing it to be even hinted 
 that he could possibly err ; so he afterwards lacked dis- 
 cernment to perceive that unmerited commendation was 
 only censure of the worst species in disguise : and in 
 reference to the scenes of crimination and recrimination 
 that ensued in the public press of the colony, it cannot 
 be denied that if the Governor had good reason to 
 complain, as he did so loudly in the sequel, that the 
 Opposition papers had given him many ungentlemanly 
 knocks, their editors could retort that he had himself 
 dealt the first vulgar blow. 
 
 One of the first acts of the present Governor, Major- 
 General Sir Richard Bourke, was to disclaim every sort 
 of connexion with the colonial press, by causing a Govern- 
 ment Gazette, for government advertisements exclu- 
 sively, to be published weekly, and by offering the 
 whole of the government printing to the lowest bidder. 
 It was an act of the wisest policy, and one in which Sir 
 Richard Bourke has doubtless consulted his own peace 
 of mind, as well as the general welfare of the colony ; 
 for nothing could possibly be more thoroughly sub- 
 versive both of public tranquillity and of domestic 
 enjoyment, than the system pursued, in reference to 
 the colonial newspapers, during the government of his 
 predecessor. 
 
 The impolicy of General Darling's procedure, in re- 
 gard to the newspapers of the colony, amounted almost, 
 in some instances, to a want of common sense. Mr. 
 Edward Smith Hall, the editor of the "Monitor," had 
 arrived in New South Wales as a free emigrant during 
 the government of Major-General Macquarie ; and, 
 
280 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 besides having universally borne an unblemished pri- 
 vate character, he had deserved well of the colony in 
 having reared a numerous and virtuous family : his 
 property was by no means extensive, and, like that of 
 most proprietors in the colony, it consisted chiefly of 
 land and cattle. In the genial climate of New South 
 Wales, the latter increase at a rate quite unparalleled 
 in Europe ■; and the proprietor of a moderate extent 
 of land is therefore obliged, in the course of a few years 
 after he has formed his settlement in the forest, to look 
 beyond the boundaries of his own property for fresh 
 pasture for his rapidly increasing herds. To meet 
 cases of this description, General Darling had very 
 properly allowed proprietors to rent extensive tracts of 
 unlocated crown land, for periods of six or twelve 
 months, at the rate of two shillings and sixpence per 
 annum for every hundred acres;, but on Mr. Hall's 
 applying for a lease of this kind, it was peremptorily 
 refused ; and, on asking the reason why, he was told 
 that the circumstance of his being the editor of the 
 u Monitor " was a sufficient reason to disentitle him to 
 any indulgence from the government. I have been told, 
 (for I was not in the habit of reading the " Monitor" at 
 the time,) that Mr. Hall had been rather moderate in 
 his opposition up to this period ; but whether he had 
 been so or not, it was just the time for the Governor to 
 have disarmed that Opposition of its virulence for the 
 future, by doing him an act of common justice, if not 
 of generosity. 
 
 This act of egregious impolicy was followed up by 
 another, which had much the appearance of vindictive- 
 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 281 
 
 ness. Mr. Hall had a convict compositor in his em- 
 ployment, who had been assigned to him agreeably to 
 the government regulations ; but, in contrariety to the 
 uniform practice in such cases, the man was resumed by 
 the government ; for this was the word made use of on 
 the occasion, to designate an act, which up to that period 
 had no distinctive name in the colony, from its having 
 been previously unpractised and unknown. 
 
 When a Government condescends in this manner to 
 enter the lists with a private individual, that individual 
 immediately acquires a notoriety, and assumes an import- 
 ance in the estimation of the public, which his own 
 native energies could never have procured him. I 
 doubt much whether Mr. Hall's paper had sufficient 
 buoyancy to have kept it above water till the close of 
 General Darling's administration, had he not been en- 
 abled to do so by the Governor : for when a general 
 in the army stoops to place himself in the attitude of a 
 boxer, who is there so devoid of curiosity as not to be 
 desirous of witnessing the fight ? 
 
 It was unfortunate, however, for the colonial public, 
 that the Opposition papers of the colony, during the 
 government of General Darling, were by no means dis- 
 tinguished for that scrupulous regard to truth, without 
 which no person can merit the confidence of the public. 
 There was a rabid desire to publish whatever had a 
 tendency to bring either the Governor, or persons in any 
 way connected with the government, into general dis- 
 favour ; and information of this kind was accordingly 
 received with the utmost eagerness, and often without 
 the least regard to the character of the quarter from 
 
282 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 which it came. It fared, therefore, with the Opposition 
 editors as it did with the shepherd-boy in the fable, who 
 was perpetually bawling out "a wolf! a wolf!" — they 
 lost the confidence of persons of moderate principles, 
 and were consequently left with but slight sympathy to 
 the difficulties of their situation : in short, the wolf 
 came, but nobody turned out. 
 
 At the same time, it must be confessed, that the 
 feverish condition of the body politic of the colony, 
 induced, during the latter part of General Darling's 
 administration, through His Excellency's perpetual and 
 unmanly squabbles with a contemptible press, neces- 
 sarily produced a state of general suspicion and distrust 
 in the community at large ; insomuch that a man 
 could neither converse openly nor dine with persons on 
 the list of the proscribed, without indulging the fear of 
 its being reported to his disadvantage at Government 
 House. Nay, a remarkably good-natured old gentle- 
 man, whose political opinions, on any subject at all 
 interesting to the fate of nations, no person of the least 
 discernment would even have thought it of importance 
 to ascertain, actually shot himself, because he found he 
 had incurred the Governor's displeasure through his 
 acceptance, on some occasion or other, of radical 
 hospitality. 
 
 It would be a great mistake to estimate newspaper- 
 writers in general, but especially in the colonies, on 
 any other principles than those that regulate the prac- 
 tice of persons in other lines of business, the whole and 
 the sole object of which is to make money. People do 
 not go to the colonies merely to preach up liberty and the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 283 
 
 rights of men : they go, for the most part, as it is most 
 accurately certified in the custom-house books, to better 
 their fortunes. If this paramount object can be gained 
 through government patronage or a government appoint- 
 ment, Things as they are is their motto, and servile adu- 
 lation of the powers that be their profitable employment : 
 if the government patronage, however, is otherwise en- 
 gaged, and the government situations all bespoken, they 
 strike for liberty and independence; just as a prudent 
 man opens a shop in the grocery or tobacco line, when 
 he finds that the ironmongery or haberdashery busi- 
 ness, which he would have otherwise preferred, is 
 already overdone. It was confidently reported and 
 currently believed in the colony, that the ablest Oppo- 
 sition editor we have ever had in the country, the late 
 Dr. Wardell, LL.D. did not become a patriot, i. e. 
 a person opposed to the government , till he had been 
 refused a lucrative government appointment. 
 
 It is the pride and delight of a general dealer to keep a 
 good article; but it is always to be remembered that 
 the goodness of the article is estimated not so much 
 according to its intrinsic value, as according to the 
 taste of the customer. If the latter, for instance, should 
 prefer colonial tobacco or colonial gin, the dealer would 
 forthwith cease to import Brazils tobacco or genuine 
 Jamaica, notwithstanding its acknowledged superi- 
 ority. In like manner the article manufactured by the 
 colonial press is in every respect suited to the taste 
 of the customer; and in a colony in which two-thirds of 
 the revenue arise from the sale of ardent spirits, it 
 requires no conjurer to ascertain what that taste espe- 
 
284 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 cially is. In short, a taste for rum implies a taste 
 for ribaldry, for gross personal vituperation, and for 
 an indiscriminate abuse of all the measures of govern- 
 ment and of all its supporters ; and it cannot be denied 
 that this vitiated taste was ministered to by the colonial 
 press during the government of General Darling, with a 
 zeal and perseverance above all praise. 
 
 Indeed, it is undeniable, that the general taste for 
 rum has rendered the sellers of that article too nume- 
 rous and too money-making a class in the Australian 
 community, to be disregarded on the one hand by 
 the gentlemen of the press, or not to influence the peri- 
 odical literature of the colony on the other. The rights 
 and privileges of these individuals have uniformly been 
 defended by the colonial press with a& much de voted - 
 ness as if the race of publicans constituted a fourth 
 estate in the realm ; and their tastes in the way of 
 reading have been consulted with the assiduous atten- 
 tion of a tender-hearted nurse to a sick child. If the 
 government, for instance, propose to pass an act to 
 prevent tippling at certain hours on Sunday, there is 
 an immediate outcry against the intolerable infringe- 
 ment of the rights of Englishmen, in not allowing an 
 honest man to enjoy his pipe and tankard, and his colonial 
 newspaper, in a respectable public-house, of a Sunday, 
 without being subjected to the inquisitorial visits of a 
 petty constable. A considerable proportion of the daily 
 frequenters of these places of resort, as well as of the 
 lower classes in general throughout the colony, consists 
 of Roman Catholics : for the special gratification, 
 therefore, of that class of the community, Protestant 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 285 
 
 editors republish Mr. Cobbett's libels on the reforma- 
 tion : and as a still larger proportion of the rum-drink- 
 ing, as well as of the colonial population in general, are 
 notoriously of no religion at all, the cause of the Deists, 
 forsooth, is advocated with the utmost tenderness and 
 the utmost liberality. In short, there is a species of 
 action and reaction in perpetual progress between the 
 colonial press on the one hand, and the rum-selling and 
 the rum-drinking interests of the colony on the other, 
 which is doubtless quite accordant with the acknow- 
 ledged laws of physics, and the result of which is the 
 farther debasement of both : for as every public-house 
 has a tap, and as every tap must have a newspaper, 
 the swal lowers of the vile and villanous stuff that is 
 sold in these haunts of dissipation must have something 
 equally worthless in the shape of literature to swallow 
 along with it. 
 
 This licentiousness of the colonial press during the 
 government of General Darling, or rather the state of 
 feverish annoyance in which the Governor was per- 
 petually kept by its personal attacks on himself, in- 
 duced him to pass certain acts affecting the press of 
 the colony, which were designated by the Opposition 
 editors the gagging acts, and which only tended to rendeT 
 their personalities more provokingly offensive. In the 
 mean time, Mr. William Wentworth, a native of the 
 colony, and the favourite barrister of all the newspaper 
 patriots of New South Wales, prepared and forwarded 
 to England certain charges against General Darling, 
 which were known and described in the colony as an 
 impeachment of the Governor ; and it was even given 
 
286 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 out that Mr. Wentworth intended to dog His Excellency 
 to England, on his retirement from the government of 
 the colony, to prosecute him before the High Court of 
 Parliament on the Sudds and Thompson affair. This 
 prodigious display of intended patriotism naturally af- 
 forded an excellent handle to the colonial press ; and the 
 mention of the impeachment in a variety of ways in the 
 colonial newspapers led to a series of prosecutions for 
 libel in the Supreme Court of the colony ; the result of 
 which was, that all the three editors were repeatedly 
 cast and fined, while those of the Opposition newspapers 
 were besides subjected to a long imprisonment in the 
 common jail. As the famous impeachment, however, 
 was never heard of after the Governor left the colony, 
 it was evident that the whole affair was a mere ruse de 
 guerre, or rather mere fanfaronnade. Mr. Wentworth did 
 indeed exhibit his patriotism on the occasion of General 
 Darling's departure from the colony, in a way that per- 
 haps occasioned him less personal hardship than a 
 voyage to England, but that nevertheless did him great 
 credit in the estimation of a certain portion of the 
 colonial public; for, like a true patriot who did not 
 disdain the meanness of a vulgar triumph, he enter- 
 tained a party of friends on the day of the Governor's 
 embarkation, to celebrate the auspicious event, while 
 all and sundry the canaille of Sydney were permitted to 
 partake of his indiscriminate hospitality in front of his 
 residence. The guests on that occasion, doubtless those 
 of the latter description, evinced their extreme delicacy 
 and propriety of feeling by grossly insulting General 
 Darling's family as they passed, on their return to 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 287 
 
 Sydney, alongside the vessel in which they were then 
 lying in the harbour ready for sea. These particulars 
 may perhaps appear uninteresting to the general reader; 
 but they will at least show him of what materials the 
 richest and rarest gems of Australian patriotism are 
 composed. 
 
 General Darling embarked for England on the 22nd 
 of October, 1831, having administered the affairs of the 
 colony for nearly six years. 
 
 After his return to England, and in consequence of 
 reiterated representations from individuals who had 
 either been opposed to his government, or had fancied 
 themselves deeply injured through his measures, various 
 attempts were made in the House of Commons to pro- 
 cure the appointment of a Parliamentary Committee to 
 investigate the charges laid against him. Mr. Maurice 
 O'Connell succeeded at length in this object, and pro- 
 cured the appointment of a Parliamentary Committee 
 in the year 1835 : but as the Committee were particu- 
 larly instructed, on the motion of Lord John Russell, 
 not to interfere with the case of Captain Robison, an 
 officer who had undoubtedly been harshly used, if not 
 absolutely ruined, by General Darling, (although it 
 must be acknowledged that he had himself acted with 
 extreme imprudence,) and as there was no evidence 
 adduced to substantiate the other charges, he was 
 honourably acquitted, and received from His Majesty, 
 as a token of his royal favour on the occasion, the 
 honour of knighthood. 
 
 It would be preposterous to attach the least degree 
 
288 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 of importance to the result of this ill-advised and 
 uncalled-for proceeding, on the part of Mr. Maurice 
 O'Connell and his colonial prompters, in endeavouring 
 to ascertain the exact merits or demerits of Sir Ralph 
 Darling as a Governor of New South Wales. The con- 
 duct of a British Governor at the extremity of the globe 
 must surely be peculiarly flagrant, if it cannot be 
 sheltered from the condemnation of a Parliamentary 
 Committee assembled in London. That there were no 
 grounds sufficient to authorize the appointment of such 
 a Committee, in the case in question, I most willingly 
 admit; but that the verdict of honourable acquittal, pro- 
 nounced by that Committee, is to be received and in- 
 terpreted by the public as an authoritative declaration 
 that Sir Ralph Darling was a good Governor, or that 
 he did what he ought to have done, and what it was 
 fully in his power to do, for the general advancement, 
 and especially for the intellectual, the moral, and the 
 spiritual welfare of the people of his government, — I must 
 use the freedom to deny. It is at the bar of public 
 opinion, and not merely by Parliamentary Committees, 
 that Governors are to be tried, and their merits or de- 
 merits estimated and determined ; and I should be 
 sorry indeed, on behalf of the best interests of my 
 adopted country, if the ill-advised and uncalled-for 
 attempt at parliamentary investigation in the case of 
 Sir Ralph Darling should ever preclude an appeal to 
 that bar in the case of any future Governor of New 
 South Wales. 
 
 I shall conclude this chapter with the following sketch 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 289 
 
 of the progress of geographical discovery in the inte- 
 rior of New South Wales during the government of Sir 
 Ralph Darling. 
 
 The disappearance of the river Macquarie in an 
 extensive marsh in the western interior, — a point which 
 had been ascertained by Mr. Oxley during the govern- 
 ment of Major-General Macquarie, — had given rise to 
 many and contradictory conjectures, in regard to the 
 general conformation of the Australian continent, among 
 men of science in the European world. Mr. Oxley's 
 opinion was, that the ocean of reeds in which he had 
 suddenly lost all traces of the river was part of a vast 
 inland sea, which occupied the interior of the continent, 
 and from which there was no outlet to the coast ; and 
 as the river Lachlan, which also pursues a westerly 
 course considerably to the southward of the Macquarie, 
 was also ascertained by the same officer to lose itself 
 in a similar way, this opinion was regarded as extremely 
 probable ; and the vast terra incognita of Australia 
 was ,of consequence^ supposed to resemble a Scotch 
 peasant's bonnet turned upside down, or a shallow 
 basin made for holding water. 
 
 During the long drought that afflicted the colony 
 in the course of Sir Ralph Darling's administration, it 
 occurred to the Governor that a favourable opportunity 
 was at length afforded for examining the interior marshes 
 discovered by Mr. Oxley, and for ascertaining the actual 
 fate of the river which had been so strangely reported 
 by that gentleman to have committed an act of/e/o de se 
 in the wilderness of Australia. An expedition was 
 accordingly fitted out for the express purpose of ex- 
 
 VOL. 1. N 
 
290 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 amining the marshes of the Macquarie, under the com- 
 mand of Captain Sturt, of His Majesty's 39th regiment, 
 who was accompanied by the enterprising native of the 
 colony I have already mentioned, Mr. Hamilton Hume. 
 In the course of his journey, during which the whole 
 party experienced much suffering and privation from the 
 excessive heat of the weather and the afflictive character 
 of the drought, Captain Sturt ascertained that the 
 marsh in which Mr. Oxley had lost the river was only 
 of moderate extent — fifty miles in length and twenty in 
 breadth — and that there was no such inland sea as that 
 gentleman supposed. To the northward, however, a 
 chain of ponds was discovered communicating with the 
 dry bed of a torrent, whose channel was evidently 
 intended to carry off the overflowings of the marshes in 
 rainy seasons, and which Captain Sturt therefore very 
 properly considered as the re-appearance of the Mac- 
 quarie. This river, or rather torrent, was traced for 
 a considerable distance in a northerly direction, and was 
 found to communicate with a much larger river than the 
 Macquarie, which Captain Sturt named the Darling, 
 but of which the water was as salt as that of the ocean, 
 from numerous brine-springs on its banks. Captain 
 Sturt traced the Darling ninety miles from the point 
 where it received the drainings of the marshes of the 
 Macquarie ; its course from that point being first north- 
 westerly, but afterwards south-westerly. In the lower 
 part of its ascertained course it w 7 as sixty yards in width 
 in the extremity of the drought, and it was flowing to the 
 southward in majestic loneliness, when Captain Sturt 
 was reluctantly obliged to discontinue its examination, 
 and to return with the expedition to the colony. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 291 
 
 In the course of a second journey to the northward, 
 undertaken in the year 1827, and extending as far as 
 the latitude of Moreton Bay, Mr. Allan Cunningham, 
 of whom I have already had occasion to make honour- 
 able mention, crossed four considerable streams, two of 
 which he named the Gwydir and the Dumaresq, of 
 which, however, the course and the fate (to use a phrase 
 peculiarly applicable to the rivers of Australia) remained 
 to be ascertained by subsequent discovery. In this 
 journey, that enterprising and indefatigable traveller 
 traversed the interior for an extent of five degrees of 
 latitude to the northward, and made us acquainted with 
 the existence of an extensive tract of available land, 
 which at no distant period will doubtless be turned to 
 good account by future settlers at Moreton Bay. 
 
 In consequence of an idea entertained by Major Mit- 
 chell, the present Surveyor-General of New South 
 Wales, that an outlet existed for the waters of the in- 
 terior to the north-westward, an expedition was fitted out 
 for a journey of discovery in that direction, in the year 
 1831, immediately after General Darling left the colony; 
 the petty jealousies which were unhappily allowed to 
 influence the operations of the colonial government 
 having previously precluded Major Mitchell from 
 attempting to ascertain by actual examination the 
 correctness of his conjecture. Major Mitchell's ex- 
 pedition was unfortunate in its issue. A depot was 
 formed in the course of the journey, at which a large 
 portion of the provisions intended for the expedition was 
 deposited under the charge of two convict servants : in 
 the absence, however, of the rest of the party, the two 
 
292 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 men were speared by the natives, and the provisions 
 either carried off or destroyed. Major Mitchell was 
 therefore obliged to return to the colony much sooner 
 than he had expected, and without accomplishing the 
 main object of his journey. Considerable light, how- 
 ever, was thrown on the geographical conformation 
 of the Australian continent by this expedition. It was 
 ascertained, for instance, that the dividing range that 
 separates the interior waters flowing ultimately in a 
 northerly from those flowing ultimately in a southerly 
 direction, was considerably farther to the northward 
 than had previously been supposed : the rivers Gwydir 
 and Dumaresq, or, as they are called by the natives, the 
 Kindur and the Karaula, which Mr. Cunningham had 
 discovered flowing in a north-westerly direction, having 
 been ascertained to alter their course, and to flow after- 
 wards to the southward and westward. It would seem 
 therefore that the river Darling is the common recep- 
 tacle for the various streams that rise on the western 
 declivity of the mountains that run parallel to the east 
 coast of the continent — the Macquarie, the Castlereagh, 
 the Peel, and the two rivers discovered by Mr. Cun- 
 ningham ; Major Mitchell's conjecture in regard to the 
 northern waters still remaining to be verified by future 
 discovery. 
 
 I have already observed, that during the government 
 of Major-General Macquarie, a river of considerable 
 magnitude, called the Morumbidgee, was discovered 
 flowing with a rapid westerly course from the elevated 
 table-land to the southward and westward of Port 
 Jackson. Highly favourable accounts reached the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 293 
 
 colony from time to time of the country on the banks 
 of this river; and the interesting report that was given 
 by two gentlemen of the district of Bathurst, who had 
 traced it for one hundred and fifty miles beyond the 
 farthest cattle-station in the interior, served only to 
 increase the mystery in which its fate was enveloped, 
 and to heighten the general desire to ascertain whether 
 it ultimately reached the surrounding ocean. An expe- 
 dition of discovery was accordingly fitted out to proceed 
 down the Morumbidgee, in the month of November, 
 1829, of which Captain Sturt, who had shortly before 
 ascertained the termination of the river Macquarie, 
 and the existence of a still larger river in the western 
 interior, with so much credit to himself and so much 
 satisfaction to the colony, was entrusted with the com- 
 mand. 
 
 In the upper part of its course the Morumbidgee 
 traverses a country consisting chiefly of grassy hills 
 and romantic valleys, well fitted for the residence and 
 subsistence of civilized man. Along the course of the 
 river there is a succession of flats, some on the right, 
 and others on the left bank of the stream ; some of 
 larger, and others of smaller extent, which, according to 
 Captain Sturt, " for richness of soil, and for abundance 
 of pasture, can no where be excelled. " Farther to the 
 westward the country is of an inferior character ; and on 
 approaching the meridian on which the Lachlan river 
 had been ascertained by Mr. Oxley to disappear in an 
 extensive marsh, considerably to the northward, it ex- 
 hibits the aspect of absolute sterility and hopeless deso- 
 lation. It would seem, indeed, that the overflowings of 
 
294 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the marshes of the Lachlan are carried off by a series 
 of insignificant rills into the bed of the Morumbidgee, 
 just as those of the marshes of the Macquarie are left 
 to find their way into the channel of the Darling. About 
 fifty miles to the westward of these marshes, the Morum- 
 bidgee empties its diminished current into a noble river 
 flowing from the eastward, to which Captain Sturt gave 
 the name of the Murray. At the point where it receives 
 the Morumbidgee, the Murray is about three hundred 
 and fifty feet in width, and from twelve to twenty in 
 depth. " Its reaches/' says Captain Sturt, " were from 
 half to three-quarters of a mile in length, and the views 
 upon it were splendid : its transparent waters were 
 running over a sandy bed at the rate of two and a half 
 knots an hour ; and its banks, although averaging 
 eighteen feet in height, were evidently subject to 
 floods. " " The river," adds the same intelligent travel- 
 ler, in a subsequent paragraph, " improved upon us 
 at every mile : its reaches were of noble breadth and 
 splendid appearance : its current was stronger, and it 
 was fed by numerous springs." 
 
 The Murray is in all likelihood formed by the con- 
 fluence of the three rivers already mentioned, that were 
 crossed by Messrs. Hovell and Hume on their expe- 
 dition to Port Phillip in the year 1824; and it probably 
 constitutes the common receptacle of the western waters 
 of the south-east angle of the continent of Australia. 
 From its junction with the Morumbidgee, it flows in a 
 west-north-westerly direction for about fifty or sixty miles, 
 and is then joined by a noble river of a hundred yards 
 in width flowing from the northward, which Captain 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 295 
 
 Sturt supposes, with evident propriety, to be the Dar- 
 ling — the common receptacle of the western waters from 
 the twenty-ninth parallel of south latitude. From the 
 point of its junction with the latter river, the Murray 
 pursues a south-westerly course for about fifty or sixty 
 miles farther, and then flows due south for the re- 
 mainder of its course. " We passed some beautiful 
 scenery," says Captain Sturt, in the interesting narra^ 
 tive of this part of his expedition, " in the course of the 
 day. The river preserved a direct southerly course, and 
 could not in any place have been less than four hundred 
 yards in breadth." '* As we proceeded down it, the 
 valley " (through which the river winds) " expanded to 
 the width of two miles; the alluvial flats became pro- 
 portionably larger, and a small lake generally occupied 
 their centre. They were extensively covered with reeds 
 and grass ; for which reason, notwithstanding that they 
 were a little elevated above the level of the stream, I 
 do not think they are subject to overflow. Parts of 
 them may be laid under water, but certainly not the 
 whole. The rains at the head of the Murray, and its 
 tributaries, must be unusually severe to prolong their 
 effects to this distant region, and the flats bordering it 
 appear by successive depositions to have only just 
 gained a height above the farther influence of the 
 floods. Should this prove to be the case, the valley 
 may be decidedly laid down as a most desirable spot, 
 whether we regard the richness of its soil, its rock 
 formation, its locality, or the extreme facility of water- 
 communication along it." The Murray was found to 
 
296 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 terminate in an extensive lake on the southern coast, 
 near the gulf of St. Vincent. 
 
 V We had at length arrived," says Captain Sturt, on 
 ascending an eminence to obtain a view of the country, 
 at a place where the river suddenly expanded into a wide 
 basin, " at the termination of the Murray. Immediately 
 below me was a beautiful lake, which appeared to be a 
 fitting reservoir for the noble stream that had led us to it, 
 and which was now ruffled by the breeze that swept over 
 it. The ranges, which had previously been seen to the 
 westward, were more distinctly visible, stretching from 
 south to north, and were certainly distant forty miles : 
 they had a regular unbroken outline ; declining gradually 
 to the south, but terminating abruptly at a lofty moun- 
 tain northerly. I had no doubt on my mind of this being 
 the Mount Lofty of Captain Flinders, or that the range 
 was that immediately to the eastward of St. Vincent's 
 Gulf. Between us and the ranges a beautiful promon- 
 tory shot into the lake, being a continuation of the right 
 bank of the Murray. Over this promontory the waters 
 stretched to the base of the ranges, and formed an ex- 
 tensive bay. To the north-west the country was exceed- 
 ingly low, but distant peaks were just visible over it. 
 To the south-west a bold headland showed itself; be- 
 yond which, to the westward, there was a clear and 
 open sea visible, through a strait formed by this head- 
 land, and a point projecting from the opposite shore. 
 To the east and south-east, the country was low, ex- 
 cepting the left shore of the lake, which was backed by 
 some minor elevations crowned with cypresses. Even 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 297 
 
 while gazing on this fine scene, I could not but regret 
 that the Murray had thus terminated ; for I immediately 
 foresaw that, in all probability, we should be disap- 
 pointed in rinding any practicable communication be- 
 tween the lake and the ocean, as it was evident that 
 the former was not much influenced by tides." " We 
 pitched our tents on a low track of land that stretched 
 away seemingly for many miles directly behind us to 
 the eastward. It was of the richest soil, being a black 
 vegetable deposit; and, although now high above its 
 influence, the lake had, it was evident, once formed a 
 part of its bed." # 
 
 The lake Alexandrina (for such was the name by 
 which Captain Sturt designated the noble sheet of 
 water into which the Murray disembogues its current) is 
 sixty miles in length and forty in breadth, and is situ- 
 ated to the eastward of the gulf of St. Vincent, between 
 the one hundred and thirty-ninth and one hundred and 
 fortieth degrees of east longitude on the southern coast 
 of Australia. It communicates with the ocean in 
 Encounter Bay by a narrow channel, impracticable 
 even for boats ; and, although the point has not yet 
 been satisfactorily ascertained, there is reason to be- 
 lieve that there is no navigable outlet in any other 
 direction. Some time after Captain Sturt's expedition, 
 Captain Barker, a meritorious officer, also of the Thir- 
 ty-ninth Regiment, who was then Commandant at 
 King George's Sound, was ordered by General Darling 
 
 * " Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, &c. 
 By Captain Charles Sturt, Thirty-ninth Foot." London, 1833. paisim. 
 
298 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 to examine the southern coast in the vicinity of the 
 lake, on his return to head-quarters, after the transfer- 
 ence of that settlement to the colony of Swan River : 
 but that unfortunate officer being, it would seem, 
 zealous overmuch in the discharge of his duty, was 
 speared by the natives when separated from the rest of 
 his party by a narrow inlet on the coast, across which 
 he had swum alone to examine the beach on the 
 opposite shore ; and the public are therefore deprived 
 in the mean time of the accurate information which 
 he would doubtless have afforded them in regard to the 
 outlets, and the general character of the country in the 
 vicinity, of the lake. 
 
 But although there should be no practicable outlet 
 from the Lake Alexandrina to the ocean, the discoveries 
 effected by Captain Sturt, in the course of his second 
 expedition, are of the utmost importance. A vast extent 
 of available land, in a climate of unequalled salubrity, 
 has thus been thrown open for immediate colonization. 
 V The valley of the Murray, at its entrance/' says 
 Captain Sturt, " cannot be less than four miles in 
 breadth. The river does not occupy the centre, but 
 inclines to either side, according to its windings ; and 
 thus the flats are of greater or less extent, accord- 
 ing to the distance of the river from the base of 
 the hills. It is to be remarked that the bottom of 
 the valley is extremely level, and extensively covered 
 with reeds. From the latter circumstance, one would 
 be led to infer that these flats are subject to overflow ; 
 and no doubt can exist as to the fact of their being, at 
 least partially, if not wholly, under water at times." — 
 
NEW SOUTH WALKS. 299 
 
 " If the valley of the Murray is not subject to flood, it 
 has only recently gained a height above the influence 
 of the river, and still retains all the character of flooded 
 land. In either case, however, it contains land that is 
 of the very richest kind — soil that is the pure accumu- 
 lation of vegetable matter, and is as black as ebony. If 
 its hundreds of thousands of acres were practically 
 available, I should not hesitate to pronounce it one of 
 the richest spots of equal extent on earth, and highly 
 favoured in other respects. How far it is available 
 remains to be proved ; and an opinion upon either side 
 would be hazardous, although that of its liability to 
 flood would, most probably, be nearest to truth." — " I 
 would, however, observe, that there are many parts of 
 the valley decidedly above the reach of flood."* 
 
 As the portion of the southern coast of the Australian 
 continent, which includes Spencer's and St. Vincent's 
 gulfs, two very deep indentations of the land from the 
 Great Southern Ocean, together with the Lake Alexan- 
 
 * Captain Sturt seems to have forgotten that one of the most fertile, 
 most populous, and earliest settled tracts in New South Wales is subject 
 to floods in a high degree — I allude to the valley of the Hawkesbury. 
 The availableness of land in New South Wales does not depend on its 
 being beyond the reach of inundations, as Captain Sturt appears to 
 intimate: on the contrary, the small settler or agriculturist prefers land 
 for the purposes of cultivation that is occasionally flooded, to forest-land 
 beyond the reach of floods. On the other hand, it cannot be supposed 
 that a river with so wide an embouchure as the Murray should inundate 
 the level country on its banks to any great depth. The valley may be 
 occasionally under water, but the floods cannot be at all comparable with 
 those of the Hawkesbury, where the occasional occurrence of inundations 
 is no obstacle whatever to the occupation and cultivation of the land 
 formed by their deposits. 
 
• 
 
 300 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 drina and the valley of the Murray in the lower part of 
 its course, is now comprehended within the territory of 
 the recently formed colony of Southern Australia, it is 
 nothing less than justice to acknowledge that there is 
 unquestionably no part of the Australian continent which 
 affords so eligible a prospect for the establishment of 
 an independent colony. The character of the country 
 through which the river, supposed to be the Darling, 
 winds its solitary way from the northward, is not yet 
 fully ascertained, although Major Mitchell, the Surveyor- 
 General of New South Wales, has recently traced that 
 river for three hundred miles in a southerly direction 
 beyond the point to which it had been previously traced 
 by Captain Sturt, and was actually absent on an expe- 
 dition to follow it down the remaining one hundred and 
 thirty miles of its supposed course, to the point of its 
 junction with the Murray, when I left the colony on 
 the 29th of July last. The character of the country to 
 the eastward along the banks of the Murray, above the 
 junction of that river with the Morumbidgee, is equally 
 unknown ; but there is reason to prognosticate favour- 
 ably in both cases. At all events, the advantages likely 
 to result to a colony established on the shores of the 
 Lake Alexandrina, from the possession of so eligible a 
 means of communication with the distant interior as 
 would evidently be afforded by two navigable rivers, 
 are too obvious to require enumeration. Those parts of 
 the shores of the lake itself that have hitherto been 
 examined have been ascertained to be well fitted for 
 the residence of civilized man ; while the country inter- 
 vening between the lake and the gulf of St. Vincent, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 301 
 
 which it seems was partially examined by Captain 
 Barker, is spoken of in the highest terms by the sur- 
 vivors of his party, as a country in every respect fitted 
 by nature for the settlement and subsistence of a nume- 
 rous population. " It would appear," says Captain 
 Sturt, in reference to this part of the Australian con- 
 tinent, " that a spot has at length been found upon the 
 south coast of New Holland, to which the colonist 
 might venture with every prospect of success, and in 
 whose valleys the exile might hope to build for himself 
 and for his family a peaceful and prosperous home. 
 All who have ever landed upon the eastern shore of St. 
 Vincent's Gulf agree as to the richness of its soil and 
 the abundance of its pasture. Indeed, if we cast our 
 eyes upon the chart, and examine the natural features 
 of the country behind Cape Jervis, we shall no longer 
 wonder at its differing in soil and fertility from the low 
 and sandy tracks that generally prevail along the 
 shores of Australia. 
 
 " The country immediately behind Cape Jervis may, 
 strictly speaking, be termed a promontory, bounded to 
 the west by St. Vincent's Gulf, and to the east by the 
 Lake Alexandrina and the sandy tract separating that 
 basin from the sea. Supposing a line to be drawn from 
 the parallel of 34° 40' to the eastward, it will strike the 
 Murray river about twenty-five miles above the head of 
 the lake, and will clear the ranges of which Mount 
 Lofty and Mount Barker are the respective terminations. 
 This line will cut off a space, whose greatest breadth 
 will be fifty-five miles, whose length from north to 
 south will be seventy-five, and whose surface exceeds 
 
302 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 seven millions of acres ;* from which if we deduct two 
 millions for the unavailable hills, we shall have five 
 millions of acres of land, of rich soil, upon which no 
 scrub exists, and whose most distant points are ac- 
 cessible, through a level country on the one hand, and 
 by water on the other. 
 
 " The only objection that can be raised to the occu- 
 pation of this spot is the want of an available harbour : 
 yet it admits of great doubt, whether the contiguity of 
 Kangaroo Island to Cape Jervis, and the fact of its 
 possessing a safe and commodious harbour, certainly at 
 an available distance, does not in a great measure 
 remove the objection. Certain it is, that no port, with 
 the exception of that on the shores of which the capital 
 of Australia is situated, offers half the convenience 
 of this, although it be detached between three and four 
 leagues from the main."f 
 
 All who feel interested in the progress of geographical 
 discovery in the Australian continent, will sympathize 
 with Captain Sturt in his ardent desire that the re- 
 cently discovered rivers may speedily be traced to 
 their respective sources ; and all who feel interested 
 in promoting the real welfare of the mother country, 
 will coincide with that gentleman in wishing, that a 
 portion of her superabundant, semi-pauper, agricultural 
 population were speedily transformed into an industrious 
 and contented peasantry, as they doubtless might be 
 
 * 75x55=4125 square miles. 4125x640=2,630,000 acres. Captain 
 Sturt is evidently much better at exploring than at summing. 
 
 t " Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, &c. By 
 Captain Sturt," vol. n. p. 247. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 303 
 
 with little difficulty on the shores of Southern Austra- 
 lia. The prosperity of that embryo colony can in 
 no way interfere with that of New South Wales : on 
 the contrary, it will open an eligible market for the 
 superabundant agricultural and grazing stock of the 
 older settlement, as well as for its grain and dairy 
 produce, for years to come. 
 
 I cannot bring this imperfect sketch of Austra- 
 lian discovery during the administration of Sir Ralph 
 Darling to a close, without adding a single remark 
 in reference to Captain Sturt himself. That officer 
 has doubtless merited well of the colony of New South 
 Wales, not only for the important discoveries he has 
 effected in the interior of the continent of Australia, 
 but for the skill and judiciousness with which he con- 
 ducted the two expeditions under his command, in the 
 perilous and trying service in which he was engaged. 
 For not only did he bring back the whole of his party 
 on both occasions without losing a man ; but his inter- 
 course with the numerous and sometimes troublesome 
 and even hostile natives, with whom he came in fre- 
 quent and dangerous contact in the course of his last 
 expedition, was uniformly managed without bloodshed. 
 
304 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 VIEW OF THE PRESENT STATE OF THE COLONY 
 UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF MAJOR-GENERAL 
 SIR RICHARD BOURKE, K.C.J3. 
 
 Justum tenacemque propositi virum. 
 
 Horace. 
 Strictly just, but somewhat tenacious. 
 
 I was walking with my late brother, Mr. George Lang, 
 on the bank of the Parramatta river one beautiful even- 
 ing in the year 1824, when the late Bungary, chief of 
 the Sydney tribe of black natives, was pulling down 
 the river, in a boat which he had received as a present 
 from the Governor, with his two jins or wives. My 
 brother accosted Bungary on his coming up with us, 
 and the good-natured chief immediately desired his jins 
 to rest upon their oars. During the short conversation 
 that ensued, my brother requested Bungary to show 
 us how Governor Macquarie made a bow : Bungary 
 happened to be dressed at the time in the old uniform 
 of a military officer ; and accordingly, standing up in the 
 stern of his boat, and taking off his cocked hat with the 
 requisite punctilio, he made a low formal bow with all 
 the dignity and grace of a general officer of the old 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 305 
 
 school. My brother then requested him to show us 
 how Governor Brisbane made a bow ; to which Bungary 
 very properly replied in broken English, "'top, 'top; 
 bail* me do it that yet ; 'top tiudJa Gubbana come." In 
 short, Bungary could exhibit the peculiar manner of 
 every Governor he had seen in the colony ; but he held 
 it a point of honour never to exhibit the reigning 
 Governor. 
 
 In conformity to this prudent maxim of Australian 
 aboriginal policy, I might now bring my series of his- 
 torical sketches to a close, leaving to some future colo- 
 nial historian the task of exhibiting an outline of the 
 administration of Major-General Sir Richard Bourke, 
 the present Governor of New South Wales. But, as it 
 was my intention, on commencing these sketches, to 
 afford the reader a general view of the present state of 
 the colony, which of course cannot be done without ad- 
 verting to various important acts of His Excellency's 
 government, I shall proceed forthwith to fulfil ****' 
 intention; and I trust I shall be enabled to ** so m tne 
 same spirit of candour and impartip 1 justice which I am 
 conscious I have hitherto n^ntained. In what I have 
 already written, I b«ve not been restrained from telling 
 what may possibly prove disagreeable truths,, by the 
 fear oC giving offence in any quarter : I trust, that in 
 what remains to be written, I shall not be chargeable 
 with the meanness of adulation. 
 
 Major-General Sir Richard Bourke, K.C.B., the 
 eighth Governor of New South Wales, arrived in the 
 
 * Bail is a particle of negation in the language of the Aborigines. 
 
306 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 colony on the 2nd of December, 1831 ; Colonel (now 
 Sir Patrick) Lindesay, of His Majesty's 39th regiment, 
 now in India, having discharged the duties of Acting- 
 Governor during the interval that had elapsed after 
 General Darling left the colony. 
 
 Sir Richard Bourke was originally educated for the 
 law, but afterwards embraced the profession of arms. 
 Of a capacious mind, and of superior intellectual ac- 
 quirements, he is evidently capable of the most compre- 
 hensive views in matters of state-policy and civil 
 government, though perhaps somewhat indisposed to 
 the technicalities of practical detail. His despatch to 
 the Secretary of State for the Colonies, on the state of 
 education and religion in New South Wales, to which I 
 shall have occasion to allude more particularly in the 
 sequel, is a masterly performance ; and the policy to 
 which it has already led, will, in these important par- 
 ticulars at least, eventually revolutionize the colony. 
 
 ^ir Richard Bourke commenced his administration 
 under tiiv. happiest auspices. The unpopularity of his 
 predecessor, espea Q ]]y towards the close of his govern- 
 ment, had disposed tn t co lonists of all classes to 
 welcome the new Governor with enthusiasm, and to put 
 the most favourable construction on his general policy : 
 besides, at the period of his arrival, the colony was 
 rapidly recovering from the effects of a drought of un- 
 precedented duration and unexampled severity, which, 
 aggravated, as it had been, by a state of general and 
 extreme depression, arising from the prodigious depre- 
 ciation of property of every description, had for a time 
 completely paralysed the energies of the community ; 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 307 
 
 and the colonists were consequently prepared to exert 
 their energies again to the utmost, for the accomplish- 
 ment of whatever object their circumstances should point 
 out to them, as of peculiar importance, and in whatever 
 direction a vigorous administration should lead the way. 
 
 Commencing his government in these favourable cir- 
 cumstances, Sir Richard Bourke exhibited at his outset 
 in the colony much of the vigour and the firmness of 
 Governor Macquarie. The importance of a combina- 
 tion of such qualities, on the part of a ruler, to the 
 general prosperity and the rapid advancement of a young 
 colony, is incalculable. In short, in the case of a 
 man in authority evincing these high qualities of mind, 
 as compared with the man of feeble and irresolute 
 character ; there is all the difference that there is in the 
 case of a time-piece, when its main-spring is possessed 
 on the one hand of the requisite strength and elasticity, 
 and when it is neither strong nor elastic enough on the 
 other to overcome the resistance of the inferior machinery 
 To continue the metaphor, the colonial time-^~ ce was 
 evidently a great deal too slow when r^vernor Bourke 
 arrived in the colony : no s^er, however, was its 
 regulator touched, eve* « the gentlest manner, than its 
 rapidly accelerated movement became generally ap- 
 parent. 
 
 The commencement of Sir Richard Bourke's adminis- 
 tration was also peculiarly auspicious from the favour- 
 able circumstances in which he had been placed by the 
 Home Government, in regard to the disposal of Crown 
 land. All the former Governors of New South Wales 
 had been empowered to grant portions of unlocated 
 
308 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Crown land to private individuals — under certain specific 
 restrictions, it is true ; but in reality according to their 
 own private judgment, and virtually without any limita- 
 tion. It cannot be supposed that so important a pre- 
 rogative could be exercised in many cases, without 
 giving great offence in particular quarters : charges of 
 partiality or of injustice were accordingly urged against 
 the Governors of the colony without intermission ; for 
 every person naturally thought himself fully entitled to 
 the same extent of land, as any other inhabitant of the 
 colony, in similar circumstances, had obtained from the 
 government. An entirely new system, however, was 
 introduced, by order of His Majesty's Government, in 
 the year 1831, in regard to the alienation of Crown land 
 in the colony ; the Governor being no longer authorized 
 to grant land in any quantity or to any person whatever, 
 except for schools, churches, glebes, or other public 
 purposes. The only mode of alienating Crown lands at 
 present authorized by Government is by sale at a public 
 auction , Dut no j an( j Q f tn j g d escr iption is sold unless 
 previously app-^ f or D y an intending purchaser ; and 
 that purchaser's inteniw n to bid for a particular tract 
 must always be duly notified in tkp Government Gazette, 
 three months before the day of sale, excepting in the case 
 of a recently arrived emigrant, when one month's notice 
 is held sufficient. A minimum price for building allot- 
 ments in Sydney and the other towns of the colony is 
 fixed by the Surveyor-General ; the minimum price of 
 five shillings an acre being fixed by the Home Govern- 
 ment for all the other land in the territory. 
 
 Different opinions may doubtless be entertained by 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 309 
 
 persons differently situated, in regard to the operation 
 and effect of these important regulations in other re- 
 spects ; I am happy to state, however, that there is no 
 difference of opinion in New South Wales in regard to 
 their highly beneficial operation, in relieving the colonial 
 government on the one hand of a load of most invidious 
 responsibility, and in depriving the disappointed or the 
 discontented of a fruitful source of dissatisfaction on 
 the other. 
 
 I have already mentioned that one of the earliest acts 
 of the present Governor's administration was to break 
 off all connexion on the part of the government with 
 the colonial press. This was an act of which the 
 policy was evident and . unquestionable, and of which 
 the colony has experienced the beneficial effects. The 
 patronage which the colonial government had pre- 
 viously afforded the Sydney Gazette had naturally been 
 regarded with no small degree of envy by the editors of 
 the other colonial journals ; and it not only enabled the 
 latter to designate that paper, as they generally did, 
 with some show of justice, the paid official, but to 
 identify the government with all the sentiments it pro- 
 mulgated. So long as this patronage was afforded, 
 there was materiel enough in the colony for the con- 
 struction of a systematic opposition to all the measures 
 of government, antecedently to the supposed discovery of 
 any thing mischievous or oppressive in these measures 
 themselves; and it only required the government to 
 make one decidedly false step, or the government paper 
 to give utterance to some exceptionable sentiment or 
 some ill-timed adulation, to justify the editors of the 
 
3J0 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 other papers, in their own estimation, and in that of all 
 their adherents, in affixing their heavy drag to the 
 wheels of the colonial state-carriage, and in ever after- 
 wards keeping it there with the utmost pertinacity, 
 whether the horses were toiling up the hill or galloping 
 furiously down. In depriving the Sydney Gazette, 
 therefore, of the patronage of government, and in uni- 
 formly leaving the measures of his administration to 
 speak for themselves, Sir Richard Bourke has not only 
 removed an apple of discord from the busy arena of 
 colonial politics, but consulted his own peace of mind, 
 and effectually promoted the general tranquillity of the 
 colony. Nay, I am fully persuaded, that if Sir Ralph 
 Darling had only pursued a similar course, he would 
 have saved himself a world of annoyance, and his 
 government would never have been distinguished in the 
 annals of the colony by an era of libels. 
 
 It would be uninteresting to the general reader to 
 have a list of the acts of Sir Richard Bourke's ad- 
 ministration submitted to his inspection. In most of 
 these acts His Excellency has been rather passive than 
 active ; doing merely what would have been done per- 
 haps equally well by any man of intelligence in the 
 situation he holds ; or, in other words, doing merely 
 what the progressive advancement of the colony and 
 the state of its anomalous society rendered necessary to 
 be done. Indeed, the rapid progress and extension of 
 the colony of New South Wales will render the per- 
 sonal character of the Governor, — especially if the co* 
 lonists should succeed in obtaining what is now so 
 much desired bv all classes, I mean a share in the ad- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 311 
 
 ministration of their own public affairs — a matter of less 
 importance to its future welfare every day ; insomuch, 
 that the stream of its history, ever widening and deepen- 
 ing in its course, will in all likelihood continue to flow 
 for the future with but little reference to the Governor 
 at all. At the same time, there are certain acts of Sir 
 Richard Bourke's administration which are not only 
 peculiarly important in themselves, as they affect the 
 interests of the colonists generally ; but of so peculiar 
 an aspect, as to stamp His Excellency's character both 
 as a Governor and as a man ; while there are others 
 which cannot fail to make a deep and salutary im- 
 pression on the whole colonial community, — an im- 
 pression which I trust will never be effaced. The acts 
 I allude to are those especially that relate to the dis- 
 tribution and coercion of the convict population ; to the 
 constitution or composition of courts of justice ; to the 
 encouragement of immigration in accordance with the 
 principle of the recently established land regulations ; 
 to the constitution of the civil government of the co- 
 lony ; and to the promotion of general education and 
 efficient religious instruction throughout the territory. 
 On certain of these measures I shall make a few ex- 
 planatory remarks in the course of this chapter; leaving 
 the others for more particular discussion in the suc- 
 ceeding chapters of these volumes. 
 
 Shortly after His Excellency's arrival in the colony, 
 he was given to understand, and ascertained on examina- 
 tion, that the punishments awarded by the colonial 
 benches of magistrates, in the cases of convict servants 
 accused of minor offences by their masters, were ex- 
 
312 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 ceedingly unequal, as compared with each other, and in 
 many cases disproportioned to the offences committed, 
 and unnecessarily severe. To establish something like 
 uniformity, therefore, in the decisions of the colonial 
 magistrates, and to afford the requisite protection to 
 the convict, Sir Richard Bourke procured the enact- 
 ment of a colonial law by the legislative council of the 
 colony, restraining magistrates in petty sessions assem- 
 bled from the infliction of more than fifty lashes for any 
 one offence. Now, considering the lash as a thoroughly 
 degrading and brutalizing species of punishment,* and 
 knowing, as I do, that on the best-managed estates in 
 the colony it is a punishment which is scarcely ever 
 required, I should not have been disposed to regard the 
 Magistrates' or Fifty-lashes Act as a serious offence on the 
 part of the Governor ; on the contrary, I should rather 
 have regarded it as highly creditable to His Excellency's 
 sense of justice and to his enlightened humanity. 
 
 This famous act, however, was regarded with far dif- 
 ferent feelings by certain of the colonial proprietors, and 
 especially by certain Tory relicts of General Darling's 
 administration, who had been accustomed to a much 
 more liberal application of the Russian ultimatum, and 
 whom, perhaps, it also grieved to the heart to find Whig 
 principles at length predominant in the councils of the 
 colony. The hue and cry of ill-judged lenity on the 
 part of the Governor, and of general insubordination on 
 the part of the convicts, — nay, of impending anarchy and 
 
 * It was regarded as an infamous punishment under the Roman law, 
 and was not allowed to be inflicted under any circumstances on Roman 
 citizens. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 313 
 
 insurrection throughout the territory — was accordingly 
 raised against the Governor ; and petitions for increased 
 power to inflict summary punishment were signed and 
 transmitted to England by various colonial proprietors, 
 who, to my own certain knowledge, had never ex- 
 pended one solitary farthing for the religious instruc- 
 tion of their numerous convict servants ! It was not 
 civil and religious liberty — that pearl of inestimable 
 price in the eyes of our forefathers in the earlier days 
 of emigration to America — for which these Australian 
 worthies petitioned ; it was for a somewhat different 
 species of liberty, the liberty to lash ; and long and 
 deep were the groans they uttered, through their 
 favourite organ, the "^Sydney Herald," when they found 
 it denied them. 
 
 Previous to Sir Richard Bourke's arrival, the assign- 
 ment of convict servants had, in one way or other, 
 proved a source of patronage to the colonial govern- 
 ment, or at all events to persons connected with it. 
 The Assignment Board established by General Darling 
 had partly corrected this abuse, and in some measure 
 equalized the distribution of the convicts among the 
 settlers ; but there were still ways and means of getting 
 more than one was entitled to, or than other people 
 equally deserving could obtain, during General Dar- 
 ling's administration, notwithstanding that board ; and 
 the fact was notorious in the colony. As a statement, 
 however, to this effect, contained in the first edition of 
 this work, was called in question at the time of its 
 publication, I deem it necessary to relate the following 
 vol. i. o 
 
314 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 incident, as illustrative of the accordance of that state- 
 ment with my own experience and observation. 
 
 As I was travelling on one occasion in the discharge 
 of clerical duty in the interior of the colony, during Sir 
 Ralph Darling's administration, I happened to call at 
 the cottage of a respectable settler, a magistrate of the 
 territory, who I found was building a remarkably sub- 
 stantial two-story brick house on his estate at the time. 
 He asked me to look at the house, which was beau- 
 tifully situated on a rising ground, commanding a wide 
 extent of champaign country ; and I accordingly did 
 so before resuming my journey. In pointing out its 
 various advantages, the settler informed me that the 
 brickmaking and bricklaying operations, the carpentry 
 and joinery work, the plastering and shingling, and, if 
 I am not greatly mistaken, the cabinet-maker's and 
 upholstery work, had all been done by his own assigned 
 convict servants. I happened to mention the circum- 
 stance in the course of conversation with the next 
 settler I called on a few miles off, without suspecting 
 however that there was any peculiarity in the case ; 
 when the settler observed to me, not without a 
 slight display of indignant feeling, that he had been 
 applying for a convict mechanic himself for years, 
 but had been unable to obtain one, although he had 
 done much more for the district than his more fortunate 
 neighbour. The first settler was the friend of a colo- 
 nial functionary of some influence at the time ; and I 
 could not fail to observe, that he was always particularly 
 active in his district whenever addresses were to be 
 moved to General Darling. The second settler, who 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 315 
 
 was also a magistrate of the territory, was merely a 
 man of independence, who was accustomed to think and 
 act for himself. 
 
 To put an end to every thing like favouritism in this 
 department of the public service, and to equalize the 
 distribution of the convicts, Sir Richard Bourke esta- 
 blished a code of regulations for the assignment of 
 convict servants, agreeably to which the number of con- 
 victs assignable to any applicant was to depend on the 
 extent of land he held, and especially of land in culti- 
 vation ; certain subordinate regulations being established 
 in favour of reputable persons cultivating small farms, 
 and convict mechanics of certain handicrafts being- 
 estimated as equivalent to two or three common labour- 
 ers each. The equity and impartiality of this arrange- 
 ment were so apparent, that it was scarcely possible to 
 find exceptions against it : it was complained of, how- 
 ever, by the same parties who had complained of the 
 Magistrates' Act, because forsooth the new regulations 
 prohibited the assignment of more than seventy convicts 
 to any one proprietor ! It was surely a sufficient 
 number to consign to the blackness of moral darkness 
 and to spiritual death, in the service of men who had 
 never expended one solitary farthing in promoting their 
 moral and spiritual welfare ! 
 
 It is the opinion of the present Governor, expressed 
 in a despatch to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
 printed by order of the House of Commons, that it 
 would be greatly for the benefit of the free settlers in 
 New South Wales to dispense with convict labour 
 altogether. In accordance with His Excellency's de- 
 
316 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 clared sentiments on this subject, I am decidedly of 
 opinion that the whole system of assignment in that 
 colony should forthwith be discontinued ; there being 
 great and intolerable evils necessarily connected with 
 its continuance, and the Colonial Government having 
 abundant means of employing the convicts, without en- 
 tailing any additional expense on the mother country in 
 a less exceptionable way. But as I have discussed 
 that question at great length in a separate publication,* 
 I shall only observe, in taking leave of the subject, that 
 so long as His Majesty's Government choose to con- 
 tinue the transportation of convicts on its present foot- 
 ing, Sir Richard Bourke's assignment regulations f will 
 be found in the highest degree equitable in themselves 
 and beneficial to the colonists. 
 
 From the peculiar constitution of society in New 
 South Wales, there has been a yearly increasing number 
 of free persons in the colony during the last twenty 
 years, who had arrived in the territory as convicts, but 
 whose respective sentences of transportation have ex- 
 pired ; and it has for several years past been a question 
 much agitated in the colony, how far these persons, 
 together with those who have obtained absolute or con- 
 ditional pardons, are to be considered as restored to the 
 rights and privileges of free subjects, and particularly 
 whether they are eligible to act in the capacity of jury- 
 
 * " Transportation and Colonization ; or, the Causes of the Com- 
 parative Failure of the Transportation System in the Australian Co- 
 lonies ; with suggestions for ensuring its future efficiency in subserviency 
 to extensive colonization." London, 1837. 
 
 t See Appendix, No. 9. for a copy of these Regulations. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 317 
 
 men. The emancipists, as they are usually styled in the 
 colony, claim this privilege themselves as a matter of 
 right ; chiefly, however, from having been taught and 
 incited to do so by certain news-writers of their own 
 class and origin, as well as by certain lawyers of inferior 
 respectability, who depend chiefly on emancipist and 
 convict practice, and who willingly pursue the arts of 
 petty agitation to acquire an importance in society, 
 which they have no other means of attaining. It is not 
 to be denied, however, that there are men of higher stand- 
 ing in the colony, but chiefly of that class of persons to 
 whom the praise and the popularity of political libe- 
 ralism are objects of importance, who advocate the 
 claims of the emancipists, and who especially maintain 
 their eligibility to act as jurymen. 
 
 It is scarcely to be supposed that Sir Richard Bourke 
 could have been enabled from his own personal expe- 
 rience and observation, during the first eighteen months 
 of his residence in New South Wales, to decide on a 
 subject of such vital interest to all classes of the in- 
 habitants of the colony, and it is doubtless to be re- 
 gretted that he seems to have derived his information 
 on that subject chiefly from one source. At all events, 
 a law was proposed by His Excellency to the legislative 
 council, and subsequently passed by that body during 
 the sessions of 1 833, declaring emancipists qualified to 
 serve on criminal juries, provided they possessed £30 of 
 yearly income, or personal property to the amount of 
 £300.* 
 
 * They had been rendered eligible to serve on civil juries by a pre- 
 vious enactment. 
 
318 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 In regard to the question of law involved in this 
 matter there could be no doubt. A letter had been 
 addressed on the subject during the sessions of the 
 legislative council, to the three Judges of the Supreme 
 Court ; to which the following is a copy of their 
 reply : — 
 
 Copy of a Letter from their Honours the Judges of 
 the Supreme Court to the Colonial Secretary. 
 
 " Sydney, August 8, 1833. 
 " Sir, 
 
 " In accordance with the request of His Excellency the Governor, we 
 have the honour to communicate to you our opinion on the subject re- 
 ferred to us for the information of the Legislative Council, and contained 
 in your letter to us of the 7th instant. 
 
 " We are of opinion, that by the statute 6 Geo. IV. cap. 50. sec. 3. any 
 person (not under outlawry or excommunication) who hath been or 
 shall be attainted of any treason or felony, or convicted of any crime that 
 is infamous, and hath obtained a free pardon, would be holden qualified 
 to serve on juries in England. 
 
 " We are further of opinion, that since the passing of the statute 
 6 Geo. IV. cap. 50. the law has been so far altered in this respect by 
 three subsequent statutes, viz. the 7 and 8 Geo. IV. cap. 28. the 9 Geo. 
 IV. cap. 32. and the 9 Geo. IV. cap. 83. that the following persons, who 
 have been convicted of a felony or transportable offence, would now be 
 holden qualified to serve on juries in England, in addition to those who, 
 having been so convicted, have obtained a free pardon; viz. 
 
 " First. By statute 7 and 8 Geo. IV. cap. 28. sec. 13. any offender con- 
 victed of felony punishable with death, or otherwise, to whom His Majesty 
 hath been or shall be pleased to extend his royal mercy, and by warrant 
 under the royal sign manual, countersigned by one of His Majesty's 
 Principal Secretaries of State, hath granted or shall grant to such 
 offender a conditional pardon, and the condition has been performed. 
 
 " Secondly. Any offender convicted of felony not punishable with death , 
 who hath or shall have endured the punishment adjudged for the same. 
 
 " Thirdly. By statute 9 Geo. IV. cap. 83. sec. 32. any transported 
 felon or offender, whose term of transportation hath, before January 1, 
 1824, been remitted by any Governor of New South Wales, in manner 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 319 
 
 directed by the statute, such remission having also been ratified by His 
 Majesty as therein mentioned. 
 
 •• Fourthly. We are of opinion, that all persons, who having been con- 
 victed of any transportable offence, not being felony, or such crime as is 
 accounted in law infamous, have received an absolute pardon or a con- 
 ditional pardon, and have performed the condition, or who have endured 
 the punishment for the same, would be holden qualified. 
 
 " Because such offences create no disqualification, but only inca- 
 pacitate the offender so long as he is deprived of his liberty. 
 
 " We are further of opinion, that persons who have been convicted of 
 perjury under the statute 5 Eliz. cap. 14. can by no means, but by Act 
 of Parliament, be so restored to their evil capacities as to be qualified to 
 serve on juries in England. 
 
 '* Secondly. That persons who have been convicted of such transportable 
 offences as are in law accounted infamous, as perjury at common law, subor- 
 nation of perjury, and forgery in some cases, and have not received a 
 free pardon, would not now be holden qualified to serve on juries in 
 England. 
 
 " Thirdly. That persons who have been convicted of such offences as 
 are below the degree of felony, and are not transportable offences, but yet 
 are in law accounted infamous, as persons convicted of conspiracy to 
 accuse another of a capital offence, or of any other species of the crimen 
 falsi, would not now be holden qualified to serve on juries in England. 
 " We have the honour to be, &c. &c. 
 (Signed) Francis Forbes, Chief Justice. 
 
 James Dowling. 
 W. W. Burton." 
 
 Notwithstanding the absence of the Archdeacon 
 and Mr. Robert Campbell, sen., two members of the 
 legislative council who were decidedly opposed to the 
 measure in question, there were still six of the members 
 of that body opposed to it on its being put to the vote : 
 but the Governor, and five members who adhered to 
 him, having voted in its favour, His Excellency decided 
 the matter in a way, which, for aught I know to the 
 contrary, may be defensible ; viz. by giving a second or 
 
320 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 casting vote, by which it forthwith became the law of 
 the land. 
 
 Previous to the session of the legislative council for 
 1836, a second letter was addressed by the colonial 
 government to the three judges, desiring their opinion 
 on the working of the jury law; in reply to which, two 
 of them, viz. the Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Dowling 
 expressed themselves, though by no means warmly, in 
 favour of its operation ; while Mr. Justice Burton ex- 
 pressed himself decidedly against it. As it is the 
 province of a judge, however, rather to determine what 
 is law than what ought to be law, agreeably to the 
 maxim, ad qucestionem legis respondent judices, it may 
 not be improper to make a few observations on the 
 subject, as it is one of vital importance to the colony of 
 New South Wales, as well as in relation to the future 
 efficiency of the transportation system. 
 
 Taking it for granted, therefore, that there was nothing 
 in the laws of England to prevent a person who had 
 been convicted of felony, and had afterwards served out 
 his sentence of transportation, or received a pardon, from 
 sitting on a jury in Great Britain or Ireland, the question 
 is, Was it either right or expedient to extend the law of 
 England in this particular to New South Wales ? or, in 
 other words, to declare all emancipated convicts, pos- 
 sessing a certain money-qualification in that money- 
 making colony, eligible to act as jurors ? It appears to 
 me, that it was neither right nor expedient to do so. 
 
 First. Because the circumstances of the colony of New 
 South Wales are totally different from those of England 
 in regard to this particular. The case of a person who had 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 321 
 
 been convicted of felony sitting on a jury in England, after 
 having suffered the punishment awarded by the law for 
 his particular offence, is one certainly which may occur, 
 but of which the occurrence is extremely improbable. 
 Besides, on the supposition of its occurring in a parti- 
 cular case, and of the fact being notorious at the time 
 to all parties concerned, the emancipated convict juror 
 would have no influence whatever in swaying the other 
 jurors, or in determining the issue. In New South 
 Wales, however, the probability is, that at least one 
 half of the jurors, in cases of alleged felonies and misde- 
 meanours, will consist of persons of this class, and that 
 the administration of justice will consequently be open 
 to much suspicion ; persons of the class of emancipated 
 convicts being, it must necessarily be supposed, much more 
 likely to be swayed by motives of favour or of interest, 
 than persons of previously unblemished character : for, 
 Secondly. There is an esprit de corps generated among 
 all particular classes or bodies of men, who are remark- 
 ably distinguished from the rest of the community to 
 which they belong, either by their profession or by their 
 moral practice ; and this esprit de corps will necessarily 
 interfere with the administration of justice in all cases 
 in which individuals of their particular classes are con- 
 cerned, their associates or companions being judges. 
 It would be vain, for example, to expect justice from a 
 jury of common soldiers in any case of alleged injury 
 committed by soldiers on private citizens, unless, per- 
 haps, the evidence were so clear as to render a verdict 
 of acquittal tantamount to downright perjury. A 
 fortiori, therefore, justice is not to be expected from a 
 
322 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 jury consisting chiefly of emancipated convicts, in any 
 case in which individuals of the class to which they 
 either do or did belong, are concerned. The very best 
 feelings of human nature are against the supposition. 
 If, for instance, I have been myself tried for a capital 
 offence, and have escaped with a minor punishment 
 through some legal chicanery, or some stretch on the 
 part of an ill-informed or over-scrupulous jury, I shall 
 necessarily feel strongly disposed to acquit any person 
 who stands before me as a juryman in somewhat similar 
 circumstances to those in which I once stood myself, 
 and whose life is virtually at my disposal ; I shall neces- 
 sarily feel this disposition independently of my oath : 
 and provided it is only strong enough, I shall feel 
 myself constrained to act upon it, and thereby to com- 
 mit an act of grievous injustice to the community. 
 
 The following illustration of the actual operation of 
 the principles and feelings I have alluded to, occurs in 
 the letter of Judge Burton to the Colonial Secretary, of 
 date April 30th, 1836, on the working of the present 
 jury system of New South Wales : — 
 
 " An instance of this occurred in a case where a young 
 man, a native of the colony, was tried before me, and a 
 verdict of acquittal was returned, which might be con- 
 sidered unsatisfactory to a by-stander; but where no 
 predisposition amongst the jury, in favour of the 
 prisoner, was manifested in court, and I suspected 
 none. I was afterwards informed by a highly respect- 
 able and credible gentleman, a married man, and father 
 of a family, who was one of the jury, that such did 
 nevertheless exist, and actually caused the acquittal in 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 323 
 
 question. The jury retired to consider their verdict; 
 and my informant entered the retiring-room about the 
 third or fourth, and found one of the jury, who had 
 already entered, lying on the table, on his back, with 
 his arms folded, who said, ' Well, my mind is made 
 up;' another followed, and immediately lay down on 
 the floor, saying, * My mind is made up ;' and when 
 all got into the room, the jury were talking about indif- 
 ferent matters concerning their own business for about 
 twenty minutes, when the foreman called their attention 
 to the case, and said, * Come, gentlemen, let us to busi- 
 ness ;' when they repeated, ■ Their minds were made 
 up ;' one giving as his reason, that he had known the 
 boy's father for many years — another, that he had 
 known the boy's mother for many years — and a third, 
 that he had known the boy from a child. Three of the 
 jury, including the foreman, were of opinion that the 
 prisoner was guilty ; and nine, of whom three were 
 certainly convicted persons, for acquittal ; the remaining 
 six appearing to be led in their opinion by two of those 
 three : but from their conversation during the time they 
 were confined together, it appeared to my informant 
 that the whole nine persons were of that class ; and it 
 farther appeared to him, that they were predetermined 
 to acquit the prisoner, right or wrong." 
 
 Thirdly. Because the crime most frequently com- 
 mitted in New South Wales being cattle-stealing, and 
 because persons who commit this crime being frequently 
 able, through their previous and successful iniquity, to 
 practise all the arts of bribery and corruption, the 
 appointment of emancipated convicts as jurymen, in 
 
324 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 criminal cases, is nothing more nor less than a direct 
 encouragement and incentive to the practice of these 
 nefarious arts, and a sure means of lowering the standard 
 of morals, as well as of rendering all property in agri- 
 cultural and grazing stock, which in great measure con- 
 stitutes the wealth of the colony, more and more inse- 
 cure throughout the territory. Mr. Justice Burton 
 particularly alludes in his letter to the number of pub- 
 licans appointed to serve on j uries throughout the colony. 
 These persons are chiefly of the class of emancipated 
 convicts, and are not unfrequently of the lowest grade 
 in society; and connected as they are in the way of 
 their business with the whole class of unconvicted cattle- 
 stealers, whose usual place of resort is the public-house, 
 it is dangerous in the highest degree to the community 
 to entrust the administration of justice to their polluted 
 hands. In the list of qualified jurors for the county of 
 Cumberland, in New South Wales, for the year 1835, 
 there were no fewer than two hundred and three pub- 
 licans out of nine hundred and fifty-three ; and as a much 
 larger proportion of this class of persons actually serves 
 on juries than of other classes of inhabitants, the amount 
 of work they have to perform in the dealing out of 
 justice, forsooth, to the Australian public, is by no 
 means inconsiderable. In panels of thirty-six and forty- 
 eight persons respectively, of whom only twenty-six and 
 thirty-one persons actually appeared or served, there 
 were no fewer than eight publicans in the one case, and 
 ten in the other ; that is, every third person liable to be 
 called on to try any particular case of cattle-stealing 
 was a publican — a man, who, in all probability, lived 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 325 
 
 upon the custom of such persons as the cattle-stealer ! 
 Nay, — for this is not the whole of the enormity of the 
 system, — the cattle-stealer's lawyer, who is a very shrewd 
 fellow, and who, in order to attract as much of this sort 
 of practice as possible, has given out M that he, for one, 
 will make no distinction between the free and the freed ," 
 challenges every reputable person on the list who he 
 has reason to fear will not acquit his client, till he 
 obtains a jury for him to his mind ! 
 
 " If a prisoner has professional assistance in his 
 defence," observes Mr. Justice Burton in his letter 
 above-quoted, " this right of challenge is very freely 
 exercised. In one instance I observed gentlemen of such 
 character and respectability thus peremptorily rejected 
 on the part of a prisoner, that I took the liberty of 
 asking some of them afterwards if the prisoner were 
 known to them ; and was answered that he was not : 
 the conclusion in my own mind was, that they were 
 challenged on account of their respectability. In an- 
 other case before me, every person of apparent respect- 
 ability who was called, was peremptorily challenged on 
 the part of the prisoner, which, the Crown officer obser- 
 ving, challenged all the others ; and the case remained 
 over for default of jurors. In both cases the accused 
 had professional assistance." 
 
 Finally, there is no necessity whatever for having re- 
 course to so suspicious a mode of administering justice 
 in New South Wales any more than in England. 
 
 M I have no doubt," says Mr. Justice Burton, " from 
 all I have seen and known of the resources of this colony 
 in the number of its respectable inhabitants, that there 
 
326 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 are abundance for the establishment of the jury system 
 here, upon a basis which must command the respect 
 and confidence of all classes ; and I know no reason 
 why juries in New South Wales should not and can- 
 not be constituted of men equally omni except ione 
 majores as in any country in the world ; but I know 
 many reasons why they should be so constituted 
 here more especially than in any other, if (which, 
 however, I do not admit) that principle can any where 
 be departed from, and the administration of justice 
 committed to other hands." 
 
 The number of reputable free emigrants is now very 
 considerable in New South Wales, and will rapidly 
 increase for the future, through the measures that are 
 now in progress in the colony, for the encouragement 
 and promotion of immigration. The plea of necessity 
 therefore cannot be allowed for having recourse to such 
 jurymen as emancipated convicts are likely to make in 
 the great majority of criminal cases in New South 
 Wales. In his letter to the colonial government on the 
 working of such juries, the Chief Justice, with whom 
 the measure is commonly understood to have originated, 
 acknowledges that " there have certainly been from 
 time to time improper persons impanelled on these 
 juries;" but maintains that " the fault is not in the 
 law, for the jury law of the colony is in principle the 
 same as the jury law in England: it is attributable to 
 the neglect of those persons, to whom the care of re- 
 turning persons properly qualified has been committed." 
 I have shown, however, that the cases of England and 
 of New South Wales are by no means parallel, and 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 327 
 
 that the error committed by the colonial legislature, at 
 His Honour's suggestion, is an error in point of principle, 
 to be charged against the law-makers ; and not a mere 
 error of practice, to be charged upon the law-adminis- 
 trators. I would suggest, however, as a matter of 
 grave consideration to those who coincide with His 
 Honour in this ultra-liberal opinion, whether, on the 
 principle of the law of England, that a man shall be 
 tried by his peers, a man who has been convicted of a 
 felony and has suffered the punishment of the law, is 
 to be considered as the peer of a man who has never 
 been so convicted, and who stands upon his trial with a 
 previously unblemished character, for the first time. 
 For my own part, I confess that I utterly abhor all such 
 colonial peerage. 
 
 Why, if the emancipated convict juror is not the peer 
 of the free emigrant or native of the colony who stands 
 before him on his trial for an alleged felony or misde- 
 meanour, is it not clearly the interest of such a juror 
 to make the prisoner his peer, by giving him the benefit 
 of a conviction, and by thereby reducing him to his own 
 original level in colonial society ? Such sentiments, I 
 acknowledge, imply a low opinion of human nature ; but 
 such an opinion, I am sorry to add, is the one which 
 experience and observation coincide with divine reve- 
 lation in inducing us to form. 
 
 The Chief Justice concludes the letter I allude to by 
 intimating his belief that " the objections which are 
 felt to this constitutional form of trial are partly 
 political." For my own part, I disavow all political 
 feeling on the subject; which, I conceive, is one on 
 
328 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 which the honest tory, the honest whig, and the honest 
 radical will all think alike. As a proof of the identity 
 of the moral feeling of honest men of all parties on this 
 subject, let the reader peruse the following extract of a 
 speech, in favour of universal suffrage, delivered by the 
 late Mr. Cobbett, at Preston, as reported in the " Morn- 
 ing Herald" of the 20th of May, 1826 :—" Let every 
 man come to age have a vote — every man who is not in- 
 capacitated by infirmity — every man who is not a crimi- 
 nal, who has not been a felon ; — every innocent man in 
 the community is entitled to vote at elections." 
 
 Mr. Cobbett could not surely be accused of a want 
 of liberality in his politics ; on the contrary, he was a 
 radical of the highest caste ; and yet, by his own 
 showing, he would not have allowed any man who had 
 been a felon to vote at elections, that is, to be one per- 
 haps of a hundred thousand persons entrusted to vote 
 for a member of parliament for some great city or 
 county. Is it conceivable, then, that he would have 
 allowed a man of this description to occupy the far 
 more important and far more deeply responsible situa- 
 tion of a juryman, i.e. to be one of twelve persons en- 
 trusted with the life or the liberty or the reputation of a 
 fellow subject? "The execution of the laws/' says 
 President Jefferson, another radical of as high a form 
 as Cobbett, "is of more importance than the making 
 them."* 
 
 I suspect, however, that the political feeling to which 
 the Chief Justice alludes, is chiefly on the other side, 
 
 * Jefferson's letter to M. l'Abb6 Arnond, "Memoirs and Corre- 
 spondence," vol. in. p. 9. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 329 
 
 and that it is mainly to an overweening desire to be 
 ultra-liberal that the enactment of the present colonial 
 jury law is to be ascribed. 
 
 I may remark in passing, that however much trial by 
 jury may be thought of in England, I have no hesita- 
 tion in expressing my opinion that there has been a 
 great deal too much of it in New South Wales ; and that 
 it would have been much more conducive to the 
 administration of justice and to the moral welfare 
 of the whole community, had a large proportion of the 
 criminal cases that have occupied the attention of 
 colonial judges and juries, and filled the pockets of 
 colonial barristers and attorneys, been disposed of, as 
 they ought decidedly to have been, by courts of sum- 
 mary jurisdiction. To entail an enormously expensive 
 establishment of three judges, with all the other para- 
 phernalia which such an establishment implies, besides 
 a Court of Quarter Sessions, on a colony of not more 
 than eighty thousand inhabitants, including convicts ; — 
 that men who have been found guilty of felony in 
 England, and been transported, perhaps for life, may 
 have it in their power to avail themselves of all the 
 legal chicanery, of all the bribery and corruption, of all 
 the perjury and subornation of perjury, that a convict 
 colony can enable them to make use of to escape the 
 punishment justly due to them for fresh crimes com- 
 mitted in that colony ; — is a state of things so absolutely 
 monstrous, that it can only be tolerated so long as the 
 respectable inhabitants of New South Wales are pre- 
 cluded from exercising any control over the expen- 
 diture of those funds which they contribute so liberally 
 
330 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 to the public treasury of the colony, and which are 
 annually appropriated for the maintenance of ex- 
 pensive establishments, which, under the pretence of 
 dispensing justice, are in fact demoralizing the com- 
 munity. Let the free emigrant and the native of the 
 colony by all means have every advantage which the 
 law of England secures to the free subjects of the 
 realm ; but let the man who arrives in the colony in the 
 character of a convicted and transported felon be tried, 
 when accused of fresh crimes or misdemeanours in the 
 colony, by a Court of Quarter Sessions, in the way of 
 summary jurisdiction. The uniform impression on the 
 part of judges in the mother country, at least in Scot- 
 land, is, that the convict who commits fresh crimes in 
 New South Wales is uniformly treated in a very sum- 
 mary manner ; and the general prevalence of this im- 
 pression implies that it is the general opinion that it is 
 just and right that he should. There is no opinion, 
 however, more completely unfounded : the criminal 
 who can command a little money in New South Wales 
 has chances of escape which he could never have in 
 England, and these chances are only multiplied by the 
 very means that are used by the Government to provide 
 justice for all. 
 
 A single glance at the result of the criminal prosecu- 
 tions in the colony before the Supreme Court and the 
 Courts of Quarter Sessions, for the year 1835, will 
 satisfy the reader of the truth of these remarks. The 
 number of prisoners tried before the Supreme Court, 
 during that year, was 398, of whom only 228, that is, 
 little more than one half, were convicted ; viz., 124 by 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 331 
 
 civil, and 104 by military j uries ; for, in addition to all 
 his other chances of escape, the prisoner in New South 
 Wales has the liberty of choosing what sort of jury 
 he shall be tried by ! The number of persons tried 
 during the same period before the Courts of General 
 Quarter Sessions was 1155; viz., 856 by civil and 
 military juries, and 299 in the way of summary jurisdic- 
 tion. Of the 856 jury cases, the convictions amounted to 
 536, that is, to about five-eighths of the whole number; 
 whereas of the 299 cases of trial by summary j urisdiction, 
 that is, before the Chairman or Judge of the Quarter 
 Sessions and certain magistrates, the convictions 
 amounted to 243, or to twenty-four twenty-ninths of 
 the whole number. In all these cases the criminals tried 
 are almost uniformly of the same class, while the evi- 
 dence adduced is of a similar kind in them all and of 
 similar value. But through the improper extension of 
 trial by jury to cases in which it ought never to have 
 been had recourse to, the chances of escape are only 
 increased to the criminal in proportion to his criminality, 
 and to the costliness and the elaborate character of 
 the judicial machinery employed by the executive 
 government to ensure the dispensation of justice to the 
 community. 
 
 In connexion with the subject of judicial reform, 
 which certainly calls for the speedy interference of the 
 legislature in New South Wales, I shall briefly notice 
 certain efforts that are now making by the colonists 
 generally for obtaining a better instrument of Govern- 
 ment, (to use an appropriate phrase of Oliver Crom- 
 well) than has hitherto been accorded to that colony. 
 
332 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 The instrument of Government in the colony of New 
 South Wales is a legislative council of fifteen members, 
 consisting of the Governor and seven officers of the 
 Government, together with seven other members selected 
 from amongst the respectable inhabitants of the colony, 
 exclusively by the Crown. Now, antecedently to all 
 such considerations as the extent of the population of 
 the colony, the amount of its revenue, and the de- 
 sirableness of having its affairs managed by able and 
 efficient hands, it is morally impossible that a legislative 
 body, constituted in this manner, should enjoy the con- 
 fidence of a large and rapidly increasing commercial 
 and agricultural community, however intelligent and 
 well-intentioned its members may individually be. It 
 is accordingly a fact universally admitted in New South 
 Wales, that the Legislative Council of that colony pos- 
 sesses in no degree whatever the confidence of the 
 community. In such circumstances, the very existence 
 of such a body cannot fail to be a subject of serious 
 grievance, and a source of perpetual dissatisfaction on 
 the part of no inconsiderable portion of that com- 
 munity, in an age especially of liberal opinions and 
 popular institutions ; and it is surely not the policy of 
 His Majesty's Government to allow such a grievance to 
 exist, or such dissatisfaction to prevail, in a colony 
 whose commerce is already so valuable to the mother 
 country, as that of New South Wales already is to 
 Great Britain. 
 
 If the reader should imagine that a Legislative 
 Council, constituted in the manner I have described, is 
 a sort of intermediate step between a Governor acting 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 333 
 
 entirely on his own judgment and his own responsi- 
 bility, and a popular government appointed in some 
 way or other by the community, he is altogether mis- 
 taken : it is more frequently a step farther from the enjoy- 
 ment of those popular rights, that are so highly and so 
 deservedly prized in the present age, than a step to- 
 wards it. In the hands of a Governor like Sir Richard 
 Bourke — a man, whose keen perception of right and 
 wrong is accompanied with considerable energy of 
 character and an evident desire to promote the welfare 
 of all classes in the community — the characters, the 
 interests, and the liberties of the colonists would be 
 comparatively safe ; for, 
 
 Nunquam libertas gratior exstat 
 Quam sub rege pio ; 
 
 " liberty is never more agreeable to the subject than 
 when enjoyed under the government of an absolute but 
 virtuous ruler." But the system of a legislative council 
 is, in comparison with such a state of things, a change 
 decidedly for the worse, inasmuch as it relieves the 
 Governor of his personal responsibility — one of the best 
 incentives to good conduct that can possibly be de- 
 vised — and places that responsibility no where else, or, 
 in other words, gets rid of it altogether. In short, of 
 all forms of government, an, irresponsible oligarchy, or, 
 in other words, a legislative council, constituted like 
 that of New South Wales, is unquestionably the worst 
 in theory ; and there are not wanting instances to de- 
 monstrate its being equally objectionable in practice. 
 Nay, so thoroughly convinced of this political truth 
 
334 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT of 
 
 a 
 
 were the Danish people, that, in order to deliver their 
 country from the miserable oligarchy by which it was 
 oppressed in the seventeenth century, they actually 
 adopted the unheard-of procedure of making a volun- 
 tary surrender of their liberties into the hands of the 
 sovereign, and constituted him by their own voluntary 
 act a despotic monarch. 
 
 It is preposterous in the highest degree to talk of the 
 independence of a body constituted like the legislative 
 council of New South Wales. It is not in human 
 nature for a man, who is either nominated or paid by 
 the Government, to sit in judgment, with any thing 
 approaching to a feeling of independence, on the 
 measures proposed to him for his consideration and 
 approval by that very authority to which he owes his 
 political existence as a councillor, or his pay as an 
 officer of the Crown. # He neither is nor can be a free 
 agent, however he may persuade himself that he is so ; 
 but the government officers in the Legislative Council 
 of New South Wales are not so bereft of common 
 sense as to have any such persuasion. They know 
 well, — and if the fact is not strangely belied by common 
 
 • The late Attorney-General of New South Wales, on being referred to 
 for his opinion on some matter of law, in which he shrewdly imagined 
 the Government were likely to take some interest, instead of giving his 
 opinion directly, asked the person consulting him, " Pray, do you know 
 what the Governor thinks on the subject? He is an excellent lawyer." 
 His Majesty's Attorney-General, who is a member of the Legislative 
 Council, ex officio, rightly conceived that he had no right to hold an 
 opinion on any subject of the kind till His Majesty's representative had 
 declared his : and yet people will tell us that the Colonial Government 
 is not an absolute government. 
 

 NEW SOUTH WALES. 335 
 
 report, they have been given to understand, — under the 
 present as well as under the past administration, that 
 they hold their office as members of the Legislative 
 Council to rote for the Government measures, and not to 
 discuss them. In fact, the Tory device of a Governor and 
 a Legislative Council, appointed, like that of New South 
 Wales, by the Crown, is utterly unworthy of a Whig 
 administration ; inasmuch as it is nothing more nor 
 less than an ingenious device for investing a Governor, 
 or perhaps the mere agent of a Secretary of State, with 
 absolute power, and for concealing the fact of his pos- 
 sessing such power from the people he governs. In the 
 former of these objects the device is completely suc- 
 cessful, as it occasionally enables Governors to do 
 what they would never attempt on their own respon- 
 sibility : in regard to the latter, however, it is too gross 
 to deceive any person ; and the colonists have therefore 
 to make up their minds to live under an absolute 
 government.* 
 
 Besides, the very mode of their appointment neces- 
 sarily precludes the members of the Legislative Council 
 of New South Wales from attempting any thing of im- 
 portance for the real welfare of the country, or from acting, 
 on occasions of emergency, with the requisite vigour 
 
 * It is somewhat singular that Governor Macquarie should have been 
 so much opposed, as he appears to have been, to the appointment of a 
 Council in New South Wales. " I feel great satisfaction," he observes 
 in a letter to Earl Bathurst, of date June 28, 1813, " at the determination 
 of His Majesty's Government in not acceding to the recommendation of 
 the Select Committee of the House of Commons, in regard to the 
 Governor of this colony being assisted by a Council. I indulge a fond 
 hope that this measure will never be resorted to in this colony." 
 
336 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 and decision. For several years past there have con- 
 stantly been accumulations of unappropriated revenue 
 in the colonial treasury-chest of from £50,000 to 
 £150,000. such accumulations are doubtless a serious 
 grievance to the community, in a country in which 
 money bears ten per cent interest, and in which public 
 works of various kinds are in constant requisition for the 
 general advancement of the colony; and they would 
 certainly never have taken place under a popular go- 
 vernment, — a government having confidence in itself and 
 possessing the confidence of the public. In short, the 
 Legislative Council of New South Wales is altogether 
 destitute of that self-confidence which is requisite on 
 occasions of emergency, and it will consequently lie as 
 a dead weight on the energies of the country, and stand 
 as a serious bar in the way of its prosperity and ad- 
 vancement so long as it exists. 
 
 A good Governor would have nothing to fear from a 
 popular government in New South Wales. Indeed, I 
 am confident there is no colony in the empire in which 
 a Governor would be treated with greater liberality by 
 any body representing the colonial community, or in 
 which the measures he might propose for the general 
 welfare would be received with greater deference. In 
 fact, there is very little debateable land between the 
 Governor and the colonists in New South Wales ; and 
 if the views and opinions of the latter, in regard to the 
 public welfare, were only allowed expression, they 
 would be found generally, if not uniformly, to coincide 
 with those of the Government. 
 
 While it is thus universally admitted in New South 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 337 
 
 Wales that the Legislative Council of that colony pos- 
 sesses in no degree whatever the confidence of the 
 community, it is decidedly the opinion of all intelligent 
 persons in the colony, that nothing would tend more 
 powerfully or more directly, than the establishment of 
 some popular form of government in the colony, to 
 develop its vast resources, to increase the number of 
 the industrious and virtuous portion of its inhabitants, 
 and prodigiously to accelerate the rate of its progress- 
 ive advancement. 
 
 The population and produce, the trade and commerce, 
 the revenue and expenditure of New South Wales suffi- 
 ciently demonstrate the maturity of that colony for 
 some popular form of government, and the inexpe- 
 diency of any longer entrusting the entire management 
 of its affairs to any one individual, as is virtually done 
 at present, however able and honest that individual 
 may be. I shall have occasion, in the course of the 
 next chapter, to point out the actual state of the 
 colony at the present moment, in reference to the differ- 
 ent particulars I have just enumerated : at present, I 
 shall only advert to the single item of revenue, which 
 at present amounts to considerably upwards of a 
 quarter of a million sterling; the colonial revenue 
 having more than quadrupled itself during the last ten 
 years. The annual appropriation of so large an amount 
 of public money is surely too serious an affair to be 
 entrusted to any one man ; for as to the other members of 
 the Legislative Council being a check upon the Go- 
 vernor, or as to their having any influence whatever 
 in the appropriation of the colonial funds, the idea is 
 VOL. i. p 
 
338 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 too preposterous to be entertained for a moment. Why, 
 not one of these members can originate a single measure 
 of importance without the Governor's express permission ; 
 and as to the government officers, who constitute so 
 large a proportion of their whole number, it is as much 
 as their situations are worth to oppose any measure that 
 the Governor has proposed. 
 
 I should not perhaps have ventured to express my- 
 self so strongly on this subject, had I not felt assured 
 that Sir Richard Bourke, as a genuine whig, coincides 
 entirely in such sentiments, and has accordingly en- 
 couraged the colonists in their recent efforts to obtain 
 a more popular form of government than they now 
 enjoy ; sincerely desirous, as His Excellency doubtless 
 is, of carrying along with him the sentiments of the 
 public, and feeling, as he cannot help doing, that the 
 government, as at present constituted, possesses neither 
 their confidence nor their respect. The efforts I allude 
 to have been made by two different parties among the 
 colonists, and directed towards the attainment of two 
 different objects; the one party desiring that a Repre- 
 sentative Legislature, or House of Assembly, should be 
 constituted forthwith, and the elective franchise ex- 
 tended as widely as possible among all classes of the 
 free population ; the other desiring only an extension 
 of the present Legislative Council, and an aug- 
 mentation of its powers. The former of these parties 
 of course comprises all the liberals of the colony, in- 
 cluding the whole body of emancipists, with many free 
 persons of questionable character and doubtful respect- 
 ability : it is headed by Sir John Jamison and Mr. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 339 
 
 Wentworth the barrister, and its approved organ is 
 the Patriotic Association, a sort of colonial Rag-fair, 
 attended by all the blustering attorneys of the colony.* 
 The latter, of course, includes all the colonial tories, 
 together with a large proportion of the other respectable 
 inhabitants of the territory, who would doubtless more 
 willingly subscribe themselves whigs, but who shrink 
 with repugnance from the disreputable associations into 
 which the other party would lead them, and who regard 
 
 * To withhold from a whole community what is manifestly their 
 right is often a strong temptation to individuals of the agitating or 
 O'Connell family, to do what is manifestly wrong. We have the honour of- 
 having a branch of this family in the colony ; its members belong chiefly 
 to the legal profession, and the inscription on their flag is Lex Rex, a 
 motto which signifies in the Anglo -Australian dialect, Let the chief 
 authority be in the hands of the lawyers. But how much soever such a 
 consummation may be devoutly wished by certain gentlemen of the long 
 robe in the colony, I believe all moderate men throughout the territory 
 regard it as one supremely to be deprecated ; for e quovis Ligno Mer~ 
 curius fit ; i. e. " a blustering Australian lawyer, who has the liberties 
 of the people always on his tongue, but nothing farther from his heart 
 than their real welfare, may be manufactured out of a very indifferent 
 piece of colonial timber." I should be sorry indeed to bring a sweeping 
 charge against the legal profession of the colony, in which I am most 
 happy to state that there are gentlemen, both on the Bench and at the 
 Bar, who are not less honourably distinguished for their moral than they 
 are for their intellectual pre-eminence : still, however, a regard to truth 
 compels me to adopt the adage of the old Roman, Cedant arma toga, or, 
 in plain English, " The New South Wales corps, outrageously immoral 
 as certain members of that body undoubtedly were, have individually 
 done less to demoralize the colony than certain patriotic members of the 
 colonial Bar." The Lingua Franca of modern patriotism may be learned, 
 like certain improvements in the art of writing, in three lessons; and it 
 has this peculiar excellence to recommend it besides ; that it may be 
 spoken loudly and fluently by men of any character, and with the foulest 
 tongue. 
 
340 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 with well-founded suspicion certain of the individuals 
 who are permitted to assume the direction of its affairs. 
 For my own part, having, in accordance with my 
 own views of clerical duty, attached myself to neither 
 of these political parties — having never attended any of 
 their meetings nor signed any of their petitions — I have 
 no hesitation in declaring, as an unprejudiced spectator, 
 that I entertain no fears for the general welfare and 
 advancement of the colony, whether the people of the 
 Patriotic Association on the one hand, or the petitioners 
 for a mere extension of the colonial council on the other,, 
 should succeed with the Home Government in the at^ 
 tainment of their object. In the one case, supposing 
 that authority should be given to constitute a colonial 
 House of Assembly of fifty members, and that these 
 members should be chosen by all free persons possessed 
 of property in the colony, there is reason to believe 
 that not more than three or four emancipists would find 
 their way into the representation, while it is more than 
 probable that not a single individual of that class would 
 be elected. In short, I confess I should entertain no 
 apprehensions from the extension of the legislative 
 franchise to emancipated eonvicts possessed of property 
 in the colony j although, on the principle of President 
 Jefferson, that " the execution of the laws is of more 
 importance than the making them," I should strongly 
 object to the appointment of such persons as jurymen. 
 And as the colonial press has recently exercised a 
 moral influence previously unknown in the colony, I 
 should consider that important engine, provided it were 
 only well and honestly managed, sufficiently powerful 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 341 
 
 to make the members of a colonial legislature, con- 
 stituted in the manner proposed, keep their house in 
 proper order. On the other hand, supposing that in 
 accordance with the declared wishes of the other 
 petitioners, His Majesty's Government should merely 
 ■extend the Legislative Council and increase its powers, 
 J have reason to believe that sufficient provision would 
 thereby be made for the good government of the colony 
 for the next five or seven years ; especially as Sir 
 Richard Bourke has already secured the general wel- 
 fare of the colonists in the grand interests of general 
 education and religious instruction. Public opinion, 
 and its organ the public press, would render a council 
 of thirty members, properly appointed, and with in- 
 creased powers, a sufficiently good instrument of go- 
 vemmenX for a time, in the present condition of the 
 colony. 
 
 Indeed, as the colony is evidently at this moment in 
 a. state of rapid transition ; as the proportion of its free 
 emigrant population is fast increasing, and will pro- 
 bably be doubled in the course of the next five years, 
 through the measures that are now in progress for the 
 encouragement and promotion of emigration to the 
 colonial territory ; and as the whole aspect and cha- 
 racter of its society will consequently be in all like- 
 lihood completely changed, and the influence of the 
 emancipists, as a separate and influential class in the 
 community, completely neutralized within a limited 
 period ; it appears to me that it would be much better 
 for all parties to constitute a temporary government, 
 such as an extended council with increased powers 
 
342 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 would form, than to construct a House of Assembly in 
 the first instance. If ten members, for instance, of a 
 Legislative Council, to consist of thirty members, were 
 to be nominated by the Crown, and the remaining 
 twenty to be chosen by the magistrates of the territory, 
 I am confident that all the purposes of a House of 
 Assembly would be answered equally well, and with 
 much greater quietness, for five or seven years to come ; 
 while, at the end of that period, the colony would be 
 much fitter for a Representative Legislature, to be con- 
 stituted on a broader and more popular basis, than it is 
 at the present moment. The number of magistrates in 
 the colonial territory is at present 162 : they could 
 doubtless be increased to 200 with advantage to the 
 colony, and with additional security for the main- 
 tenance of whig principles in the colonial adminis- 
 tration ; and such a body of electors as they, would 
 thus form would, I conceive, be sufficient to meet the 
 present wants and to answer the present wishes of the 
 reputable portion of the inhabitants of New South 
 Wales. 
 
 There is no service for which the interference of a 
 popular government is more necessary in that remote 
 dependency of the empire, than that of reducing the 
 salaries of the future Government officers of the colony; 
 for it is a wise maxim of Government in such cases, that 
 existing interests shall not be interfered with. These 
 salaries have all been fixed on the old tory scale of 
 oriental magnificence ; insomuch that the Governor of 
 a convict colony of from thirty to forty thousand in- 
 habitants — the amount of the colonial population during 
 
NEW SOUTH WALKS. 343 
 
 the government of General Darling — was allowed a 
 salary of five thousand a year ; that is, a salary equal 
 to that of the President of the United States of America ! 
 With the highest possible respect for the present Go- 
 vernor, I entirely agree with Mr. Wentworth, in think- 
 ing, that " five thousand a year is a sum which the 
 people of the colony would look at for a very long time 
 before they voted it to any Governor." I apprehend 
 they would look still longer at two thousand a year, 
 before they voted any such sum to a Chief Justice, a 
 Bishop, or a Colonial Secretary. Salaries of so extrava- 
 gant an amount serve only to encourage and to main- 
 tain an expensive style of living, of the worst possible 
 example in a young colony ; and the Government officers 
 of New South Wales are notoriously chargeable with 
 having set that pernicious example to the colonial popu- 
 lation. With the exception of the Governor and the 
 Chief Justice, there ought decidedly to be no salary 
 above a thousand a year in the Australian colonies. 
 Those who cannot afford to serve His Majesty for that 
 amount in these colonies should be taught to seek for 
 promotion somewhere else: at all events, the people of 
 New South Wales have hitherto had to pay a great deal 
 too dear for their whistle. 
 
344 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 VIEW OF THE AMOUNT AND DISTRIBUTION OF 
 THE COLONIAL POPULATION, OF THE PRODUCE 
 AND TRADE, AND OF THE REVENUE AND EX- 
 PENDITURE OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 Nullus in orbe sinus Baiis praelucet amoenis. 
 
 Horace. 
 
 In exhibiting a general outline of the present state of 
 the colony, the first subject of interest that presents 
 itself is the amount and distribution of its population. 
 The population of New South Wales amounted in the 
 year 1800, at the close of Governor Hunter's adminis- 
 tration, to between 6000 and 7000 persons : at the 
 commencement of Governor Macquarie's administration, 
 in the year 1810, it amounted to 10,000, or thereabouts, 
 a number which was more than doubled during the next 
 ten years; the population in the year 1820 having 
 amounted to 23,939 : at the close of Sir Thomas 
 Brisbane's government, in the year 1825, it amounted 
 to 36,366 ; and in the year 1833 (the intermediate 
 census of General Darling, taken in the year 1828, 
 being evidently incorrect,) it had amounted to 60,794. In 
 the Appendix (No. 10) there is an abstract of the census 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 345 
 
 of 1833, exhibiting the relative proportions of the dif- 
 ferent classes to which the colonial population belongs, 
 with the population of Sydney for the year 1833, and 
 an estimate of the amount of the general population up 
 to the 30th of June, 1836: from which abstract it 
 appears, 
 
 1. That two-fifths of the whole population of the 
 colony consists of convicts in actual bondage ; the re- 
 maining three-fifths consisting of free emigrants, natives 
 of the colony, and persons who have become free either 
 by servitude or by pardon. 
 
 2. That the disproportion of the sexes, which has of 
 late been so much talked of in England, is confined 
 chiefly to the class of convicts ; the relative proportions 
 of free males and females for the year 1833 being 
 22,798 males, and 13,453 females, a disproportion 
 which has been greatly diminished by the arrival of 
 numerous free emigrant females in the colony during 
 the last three years ; while the relative proportions of 
 male and female convicts were 21,845 males, and 
 2,698 females. But as a considerable proportion of 
 the free male population of the colony consists of 
 emancipated convicts, it is almost exclusively to the 
 -convict and emancipated convict classes that the dis- 
 proportion of the sexes is confined. It is evidently, 
 therefore, not to become the wives of the free emi- 
 grant and native born male inhabitants of the colony, 
 that whole cargoes of free emigrant females have been 
 trepanned in England during the last few years, and 
 sent out to New South Wales to push their fortunes. 
 A few of these females may doubtless be eventually 
 
346 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 settled in this way ; but the great majority go out, in 
 reality, (at least, such is the result of their emigration,) 
 to be the wives or paramours of ticket-of-leave men and 
 emancipated convicts. No person certainly has any 
 right to prevent young women from emigrating from 
 the mother country for such a purpose ; but let them 
 do so, at all events, with their eyes open. 
 
 3. That rather more than a fourth of the whole popula- 
 tion of the colony consists of Roman Catholics. This 
 religious denomination in New South Wales consists 
 almost exclusively of convicts and emancipated convicts 
 with their families ; the number of free emigrants of the 
 Roman Catholic persuasion having been very small. It 
 is also worthy of particular observation, that the number 
 of Roman Catholic convicts arriving in New South Wales 
 by convict ships from Protestant England amounts to 
 ten per cent of the whole number, while the Protestant 
 convicts arriving by convict ships from Roman Catholic 
 Ireland amount to only five per cent. I have no means 
 of ascertaining the proportion of Roman Catholics as com- 
 pared with the number of Protestants in Great Britain : 
 surely, however, they do not amount to one tenth of the 
 whole population of the island. At all events, it has 
 recently been ascertained, that the proportion of Pro- 
 testants as compared with Roman Catholics in Ireland 
 is as 1 to 41 nearly; but the proportion of Protestant 
 as compared with Roman Catholic convicts from that 
 island is only as I to 20. 
 
 The population of New South Wales is partly con- 
 centrated in towns, and partly dispersed over the whole 
 extent of the colonial territory. The latter portion of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 347 
 
 the colonial population is employed almost exclusively 
 in the pursuits of agriculture and grazing ; the former, 
 exclusive of the military and the officers and clerks 
 connected with the public service, chiefly in mercantile 
 pursuits, in the practice of the various mechanical arts, 
 in dealing and shop-keeping, &c. 
 
 The capital of the colony, and the seat of the colonial 
 government, is the town of Sydney, which at present 
 contains a population of from 18,000 to 20,000 souls. 
 The town of Sydney is beautifully situated on Sydney 
 Cove, one of the numerous and romantic inlets of Port 
 Jackson, about seven miles from the entrance of the 
 harbour. The heads of Port Jackson, or the headlands 
 at the mouth of the harbour, constitute one of the 
 grandest and most interesting features in the natural 
 scenery of the country. To a person approaching the 
 land from the eastward, the coast presents an appa- 
 rently unbroken line of lofty, precipitous, sand-stone 
 cliffs, along the base of which the big waves of the vast 
 Pacific Ocean dash fearfully when the wind blows 
 strongly from the eastward ; causing dense volumes of 
 spray and whitish vapour to ascend to the summits of 
 the highest cliffs all along the coast. The entrance is 
 designated, at a considerable distance at sea, by the 
 light- house, or Macquarie tower, — a circular building 
 of cut stone, surmounted by a lantern with a revolving 
 light, situated on the South Head ; but no opening of 
 any kind can be perceived till you come close in with 
 the land. At a small distance from the Heads, how- 
 ever, an opening is at length perceived in the iron- 
 bound coast; and the idea you unavoidably form of it is, 
 
348 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 that the cliffs on either side have been violently rent 
 asunder by some mighty convulsion of nature, to afford 
 a passage for vessels into some place of security : — * 
 
 Hinc atque hinc vastae rupes, geminique minantur 
 In coelum scopuli, quorum sub vertice late 
 ^Equora tuta silent. Virg. 
 
 High on the right and left, tremendous rocks 
 Tower upwards to the heavens, beneath whose cliffs 
 The sea sleeps placidly. 
 
 The entrance at the Heads is about a mile and three 
 quarters wide ; but the height of the cliffs and the idea 
 of boundlessness which the ocean scenery has previously 
 impressed upon the mind make it appear much nar- 
 rower. On getting round Middle Head, a point of land 
 stretching out from the southern side of the harbour, 
 and completely concealing the opening from the eye of 
 an observer at a few miles' distance at sea, the scene 
 surpasses description. You immediately find yourself 
 on the bosom of a large lake, extending to a great 
 distance in a westerly direction, with innumerable coves 
 or inlets stretching inland to the right and left ; some 
 presenting sandy beaches and grassy lawns; others lined 
 with a barrier of gray rocks cast in the most fantastic 
 moulds, and surmounted in all directions with out- 
 landish but most beautiful shrubbery. 
 
 Many of the most interesting localities on the shores 
 of Port Jackson, between Sydney and the Heads, are in 
 the hands of private proprietors ; and the richly and 
 endlessly diversified beauties of nature, which they 
 uniformly exhibit, are in some instances enhanced by 
 the manner in which they appear contrasted with the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 349 
 
 tasteful habitations of men. Several neat cottages have 
 been erected by the pilots of Sydney, on a sandy beach 
 immediately behind the South Head. A little nearer 
 the town is the picturesque cottage of Vaucluse, the re- 
 sidence of Mr. Wentworth the .barrister ; and somewhat 
 nearer still is the splendid villa of Point Piper, formerly 
 the residence of Captain Piper, Naval officer of the 
 colony. On Woolloomoolloo Hill, an elevated pro- 
 jection of the land, situated between Woolloomoolloo 
 and Elizabeth bays, about a mile from Sydney on the 
 same side of the harbour, most of the civil officers 
 of the colony have built houses of respectable appear- 
 ance, on allotments granted them for the purpose by 
 the late Governor, the view of which from the water 
 is highly interesting and enlivening : and on the oppo- 
 site side of the harbour, or what is called the North 
 Shore, a few handsome cottages have also been erected, 
 besides wharfs and stores belonging to merchants in 
 Sydney connected with the fisheries and the New 
 Zealand trade. 
 
 The town of Sydney, which received its name in 
 honour of Lord Sydney, His Majesty's Principal 
 Secretary of State for the Colonies, at the time when 
 the territory was taken possession of for Great Britain, 
 was originally confined to the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of the cove of the same name, which extends only 
 a short distance inland in a southerly direction from the 
 main harbour. At the entrance of the cove there are 
 forts — of no great strength however — on the extremi- 
 ties of the two ridges that form its eastern and western 
 shores ; the one called Dawes' Battery, and the other 
 
350 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Fort Macquarie. At the head of the cove these 
 ridges attain a considerable elevation ; and on their 
 sloping sides and towering summits, as well as in the 
 valley between, the town of Sydney now extends 
 nearly two miles from Dawes' Battery to the southward, 
 the ridges gradually subsiding till the ground becomes 
 nearly a dead level. The principal streets run in a 
 northerly and southerly direction, parallel to that of the 
 ridges, and are crossed nearly at right angles by other 
 streets, that terminate in a second and much more 
 extensive cove to the westward, called Cockle Bay or 
 Darling Harbour. In short, there can scarcely be 
 imagined a finer situation for a large mercantile city ; 
 and it is much to be regretted that so little advantage 
 was taken, in the earlier years of the colony, of its 
 admirable locality, and so little attention evinced in 
 laying down a proper plan for its gradual extension. 
 
 Of the public buildings in Sydney there are few that 
 deserve particular notice for their architecture. In 
 design and execution the Australian College buildings, 
 erected by a number of free emigrant Scotch mechanics, 
 in the year 1832, on the plan generally pursued in the 
 new town of Edinburgh, are perhaps the first in the 
 colony. These mechanics, however, have since been 
 the means of effecting a very striking improvement in 
 the architecture of the town ; and buildings are now 
 erecting both in Sydney and in various other parts of the 
 territory of a much superior character to any previously 
 erected in New South Wales. The Sydney market- 
 buildings, erected chiefly by the Scotch mechanics, 
 and consisting of a double range of covered sheds, in 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 351 
 
 the Grecian style of architecture, for the accommoda- 
 tion of persons exposing goods for sale in the Sydney 
 market-place, would almost bear comparison with any 
 buildings of the kind in England. Government House 
 is merely a large and rather ancient cottage, occupying 
 a beautiful situation on the eastern side of the cove, 
 but scarcely suited for the residence of the Governor : 
 it is to be superseded forthwith by a building somewhat 
 more in accordance with the rapidly increasing wealth 
 and importance of the colony. St. James* Church is a 
 plain brick-building with a tall and rather handsome 
 spire. The Court- House, and a large building intended 
 for a Charity School for the town of Sydney, were 
 erected in its immediate neighbourhood at the recom- 
 mendation of Mr. Commissioner Bigge, that the whole 
 might appear a single pile of building and have a more 
 imposing effect : the effect, however, is any thing but 
 imposing, the three large masses of brick-work being- 
 brought into juxtaposition without the least taste or 
 judgment. The Roman Catholic Chapel is an am- 
 bitious edifice, built of hewn stone in the form of a cross, 
 and occupying a very conspicuous situation when viewed 
 from the water. The Sydney College, of which a large 
 hall or class-room, with a house for the head master, 
 is all that has yet been erected, will also be a fine build- 
 ing when completed — more creditable, indeed, for its 
 design than for its execution. The Scots Church is a 
 plain substantial edifice of free-stone, in the Gothic 
 style, with a square tower or belfry. A second place of 
 worship for the Presbyterians of Sydney, also in the 
 Gothic style of architecture, has recently been erected 
 
352 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 in the southern part of the town. A third episcopal 
 church for the same neighbourhood is probably now in 
 progress ; and a Baptist Chapel, in the Grecian style, has 
 recently been completed. The Prisoners' barracks is a 
 large and substantial brick building, very creditable to 
 the architect, Mr. Greenaway, as is also the Carters' 
 Barracks. The General Hospital I have already men- 
 tioned elsewhere. 
 
 It is from the daily increasing number, however,a nd 
 the daily improving character of the various private 
 buildings that have recently been erected or are now 
 erecting every where in the town of Sydney, that a 
 proper idea can be formed of the present state and the 
 rapid progress of the Australian capital. Wharfs for 
 shipping, of the most substantial structure, warehouses 
 of large dimensions and costly architecture, shops 
 emulating those of Bond-street in the British metropolis, 
 dwelling-houses of every variety of form, public-houses, 
 windmills, steam-mills, &c. &c. : in short, buildings of 
 every kind that may be supposed necessary in a busy, 
 bustling, commercial sea-port town, are erecting or 
 have recently been erected in all parts of Sydney — 
 many of them of brick, and not a few of cut stone ; 
 and the demand for such buildings is daily in- 
 creasing. 
 
 The minimum price of building-ground belonging to 
 Government in the town of Sydney is £1000 per acre ; 
 but allotments in eligible localities generally sell at a 
 much higher price: indeed, as much as £10,000 to 
 £20,000, and even £30,000 an acre has been obtained 
 for corner allotments in peculiarly eligible situations. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 353 
 
 All sorts of mechanical arts and occupations are pur* 
 sued in Sydney ; and shops of all kinds are to be found 
 in almost every street, as in the busiest sea-ports in the 
 mother country. Indeed, it would be somewhat diffi- 
 cult to enumerate the various branches of business that 
 are followed in the Australian capital, and to particu- 
 larize the different modes by which the industrious 
 portion of its inhabitants obtain a livelihood. There 
 are no fewer than six steam flour-mills in or near the 
 town, besides a number of windmills on the heights 
 around it. There are soap-manufactories ; manufactories 
 both of tallow and sperm candles ; founderies on a 
 small scale for casting either brass or iron ; breweries 
 for the manufacture of Australian beer, either from 
 sugar or from malt ; distilleries for the manufacture of 
 colonial gin from maize and barley; rope manufactories; 
 tanneries ; hat manufactories, &c. &c. ; while the roads 
 of the colony are traversed in every direction by coaches 
 and vehicles of all other descriptions built in Sydney. 
 Besides, all the mechanical arts that are in requisition 
 in house-building and in the furnishing of houses, as 
 well as in the building, equipment, and repairing of ves- 
 sels, are successfully practised in Sydney, and afford a 
 comfortable subsistence to a large and daily increasing 
 number of industrious and reputable families. 
 
 House-rent is still considerably higher in Sydney 
 than in most parts of the mother country. A good 
 house in Sydney, of the description of a clergyman's 
 manse in Scotland, would rent for £100 a year: a few 
 years ago it would have let for £140 ; but the influx of 
 mechanical labour into the colonial market, during the 
 
354 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 last few years, has already had considerable influence 
 in lowering this serious item of expenditure in the 
 domestic economy of the Australian capital. 
 
 There is a market held twice a week in Sydney, in 
 which all sorts of goods and produce are exposed for 
 sale by settlers or the servants of settlers from all parts 
 of the interior, as well as by the numerous dealers in 
 the town. The corn and cattle market, for horses, 
 sheep, cattle, pigs, grain, hay and straw, is held at the 
 southern extremity of the town ; the general market is 
 situated somewhat nearer the harbour ; and the large 
 and commodious suite of buildings recently erected for 
 the accommodation of the numerous frequenters of that 
 busy scene not only forms an appropriate ornament to 
 the town, but affords a large annual revenue to the 
 government. Grain and dairy produce of all kinds, 
 eggs and poultry of all descriptions, potatoes, pump- 
 kins, melons, apples, pears, peaches, apricots, oranges, 
 lemons, loquets, grapes, figs, cherries, strawberries, 
 native currants, with all the variety of vegetables culti- 
 vated in the mother country, are procurable in their 
 respective seasons in the Sydney market, at reasonable 
 prices and of superior quality. The town of Sydney is 
 supplied with milk from dairies in the town and neigh- 
 bourhood, and with fish chiefly from Botany Bay. 
 The latter are brought overland, a distance of seven 
 miles, in carts, and hawked about the streets in wheel- 
 barrows — the cry of " Fish, ho ! " uttered in the genuine 
 London style, being one of the standing matin notes 
 of the Australian capital. 
 
 There are five newspapers published in Sydney, be- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 355 
 
 sides the " Government Gazette," which is published 
 weekly. The " Sydney Gazette" is published three 
 times; the "Herald," the " Monitor," and the " Au- 
 stralian," twice; and the " Colonist" once — a week. 
 There is also a journal published twice a week, and 
 distributed gratuitously, supported entirely by adver- 
 tisements. A monthly magazine for miscellaneous in- 
 telligence has also been in existence since the com- 
 mencement of the year 1836, and is doing well: it is 
 published by a son of the famous cheap bookseller of 
 Cheapside, London, and is called " Tegg's Magazine." 
 Occasional pamphlets on subjects of local interest are 
 also published in Sydney from time to time ; and the 
 black swan of Australia must unquestionably be a 
 tuneful bird, for whole volumes of poetry have already 
 issued from the colonial press. 
 
 In regard to the public amusements of Sydney, I 
 have already alluded to the colonial taste for horse- 
 racing, cricketing, and regattas ; and it is scarcely 
 necessary to remind the reader, that a taste of that kind 
 uniformly implies a taste for gambling and dissipation. 
 For that portion of the community that delights in such 
 amusements, there is also a Theatre Royal in Sydney. 
 I have heard of grossidretes being occasionally exhibited 
 in that fashionable place of resort — a circumstance not 
 at all unlikely in an Australian theatre ; but having 
 never been present at any theatrical exhibitions in the 
 colony, I can only presume, from my general knowledge 
 of the character and propensities of certain classes of 
 its population, that if there is little reason to consider 
 the theatre as a school of virtue in England, there is no 
 
$56 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 reason whatever for regarding it in that light in New 
 South Wales. 
 
 To those who are addicted to botanical researches, or 
 to those who, like myself, merely delight to contemplate 
 the wonderful works of God, without being very inqui- 
 sitive about the genus and species of each, the botanic 
 garden and the romantic walks of the government 
 domain in the immediate neighbourhood of Sydney 
 cannot fail to afford a never-failing source of far higher 
 gratification. To wander alone on serpentine walks, 
 traced with the utmost taste* along the margin of beau- 
 tifully romantic bays, and through woodland scenes, 
 untraversed so lately save by the naked savage and the 
 solitary kangaroo ;— to behold innumerable shrubs of 
 innumerable species, each of which would grace the 
 choicest spots in the garden of a European prince, 
 growing wildly and luxuriantly, and shedding their 
 beautiful flowers unregarded ; — to sit on the summit of 
 a gray rock overhanging the silent waters of Port 
 Jackson, while the glorious sun descends behind the 
 distant mountains to the westward, and pours forth 
 a deluge of light on rock, and wood, and water ; — in 
 such scenes, when the poet asks, " O Solitude, where 
 are thy charms?" one is almost tempted to reply, 
 " Here! here!" 
 
 It is not very creditable, however, to the dwellers in 
 Sydney, that such scenes should be allowed to remain 
 so entirely sacred to solitude as they have hitherto 
 
 * The principal walks in the government domain at Sydney were 
 planned by Mrs. Macquarie, and formed under her immediate super- 
 intendence. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 357 
 
 been ; but while it is undeniable that the schoolmaster 
 will require to be abroad somewhat longer, ere the race 
 of Australians can be expected to go any where in search 
 of the picturesque, there is another very obvious reason 
 for the comparative desertion of the government domain 
 by the inhabitants of Sydney. Every person, who can 
 contrive to get any thing more than a mere livelihood in 
 the colony, forthwith possesses himself of a horse and 
 shay for pleasuring, to be transformed in due time into a 
 curricle and pair. Till lately, however, the government 
 domain was open only to pedestrians, and was conse- 
 quently no place for the display of equipages. Besides, 
 a road was formed, during Governor Macquarie's admi- 
 nistration, at the expense of the people of Sydney, as far 
 as the light-house on the South Head ; and that road 
 has ever since been the favourite resort of the beau 
 monde of the Australian capital. About four o'clock in 
 the afternoon — before dinner in the haut ton circles, but 
 some time after it among people of inferior station — all 
 the coach-house doors in Sydney fly open simul- 
 taneously, and the company begin to take their places for 
 the afternoon drive on the South Head Road. In half an 
 hour the streets are comparatively deserted ; by far the 
 greater portion of the well-dressed part of the popu- 
 lation being already out of town. In the mean time, 
 the long line of equipages — from the ponderous coach 
 of the member of council, moving leisurely and proudly 
 along, or the lively barouche of Mr. Whalebone, the 
 ship-owner, to the one-horse-shay , in which the land- 
 lord of the Tinker's Arms drives out his blowzy dame to 
 
358 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 take the hair arter dinner — doubles Hyde Park Corner,' 
 and arrives on the Corso; while ever and anon some 
 young bachelor merchant or military officer, eager to 
 display his superior skill in horsemanship, dashes 
 briskly forward along the cavalcade at full gallop. 
 
 The South Head Road runs along what the colonists 
 would call the dividing range between Botany Bay and 
 Port Jackson ; and the series of views, which it suc- 
 cessively presents, is as interesting and diversified as 
 can well be imagined. On reaching the highest land 
 on the line, the vast Pacific — the broad highway to 
 England — stretches far and wide in front ; while the 
 roar of its breakers, as they dash incessantly on the 
 shores of Bundy Bay, a small inlet to the southward of 
 the Heads, is heard almost under foot. To the right, 
 the noble inlet of Botany Bay, with its white sandy 
 beach and its dark-looking heads — standing erect like 
 two negro sentinels — is seen at a moderate distance, 
 athwart a series of swamps and sand-hills, the picture 
 of absolute sterility. To the left, the harbour of Port 
 Jackson, with its hundred arms, appears like a series of 
 highland lakes, changing their aspect, and assuming 
 more and more interesting forms at every step ; while 
 the North Head, now seen towering in solitary gran- 
 deur, seems like the ruins of some vast fortress built 
 in the ages of fable to guard the entrance of the 
 harbour. In the rear, the town of Sydney, covered 
 with a thin transparent cloud of whitish smoke, 
 curling slowly upwards from its numerous wood 
 fires, occupies a considerable portion of the field 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 359 
 
 of vision ; while the Blue Mountains in the distance 
 stretch along the western horizon, and terminate the 
 view. 
 
 The light-house on the South Head is about seven 
 miles from Sydney ; but the usual termination of the 
 afternoon's drive is on the summit of a hill called 
 Belle Vue, about four miles from the town ; the car- 
 riages generally making a circular sweep on the top of 
 the hill, and returning to town in nearly the same order 
 as they left it. 
 
 The second town in the colony is Parramatta : it 
 is distant about fourteen miles from Sydney, being 
 pleasantly situated at the head of one of the navigable 
 arms of Port Jackson, into which a small stream of 
 fresh water, scarcely sufficient to turn a mill, discharges 
 itself : it contains nearly five thousand inhabitants. 
 The other towns in the colony are Windsor, Liverpool, 
 Campbelltown, Richmond, Newcastle, and Maitland ; 
 the last of which will doubtless ere long be the second 
 in the colony, as it is situated at the head of the 
 navigation of Hunter's River, and in the centre of the 
 most extensive agricultural and grazing district in the 
 territory. There are other towns, however, in the pro- 
 gress of formation in other parts of the colony, which 
 in a few years will doubtless become places of consider- 
 able importance ; as at Bathurst, beyond the Blue 
 Mountains ; at Goulburn and Bong Bong, in the dis- 
 trict of Argyle ; at Patrick's Plains, on Hunter's River ; 
 and at Wollongong, in the district of Illawarra. 
 
 Three or four stage-coaches and two steam-boats ply 
 daily between Sydney and Parramatta, and there are 
 
360 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 also two daily coaches between Sydney and Liverpool 
 ^-a rising town about twenty miles distant from the 
 capital, forming a thoroughfare for the extensive country 
 to the south-westward. One of the Parramatta coaches 
 proceeds daily to Windsor on the Hawkesbury — a dis- 
 tance of twenty-five miles farther inland ; and there are 
 also conveyances of a similar kind from Sydney to 
 Bathurst twice a week, and from Sydney to Yass, a 
 distance of 180 miles to the south-westward. Respect- 
 able persons travelling to and from the more distant 
 settlements in the interior generally travel on horseback 
 or in vehicles of their own ; and goods and produce are 
 conveyed to and from Sydney on large drays drawn by 
 oxen. The Surveyor- General has been directed, more- 
 over, to construct the future roads of the colony, so as to 
 admit of their being used by locomotive steam-car- 
 riages ; and it has even been proposed to form rail- 
 roads for that purpose of the iron-bark wood of the 
 country — a species of indigenous timber remarkable for 
 its hardness and durability. 
 
 Between Sydney and Maitland there are three steam- 
 boats — the Sophia Jane, the Ceres, and the Tamar — 
 that ply twice a week each with goods and passengers ; 
 seventy miles of their course, or the distance between 
 the Heads of Port Jackson and the entrance of Hunter's 
 river, being along the land in the open Pacific Ocean. 
 The Sophia Jane was formerly a passage-boat on the 
 Thames, plying between London and Margate, and was 
 brought out to the colony in the year 1831 by Captain 
 Biddulph, a lieutenant in the royal navy, who has 
 since settled in Sydney with his family. The Tamar 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 361 
 
 was also brought out from England ; the Ceres,* which 
 is the largest of the four, and the William the Fourth, 
 which now plies between Sydney and Port Macquarie, 
 considerably farther to the northward, having been both 
 built in the colony. All the four vessels, it is generally 
 understood, have done exceedingly well. As a proof of 
 this, there has been a company formed lately, the 
 object of which is to place a vessel of much larger size 
 on the course between Sydney and Hobart Town, Van 
 Dieman's Land, to carry cattle as well as goods and 
 passengers. 
 
 For many years after the first settlement of New 
 South Wales, the trade of the colony consisted merely 
 in the importation of such articles of British manu- 
 facture or foreign produce as were required for the 
 internal consumption of the settlement. These articles 
 were imported by a few merchants, who had settled 
 in Sydney in the earlier times of the colony, and who 
 sold them to colonial dealers, by whom they were retailed 
 to the inhabitants ; the only source to which all parties 
 looked for their ultimate payment being the expenditure 
 of British money by the government of the colony. 
 This state of things continued until so late a period 
 as the administration of Sir Thomas Brisbane : for, al- 
 though a few seal-skins, a few tons of oil, and a few 
 bales of wool had been occasionally exported previous 
 to that period, the chief, if not the exclusive source of 
 the expectation of profit, on the part of the colonial 
 merchant, was the expenditure of British money within 
 
 * This vessel has recently been lost on the coast, evidently through 
 great mismanagement. 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
362 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the colony : and there is reason to believe, that, if 
 a great change had not taken place in the circumstances 
 of the colony at the period I have mentioned, the 
 colonial trade would have remained on much the same 
 footing down to the present day. 
 
 The government of Sir Thomas Brisbane, I have 
 already observed, however, was the era of free emi- 
 gration ; and from that era, the prosperity of the colony 
 and the existence of any thing like a colonial trade may 
 be fairly dated, as it was then that the resources of 
 the country began, for the first time, to be inquired into 
 and developed. The lavish expenditure of Governor 
 Macquarie's administration induced the British Go- 
 vernment, about the period I have mentioned, to with- 
 hold from the Governors of New South Wales the 
 carte blanche they had previously allowed them on the 
 treasury of Great Britain ; and the order of merit was 
 therefore to be worn in future by the Governor who 
 could reduce the expenditure of British money in the 
 colony to the lowest practicable amount. In the mean 
 time, the numerous free emigrants who were daily 
 arriving in the colony were obliged to exercise their 
 ingenuity in obtaining a profitable return for the capital 
 they had expended in the country ; for, as the Govern- 
 ment market was daily becoming more and more pre- 
 carious, in consequence of the diminution of the public 
 expenditure and the rapidly increasing number of com- 
 petitors, it was absolutely necessary to look out for 
 a market somewhere else ; and the necessity for finding 
 such a market implied the corresponding necessity for 
 raising produce that would be saleable in that market. 
 
 It is preposterous, therefore, in the highest degree, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 363 
 
 for the persons who attempt to render themselves 
 conspicuous in the colony, by placing themselves at 
 the head of the emancipist body, to talk so loudly 
 as they have done repeatedly to the British Parliament, 
 about what the emancipists have done for the colony. 
 What did they do for it, I ask, during the thirty-three 
 years they had it in great measure to themselves ? 
 Why, they scrambled chiefly for the British money, 
 which their favourite Governor dealt forth among theui 
 with a wasteful lavishness, which, however it might 
 be applauded in the colony by those who partook 
 largely of the spoil, cannot fail to be regarded with very 
 different feelings by the real lover of his country, 
 especially when he recollects that every farthing of 
 that expenditure was wrung from the over-taxed, over- 
 tithed, and overwrought population of Great Britain 
 and Ireland. This expenditure, moreover, the eman- 
 cipists, or rather a few individuals of their number, 
 divided among themselves, and employed in building 
 houses and cultivating land, or rather in purchasing for 
 a mere trifle the houses that had been built and the 
 land that had been cultivated by others of their own 
 number who were not so fortunate as themselves : and 
 this profitable process they would doubtless have con- 
 tinued to the present day, had not a host of free 
 emigrants arrived from the mother country, and deve- 
 loped the vast resources of the colony by their enter- 
 prise of every kind ; and told His Majesty's Ministers, 
 through the unexpected and unprecedented results of 
 that enterprise, that, although as a community we 
 should never cease to wish fur more men, we should 
 soon cease to wish for more money from England, 
 
364 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 The imports of New South Wales consist chiefly of 
 goods of British manufacture, — rum, gin, brandy, and 
 wine, from the mother country ; tobacco from the 
 United States and South America ; wine from the Cape 
 of Good Hope ; sugar from the Mauritius ; tea and 
 other China goods from Canton ; rice and other India 
 produce from Batavia or Calcutta; and occasionally 
 wheat and potatoes from Van Dieman's Land. The 
 exports consist chiefly of wool, sperm and black-whale 
 oil, New Zealand flax, seal-skins, hides, horns, trenails, 
 and occasionally timber, to London ; butter, cheese, 
 beef, pork, maize, oranges, cedar-wood, coals, cattle 
 and horses to Van Dieman's Land ; and provisions of 
 all kinds to the fisheries. 
 
 For the information of the mercantile reader both in 
 England and in America, and to enable the general reader 
 to form some idea of the unprecedentedly rapid rate at 
 which the colony of New South Wales has been ad- 
 vancing in commercial importance and in general pros- 
 perity during the last few years, I have inserted in the 
 Appendix (No. 11.) returns of the imports and exports 
 of the colony for the eight years preceding the first of 
 January, 1836, together with the amount of the tonnage 
 and the number of vessels and sailors employed in the 
 colonial trade. 
 
 From these returns it appears that the exports of the 
 colony of New South Wales for the year 1835 were 
 seven times greater than those of the year 1828 ; and 
 from a return of the progressive increase of the colo- 
 nial revenue* for the ten years preceding the first of 
 
 * See Appendix, No. 12. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 365 
 
 January, 1836, it appears, that during that com- 
 paratively brief period, the colonial revenue had qua- 
 drupled itself. It would probably be difficult to find a 
 parallel to such a state of things in the history of the 
 world. 
 
 The principal and the grand staple article of Austra- 
 lian produce is fine wool ; and as it appears from the 
 preceding returns that the quantity of that valuable 
 article of colonial produce exported from New South 
 Wales during the year 1835 was more than double the 
 amount exported during the year 183*2 — the comparative 
 quantities exported during these years being as follows, 
 viz. : 
 
 In 1832 .... 1,515,156 lbs. 
 
 In 1835 .... 3,776,191 — 
 
 — while the capabilities of the colony for the increased 
 production of wool are literally inexhaustible ; the origin 
 and history of a branch of colonial trade, which has thus 
 raised the colony already to the highest pitch of pros- 
 perity, and will ere long raise it to a pitch of com- 
 mercial and political importance never anticipated by 
 the most sanguine of its founders, cannot fail to be 
 interesting in the highest degree to the colonial 
 reader. 
 
 In the year 1792 or 1793, a few English sheep, which 
 had been accidentally carried out from Ireland, were 
 landed in New South Wales ; and John Macarthur, 
 Esq., who was then resident in the colony as captain 
 and paymaster of the New South Wales Corps, ob- 
 serving the effect produced by their accidental crossing 
 
366 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 with the sheep of the hair-bearing breeds from the Cape 
 and Bengal, of which there was then a considerable 
 number in the colony, his attention was strongly 
 directed to the subject of the improvement of coarse- 
 wooled sheep, and the growth of wool in New South 
 Wales. The effect of the crossing was a decided improve- 
 ment of the animals — the hairy coat of the progeny of 
 the Cape and Bengal breeds being gradually converted 
 into wool — while it appeared that the influence of the 
 climate on the fleece of sheep generally was decidedly 
 favourable. Shortly after this interesting fact had been 
 ascertained, Captain Waterhouse, a naval officer who 
 was then in the colony, having been ordered to proceed 
 to the Cape in command of a vessel in His Majesty's ser- 
 vice, Mr. Macarthur requested him particularly to en- 
 deavour to procure a few sheep of improved breed in that 
 colony, and to bring them to New South Wales ; offering 
 to share with him in the cost and in the general result of 
 the speculation. Captain Waterhouse never returned to 
 New South Wales; but the commission with which he had 
 been charged by Mr. Macarthur was duly executed by 
 Captain Kent, who, on his return to the colony in charge 
 of the vessel in the year 1796, brought along with him a 
 few sheep of the pure Merino breed, which he had pur- 
 chased at the Cape, at the sale of the property and effects 
 of Colonel Gordon, au officer of Scotch extraction in 
 the Dutch service, then recently deceased. On their 
 arrival in the colony, these sheep were equally divided 
 between Mr. Macarthur, Captain Kent, Captain Cox 
 (afterwards paymaster of the New South Wales Corps), 
 and the Rev. Mr. Marsden j Mr. Macarthur obtaining 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 367 
 
 five ewes and one ram. It appears, however, that Mr. 
 Macarthur alone paid the requisite attention to these 
 valuable animals, which it seems were made little ac- 
 count of and neglected by the other gentlemen ; and 
 his perseverance in the matter not unfrequently exposed 
 him to no small degree of ridicule on the part of his 
 contemporaries. By his persevering attention Mr. Mac- 
 arthur at length formed a considerable flock, which was 
 afterwards greatly increased about the year 1803, by 
 his purchase of the whole of the sheep and other stock 
 of Colonel (now General) Foveaux. 
 
 About this period, Colonel Patterson, of the New 
 South Wales Corps, having challenged Mr. Macarthur 
 to fight a duel, from some circumstance which I have 
 not been able to ascertain, a meeting between the parties 
 took place ; and Colonel Patterson being wounded by 
 his antagonist, Governor King placed Mr. Macarthur 
 under arrest, and published severe animadversions on 
 his conduct in a general order. Conceiving himself 
 injured, Mr. Macarthur solicited a court-martial : this 
 the Governor peremptorily refused, and actually sent 
 Mr. Macarthur home as a prisoner to England. This 
 circumstance, which Mr. Macarthur naturally con- 
 sidered as a great hardship at the time, proved 
 eventually very fortunate for that gentleman ; for 
 having taken home with him samples of his wool, they 
 were accidentally shown to the principal manufacturers 
 of that article in England; who, in consequence of a 
 particular occurrence in connexion with the woollen 
 manufacture at that period, were disposed to regard 
 them with peculiar interest. 
 
368 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 About the year 1804, the workmen employed in the 
 great woollen manufactories in England had discovered 
 an obsolete statute of Queen Elizabeth, prohibiting 
 woollen manufacturers from employing any person in 
 any branch of that occupation who had not served a 
 regular apprenticeship : proceedings were accordingly 
 commenced against the manufacturers, on the part of 
 the workmen, by memorializing and petitioning the 
 Government to have the statute of Elizabeth enforced. 
 As this would have subjected the manufacturers to great 
 inconvenience and loss, a reply to the memorial of the 
 workmen was made on the part of the committee of 
 manufacturers, setting forth, that similar statutes had 
 been enacted for the protection of the operatives in 
 cotton manufactories, but had subsequently been re- 
 pealed, in consequence of their being found opposed to 
 the commercial interests of the country, and of unjust 
 operation. To this it was replied, on the part of the 
 workmen, that cotton being an article of unlimited pro- 
 duce, it was found necessary to remove the restrictions 
 imposed under the statutes in question, to afford all 
 possible encouragement to its manufacture ; whereas 
 wool being an article of very limited produce, the paral- 
 lel could not hold. In this conjuncture, Mr. Macarthur's 
 specimens of Australian wool being produced and re- 
 ferred to as a proof that that article could be raised of 
 superior quality and to an unlimited extent within the 
 territorial possessions of the empire, the case was de- 
 cided in favour of the manufacturers, and strong recom- 
 mendations were addressed on behalf of Mr. Macarthur 
 and his important object to the Secretary of State. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 369 
 
 The following extract from Mr. Macarthur's exami- 
 nation, by Colonel Johnston, on the trial of that un- 
 fortunate officer for the arrest of Governor Bligh, in the 
 year 1811, will not be uninteresting to the reader, in 
 connexion with this subject: — 
 
 " How long have you been established in New South Wales'? — I went 
 to the colony in the year 1789, as an officer in the New South Wales 
 Corps, twenty-one years since. 
 
 M When did you first commence your agricultural pursuits in that 
 colony ?— About the year 1793. The colony had, previously to that period, 
 been in the extremest distress for provisions ; the rations issued by the 
 Government were frequently so small, that the greatest want prevailed, 
 and absolute famine was often apprehended. When Major Grose (now 
 Gen. Grose) took the command of the colony as Lieutenant-Governor, 
 he considered it expedient to encourage cultivation, by giving grants of 
 land to the officers both civil and military. Among the persons so en- 
 couraged, was myself; and I devoted myself with great assiduity to the 
 clearing and the cultivating of the land given to me, and to the raising 
 of every kind of animal fitted for food. 
 
 " What quantity of live stock do you suppose you have reared in the 
 period you have spoken of"? — To the best of my knowledge and belief, I 
 have circulated among the settlers at least ^£20,000 worth of breeding 
 animals, all raised by myself. 
 
 " A Member. We cannot judge of the number of the cattle by such a 
 statement, because the prices might be very high. 
 
 " The Witness. I have sent an immense quantity to the market to be 
 slaughtered, and I am sure I may fairly estimate from my present stock, 
 that the colony will be supplied with at least 100,000 lbs. weight an- 
 nually. It is perhaps proper that I should state to the Court, that the 
 stock from which such large supplies have been obtained, originally 
 consisted only of about six or seven cows, and about thirty ewes ; and 
 that from these I have raised 1000 or 1200 head of horned cattle, and 
 at least 10,000 or 12,000 sheep. The last returns of my stock made the 
 number of sheep 4600, the horned cattle near 300, with about 50 
 horses. 
 
 " Are those in addition to the numbers you before stated "? — No ; they 
 are the present stock. 
 
 " What was the price of beef and mutton in the colony when you 
 
370 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 commenced breeding cattle and sheep ; and what was the pi-ice when 
 you left the colony ? — When I commenced, it fluctuated from 3s. to 2s. 6d. 
 per pound :— before I left it, I supplied Government with a large quan- 
 tity at Is. ; and since my departure they have been supplied with a still 
 larger quantity at 9d. 
 
 " At what period, and in what manner, did the Government of Eng- 
 land encourage your agricultural views?— In the beginning of the year 
 1804, some of the most eminent manufacturers of woollen cloth in Eng- 
 land saw by accident some specimens of the wool that I had raised in 
 New South Wales ; its quality was so fine that it induced them to find 
 me out, and to make particular inquiries how and in what manner this 
 wool had been raised. On my communicating to them all I knew upon 
 the subject, they expressed a decided opinion that the colony of New 
 Holland might, with proper encouragement, be enabled in time to 
 supply the woollen manufacture of this country with tbe whole quantity 
 of fine wool which was then, with great difficulty, obtained from Spain ; 
 and such was the importance which they attached to this, that they 
 signified their determination to communicate their opinion to Govern- 
 ment by memorial, which was soon afterwards done. In consequence of 
 these memorials being sent in, I was directed to attend a Privy Council, 
 before whom I was particularly examined as to the state of my flocks and 
 their probable improvement. The Privy Council were so satisfied of 
 the importance of the undertaking, that they recommended to the Secre- 
 tary of State that it should be encouraged. 
 
 " In what shape was the encouragement of Government conferred upon 
 you?— Lord Camden, the then Secretary of State, was pleased to order 
 me a grant of 5000 acres of land, in a particular situation which I had 
 pointed out to His Lordship : at the same time he wrote to the Go- 
 vernor of the colony, directing that I was to be supplied with shepherds. 
 
 " Who was the Governor? — King. And with every other suitable 
 and proper encouragement to advance an object of such national im- 
 portance. 
 
 " Was this after your examination before the Privy Council ? — It was 
 after. 
 
 " Whatwasthe result of your agricultural pursuits at the time Governor 
 Bligh entered upon the government of New South Wales? — The flocks 
 of sheep and the herds of cattle were in the most flourishing state, the 
 fleeces improving quite as rapidly as I could calculate upon. 
 
 " Did Governor Bligh promote the intentions of Government in your 
 favour, and forward your agricultural views ?— Never, in the smallest 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 371 
 
 Governor Bligh, like almost every other person in 
 New South Wales at the time, was altogether sceptical 
 as to the practicability of realizing the views of Mr. 
 Macarthur in regard to the production of fine wool in 
 the colonial territory, and doubtless conceived that that 
 gentleman had obtained an undue advantage from the 
 Government in obtaining so much more land and con- 
 vict labour than were allowed to other free settlers : 
 he appears also to have expressed himself repeatedly to 
 this effect, in the rough and rude manner in which he 
 was accustomed to express unfavourable opinions of 
 any person or on any subject ; but there is no evidence 
 of his having thrown any positive obstruction in Mr. 
 Macarthur's way in the accomplishment of his object. 
 
 The discouragements, however, of various kinds, and 
 from almost every quarter, with which Mr. Macarthur 
 had to struggle through a long series of years, in de- 
 monstrating the practicability of producing fine wool in 
 New South Wales to an unlimited extent, were sufficient 
 to have paralyzed the energies of a less energetic mind ; 
 and the obligations under which he has consequently 
 laid the colony in all time coming, through his unre- 
 mitted perseverance and unexampled success, are great 
 beyond calculation. The peculiar adaptation of the 
 climate of New South Wales to the constitution and 
 habits of fine woolled sheep, and the capabilities of the 
 colony for the production of that valuable article of 
 export to any conceivable extent, would doubtless have 
 been discovered sooner or later by some other inhabitant 
 of the colony, even if they had not been ascertained and 
 demonstrated by Mr. Macarthur; but this possibility 
 
372 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 does not in the least detract from the singular merit of 
 that gentleman as a real benefactor of his adopted 
 country ; for the very same remark is applicable in the 
 very same manner to the noble invention of Faustus, 
 and the splendid discoveries of Columbus. 
 
 During the ten years that had elapsed from the first 
 muster after Governor Macquarie's arrival in the year 
 1810 to the annual muster in 1820, the sheep of the 
 colony had increased from 25,888 to 99,428; Mr. 
 Macarthur's flock being at the latter period 6800, of 
 which 300 were pure Merinos. During the administra- 
 tions of Sir Thomas Brisbane and General Darling, it 
 became a matter of controversy in the colony, whether 
 the Merino or the Saxon breed, of which a few sheep 
 had been introduced into Van Dieman's Land,, direct 
 from Germany, in the early part of the year 1823, by 
 the vessel in which I arrived for the first time in the 
 Australian colonies, produced the finest wool and was 
 most profitable for the sheep-farmer. The preference, 
 however, is now generally given to the Saxon breed, 
 which, it is well known to persons acquainted with 
 sheep-farming, was itself originally of Merino extraction. 
 Several cargoes of Saxon sheep have at different times 
 been imported into the colony by different colonial pro- 
 prietors, as well as on speculation ; and sheep of that 
 breed are now very widely diffused over the territory, 
 the colonial flocks of inferior breed having from time to 
 time been gradually improved by crossing with the 
 Saxon. The wool undergoes the usual process of wash- 
 ing on the animal's back in a running stream before it is 
 shorn : it is then dried, shorn, and sorted ; after which 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 373 
 
 it is packed into bales, and forwarded on large drays 
 drawn by oxen to Sydney, to be there shipped for Lon- 
 don. The freight to London usually costs only from a 
 penny to three half-pence per lb., the price in England 
 varying from Is. 6d. to 2s. 6d. per lb. Mr. Macarthur's 
 wool for the year 1833 averaged 3s. 6d. per lb., the gene- 
 ral average for that year being from Is. lid. to 2s. 9d. 
 
 The paramount. importance of this branch of colonial 
 produce will appear from the return of the quantity of 
 wool exported from New South Wales for each suc- 
 cessive year, from 1819 to 1835, inclusive; the quan- 
 tity exported in the first of these years being only 
 71,299 lbs., while the exportation for 1835 amounted to 
 3,776,191 lbs., and the amount of this principal article of 
 colonial export having more than doubled itself during the 
 three years that have elapsed since the publication of the 
 first edition of this ivork. Sheep in New South Wales 
 generally double their number every four years — in 
 many instances in less than half that period ; and as there 
 is an unlimited extent of pasture to the northward, as 
 well as to the southward and westward, the quantity 
 of wool that will be exported from the colony in a few 
 years hence, will be great beyond belief in England. 
 An intelligent merchant in Sydney has calculated that 
 the export of this principal article of colonial produce 
 will in all likelihood realize half a million sterling in 
 the year 1840. The quantity of British produce of 
 every description, which this large income from a single 
 article of colonial produce will enable the colonists to 
 purchase, and the stimulus it will necessarily afford to 
 commercial industry and enterprise both at home and 
 
374 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 abroad, are considerations of the highest importance to 
 every British statesman, and will doubtless evince the 
 propriety, if not the necessity, of permanently attaching 
 the colonists to the mother country, by allowing them a 
 share for the future in the management of their own 
 pecuniary affairs. I am confident there is no colony 
 in the empire, in which there is at this moment a 
 stronger feeling of affection towards the mother country 
 than there is in New South Wales, or one in which the 
 continuance of that affection, and of all the important 
 advantages which it will undoubtedly be the means of 
 ensuring to the mother country as well as to the co- 
 lony, can be secured at less expense. The colonists of 
 Australia will doubtless at some future period establish 
 a republican government for themselves, and elect a 
 President of the Australian States ; for it is a singular 
 fact in the history of nations, that Great Britain, with an 
 essentially monarchical government, has for a long time 
 past been laying the foundations of future republics in 
 all parts of the globe ; and will doubtless be left at last, 
 like the unfortunate hen that has hatched ducks' eggs, 
 to behold her numerous brood successively taking the 
 water.* But while such a consummation, whenever it 
 shall be realized, will be no real loss to the mother 
 country, provided the habits of commercial intercourse 
 between the colony and Great Britain are in the mean 
 time formed and fostered by good government ; there is 
 
 * Mr. Fox observed of the British Government thirty years ago, that 
 it was a disguised republic. This perhaps explains the anomaly. Be- 
 sides, the disguise is much less complete now than it was even in Mr. 
 Fox's time. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 375 
 
 nobody at present, of any pretensions to common sense 
 in New South Wales, who ever dreams of its speedy 
 realization, far less desires it. 
 
 In connexion with this subject, and in illustration of 
 the rapid progress of the colony in its commercial rela- 
 tions, I may remark, that there is a prospect of esta^ 
 blishing a considerable direct trade in the article of wool, 
 as well as in other articles of colonial produce, between 
 New South Wales and the United States of America. 
 The Tybee, an American trader from Salem, New 
 England, arrived in Port Jackson with a cargo of 
 American produce, by way of experiment, in the year 
 1832. She sold it, I have reason to believe, to ad- 
 vantage in Sydney, and afterwards returned to America. 
 The result of the commercial intercourse that has thus 
 been established between the colony and that powerful 
 republic, will be found in the Appendix, No. 13. 
 
 A very prominent, if not the most important branch, 
 of the trade of New South Wales at the present mo- 
 ment, is the sperm and black-whale fishery, in which 
 no fewer than forty-one square-rigged vessels of various 
 tonnage are now employed out of the port of Sydney. 
 These vessels are all furnished with provisions for their 
 voyage of the produce of the colony ; their whaling- 
 gear is chiefly manufactured of New Zealand flax by 
 the rope-spinners of Sydney ; and the large sums of 
 money distributed among their officers and crews, on 
 their return to port after a successful voyage, are all 
 expended in the colony. At Twofold Bay, near Bass's 
 Straits, on the east coast of New Holland, and on the 
 southern coasts of New Zealand, there are establish- 
 
376 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 ments belonging to merchants in Sydney for the black- 
 whale fishery ; the oil of that species of whale, or the 
 common train-oil of commerce, being always tried out 
 (to use the technical phrase) in boilers erected on shore. 
 The black or right whale is of the species that is caught 
 exclusively in the Greenland Seas. The sperm-whale 
 fishery, however, is by far the most important of the 
 two ; and the whaling ground, chiefly traversed by 
 vessels from Sydney, extends all over the Western 
 Pacific, from the Heads of Port Jackson to the sea of 
 Japan. The length of the voyage, in these hunting 
 expeditions, depends entirely on the success of the 
 vessel ; and the latter depends, in great measure, on 
 the experience and ability of the officers and crew. 
 The colonial whale fishery has not been pursued, to any 
 thing like its present extent, for a sufficient length of 
 time to train up so large a number of persons as have 
 hitherto been required in the colony for so peculiar and 
 so hazardous an occupation ; but experience is gained 
 by every successive voyage, and the chance of failure 
 gradually diminished. 
 
 The sperm whale is of the order mammalia. It 
 breathes by lungs, is viviparous, and suckles its young : 
 it is therefore obliged to rise frequently to the surface 
 of the water for fresh air, and, in the operation of 
 breathing, a large quantity of water is admitted along 
 with the air into the animal's gullet ; but the water, 
 being unnecessary for the purposes of respiration, is 
 again violently ejected, by a process peculiar to the 
 whale tribe, at an aperture called the spout-hole in the 
 animal's forehead, forming a jet-d'eau or water-spout, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 377 
 
 somewhat similar in its outline to that of a tall goose- 
 berry bush, and inclining a little to the left. This ope- 
 ration is technically called spouting or blowing, and the 
 sound of it at a small distance somewhat resembles the 
 hollow abrupt bellowing of an angry bull. The sperm 
 whale spouts regularly once a minute, and, when undis- 
 turbed, about sixty or seventy times in succession, re- 
 maining, of course, about an hour at the surface of the 
 water. He then slowly raises his immense head and 
 the upper part of his huge body above water, to place 
 himself in a proper attitude for diving perpendicularly, 
 and doubtless to acquire the impetus necessary for de- 
 scending to the requisite depth ; he then elevates in 
 like manner his tremendous tail, the flukes of which 
 are each about ten feet long, and immediately dis- 
 appears. A common shoal whale, or one of the or- 
 dinary size, producing about five tons, or forty barrels 
 of oil, remains under water about twenty-five minutes, 
 and then rises and recommences blowing almost at the 
 very spot where he had previously disappeared, if he 
 has not been disturbed in the mean time. A Bull- 
 whale, however, which produces about ninety barrels, 
 or upwards of eleven tons of oil, remains under water 
 from an hour to seventy minutes. 
 
 The sperm whale is gregarious in its habits, being 
 generally found in large herds or shoals. I once saw 
 as many, I think, as five hundred in one drove at the 
 mouth of the Indian Ocean : they seemed like a large 
 herd of cattle, and were moving leisurely along towards 
 the western coast of New Holland. The bull-whale, 
 however, is sometimes found traversing the ocean wilds 
 
378 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 in solitary majesty ; being driven perhaps from the 
 haunts of his tribe by the superior prowess of some more 
 powerful antagonist, who thenceforth doubtless remains 
 undisputed master of the seraglio. The affection of 
 the female, or cow-whale, for her young is very strong — 
 a circumstance observed even by the inspired penman : * 
 and in coming up with a shoal, the whalers uniformly 
 endeavour to fasten to a calf or young whale, as in that 
 case they are sure to get the mother at all events, if 
 not several others of the shoal ; for the mother espe- 
 cially, and sometimes all the adults, remain close to 
 the spot, swimming about in a state of evident trepi- 
 dation till the dear little innocent either obtains its 
 liberty or dies. 
 
 On the whaling ground there are always two or three 
 men, including the officer of the watch, at the mast- 
 head, looking out for whales from the dawn of day till 
 sunset. When a whale is seen, the man who descries it, 
 shouts, or rather chants, " There she spouts," and in 
 a minute after, u There again" The officer below then 
 asks " Where?" and the man aloft replies, as it may 
 be, u On the weather-bow ; on the larboard quarter ; on 
 the lee-beam" or " right aft" If the whale is seen at a 
 considerable distance to leeward, the vessel immediately 
 makes sail in that direction, to lessen the labour of 
 rowing and to cover the boats ; if it is seen to wind- 
 ward, the boats are lowered immediately. On coming 
 up with the whale, the headsman launches a harpoon at 
 the most vulnerable part of the huge animal's body, 
 
 * Lamentations iv, 3. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 379 
 
 in which of course it remains fast. The harpoon has 
 always a long line attached to it, the end of which 
 is fixed at the stern of the whale-boat. The whale 
 no sooner feels himself wounded, than he darts off with 
 inconceivable swiftness, dragging the boat along with 
 him ; but so prodigiously is the resistance of the water 
 increased by the velocity of the motion, that although 
 the line by which it is dragged along passes over the 
 bow, all the fore part of the boat is elevated completely 
 above water, and the stern part of it actually sinks 
 beneath the level of the surrounding element. * The 
 whale at length stops for a second or two, and the 
 boatmen instantly seize the opportunity of pulling up 
 close to him again. A second harpoon is then launched 
 at him, and he is attacked at the same time with 
 a lance ; the headsman sometimes setting his shoulder 
 to the lance to force it home. This process, which it 
 is evident must excite an intense interest in all con- 
 cerned, independently of the consideratiou of emolu- 
 ment, is repeated till the animal is at length mortally 
 wounded and completely exhausted. When this is the 
 
 * The whale sometimes dives right down when he feels himself 
 wounded. An intelligent shipmaster in the colonial trade, who had spent 
 the earlier part of his life in the Greenland Whale Fishery, has told me 
 that he was once fast to a large whale, on the coast of Greenland, which 
 descended perpendicularly as soon as he had received a single stroke 
 of the harpoon, and carried down six lines of a hundred and twenty 
 fathoms each, which were successively attached to each other. When 
 the sixth line was nearly all out, the strain upon it suddenly ceased ; and 
 on heing pulled up, the whale rose to the surface quite dead, with both 
 his jaw-bones broken. The animal must have descended to a depth of 
 nearly 4320 feet, or upwards of three quarters of a mile, and struck a 
 rock or other hard substance at the bottom. 
 
380 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 case, he slowly rears the upper part of his immense 
 body above water, trembling convulsively all over, and 
 forthwith throws himself upon his side, and dies. It 
 sometimes happens, however, when a boat approaches 
 too close to the whale, that the animal suddenly strikes 
 it with his tail, and either upsets it or dashes it to 
 pieces. When no such accident happens, the carcase is 
 towed alongside the vessel, and the blubber is then cut 
 off and tried, or boiled into oil, in large iron pots 
 erected for the purpose on the ship's deck, the refuse 
 serving as fuel to boil the rest. 
 
 Very few of the colonial sperm whalers carry a sur- 
 geon ; and it would doubtless prove advantageous to all 
 parties engaged in this branch of trade, as well as 
 serviceable to the cause of humanity, for the local 
 legislature to pass an act obliging them to do so in 
 every instance: for accidents happen more frequently 
 on board whalers than in other vessels ; and in voyages 
 of so long a duration as whaling voyages necessarily 
 are, diseases, especially those of the scorbutic family, 
 not unfrequently occur ; in which, although the proper 
 medicines may be duly administered and the proper 
 treatment pursued, the mere absence of a surgeon will 
 often render a case Of no real danger in itself abso- 
 lutely fatal, from the mental despondency which that 
 class of diseases uniformly induces, and the feeling 
 of absolute helplessness and hopelessness which the 
 want of medical aid naturally occasions. Besides, the 
 presence of a young man of good education, in the 
 capacity of a surgeon on board each of the colonial 
 whalers, would in all likelihood tend greatly to hu- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 381 
 
 manize the officers and crew, many of whom are some- 
 what rough in their manners. 
 
 The wages, or rather emoluments, of a manner em- 
 ployed in whaling depend entirely on the success of the 
 voyage. The vessel is fitted out and provisioned by the 
 owner, and each person on board receives as his wages 
 a certain proportion of the value of the whole cargo of 
 oil with which the vessel returns to port. This pro- 
 portion is technically called a lay, the captain's lay 
 being a twelfth, the first-officer's a twenty-fifth, and the 
 common seaman's a one hundred and twentieth part of 
 the whole cargo. In the colonial sperm-whale fishery, 
 the captain has the privilege of sending his oil home to 
 the best market in London ; the rest of the ship's com- 
 pany stipulating to sell their proportion to the ow r ner, 
 who runs all the subsequent risk, and bears all the 
 subsequent expense, at £30 a ton. It generally sells 
 in London at from £60 to £75. 
 
 It may seem preposterous to hazard such an assertion, 
 but it is nevertheless the fact, that the progress of the 
 sperm-whale fishery of New South Wales is intimately 
 connected with the moral welfare and advancement of a 
 most interesting portion of the great family of man. 
 The London sperm-whalers are generally large vessels ; 
 they are seldom less than four months in reaching the 
 whaling ground ; and are frequently from two to three, 
 nay, sometimes even four years, on their voyage. During 
 that period the sailors become in many instances com- 
 pletely brutalized ; and when they land for refreshments 
 on the South Sea Islands, their conduct is often in- 
 famous in the extreme : for, independently of the un- 
 hallowed operation of their own vicious propensities, 
 
382 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 they are too fur from home in these islands to be in- 
 fluenced by any fear of the laws, or by any regard for 
 public opinion. The colonial whalers, on the contrary, 
 are generally of smaller size ; and, arriving on the 
 whaling ground immediately after leaving their port, 
 they are filled in a much shorter time, and the voyage 
 is consequently of a much shorter duration ; the average 
 length of a whaling voyage from Sydney being from 
 ten to fifteen months. The officers and crews of the 
 colonial whalers have thus a much stronger inducement 
 to marry and rear families of their own, as not a few 
 of them have already done, than those of the London 
 whalers ; while, on the other hand, the communication 
 between the colony and the South Sea Islands is so 
 frequent and direct, that any flagrant act of misconduct 
 in these islands would very speedily be reported in the 
 colony, and in all likelihood subject the perpetrator to 
 the penalties of the law. It will doubtless be gratifying 
 to the reader to be informed that several of the Sydney 
 whalers are Temperance ships. 
 
 The idea of establishing a sperm-whale fishery, or 
 rather a rendezvous for vessels employed in that trade, 
 at Sydney, appears to have suggested itself so early as 
 the year 1791, to a Scotchman of the name of Mel- 
 ville, the master of a whaler belonging to Messrs. 
 Enderby and Sons, of London, who had carried out 
 a cargo of convicts to the colony, on his way to the 
 whaling ground on the north-west coast of America.* 
 
 The colonial sperm-whale fishery, however, is, com- 
 paratively, but of very recent origin. I do not think 
 
 * See Appendix, No. 14. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 383 
 
 there were more than two vessels in the trade, out 
 of Sydney, when I arrived in the colony for the first 
 time in the year 1823. In the beginning of the 
 year 1826, there were five or six; but in August, 
 1830, there were twenty-six. They have been gra- 
 dually increasing ever since, the number of whalers be- 
 longing to the port of Sydney being now forty-one. 
 For a return of the produce of the colonial fisheries for 
 the nine years preceding the first of January, 1836 — 
 the value being according to the Sydney Custom House 
 estimate, which is greatly under the truth — together 
 with a list of the colonial whalers, see Appendix, 
 No. 15. 
 
 The pfiormium tenax, or New Zealand flax — a sub- 
 stance which combines the qualities of the common flax 
 and of the hemp of Europe — constitutes also an im- 
 portant article of colonial export, and affords employ- 
 ment in a considerable degree to colonial industry. The 
 Phormium tenax is similar in appearance to the com- 
 mon English flag: it is dressed chiefly by the nati\e 
 women of New Zealand, who scrape off the outer part 
 of the leaf with muscle-shells ; after which operation 
 the internal and fibrous parts of the plant, which re- 
 semble filaments of dressed flax, is exchanged for 
 British goods and shipped to Sydney, where it is either 
 manufactured into ropes and whale-lines, or exported to 
 London. It has recently, I have been given to under- 
 stand, been manufactured into fabric either in England 
 or in France. If this is the case, and if it should be 
 found to succeed, as I have no doubt it will, it will 
 become a much more important article of colonial ex- 
 
384 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 port than it has hitherto been. Its value in Sydney- 
 varies from £15 to £25 a ton. There are thousands of 
 acres of the plant along the rivers and lakes of New 
 Zealand; and when the reader is informed that the 
 native population of that island, or rather group of 
 islands, is estimated at half a million of souls, he will 
 be able to form some idea of the future extent and im- 
 portance of a species of commerce but recently em- 
 barked in by colonial merchants. 
 
 Indeed, the colonial trade with New Zealand, in which 
 there is now a considerable number of European settlers, 
 chiefly from New South Wales and Van Dieman's 
 Land, besides several ship-building and trading esta- 
 blishments, is daily increasing in importance. During 
 the six months preceding the 30th June, 1 835, there 
 were no fewer than forty-two arrivals at the Bay of 
 Islands, the principal port on the east coast of New 
 Zealand, and thirteen at Hokianga, the principal har- 
 bour on the west coast : among the former were twelve 
 trading vessels from New South Wales. The imports 
 from that island are chiefly plank, spars, flax, black oil, 
 potatoes, and maize.* 
 
 Besides the vessels belonging to Sydney that are em- 
 ployed in the colonial whale-fisheries, there are many 
 other colonial vessels of various sizes employed in the 
 coasting trade, and in the trade to New Zealand, Van 
 Dieman's Land, and the Isle of France. The export of 
 cattle to Van Dieman's Land has for several years past 
 afforded regular employment to a considerable number 
 
 * See Appendix, No. 16. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 385 
 
 of large vessels. Two Scotch gentlemen of the name of 
 Imlay, the one a surgeon in the navy and the other a 
 surgeon in the army, have embarked largely in this trade, 
 and have had a large establishment for the purpose at 
 Twofold Bay, on the east coast to the southward of Port 
 Jackson, for several years past. The cattle are purchased 
 all over the colony and driven over land to Twofold Bay, 
 where they are embarked for Hobart Town, Van Die- 
 man's Land. Messrs. Imlay had contracted to land four 
 thousand head of cattle in that island, where their value 
 is about £10 a head, during the year 1836; but as Two- 
 fold Bay is beyond the present limits of the colony, 
 this branch of the colonial export trade is not included 
 in the colonial returns. 
 
 It is extremely gratifying to observe the salutary in- 
 fluence of the commerce of the colony, in extending a 
 knowledge of the arts of civilization to many of the 
 semi-barbarous inhabitants of the islands of the vast 
 Pacific. In most of the Sydney whalers, New Zea- 
 landers, Tahitians, and natives of the Friendly Islands, 
 are employed as sailors — an occupation, for which they 
 seem peculiarly fitted, and of which, from their insular 
 position, they are naturally fond. On my second voyage 
 from New South Wales to England, in the year 1830, 
 we happened to fall in with a schooner bound for 
 Sydney, and laden with New Zealand produce, near the 
 North Cape of the island. There were several New 
 Zealanders on board the schooner, each of whom had a 
 few mats and other articles of the manufacture of the 
 island, which they intended to barter in Sydney for 
 British goods. On their coming on board our vessel, 
 vol. i. R 
 
386 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 I offered to purchase one of the mats from a young 
 New Zealander of very interesting appearance, who had 
 all the lower part of his face tattooed ; and I accordingly 
 offered him two half-crowns, which I was told was the 
 price of the article in Sydney. The cautious native, 
 however, would not conclude a bargain till he had 
 ascertained from the master of the schooner, who could 
 converse with him fluently in his own language, what 
 quantity of the articles he wished to procure could be 
 purchased for the two half-crowns in Sydney ; and 
 when he was told the exact quantity, which he found 
 was rather smaller than he had calculated on obtaining, 
 he held up three of his fingers, signifying that I should 
 have the mat for three half-crowns, which I accordingly 
 gave him. That I might not, however, be less satisfied 
 with my bargain than he was with his, he gave me, in 
 addition to the mat, the tail-feathers of a small bird 
 which the New Zealanders prize very highly as an 
 ornament for the head. 
 
 In the vessel in which I made the voyage from New 
 South Wales to London, in the year 1824, there were a 
 native of Raiatea, one of the Society Islands, and a 
 native of New Zealand,, acting as common sailors. The 
 former was named Parara (a duck) : he was a Christian, 
 and had his little hymn-book in his own language, 
 which he read carefully whenever he had an oppor- 
 tunity. The name of the New Zealander was Toki (an 
 axe) : he was a heathen, and could only speak a few 
 words of English. They were both excellent sailors: 
 Toki, in particular, was considered as the best helms- 
 man on board. Nothing, indeed, could divert his atten- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 387 
 
 tion from the compass, or the sails, or the sea ; and 
 whenever I saw him at the helm, and especially in tem- 
 pestuous weather at night, I could not help regarding it 
 as a most interesting and a most hopeful circumstance 
 in the history of man, that a British vessel of 400 tons, 
 containing a valuable cargo, and many souls of Euro- 
 peans, should be steered across the boundless Pacific, 
 in the midst of storm and darkness, by a poor New 
 Zealander, whose forefathers had from time immemorial 
 been anthropophagi, or eaters of men. 
 
 I saw Parara on board the vessel in the London 
 Docks, about a fortnight after our arrival in London, in 
 the month of January, 1825: he was very ill, and had 
 a hollow consumptive cough, of which I was appre- 
 hensive he would have died, though I was gratified to 
 learn afterwards that he had recovered, and returned to 
 the colony in good health, and had at length reached 
 his native island. When I asked him, however, where, 
 and how Toki was, he replied, with evident emotion, 
 not unmingled with apprehension, " Poor Toki dead!" 
 The atmosphere in the South Sea Islands, and indeed 
 in New South Wales also, is so remarkably dry, and 
 even arid, (the common English hygrometer generally 
 standing at zero,) that it is almost death for a native 
 of these islands to breathe the humid atmosphere of 
 England, especially in the winter season. Indeed, the 
 climate of Great Britain is as fatal to the South Sea 
 Islanders as that of the East or West Indies to the great 
 majority of Europeans, whom either the call of duty 
 or the hope of fortune allures to these regions of death. 
 
 There is one circumstance connected with the com- 
 
388 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 merce of New South Wales, which well deserves the 
 attention of His Majesty's Government, as well as of all 
 members of Parliament who may have it in their power 
 to promote the welfare, and to accelerate the advance- 
 ment of the colony, either by according it liberal insti- 
 tutions, or by directing a portion of the unemployed 
 capital and the redundant population of Britain to its 
 shores. The circumstance I allude to is, that all the 
 trade of the colony with the mother country, i. e. nine- 
 tenths of its whole commerce, is carried on exclusively 
 in British vessels navigated exclusively by British 
 seamen ; and that consequently every addition to the 
 population and resources of the colony must afford 
 correspondingly additional employment to British 
 sailors and British ships. Nay, as the natives of New 
 South Wales are generally disinclined to a seafaring 
 life, the colonial whalers and coasting vessels are 
 almost exclusively navigated by natives of the mother 
 country : and although several vessels of considerable 
 size have been built in the colony within the last few 
 years, for the whale fisheries and the coasting trade, it is 
 the general opinion that ship-building will not be 
 carried on to any extent in the colony, and that British- 
 built vessels will continue for a long time to come to 
 be the most numerous class of vessels in the Australian 
 seas. 
 
 The return, which the reader will find in the Ap- 
 pendix, No. 17, will afford him the means of judging of 
 the present extent of the colonial marine. In accord- 
 ance with the preceding remarks, he will find that the 
 colonial-built vessels are but few in number in com- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 389 
 
 parison with those belonging to the colony that have 
 been built in England. 
 
 In short, there is no colony in the empire, of which 
 the extension and advancement are more directly calcu- 
 lated to extend and to confirm the maritime empire of 
 Britain, than that of New South Wales ; and so far 
 from the vast distance of that colony being likely to 
 lead to an opposite conclusion, that very circumstance 
 rather implies and evinces the necessity for the employ- 
 ment of a proportionably greater number of British 
 sailors and British ships. In this important particular, 
 the colony of New South Wales is unquestionably of 
 incomparably more value to the mother country than 
 any of the North American colonies — I mean in propor- 
 tion to the respective population of each. The Cana- 
 dian trader, for instance, is probably built on the river 
 St. Lawrence, to the manifest injury and loss of the 
 British ship-builder; the New South Wales trader is 
 built exclusively in England. The voyage to and from 
 Quebec occupies at the utmost only three or four 
 months, and the importation of a cargo of Canadian 
 produce into any of the ports of the mother country 
 consequently affords employment only for that short 
 period to the British ship and the British sailor; both 
 being in all probability unemployed for a considerable 
 part of the year : but the voyage to and from New 
 South Wales occupies at least twelve months, and the 
 importation of a cargo of Australian produce conse- 
 quently affords constant employment for that long period 
 for both vessel and crew. 
 
 In connexion with the trade of the colonv, it will 
 
390 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 doubtless be interesting to the mercantile reader to 
 ascertain the extent and condition of its banking esta- 
 blishments. Of these there are four in the colony, be- 
 sides the Savings' bank, and the Bathurst bank for the 
 settlements beyond the Blue Mountains in the interior. 
 The returns from these establishments, for which I am in- 
 debted to the diligence of a gentleman in Sydney, whose 
 name I am not at liberty to mention, will afford all the 
 information on the subject which can be desired.* 
 
 The Estimate of the Expenditure of the Colony for the 
 year 1837, ordered to be printed by the Legislative 
 Council in June 1836, together with the ways and 
 means to meet that Expenditure, as estimated by the 
 Governor, will be found in the Appendix, No. 19. 
 
 * See Appendix, No. 18. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 391 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 VIEW OF THE PRESENT STATE OF AGRICULTURE 
 AND OF THE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST IN NEW 
 SOUTH WALES. 
 
 The Lord thy God hringeth thee into a good land— a land of wheat, 
 and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates ; a land of oil- 
 olive and honey; a land, wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarce- 
 ness ; thou shalt not lack any thing in it ; a land, whose stones are iron, 
 and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.— Deuteron. viii. 8, 9. 
 
 The whole territory of New South Wales is divided, 
 like that of Great Britain, into counties and parishes ; 
 the number of counties * being twenty. These divisions 
 however, are scarcely ever referred to in the common 
 intercourse of colonial life. Except in Government 
 deeds or legal documents, the grand natural divisions 
 of the country are the only ones known or recognised 
 by the colonists, who accordingly speak only of the dis^ 
 tricts of the Hawkesbury, of Hunter's River, of Bath- 
 urst, of Illawarra, of Argyle, and of Port Macquarie. 
 The district of the Hawkesbury comprises a consider- 
 
 * Their names, with their contents in square miles and acres, will bp 
 found in the Appendix, No. 20. 
 
392 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 able extent of champaign country along the eastern base 
 of the Blue Mountains, on either side of the noble river 
 from which it derives its name. This tract of country 
 was for a long time the granary of the colony, and has 
 uniformly been under cultivation ; being subdivided for 
 the most part into small farms of thirty to a hundred 
 acres, the proprietors or tenants of which subsist almost 
 exclusively by agriculture. The forest-land in this dis- 
 trict, or the land beyond the reach of inundations, is de- 
 voted chiefly to grazing; the flooded land along the banks 
 of the river being the most suitable for cultivation. I 
 have already observed, that the Hawkesbury is formed 
 of the confluence of various minor streams issuing chiefly 
 from the gloomy and untra versed ravines of the Blue 
 Mountains j and I have also observed, that that moun- 
 tain-range, which runs parallel to the coast at about 
 forty miles' distance inland, consists of vast masses of 
 sandstone rock, covered in every direction with large 
 trees. In the summer months, and especially in seasons 
 of drought, extensive conflagrations occur occasionally 
 on the mountain-ranges either from accident or from de- 
 sign, the aborigines frequently setting fire to the herb- 
 age to enable them the more easily to hunt down the 
 native game ; and in seasons of flood vast quantities of 
 the pulverized residuum of burnt vegetable matter, mixed 
 with the washings of the sandstone rocks of the moun- 
 tains, are accordingly carried down to the river by its 
 numerous tributary mountain-torrents, and afterwards 
 spread over the champaign country in the form of allu- 
 vial deposit. It is from these successive deposits or 
 top-dressings that the district of the Hawkesbury de- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 393 
 
 rives its fertility; for the system of agriculture that pre- 
 vails along the banks of the river is as slovenly as can 
 well be imagined, the surface being for the most part 
 merely scratched, and nothing like a proper rotation of 
 crops being ever dreamt of. Wheat, year after year for 
 twenty years together, and sometimes wheat and maize 
 in succession off the same ground during the same year, 
 is the Sangrado system of husbandry that prevails on 
 the Hawkesbury. 
 
 The district of Hunter's River to the northward of Port 
 Jackson comprises a much larger extent of flooded land, 
 and the forest-land beyond the reach of inundation is 
 in general of much superior quality and of much greater 
 extent. The land in this district is divided for the most 
 part into large farms of from 500 to 2000 acres and 
 upwards. These farms, or estates, as they are somewhat 
 ambitiously styled in the colony, are principally held 
 by respectable free emigrants from the mother country, 
 each of whom maintains and employs on his farm a 
 number of convict-labourers in the capacity of farm-ser- 
 vants. These labourers are generally under the manage- 
 ment of a hired overseer, who is always supposed to be 
 well acquainted with the various processes of Australian 
 agriculture. In this district, grain, chiefly wheat and 
 maize, is cultivated to a great extent ; but in the upper 
 parts of the district, at a distance from the navigable 
 part of the river, the settlers depend chiefly on their 
 flocks and herds, and cultivate only as much grain as is 
 requisite for the supply of their respective establish- 
 ments. Dairies are frequent throughout this extensive 
 district ; and large quantities of butter and cheese of 
 
394 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 superior quality are forwarded regularly by the steam- 
 boats to Sydney, where it is either sold by commission- 
 agents in wholesale, or retailed on behalf of the settler 
 by some trusty person in the market. 
 
 The district of Bathurst consists partly of an undu- 
 lating plain of about nineteen miles in length, and of a 
 breadth varying from four to eight miles, beyond the 
 Blue Mountains. It is naturally destitute of timber, 
 and is traversed in the direction of its length by the river 
 Macquarie ; the banks of which are occasionally lined 
 with swamp oaks, (an indigenous tree somewhat resem- 
 bling the Scotch fir, but rather more ornamental,) which 
 tend greatly to diversify, and of course to beautify the 
 scene. The land in this district, with the exception of 
 small portions in particular localities allotted to veteran 
 soldiers and emancipated convicts, is parcelled out into 
 large farms of 2000 acres each, the proprietors of which, 
 being almost uniformly highly respectable free emigrants, 
 have each numerous convict-servants and extensive flocks 
 and herds. The extent of the land-carriage to Sydney 
 precludes the Bathurst settlers from cultivating more 
 land than is absolutely necessary for the subsistence of 
 their respective establishments ; but the dairy produce 
 of the district, consisting chiefly of cheese of superior 
 quality, is regularly forwarded to the dealers in Sydney. 
 Large herds of black cattle are also fatted for slaughter 
 on the native pasture of the open forest-country around 
 the plain, and numerous waggon-loads of fine wool are 
 annually forwarded to Sydney in the proper season to 
 be shipped for London. 
 
 The district of Argyle extends to a great distance to 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 395 
 
 the south-westward. Towards Sydney it consists of oc- 
 casional patches of land of the first quality, surrounded 
 by extensive tracts of the most barren country imagi- 
 nable. At a greater distance, however, the barren coun- 
 try gradually disappears, and is succeeded by a series 
 of extensive plains, covered with the richest pasture, 
 and picturesque grassy hills of moderate elevation. 
 The land in this district is occupied in much the same 
 way as in the settlement of Bathurst ; and the settlers 
 are of a similar class, and in similar circumstances, 
 with those beyond the Blue Mountains. 
 
 The district of Illawarra is situated on the sea-coast 
 to the southward of Port Jackson, and consists of a 
 narrow stripe of arable land of the first quality, situated 
 between the ocean and the eastern base of a range of 
 mountains running parallel to the coast, and commen- 
 cing at about forty-five miles from the Heads. The 
 average breadth of this belt of land is from four to six 
 miles, and its length about sixty. There are several 
 extensive tracts in the district of Illawarra in the hands 
 of non-resident proprietors — a circumstance which is 
 always to be regretted wherever it occurs in the colony 
 — but its resident inhabitants consist chiefly of small 
 settlers, who cultivate grain, potatoes, pumpkins, &c. 
 for the Sydney market, their produce being conveyed 
 to the capital by water in small coasting-vessels. The 
 cedar-tree, both white and red, abounds on the moun- 
 tains of this district and in the deep gulleys that tra- 
 verse them in every direction ; and the cutting and 
 conveying of the timber to Sydney affords employment 
 to a considerable population, somewhat similar, both in 
 
396 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 habits and character, to the lumberers of Canada. 
 The cedar of New South Wales is used all over the 
 colony for all sorts of cabinet and joinery work: it is 
 somewhat similar in appearance to Honduras mahogany, 
 and the choicer specimens take a fine polish. Churches 
 and other buildings of a similar internal arrangement 
 in the colony have consequently a much more imposing 
 appearance in their interior than buildings of a similar 
 description in England, being literally houses of cedar. 
 The cedar of New South Wales is remarkably light ; 
 its specific gravity not being greater, I should imagine, 
 than that of the white pine timber of North America. 
 It is cut into lengths of about twelve feet for the con- 
 venience of rolling it out of the woods, and of stowing 
 it in the holds of the small coasting-vessels that carry 
 it to Sydney. Its price depends on the number of 
 buildings going on in the colony at any particular 
 time ; but it is generally sold at two pence to three 
 pence per superficial foot of one inch in thickness. 
 
 The district of Port Macquarie, formerly a penal but 
 now a free settlement, situated on the east coast about 
 200 miles to the northward of Port Jackson, has for 
 some time past been attracting considerable attention 
 on the part of free emigrants recently arrived in the 
 colony. It is traversed by the River Hastings and its 
 tributaries the Wilson and Maria Rivers, that flow into 
 it from the northward, on the banks of all of which 
 there is a much larger extent of valuable alluvial land, 
 suited for all sorts of cultivation, and especially for the 
 cultivation of tobacco, than is to be found in the district 
 of Hunter's River. About ten or twelve miles to the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 397 
 
 northward of the head of the navigation of the Maria 
 river, which pursues a southerly course to the Hastings, 
 another large river, the M'Leay, is found pursuing a 
 north-easterly course through a rich alluvial country, 
 and emptying itself into the Pacific at Trial Bay, in 
 latitude 30° south. As Port Macquarie is a bar har- 
 bour, and at times rather dangerous : Captain Barney, 
 of the Royal Engineers, the present able and active 
 Director of Public Works in New South Wales, has 
 recently been directed to make a survey of Trial Bay, 
 to ascertain whether it would not be preferable to form 
 the principal settlement for the northern division of the 
 territory in that locality rather than at Port Macquarie. 
 The forest-land at some distance from the banks of all 
 these rivers is well adapted for the rearing of sheep 
 and cattle ; and still farther to the northward and west- 
 ward, there is an extensive and elevated tract of pastoral 
 country called the Table Land, already occupied by 
 colonial settlers with their numerous flocks and herds. 
 
 Besides the districts I have enumerated, there are 
 various other tracts of land of great extent both within 
 and beyond the present limits of the colony, already 
 partially occupied by enterprising colonists for the 
 purposes of grazing. There is the extensive tract of 
 pastoral country, called Liverpool Plains, lying be- 
 tween the sources of the Hunter and the Hastings, and 
 bounded by two parallel ranges of mountains, from 
 which narrow belts of forest traverse the plains at 
 irregular intervals, and divide them into a series of 
 natural parallelograms. I have already mentioned that 
 a large section of these plains, which are still beyond 
 
398 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the limits of the colony, has recently been appropriated 
 for the Australian Agricultural Company ; but the 
 remaining portion, which of course is open to free 
 settlers, is at present occupied by numerous squatters. 
 About eighty miles to the westward of Bathurst, there 
 is an equally extensive tract of pastoral country in the 
 vicinity of the settlement of Wellington Valley on the 
 banks of the Macquarie river, now in the occupation 
 of a mission to the aborigines ; and there are grazing 
 stations at a similar distance to the south-westward on 
 the banks of the river Lachlan. The coast line is 
 occupied at irregular intervals to the southward of 
 Illawarra, as far as Bateman Bay ; and numerous 
 colonists are ever and anon pushing their flocks and 
 herds farther and farther into the great terra incognita 
 to the southward and westward, either along the 
 banks of the Morumbidgee, or across Maneira plains, 
 to the eastward of the Snowy Mountains, as far as 
 Twofold Bay. 
 
 It appears to me, that the natural and proper order of 
 things, in regard to the occupation and employment of 
 land, and the distribution of rural labour in New South 
 Wales, is, that the business of agriculture, or the sup- 
 plying of the colonial market with grain, potatoes, 
 pork, poultry, vegetables, fruit, &c. should be in the 
 hands of small farmers, or industrious families and indi- 
 viduals of the humbler classes of society, cultivating the 
 land with their own hands either as tenants or small 
 proprietors ; and that the more extensive proprietors 
 should confine their attention to their flocks and herds, 
 supplying the colony with beef and dairy produce, and 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 399 
 
 raising wool for exportation to England. Several of 
 the most extensive and intelligent landholders in the 
 colony have accordingly told me, that if they could get 
 reputable and industrious persons to occupy a portion 
 of their lands as tenants, and to pay them a moderate 
 rental in produce, they would give up cultivation en- 
 tirely. Indeed it is a general complaint among the 
 landholders of the colony, that agriculture, or the culti- 
 vation of land, does not pay ; or, in other words, that it 
 is not profitable for a colonial landholder, who per- 
 haps has received two thousand acres of land as a free 
 grant from the Crown, to keep from twenty to forty 
 convict-labourers to cultivate a part of that land to 
 raise grain for the colonial market. I have had suf- 
 ficient opportunity, however, to know that it does pay a 
 poor man, who has perhaps a wife and three or four 
 children besides himself to maintain by his own indus- 
 try, to occupy ten or twenty acres of that very land on 
 lease at a rental of perhaps twenty shillings an acre, 
 and to cultivate it with his own hands, and to carry his 
 produce to market in his own bullock-cart. 
 
 Such a state of things, however, is rather a subject 
 of congratulation than of regret ; for it shows, that if 
 many thousand families and individuals of the labour- 
 ing agricultural population of Great Britain and Ireland 
 were by any means to be introduced into the colony, 
 they could obtain a comfortable subsistence by the 
 cultivation of land held on lease at a moderate rental ; 
 while it shows, on the other hand, that it would be 
 more profitable for the landholders to let their arable 
 land to such tenants than to cultivate it themselves by 
 
400 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 convict-labour. At the same time, as the land best 
 fitted for cultivation in New South Wales is generally 
 in its natural state the least adapted for grazing, the 
 bringing of a much larger extent of the best land in 
 the colony into cultivation would scarcely occasion any 
 perceptible alteration in its present circumstances as a 
 pastoral country. The thick brushes or jungles on the 
 banks of the rivers would disappear, and their place 
 would be occupied by neat cottages inhabited by an 
 industrious and contented peasantry ; but the sheep 
 and cattle of the colony would range over its vast 
 plains and grassy hills as before. In the mean time, 
 however, a salutary change of mighty importance to 
 the moral welfare of the country would be gradually 
 effected ; for, as the larger proprietors would require 
 fewer convict-servants, the prison population of the 
 colony would be more widely dispersed over the ter- 
 ritory, and the probability of their return to the paths 
 of virtue proportionably increased. 
 
 But although the cultivation of land in New South 
 Wales is generally unprofitable, when engaged in on 
 a large scale by extensive landholders, the reader is not 
 to suppose that it is uniformly so. A proprietor, who 
 is able to manage a considerable number of convict- 
 servants with ability — which however is a case of very 
 unfrequent occurrence — will find the cultivation of land 
 by no means unprofitable, even at a low state of the 
 colonial market ; but the investment of his capital in 
 sheep and cattle will in all likelihood be attended with 
 much less trouble, and afford him a much better return 
 in the end. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 401 
 
 A large proportion of the respectable settlers through- 
 out the colony suffered extremely, I have already ob- 
 served, from the sheep and cattle mania of 1826, and 
 from the unprecedented depression of property that 
 ensued : I am happy to state, however, that things 
 have long since reached their proper level ; and it is 
 extremely improbable, indeed it is scarcely possible, 
 that any such change in the value of property, as was 
 then so unfortunately and so extensively experienced, 
 will ever again occur in the country. The colonial set- 
 tlers generally have not only completely recovered their 
 lost ground, but many of them, from the increase of their 
 flocks and herds, from the general rise that has taken 
 place in the value of land and grazing stock throughout 
 the colony during the last three years, and especially 
 from the high price of wool in the English market, 
 have already acquired a degree of wealth and in- 
 dependence which is but seldom realized in the most 
 prosperous colonies in other parts of the world, and 
 which few of the settlers themselves could ever have 
 anticipated when they left their native land. 
 
 Cattle of good breeds might be purchased in New 
 South Wales in the year 1833, at from twenty to thirty 
 shillings a- head ; sheep of improved breeds at fifteen 
 shillings ; and horses, either for draught or for the 
 saddle, at from £10 to £30. The price of all these 
 descriptions of stock is now, however, at least double 
 these amounts — the rise having taken place chiefly 
 during the years 1835 and 1836 — and there is no pro- 
 bability of a diminution of their present value for years 
 to come. A large tract of land, however, may still be 
 
402 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 stocked with a comparatively moderate amount of 
 capital ; and when the settler's own land begins to be 
 overstocked, which will very soon be the case, if his 
 sheep and cattle are well managed ; he has only to send 
 a portion of his flocks and herds, under the charge of 
 an overseer and a few shepherds, or stockmen, into the 
 interior, where he will obtain a lease of as much pas- 
 ture-land as he requires from government at a mere 
 nominal rental. Cattle and horses require very little 
 attendance ; a very few individuals being sufficient to 
 manage a herd of cattle of from five hundred to two 
 thousand head. When a large herd of this kind is sent 
 into the interior, under the charge of an overseer and 
 a few prisoners, or government-men, as the convict- 
 servants are uniformly designated in the colony, sup- 
 plies of flour, &c, are forwarded at regular intervals 
 to the party from the proprietor's home-station, on 
 drays drawn by oxen, or on the backs of these animals, 
 if the intervening country is of a rugged and moun- 
 tainous character ; and the proprietor himself visits the 
 station occasionally on horseback. But the huts and 
 stock-yards are no sooner erected, than the overseer, 
 if an industrious and trust-worthy person, fences in 
 a piece of ground, and raises as much wheat as is 
 requisite for the supply of his party ; thereby rendering 
 farther supplies of flour from the home-station unne- 
 cessary. Out-stations of this kind are each supplied 
 with a portable steel-mill. 
 
 The vast number and the rapid increase of cattle in 
 New South Wales, have, within the last few years, induced 
 several of the more extensive cattle-proprietors in the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 403 
 
 colony to attempt the salting of beef for exportation ; and 
 there are already several establishments for that purpose 
 both in Sydney and in the interior. Several of these 
 attempts, it must be acknowledged, have been attended 
 with failure : this, however, is attributable to obvious 
 causes. The cattle are generally slaughtered at too 
 early an age for such a purpose ; the salt manufactured 
 in the colony is not always sufficiently purified of its 
 septic principle ; while, in some cases, a want of the 
 requisite knowledge, a disposition to knavery, or ab- 
 solute carelessness, may have occasioned a failure. 
 But colonial beef is now generally used on board the 
 colonial sperm-whale ships on their long voyages : it 
 has been pronounced of excellent quality by officers of 
 His Majesty's ships on the India station ; and a tierce, 
 which was sent home to England by way of expe- 
 riment, in the vessel in which I made my second voyage 
 from New South Wales to London in the year 1830, was 
 opened in the West India Docks in presence of gentlemen 
 who were quite competent to ascertain its quality, and 
 pronounced equal to Irish. It is not improbable, there- 
 fore, that colonial beef will eventually be regularly ex- 
 ported to London in return for British manufactures ; 
 especially as the landholders of the colony have repeat- 
 edly been able to sell it to the colonial government in a 
 fresh state within the last few years at three farthings a 
 pound. It is doubtless considerably dearer at present, 
 but it still forms an article of regular export to Van 
 Dieman's Land, notwithstanding the comparatively 
 extensive exportation of live cattle to that island during 
 the last three years by Messrs. Imlay of Twofold Bay. 
 
404 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Hides and horns are already articles of export from 
 New South Wales to London, and the quantity ex- 
 ported is annually increasing. 
 
 Sheep-farming, however, constitutes the principal 
 dependence of the Australian landholder ; and the 
 peculiar adaptation of the soil and climate to the growth 
 of wool on the one hand, and the unlimited demand 
 for that important article of colonial produce on the 
 other, not only in Great Britain, but in France and 
 America, will doubtless render it expedient that he 
 should make it the first object of his attention. A 
 sheep-station in New South Wales is managed in pretty 
 much the same manner as a cattle-station. If the 
 country consists of open plains destitute of timber, as 
 many as a thousand sheep are sometimes entrusted to a 
 single shepherd ; if it is moderately wooded, as is much 
 more frequently the case, there is a shepherd for every 
 flock of three hundred and fifty. The sheep are folded 
 every night in a pen, or fold, constructed of moveable 
 hurdles ; and the shepherd, attended by his dogs, sleeps 
 in a small moveable covered berth constructed on a 
 frame somewhat like a hand-barrow outside the fold ; 
 the sheep being sometimes attacked during the night by 
 the native dog of the colony. The lambing season is in 
 some instances at the commencement of winter, in 
 others in the beginning of summer. The sheep-shear- 
 ing uniformly takes place at the latter season ; each 
 fleece, of animals of improved breed, averaging from 
 two to two and a half pounds. The wool is packed in 
 bales wrapped in canvas, and forwarded for exporta- 
 tion to Sydney on large drays generally drawn by oxen. 
 
MEW SOUTH WALES. 405 
 
 Some of the more extensive sheep-farmers send home 
 their wool direct to their agents in London, where it is 
 sold according to its quality at from one to three shil- 
 lings (the freight to London being only three halfpence) 
 a pound. It is generally, however, either bought or 
 received for consignment by merchants in Sydney, 
 some of whom employ wool-sorters of their own to 
 assort and repack it for the London market. The 
 number of sheep in New South Wales, on the first of 
 January 1837, would probably be not less than two mil- 
 lions ; and settlers, deriving incomes of from £400 or 
 £500, to £4000 or £5000 a year, principally from this 
 source, are now to be met with all over the colony. 
 Indeed, I am confident, there is no other country on the 
 face of the globe in which there is a larger number of 
 individuals, in comparison with the whole amount of 
 the population, enjoying incomes of upwards of £500 
 a year, than there is at this moment in New South 
 Wales. 
 
 The sheep is subject to a variety of diseases, some of 
 which are not unknown to the Australian flock-masters. 
 In some seasons, and especially in swampy situations, 
 the disease called the rot occasions extensive mortality ; 
 but the cutaneous disease called the scab is of much 
 more frequent occurrence. As this disease generally 
 arises from carelessness, it has been the subject of a 
 colonial enactment called the scab bill, the provisions of 
 which gave occasion at the time of its enactment to 
 much discussion among the sheep-farmers of the colony. 
 The scab is a highly contagious disease, and sheep in 
 a clean and healthy state may be infected with it to a 
 
406 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 great extent by merely being brought into contact with 
 a diseased flock for a few hours : when a convict- 
 shepherd, therefore, has a pique at his master, or even 
 at his overseer, it is often in his power to subject the 
 whole of his master's flocks to this obnoxious disease, 
 by merely driving his own flock to a distance of a few 
 miles from their usual pasture, when there is nobody 
 present to take cognisance of the fact, and by thus 
 bringing them into contact with a diseased flock. The 
 chief source of the wealth and prosperity of the colony 
 is thus in great measure at the mercy of the most 
 worthless of men ; but even men of this description are 
 now so difficult to procure, in comparison with the 
 rapidly increasing annual demand for shepherds all 
 over the colony, that it is the opinion of the most intel- 
 ligent proprietors of New South Wales, that if there 
 should not be a large annual importation of free emi- 
 grant shepherds from the mother country into the colony, 
 the owners of sheep throughout the territory will in 
 future be under the necessity of reducing, or rather of 
 preventing the increase of, their flocks. I trust, how- 
 ever, that such an importation will now be effected 
 through the means already in operation for the encou- 
 ragement and promotion of emigration to New South 
 Wales. There are many reputable persons of the class 
 of shepherds in the mother country who now find it 
 difficult to obtain a livelihood at home, but who could 
 easily make themselves both comfortable and inde- 
 pendent by pursuing the very same occupation in New 
 South Wales, while their moral influence in the colony 
 would be salutary in the highest degree. The conveyance 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 407 
 
 of such persons to New South Wales, which I am happy 
 to add can now be effected by means of the colonial 
 land-revenue without expense to the emigrants them- 
 selves, would therefore be a mutual benefit to the mother 
 country and to the colony ; for, while it would tend greatly 
 to increase the raw produce of the colony, it would relieve 
 the mother country of a portion of her superabundant 
 population, and obviate the necessity of importing wool 
 into Great Britain from Germany and Spain. 
 
 The breeding of horses for exportation is not likely to 
 be of much consequence to New South Wales : a con- 
 siderable number have from time to time been exported 
 to Van Dieman's Land, and a few to Swan River; but 
 these colonies are now perhaps sufficiently stocked with 
 that animal. A considerable number have been ex- 
 ported during the last three years, as cavalry horses 
 for the Indian army ; Captain Collins, an officer of the 
 Royal Dragoons, from India, having made considerable 
 purchases in the colony for that service : but the risk is 
 evidently great, and the increased demand for horses 
 within the colony having recently caused a very con- 
 siderable increase of price, which the formation of new 
 settlements to the southward is likely to maintain for 
 several years to come, it is not likely that the experi- 
 ment will be repeated. The colonial horse is of much 
 more varied parentage than the colonial man ; for there 
 are no colonies in the empire so thoroughly British in 
 that respect as New South Wales and Van Dieman's 
 Land. The English racer, the draught-horse from the 
 midland counties of England, and the farm-horse from 
 the west of Scotland ; horses from the Cape of Good 
 
408 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Hope, horses of the genuine Arab breed from Persia, 
 and horses of Spanish origin from Valparaiso ; Acheen 
 ponies from Sumatra, and ponies of a still more dimi- 
 nutive size from the island of Timor, have all been 
 naturalized, and have all thriven in the colony. I 
 do not suppose, however, that horses will ever be so 
 numerous in New South Wales as they are in South 
 America, where even beggars may be met with on 
 horseback, without realizing the English proverb on 
 the subject. 
 
 The only other animals that are reared for profit in 
 the colony, with the exception of Angora goats, of which 
 a few were introduced several years ago, by way of 
 experiment, by Mr. Riley, a respectable and enter- 
 prising colonist, are pigs and poultry, both of which 
 luxuriate on the maize of the colony, and attain a size 
 and plumpness and flavour unequalled in England. 
 
 Wheat, barley, and maize, or Indian corn, are cul- 
 tivated to a greater or lesser extent in all parts of 
 the territory ; and within a reasonable distance from 
 the capital, or from water-carriage, they are cultivated 
 extensively for the Sydney market. The plain of 
 Bathurst and the district of Argyle, being elevated at 
 least two thousand feet above the level of the sea, the 
 climate in these parts of the territory is rather too cold 
 for the growth of maize, as it is also for the orange and 
 for other similar fruits ; but oats and the English 
 gooseberry, which cannot be cultivated with advantage 
 in the lower districts, thrive exceedingly well in these 
 colder regions. 
 
 With the exception of the large open plains which 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 409 
 
 occasionally occur in the interior of the country, and 
 which, like the plain of Bathurst, are naturally destitute 
 of timber, the territory of New South Wales is in its 
 natural state one vast interminable forest. In many 
 parts of the colony, and especially in the interior, the 
 land is but thinly timbered ; there being not more than 
 three or four trees of moderate height and of rather in- 
 teresting appearance to the acre. In such places, the 
 country resembles the park scenery around a noble- 
 man's seat in England, and you gallop along with 
 a feeling of indescribable pleasure. In general, how- 
 ever, the forest-land is more thickly timbered — suffi- 
 ciently so to form an agreeable shade in a hot Australian 
 summer-day, without preventing the traveller from pro- 
 ceeding in any direction at a rapid trot or canter. 
 On the banks of rivers, and especially on the alluvial 
 land within the reach of their inundations, the forest 
 becomes what the colonists call a thick brush or jungle. 
 Immense trees of the genus eucalyptus tower upwards in 
 every direction to a height of from one hundred and 
 fifty to two hundred feet ; while the elegant cedar, and 
 the rose-wood of inferior elevation, and innumerable 
 wild vines or parasitical plants, fill up the interstices. 
 In sterile regions, however, on rocky mountain-tracts, 
 or on sandy plains, the forest degenerates into a 
 miserable scrub, as the colonists term it ; the trees are 
 stunted in their growth and of most forbidding aspect, 
 the fruit they bear being literally pieces of hard wood 
 similar in appearance to a pear, and their shapeless 
 trunks being not unfrequently blackened from the 
 action of fire. In such regions, the more social animals 
 vol. i. s 
 
410 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 of the country entirely disappear. The agile kangaroo 
 is no longer seen bounding across the foot-path, nor 
 the gaily plumaged parroquet heard chattering among 
 the branches. If any thing with the breath of life is 
 visible at all, it is either the timid gray lizard hiding 
 itself in the crevices of the rocks, or the solitary black 
 snake stretched at full length on the white sand, or the 
 busy ant rearing his slender pyramid of yellowish clay, # 
 as if in mockery of the huger monuments of the 
 Pharaohs ; and establishing his puny republic amid the 
 loneliness of desolation. In such forbidding regions 
 the mind unavoidably partakes of the gloominess of 
 nature ; and the only idea that takes forcible hold of 
 it is, that such must assuredly be the region, on which 
 the ancient primeval curse, to which the earth was 
 subjected for the sin of man, has especially fallen. 
 
 There is a much greater extent of forest, than of 
 alluvial land, in a state of cultivation throughout the 
 colony ; and, what is exceedingly anomalous, the best 
 land is in many instances on the sides and summits 
 of the hills. Heavily timbered land intended for cul- 
 tivation is cleared in the following manner. The un- 
 derwood, which occurs only on alluvial land, is all 
 cut down in the first instance in the proper season, 
 the bushes either falling to the ground or remaining 
 attached by their upper branches to the standing 
 timber. When the fallen underwood is sufficiently 
 withered, all the standing trees that are required for 
 building, fencing, &c. are cut down and rolled out 
 
 * These pyramids are sometimes six feet high. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 41 1 
 
 of the forest, after their branches have been lopped 
 off, to the nearest cleared land, or to saw-pits formed 
 in the vicinity, where they are cut up for whatever 
 purposes they are required. This species of labour, I 
 mean the sawing of timber, is generally performed 
 by free sawyers who work for hire, at so much per 
 hundred feet, and receive part of their earnings in 
 rations from the proprietor of the farm. The re- 
 maining timber is then cut down (I allude exclusively 
 to the practice on large farms) by a party of eight 
 or ten convict-labourers, under the charge of a free 
 overseer, who works along with them, and who receives 
 a salary, in addition to his rations, from the owner 
 of the land. The overseer, on well-regulated farms, is 
 generally a ticket-of-leave man or emancipated convict, 
 who has been an assigned servant or common labourer 
 on the farm or in its immediate neighbourhood during 
 his term of bondage, and receives a salary of from £15 
 to £40 per annum with board and lodging. 
 
 The trees are cut down at about three feet from the 
 ground ; and, in clearing heavily timbered land, the 
 usual practice of skilful fellers is to cut a number of 
 smaller trees half through ; and then, selecting a large or 
 master-tree, to form a deep indentation with an axe 
 in the side of it nearest the small ones, and then to saw 
 towards the indentation from the opposite side. When 
 nearly sawn through, the large tree falls towards the 
 side on which the indentation has been formed, and 
 bears down before it perhaps twenty or thirty smaller 
 trees. When all the trees on the piece of land to 
 be cleared are felled in this way, they are sawn into 
 
412 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 proper lengths, rolled together, and burnt. This ope- 
 ration generally takes place, in the case of alluvial 
 land, immediately before the time for the planting 
 of maize or Indian corn, viz. in the months of Sep- 
 tember and October. 
 
 The cost of clearing heavily timbered alluvial land is 
 about £5 an acre ; but a single crop of maize generally 
 covers that expense. Thinly timbered forest-land is of 
 course cleared at a much smaller cost Maize is rarely 
 planted on land of the latter description, and wheat is 
 seldom sown on alluvial land till after it has produced 
 one or two crops of maize. Wheat is sown in March, 
 April, and May ; sometimes, however, not till June ! 
 it is reaped in November, the first month of summer 
 in the southern hemisphere ; but in the high lands of 
 the colony, the seasons are somewhat later. In or- 
 dinary seasons, the return of wheat per acre varies, ac- 
 cording to the nature of the soil, from fifteen to forty 
 bushels : I have heard of as much as forty-five and 
 even fifty bushels an acre being reaped in the district 
 of Argyle, and my brother's crop at Hunter's River 
 averaged one year thirty-five bushels per acre. In the 
 year 1835, in which there was a general failure of the 
 crop from drought over a considerable part of the 
 territory, my brother reaped 3,500 bushels of wheat 
 from 150 acres of land, or at the rate of 23| bushels an 
 acre. Forty acres of that land, being the bed of an old 
 lagoon, yielded 1707£ bushels, or 42 1 bushels per acre ! 
 another field of 22 acres produced 567 bushels, or 
 25? bushels per acre. I should think, however, that 
 the average of the colony is not higher than twenty 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 413 
 
 bushels ; but then the system of husbandry prevalent 
 in many parts of the territory is wretched in the ex- 
 treme. 
 
 In the districts of the Hawkesbury and Hunter's 
 River, wheat is liable to be attacked by the weevil, and 
 can therefore never form an article of export from the 
 colony, except in the state of flour : but the wheat of 
 Bathurst and Argyle is never attacked by that insect ; 
 ^nd the grain produced in the latter of these districts is 
 m every respect equal to that of Van Dieman's Land, 
 from whence it is not unlikely that wheat will ere long 
 form a considerable article of export to the mother 
 -country. The maize of New South Wales, however, 
 has been acknowledged by gentlemen well acquainted 
 with the cultivation of that species of grain in the 
 United States, superior to any they had ever seen else- 
 where : it forms the favourite food of horses, and is 
 used for the fattening of pigs and poultry ; but it 
 seldom constitutes an article of food for any class of 
 free persons in the colony. Extravagance, indeed, has 
 ever been one of the besetting sins of the Australian 
 colonies, and the lowest class of free people in New 
 South Wales are content only with the finest of the 
 wheat; insomuch that coarse bread can scarcely be 
 procured in Sydney, except when previously ordered, or 
 from those bakers who supply the troops and the other 
 government establishments with bread of that quality by 
 tender. I have seen various preparations of this grain, 
 however, which I am sure would be relished as an article 
 of food by thousands and tens of thousands of the labour- 
 ing classes in the mother country. The meal into which it 
 
414 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 is ground is sometimes made into a sort of porridge or 
 pudding, called hominy, somewhat similar, both in taste 
 and appearance, to the preparation of oatmeal, so 
 general as an article of food among the lower classes in 
 Scotland. With an equal quantity of wheaten flour, it 
 also makes excellent household bread, the maize meal 
 being in the first instance reduced to the state of ho- 
 miny. Indeed, maize might form a profitable article 
 of export to the mother country, especially as in favour- 
 able seasons it can be obtained at Hunter's River of 
 the very best quality at from Is. 3d. to 2s. 6d. a bushel 
 ■ — a price, which would enable the merchant to sell it at a 
 rate that would render it a very cheap as well as whole- 
 some article of food for the labouring classes in Eng- 
 land. This valuable grain is much used as an article of 
 food among the peasantry of New England, who pre- 
 pare it in a great variety of ways. The most summary 
 mode of preparing it, however, of which I have ever 
 heard, is that in use among the natives of New Zealand, 
 where it is now cultivated in considerable quantity. 
 The New Zealander merely moistens the cob or head 
 of corn in water, and eats off the grains singly at his 
 leisure. 
 
 In planting maize or Indian corn, shallow holes are 
 made in the cleared land with a hoe, at a distance of 
 about three feet from each other, in rows about five feet 
 asunder : into each of these holes four or five grains 
 of maize are dropped, and then covered up ; and if the 
 season is moist, vegetation immediately commences, and 
 proceeds with such amazing rapidity, that, in a very 
 few weeks, the burnt stumps of the large trees, which 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 415 
 
 are usually left standing all over the field, are entirely 
 covered with the green corn, which in due time attains the 
 height of six or eight feet, and produces in rich alluvial 
 land at the rate of from forty or fifty to eighty bushels 
 an acre. From 164 acres of maize, on my brother's 
 farm at Hunter's River, in the year 1836, the quantity of 
 grain gathered was 8000 bushels, or 48| bushels per 
 acre. In the higher parts of the district, of course 
 farther from the Pacific, the maize crop had in that year 
 proved a failure. In the neighbourhood of growing trees, 
 the maize has to be watched all night for two or three 
 weeks after it is planted, by a watchman stationed for 
 the purpose ; otherwise the bandicoots and opossums 
 would dig up the grain and eat it : and when the 
 watchman neglects his duty, as is sometimes the case, 
 the maize must be planted a second time. Each corn- 
 stalk terminates at the top in what is called a tosset, 
 which waves beautifully in the wind along the rows 
 like a grenadier's feather, and bears on the lower parts 
 of it two, three, or even four or five cobs or heads of 
 corn, each of which is enclosed in a thick casement of 
 leaves, and springs obliquely from the stalk. In the 
 month of March, when the corn is sufficiently ripe, 
 these cobs are pulled, collected in heaps in the field, 
 and then carted to a shed or out-house. A second or 
 late crop of maize, however, is frequently planted on 
 the wheat-stubble-land, especially in alluvial soil, im- 
 mediately after the wheat harvest. The produce of this 
 crop is generally of inferior quality ; but in particular 
 seasons, as for instance when the early part of the 
 summer has been very dry, it turns out better than the 
 
416 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 early or forward crop. The stumps of the large trees 
 that are left in the ground on the clearing of the land, 
 are usually burnt out, when the settler is able to afford 
 that expense, by free labourers, who work for hire, 
 and who receive part of their wages in rations from the 
 farm. 
 
 Barley is not much cultivated in New South Wales. 
 Off 25 acres, on my brother's farm, in the year 1835, 
 the quantity reaped was 600 bushels, or 24 bushels per 
 acre. Five acres of lagoon land produced 40 bushels 
 an acre. 
 
 A return, which will be found in the Appendix,* ex- 
 hibits the average price of wheat in New South Wales 
 for the last nine years, as also the quantity of bread- 
 corn, &c. imported during that period. I have already 
 observed, that in the last of the years specified, 1835, 
 there was a general failure of the crop in the colony; 
 but the extent of the importation during that year is 
 partly attributable to the superior profits generally 
 derivable from pastoral, as compared with those de- 
 rivable from agricultural pursuits, in New South Wales. 
 
 Fences are uniformly constructed in New South 
 Wales, as in British America, of wooden posts and 
 rails ; the posts being about nine feet asunder, and the 
 fence being either of three, four, or five rails, according 
 to the purpose for which it is required. This species 
 of labour is, for> the most part, performed by free 
 labourers, who work for hire at so much per rod. The 
 hawthorn, which has been used successfully for hedges 
 
 * See Appendix, No. 21. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 417 
 
 on several estates in Van Dieman's Land, loses its 
 bushy character in New South Wales, and degenerates 
 into a slender delicate shrub devoid of prickles. The 
 aloe, which is used for the purpose of fencing in the 
 island of Sicily, has been recommended as a substitute, 
 as also a species of acacia from India, of which I have 
 seen several specimens in the colony ; but so long as 
 timber can be easily procured, the colonists are likely to 
 prefer the four-rail fence to any substitute, although it 
 must be acknowledged it does not look so well as a 
 lively hawthorn hedge. 
 
 Potatoes are cultivated in all parts of the colony, but 
 by no means extensively : they are little used as an 
 article of food by the lower classes, and are only to be 
 met with at the tables of the more respectable settlers, 
 and of families residing in towns. The convict-la- 
 bourers or farm-servants are in general allowed small 
 gardens to grow potatoes and vegetables for themselves; 
 but they scarcely ever avail themselves of the privilege, 
 as their ration of flour, beef or pork, sugar and tea, is 
 abundantly sufficient for their subsistence. The quality 
 of the potato of the colony depends very much on the 
 season : in general, it is inferior to those of Scotland 
 and Ireland ; but I have occasionally seen as good 
 potatoes, of the growth of a kitchen garden in Sydney, 
 as ever I have seen in the mother country. Consider- 
 able quantities of a superior quality are imported from 
 Van Dieman's Land and New Zealand. 
 
 The mildness of the climate of New South Wales 
 precludes the necessity for cultivating any thing in the 
 shape of winter food for sheep or cattle ; and the great 
 
418 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 abundance and unbounded extent of the native pasture 
 of the colony render the use of artificial food quite un- 
 necessary, except for the numerous horses and other 
 beasts of burden that are kept in towns. Hay, of the 
 native grass, and sometimes of oats, is sold in Sydney 
 market by the cart-load ; William Howe, Esq. of 
 Glenlee, the proprietor of an extensive and beautiful 
 estate on the banks of the Cow-pasture River, about 
 thirty-five miles from Sydney, being almost the only 
 cultivator of English grasses to an extent worth men- 
 tioning in the colony. Hay of the produce of the 
 Glenlee estate is forwarded to Sydney once a week on 
 drays drawn by oxen, and sold in the market. The 
 Glenlee estate is famous also as the first dairy-farm 
 for the manufacture of butter in the colony ; George 
 Ranken, Esq. of Killoshiel, in the Bathurst district, a 
 highly respectable settler from Ayrshire in Scotland, 
 having introduced the manufacture of cheese into New 
 South Wales. Large quantities of both of these arti- 
 cles of dairy produce, however, are now manufactured 
 on the farms of many other respectable settlers through- 
 out the colony ; and they form a considerable article of 
 colonial export, chiefly to Van Dieman's Land. 
 
 The soil and climate of New South Wales are uni- 
 versally considered peculiarly well adapted for the cul- 
 tivation of the vine. The vine has been cultivated in 
 various localities in New South Wales for many years 
 past ; but never to any extent, or with a view to the 
 making of wine, till within the last three or four years. 
 There are now, however, many acres of vineyard 
 throughout the colony, the vineyards of several of the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 419 
 
 more wealthy proprietors being for the most part under 
 the management of scientific and practical vine-dressers 
 from the south of Europe ; and wine and brandy in 
 considerable quantity — as much in one instance as 
 eighteen pipes of the former — have already been manu- 
 factured on several estates. It is scarcely possible as 
 yet to predict, with any degree of certainty, of what 
 quality the wines of New South Wales will eventually 
 prove ; for the vine requires to be in bearing for five or 
 six years before good wine can in any instance be pro- 
 duced from its fruit. The specimens of wine, how- 
 ever, that have actually been produced from the colo- 
 nial grape, have induced a general idea on the part of 
 the colonists, that the wine of New South Wales will 
 be somewhat similar to the light wines of the Rhine 
 and of France. At all events, the highest expectations 
 are entertained on the subject; and those of the land- 
 holders who have planted vineyards begin to talk already 
 of exporting wine to India and England. 
 
 Cuttings of the choicest European and African vines 
 have at different times been imported into the colony 
 by public-spirited proprietors. About eleven years ago, 
 Mr. Redfern, a respectable colonist, touched at the 
 island of Madeira on returning from Europe to New 
 South Wales, and carried out with him a number of 
 cuttings of the celebrated vine of that island, together 
 with one or two Portuguese families acquainted with its 
 culture. The Messrs. Macarthur, of Camden, had a 
 large collection of cuttings of the choicest French and 
 German vines sent out to them for propagating in the 
 colony several years ago ; and cuttings of upwards of a 
 
420 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 hundred varieties were carried out to the colony for 
 general distribution in the year 1832 by James Busby, 
 Esq. now British Resident at New Zealand, from 
 several of the first vineyards of France. 
 
 The success of this branch of cultivation is of incal- 
 culable importance to New South Wales ; not so much, 
 indeed, in a commercial or agricultural, as in a moral 
 respect. The raising of an article in the shape of colo- 
 nial wine, fit for the home or India market, is doubtless 
 of consequence to the colony in a mercantile point of 
 view ; and the annual saving that would accrue from the 
 manufacture of a wholesome and cheap beverage, that 
 would gradually obviate the necessity for importing 
 European and Cape wine, is of still greater moment. 
 But the gradual diminution of the consumption of 
 ardent spirits within the colony, which would in all 
 likelihood be the eventual result, would, without doubt, 
 be a blessing of far greater and of inestimable magnitude 
 to the whole colonial population. It is a fact well as- 
 certained, that the population of wine-growing countries 
 are not addicted to the brutalizing vice of drunkenness, 
 like the inhabitants of colder latitudes ; and there is 
 reason to hope, therefore, that if the population of New 
 South Wales could by any means be converted into a 
 vine-growing population, they would in due time 
 become a wine-drinking and comparatively temperate, 
 instead of a rum-drinking and most outrageously 
 intemperate, population.* At all events, if the convict 
 
 * No nation is drunken where wine is cheap ; and none soher, where 
 the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage. 
 —President Jefferson, Memoirs and Correspondence, iv.320. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 421 
 
 division of the population of the colony should in this 
 respect be almost beyond hope, it will certainly be of 
 no small moment to the community at large, to form the 
 taste of their numerous and interesting offspring on a 
 model in somewhat greater accordance with the prin- 
 ciples of temperance and sobriety. I am happy, indeed, 
 to be able to state, as the result of thirteen years' ex- 
 tensive observation in the colony, that drunkenness is 
 by no means a vice to which the colonial youth of either 
 sex are at all addicted. Reared in the very midst of 
 scenes of drunkenness of the most revolting description 
 and of daily occurrence, they are almost uniformly 
 temperate ; for if there are exceptions, as I do ac- 
 knowledge there are a few ; — the wonder, I had almost 
 said the miracle, is, that they have not been tenfold 
 more numerous. Some have attempted to account for 
 this gratifying fact on the principle, that disgust at the 
 scenes they have been accustomed to witness from their 
 infancy has induced a general disinclination to in- 
 dulgence of that particular description on the part of 
 the youth of the colony. Such a principle may doubt- 
 less have operated in a few instances ; but I confess I 
 am altogether sceptical as to its general operation. 
 The simple fact, I apprehend, is, that the natives of New 
 South Wales are naturally and constitutionally indis- 
 posed to intemperance ; and one of the best means, I 
 should conceive, of perpetuating'this disinclination, and of 
 keeping them permanently out of the way of temptation, 
 is to supply them with a cheap and comparatively inno- 
 cuous beverage of native manufacture in the shape of 
 colonial wine. 
 
422 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 The formation of a wine-growing population, how- 
 ever, in a country whose inhabitants have not been pre- 
 viously accustomed to the culture of the vine, is a mat- 
 ter of no small difficulty ; and from what has actually 
 taken place in this respect in the colony of the Cape of 
 Good Hope, I am disposed to believe that the intro- 
 duction of a number of families from one of the wine- 
 growing districts in the south of Europe, and their set- 
 tlement in some favourable locality in the colony, would 
 tend more than any thing else to form such a population 
 in New South Wales. The Cape colony, it is well 
 known, was originally settled by the Dutch, some time 
 about the commencement of the seventeenth century : 
 as the Dutch, however, are as little acquainted in their 
 own country with the culture of the vine as the in- 
 habitants of Great Britain and Ireland, the earlier 
 colonists at the Cape never thought of attempting its 
 cultivation in their new settlement. Towards the close 
 of the seventeenth century, however, a large proportion 
 of the best part of the population of France being self- 
 banished from their native country, in consequence of 
 the tyrannical revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which 
 had ensured toleration to the Protestants of that king- 
 dom, several of the French Protestant families who had 
 settled in Holland, were induced, at the recommendation 
 of the States General, to emigrate to the Cape of Good 
 Hope ; and lands were accordingly granted them in 
 that colony, within a moderate distance of Cape Town, 
 at a place still called from the circumstance Fransche 
 hoek, or French corner. The French emigrants in- 
 troduced the cultivation of the vine into South Africa ; 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 423 
 
 and from that circumstance the wine-trade of the Cape 
 colony derives its origin. 
 
 Several of the French Protestant families, who thus 
 emigrated for conscience-sake to South Africa, were 
 families of distinction in their native land ; having vo- 
 luntarily renounced their country, their property, and 
 their rank, u for the word of God, and the testimony of 
 Jesus Christ. " In particular, a family of the name of 
 Du Plessis, the representative of the celebrated Mornay 
 Du Plessis, so famous in the history of the War of the 
 League, was among the number of the French emigrants 
 who settled at the Cape. At the commencement of 
 the present century, the representative of that family, 
 and the heir of a dukedom in France, was Mynheer Du 
 Plessis, a respectable old Dutch farmer in South Africa. 
 The late emperor of the French, hearing of the circum- 
 stance, and being engaged at the time in forming an 
 order of nobility to grace his newly-erected imperial 
 throne, caused it to be signified to General Janssens, 
 who was then the Dutch Governor at the Cape, that if 
 M. Du Plessis would return to France, he would restore 
 him the title and estates of his family : but the good 
 old colonist was devoid of worldly ambition : he would 
 not leave the country which had afforded an asylum to 
 his persecuted forefathers, and he therefore lived and 
 died as a plain unassuming farmer in South Africa. 
 
 The cultivation of tobacco, for which the soil and 
 climate are peculiarly adapted, has been engaged in, 
 within the last few years, to a considerable extent in 
 New South Wales : it had been cultivated by a few 
 of the settlers on a small scale for many years before ; 
 
424 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 but of late years various respectable "proprietors have 
 not only raised it in sufficient quantity to supply their 
 own large establishments, but turned it to good account 
 as an article of agricultural produce for the colonial 
 market, in which it is protected by a duty on foreign 
 tobacco of a shilling a pound. That market, however, 
 is so limited in proportion to the number of cultivators, 
 that an idea has for several years been entertained in 
 the colony, of the practicability of exporting it in great 
 quantity to the mother country in return for British 
 manufactures ; and all that is requisite to realize this 
 idea, and to enable the Australian to compete with the 
 Virginian tobacco-planter, is a numerous, industrious, 
 and virtuous colonial population. 
 
 The districts of Hunter's River and Illawarra are 
 better adapted for the cultivation of tobacco than those 
 of Bathurst and Argyle ; the latter being much more 
 elevated, and consequently more exposed to nipping- 
 frosts than the former. The soil and climate of Hunter's 
 River especially appear peculiarly adapted for this 
 species of cultivation. Having had occasion to visit 
 that settlement in the month of March, 1830, my 
 father, who was then residing at my brother's farm, 
 but who was unfortunately lost at sea on his way to 
 Sydney in a small coasting-vessel in the month follow- 
 ing, pointed out to me several plants of wild or indi- 
 genous tobacco, which he had observed growing in the 
 rich alluvial land which formed part of the dry bed of a 
 lagoon on the farm, and remarked that the circumstance 
 seemed to indicate the peculiar adaptation of the plant 
 to the soil and climate of New South Wales. He also 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 425 
 
 showed me at the same time several stalks of indigenous 
 flax, exactly similar in appearance to the flax of Europe, 
 of which he had collected a small quantity of the seed, 
 with a view to ascertain whether its cultivation might 
 be practicable or beneficial to the colony. 
 
 Persons who have resided for some time in those 
 provinces of North America in which tobacco is ex- 
 tensively cultivated, have assured me, they never saw 
 the tobacco-plant shoot forth leaves of such length and 
 breadth in America as they attain in New South Wales. 
 The tobacco of the colony is manufactured into what is 
 called negro-head and colonial snuff : of its quality I 
 am not qualified to judge by either of the two senses 
 to which it addresses itself: it is generally thought 
 inferior, however, to that of the Brazils ; but this 
 inferiority arises probably from unskilfulness in the 
 mode of its manufacture — an evil, which the expe- 
 rience of every succeeding year will in all likelihood di- 
 minish. 
 
 The olive also appears to succeed uncommonly well 
 in New South Wales ; and a number of respectable 
 settlers have accordingly procured cuttings and seeds 
 within the last two or three years, with a view to its 
 cultivation. This species of culture, however, is yet in 
 its infancy in the colony ; and nothing farther can, 
 therefore, be said on the subject, than that the olive 
 appears equally well adapted with the vine and the 
 tobacco-plant to the soil and climate of New South 
 Wales. 
 
 The hop-plant has been cultivated successfully on 
 several farms in the colony, and the quality of the hops 
 
426 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 is much superior to that of those imported from Eng- 
 land. The profitable cultivation of any of these pro- 
 ductions, however, as an article of export, will require a 
 much more numerous population than the colony now 
 contains ; and so long as the article of wool affords such 
 profits as it has hitherto afforded the colonial settlers, it 
 is not to be expected that they will devote their capital 
 and their energies to the extensive production of other 
 articles, of which the return from their cultivation must 
 necessarily be for some time comparatively problema- 
 tical. 
 
 If a numerous and industrious agricultural population 
 were settled in New South Wales, there are many pro- 
 ductions of the south of Europe, as well as of still 
 warmer climates, of which the cultivation would doubt- 
 less afford an ample remuneration for agricultural 
 labour and a comfortable subsistence for industrious 
 families, but of which it would be folly to attempt the 
 culture with the present limited population of the 
 colony. The caper-plant, for instance, would succeed 
 well in New South Wales. It is cultivated successfully 
 in the south of France ; and President Jefferson, in a 
 few cursory Notes on that country, written during a 
 tour to the north of Italy, gives the following account 
 of the method and of the profitableness of its cultiva- 
 tion : — " Capers are planted eight feet apart. A bush 
 yields one year with another two pounds, worth twelve 
 sous a pound ; every plant then yields 24 sous, equal to 
 one shilling sterling. An acre, containing 676 plants, 
 would yield £33. 16s. sterling. The fruit is gathered 
 by women, who can gather about twelve pounds a day. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 427 
 
 They begin to gather about the last of June, and 
 continue till about the middle of October."* 
 
 The castor-oil tree grows luxuriantly in the colony, 
 and will no doubt be eventually cultivated with a view 
 to the manufacture of oil. This tree has a beautiful 
 appearance when young, its leaves bearing some resem- 
 blance to those of the horse-chesnut tree. In rich allu- 
 vial land it becomes quite a weed. 
 
 Indigo and opium could also be cultivated to any 
 extent in New South Wales ; and as the climate is 
 highly congenial to the constitution of the silk-worm 
 and the growth of the mulberry-tree, raw silk could be 
 produced to any conceivable extent. For such purposes, 
 however, a much larger and more industrious popu- 
 lation would be required in the colony than it can boast 
 of at present. 
 
 All the European and several of the tropical fruits 
 come to perfection in New South Wales : it has only 
 been of late, however, that any attention has been paid 
 to the quality of the fruit or the cultivation of the trees ; 
 the colonists having previously been for the most part 
 too much occupied in procuring a supply of the neces- 
 saries of life for their households. A great change for 
 the better, however, has been effected in this particular 
 within the last few years. Trees of the choicest sorts 
 have been procured from all parts of the world, and 
 sedulously and successfully cultivated all over the terri- 
 tory. The fruit of the colony consequently promises to 
 
 * Memoirs and Correspondence of President Jefferson, vol. ii. p. 130, 
 
428 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 be as superior in quality, in a few years hence, as it is 
 at present various and abundant. 
 
 The Sydney market is supplied with fruit chiefly 
 from orchards situated on the banks of the inlet called 
 the Parramatta River. For several miles from Sydney, 
 the soil along the course of the Parramatta River, 
 which is now traversed daily by two steam-boats, is 
 miserably poor, but the scenery highly picturesque and 
 romantic ; the channel ever and anon either widening or 
 narrowing as you advance — sweeping around the base 
 of lofty rocks or suddenly expanding into capacious 
 basins, the shores of which are every where ornamented 
 with the most beautiful shrubbery ; for in New South 
 Wales, the most interesting plants, shrubs, and trees 
 are uniformly found adorning the poorest soils. About 
 half-way up the river, the soil, especially on the right 
 bank, improves very considerably ; and there are various 
 orchards and orangeries close to the water's edge, the 
 proprietors of which make a comfortable livelihood 
 for their families by selling their fruit in the Sydney 
 market. 
 
 I happened to call at the cottage of Mr. Shepherd, 
 an old colonist, who has reared a reputable family 
 on a small farm in this vicinity, in the month of July, 
 1830 : it was winter in the colony, but the oranges 
 were just ripe, and the trees were loaded with fruit. I 
 asked Mr. S. jun. what quantity of oranges he would 
 have to dispose of during the season ; and he replied, 
 " Not less than twelve thousand dozen." A respectable 
 old settler, however, of the name of Mobbs, has a much 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 429 
 
 more extensive orchard a few miles from the river in a 
 northerly direction ; and at Baulkham Hills — a settle- 
 ment about five miles beyond Parramatta, at which a 
 few families of free emigrants settled upwards of thirty 
 years ago — there are two orange-orchards much supe- 
 rior to Mr. Shepherd's. Mr. Suttor, the proprietor of 
 one of them, told me, a few weeks before I left the co- 
 lony for England in the year 1830, that the produce of 
 his orange-trees the preceding year was from twelve to 
 twenty thousand dozen ; but that the orchard of Mr. 
 M'Dougall, a Scotch settler on the opposite side of the 
 road, had been much more productive. The produce of 
 these orchards has been greatly increased during the 
 last six years, but I have not ascertained its recent 
 amount. The orange-trees are planted in long double 
 rows with an avenue between ; and the view along the 
 avenue, on each side of which the thick dark green 
 foliage of the trees contrasts most beautifully with the 
 bright yellow fruit with which the branches are loaded, 
 can scarcely fail to remind the scholar of the gardens 
 of the Hesperides. 
 
 The orange-tree takes about seven years to come to 
 maturity : till within the last few years it was conse- 
 quently far from abundant in the colony, whose inhabit- 
 ants, especially in the earlier years of its existence, were 
 for the most part peculiarly improvident ; and it is only 
 around the residences of settlers of the class I have just 
 referred to, that old trees are usually to be met with. 
 The fig and the peach, however, being of much more 
 rapid growth, abound every where ; the fruit of the 
 latter being so abundant, as to constitute a considerable 
 
430 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT' OF 
 
 part of the food of the colonial pig in the peach season. 
 Peaches are sold in Sydney market by the basket or 
 bushel, at from fifteen pence to two shillings and six- 
 pence. 
 
 If a peach-stone is thrown into the ground in a fa- 
 vourable situation in New South Wales, a large quantity 
 of fruit may be gathered from the tree that shortly 
 afterwards shoots up from it, without any subsequent 
 culture, at the expiration of the third or fourth year. 
 A gentleman, to whom the colony is much indebted for 
 the zeal which he long evinced in the path of Australian 
 geographical discovery, — I mean Allan Cunningham, 
 Esq. — was induced, from this circumstance, uniformly 
 to carry along with him a small bag of peach-stones 
 on his exploratory expeditions into the interior ; and 
 whenever he found a suitable piece of ground in the 
 great wilderness, to dig it up and plant a few of them in 
 it, in the hope that the future trees might one day afford 
 a timely supply of food, either to the wandering native 
 or to Europeans, who might accidentally lose their way 
 in the pathless solitudes of the interior ; for the reader 
 is doubtless aware that the native forests of Australia 
 afford nothing whatever in the shape of fruit for the 
 sustenance of man. I was much struck with the cir- 
 cumstance, when it was first mentioned to me, many 
 years ago, by Mr. Cunningham ; and while I could 
 not help commending from my very heart the pure 
 and disinterested benevolence it evinced, I could not help 
 inwardly regarding it as a lesson to myself for the 
 future, and a reproof for the past. Alas ! how many 
 spots have we all passed unheeded in the wilderness of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 431 
 
 life, in which we might easily have sown good seed if 
 we had so chosen, and left it to the blessing of God, 
 the dew of heaven, and the native energies of the soil ! 
 Such spots we shall never revisit ; and the oppor- 
 tunity of doing good, which was thus afforded us, but 
 was suffered to pass unimproved, will consequently 
 never return. 
 
 Specimens of cotton, the produce of New South 
 Wales, have been manufactured into yarn under the su- 
 perintendence of a Scotch manufacturer in the city of 
 Glasgow, and pronounced of superior quality. A con- 
 siderable quantity of sugar was also manufactured on 
 account of Government, at the settlement of Port Mac- 
 quarie to the northward of Hunter's River, about eight 
 years since ; and coffee was cultivated successfully at 
 Norfolk Island some time after the first settlement of 
 that dependency. The northern settlements of Port 
 Macquarie and Moreton Bay, the last of which is si- 
 tuated between the 27th and 28th parallels of south la- 
 titude, and is still a penal settlement, would doubtless 
 be the best adapted for the cultivation of these articles 
 of tropical produce ; but it would probably be inex- 
 pedient to attempt such a species of cultivation in the 
 present circumstances of the colony. The stream of 
 colonization in New South Wales is evidently tending 
 strongly to the southward, and the energies of the 
 colonial population will therefore in all probability be 
 directed for a considerable time to come to the pro- 
 ducing of articles of a different description from those 
 I have just mentioned. When the production of these 
 articles ceases to be profitable, or, in other words, when 
 
432 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 they cannot be exchanged advantageously for tropical 
 produce raised elsewhere, as for instance at the Isle o 
 France, it will be proper for the colonists to think of 
 forming a West Indies on their own coast, and of culti- 
 vating sugar, coffee, and cotton at the northern settle- 
 ments. The different regions of the globe may be com- 
 pared to the different members of the human body, and 
 the commercial intercourse of nations to the circulation 
 of the blood, which is evidently designed to establish an 
 intimate connexion between these different members, 
 and thereby to maintain the tone and vigour of each. 
 It would be as preposterous therefore for the colony of 
 New South Wales, were its population even ten times 
 greater than it is, to attempt to raise all the various 
 articles of produce that might be cultivated along its 
 extensive coast-line from Bass's Straits to the northern 
 extremity of the land, and exchanging the wheat, beef, 
 and potatoes of one settlement, for the sugar, coffee, and 
 cotton of another, to preclude in so far the necessity for 
 foreign supplies, — as it would be for the human arm to 
 petition for a separate heart and lungs for itself. To 
 pursue the metaphor, the heart and lungs are the mo- 
 ther country, and the extremities are the colonies : the 
 healthiest condition of the system will therefore be at- 
 tained, when the colonies devote their energies to the 
 raising of such species of raw produce as are best suited 
 to their respective climates, and transmit that produce 
 to the grand laboratory of the mother country, to receive 
 it again in the shape of capital and manufactured goods 
 of every description ; just as the extremities transmit 
 their black venous blood to the grand laboratory of the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 433 
 
 lungs, where it is subjected to a series of chemical pro- 
 cesses of the most wonderful description, and from 
 whence it is again propelled by the powerful action of 
 the heart in a stream of life and of health to the most 
 distant parts of the system. 
 
 The Australian colonies are at present supplied with 
 sugar from the Isle of France : it is paid for chiefly in 
 money, as the Mauritius receives but a very insignifi- 
 cant quantity of Australian produce in return. The 
 diminution of the commercial intercourse with the Isle 
 of France would, consequently, be a matter of small 
 moment to these colonies, in comparison with the saving 
 that would accrue from the raising of sugar within 
 their own territory, if the cultivation of that article 
 were to be engaged in extensively, as it doubtless might 
 with advantage, by a free emigrant agricultural popu- 
 lation, imported by means of the colonial land-revenue, 
 and settled at Moreton Bay : for as the annual con- 
 sumption of sugar by the colonial population may be 
 estimated at least at double the quantity consumed by 
 an equal number of the inhabitants of Great Britain, 
 the supplying of the colonial market is an object of 
 considerable importance, even although the article 
 could never be raised in the colony at a rate sufficiently 
 low to enable the Australian planter to compete with 
 those of the Isle of France and the West Indies in the 
 home market. Besides, whatever the colony might 
 save from the cessation of the importation of sugar 
 from the Mauritius, would only tend to increase the 
 trade with the mother country, which is of incalculably 
 greater moment to all parties ; and enable the colonists 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
434 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 to purchase a correspondingly greater quantity of Bri- 
 tish manufactures. 
 
 The produce of an acre of land of the best quality, 
 when planted with sugar-cane in the Isle of France, 
 is 4000 lbs. French, or 4320 lbs. English ; that of an 
 acre of ordinary quality, being 3000 lbs. French, or 
 3240 lbs. English. The price of sugar of the first quality 
 at the Mauritius is five dollars, or 20s. per 100 lbs. 
 French ; and that of inferior quality, from five to two. 
 Whether the land at Moreton Bay would be equally 
 productive is at best problematical ; but there is reason 
 to believe that the cost of its production would not be 
 greater in the one colony than it is in the other, for all 
 the other necessaries of life are much cheaper in New 
 South Wales than in the Isle of France. 
 
 As to the necessity for slave-labour for the profitable 
 cultivation of sugar, the idea can no longer be enter- 
 tained in any part of the British empire \ and the ques- 
 tion therefore now is, what sort of free labour will be 
 the most profitable and the most easily procurable in 
 any given locality. A singular revolution is at this 
 moment taking place in this particular, in regard to the 
 state and prospects of the colony of the Isle of France. 
 From the great demand for labour in that colony, and 
 the general apprehension that the negroes would not 
 labour sufficiently on the full attainment of their free- 
 dom, several of the principal merchants and planters 
 of the Mauritius had been induced to try the experi- 
 ment of introducing free labour from India: and so 
 fully had the speculation succeeded, that during the 
 seven weeks that the master of a Scotch vessel from 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 435 
 
 New South Wales lay at Port Louis in the early part 
 of the year 1836, no fewer than 1500 Hindoo la- 
 bourers arrived in that port. It was confidently ex- 
 pected that the system would eventually completely 
 change the aspect and character of the colony. 
 
 There is one other species of cultivation which might 
 at least be attempted in the colony ; I mean that of the 
 tea-plant. That the climate of New South Wales, and 
 especially of the settlements to the northward, is en- 
 tirely congenial to the constitution and habits of the 
 tea-plant, cannot be doubted. A fruit-tree of Chinese 
 origin, called loquet, has been long naturalized in the 
 colony ; and its fruit, which is of a yellowish colour, and 
 about the size of a plum, is sold in great quantities in 
 the Sydney market. Various other specimens of the 
 botany of the Celestial Empire have been cultivated suc- 
 cessfully, both in the Botanic Garden and in the private 
 nurseries of the colony ; and I have seen the tea-plant 
 itself growing in the open air in New South Wales in 
 apparent health and vigour. 
 
 Such a species of cultivation would doubtless require 
 a numerous and a Chinese population ; and it may per- 
 haps be supposed that such a population would not 
 be easily attracted to New South Wales. The Chinese, 
 however, are an emigrating nation ; and as they are 
 easily induced, by the prospect of bettering their for- 
 tunes, to emigrate to Singapore, Batavia, and Calcutta, 
 there is no reason to doubt that a similar prospect 
 would induce them to emigrate to New South Wales. 
 If a considerable number of families were to be settled 
 together on a tract of land to be appropriated for the 
 
436 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 purpose at one of the northern settlements, either as 
 tenants at a rental in produce or as proprietors, and 
 allowed to adopt their own manners and customs with- 
 out interference on the part of the colonists, there is no 
 reason to doubt but that the object might be success- 
 fully accomplished, and the culture of the tea-plant 
 introduced into the colony with every prospect of suc- 
 cess. The benefit likely to accrue to the colony, in an 
 agricultural and commercial point of view, from the 
 formation of such a settlement in its territory, would 
 undoubtedly be great, while the moral influence which 
 it would afford the means and the opportunity of exert- 
 ing on the emigrants themselves might lead to the 
 happiest results. 
 
 The Dutch have long been alive to the benefits likely 
 to result to their nation from the settlement of nume- 
 rous families of Chinese in their colonial territories. 
 Chinese are very numerous in the city of Batavia ; and 
 the police of that part of the city which is denominated 
 the Chinese quarter, is entrusted to individuals of their 
 own nation, under the superintendence of a chief, who 
 is responsible to the European authorities, and whom 
 they elect annually, with the approbation of the Dutch 
 Government. They are uniformly industrious, frugal, 
 and orderly ; and there is no reason to doubt, that a set- 
 tlement, consisting of families and individuals of the 
 same nation, would maintain an equally reputable 
 character, and could be governed with equal facility in 
 New South Wales. 
 
 It must be evident at all events, that the field of exer- 
 tion for the agriculturist of New South Wales is suffi- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 437 
 
 ciently extensive. With every variety of climate and 
 every variety of soil, the colony requires only a nume- 
 rous and industrious population to enable it to produce 
 in abundance whatever is requisite for the sustenance 
 and the comfort of man. Enterprise, of which there is 
 at this moment no lack in the colony, will in due time 
 discover a thousand new channels for the profitable out- 
 lay of capital and for the acquisition of wealth ; and 
 honest persevering industry will in the mean time be 
 enabled to eat " pleasant bread," and to acquire that 
 «' competent portion of the good things of this life," 
 which is most conducive to the progress of society and 
 the real welfare of man. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 No. 1. Page 107. 
 
 Governor Bligh's General Order of the 14th of February, 1807, forbidding 
 the Distillation of Spirits, 
 
 " His Excellency the Governor, taking into his consideration the evils 
 which will arise from the distillation of spirits of any description, does 
 hereby confirm the General Order of the 28th of February, 1799, which is 
 as follows : 
 
 *' The Governor, having received information from various quarters, 
 that in direct disobedience of public orders, and in defiance of the con- 
 sequence of detection, several persons in different parts of this colony 
 have taken the liberty of erecting stills, and providing materials for the 
 purpose of distilling spirituous liquors ; and as it is well known to the 
 whole colony that this destructive practice has long been forbidden in 
 tbis settlement, and under the immediate authority of every officer who 
 has commanded in it ; it is scarcely necessary to say more on the subject 
 than to call on the aid and exertion of the whole body of officers, 
 whether civil, military, or naval, in suppressing it ; and to desire, that 
 wherever they may understand it continues to be carried on or at- 
 tempted, they may use every means in their power to detect the guilty 
 person, and to seize or destroy the utensils they may have provided for 
 a purpose so certainly calculated to ruin the present healthy state of the 
 inhabitants of this territory. All constables, watchmen, and other per- 
 sons, are hereby strictly enjoined, wherever they may have cause to 
 suspect this forbidden trade is carried on, to make the same known to 
 any magistrate or officer, in order that steps be regularly pursued for 
 bringing any opposition to these orders to proof. If those persons who 
 shall presume to carry on this noxious work after this information, do 
 
APPENDIX. 439 
 
 happen to be free people, every indulgence they may have hitherto re- 
 ceived from Government shall be immediately withdrawn, and they shall 
 be ordered to quit the colony by the earliest opportunity : — if a convict, 
 they will receive such treatment for their disobedience, as their conduct, 
 in the opinion of a Court, may appear to merit. 
 
 " By command of His Excellency, 
 
 " Edmund Griffin, Secretary." 
 " Government House, Sydney, 
 " February 14th, 1807." 
 
 No. 2. Page 111. 
 Warrant to apprehend Mr. Macarthur. 
 " New South Wales. 
 
 " Whereas complaint hath been made before me upon 
 oath, that John Macarthur, Esq., the owner of the schooner Parramatta, 
 now lying in this port, hath illegally stopped the provisions of the 
 master, mates, and crew of the said schooner ; whereby the said master, 
 mates, and crew have violated the colonial regulations, by coming un- 
 authorized on shore ; and whereas I did, by my official letter bearing 
 date the 14th day of this instant December, require the said John 
 Macarthur to appear before me on the fifteenth day of this instant De- 
 cember, at ten o'clock of the forenoon of the same day ; and whereas 
 the said John Macarthur hath not appeared at the time aforesaid, nor 
 since :— these are therefore, in His Majesty's name, to command you to 
 bring the said John Macarthur before me and other His Majesty's 
 Justices, on Wednesday next, the 16th instant, December, at ten o'clock 
 of the same day, to answer in the premises : and hereof fail not. 
 
 " Given under my hand and seal, at Sydney, this 15th day of De- 
 cember, 1807. 
 
 (Signed) " Richard Atkins, J. A. (L. S.)" 
 
 " Mr. Francis Oakes, 
 " Chief Constable, Parramatta." 
 
 No. 3. Page 115. 
 
 " Protest. 
 
 " To the Members of the Criminal Court. 
 
 " Gentlemen, 
 
 " It will, I am convinced, excite your surprise, as I think it must of 
 
 every impartial man, to hear that I am brought a prisoner to this bar, 
 
440 APPENDIX. 
 
 utterly unacquainted, except from rumour, of the nature of the accu- 
 sation against which I am to defend myself. Such, however, is the 
 fact : for although I have made three written applications to the Judge 
 Advocate for a copy of the indictment or information, I have not been 
 able to obtain it. 
 
 " In this unprecedented situation, and having been informed that the 
 charge against me had been founded on certain events which originated 
 in the illegal and arbitrary conduct of the Judge Advocate, as exem- 
 plified in the correspondence and warrants ; I did conceive it prudent, 
 and a piece of duty I owed to the community, to protest against Richard 
 Atkins, Esq. being appointed to sit as a judge on a trial where he is so 
 much interested, and in which his own security is so materially in» 
 volved. 
 
 " To prevent unnecessary delay, and other consequences which I 
 apprehended, I did, in a letter to His Excellency Governor Bligh, protest 
 against the Judge Advocate, and respectfully required that a dis- 
 interested person might be appointed to preside at my trial. 
 
 " To this His Excellency was pleased to answer, 'That the law must 
 take its course, as he does not feel himself justified to use any inter- 
 ference with the executive power ; * by which I suppose it meant the 
 judicial authority ; and I humbly conceive His Excellency's power must 
 be the executive. 
 
 " Defeated in this attempt to obtain what I know to be my lawful 
 right, my only alternative is to resort to the Members of this Court ; 
 and I do so under an entire confidence, that what I can prove to be my 
 right, you, as men of honour, will grant me. 
 
 " To you then, gentlemen, I appeal ; and solemnly protest against 
 Richard Atkins, Esq., being allowed to take his seat as one of my judges 
 on this trial. 
 
 " To support this protest, my first objection is, because there is a suit 
 pending between us, for the recovery of a sum of money that he unjustly 
 withholds, and, as he is screened from the operation of the law, is to be 
 submitted to His Majesty's Ministers. 
 
 " My second objection is, because I can prove he has for many years 
 cherished a rancorous inveteracy against me, which has displayed itself 
 in the propagation of malignant falsehoods, and every act of injustice 
 that can be expected to proceed from a person armed with power, against 
 a man, whose life and conduct is, I trust, a public satire on his own. 
 
 " My third objection is, because I have long been the object of his 
 vindictive malice, in consequence of my having been called as an evi- 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 44 b 
 
 denee to support an accusation made against him by John Harris, Esq., 
 that he was a swindler. 
 
 " My fourth objection is, because he has associated and combined 
 with that well-known dismembered limb of the law, George Crosley, 
 and others of as wicked minds, though perhaps not quite so notorious, 
 to accomplish my destruction. In proof of this 1 have evidence to prove 
 that Crosley has prepared the information to be produced on this trial, 
 and has arranged the whole plan of evidence ; he being considered emi- 
 nently qualified to conduct that part of the business, from his extensive 
 practice in that particular branch of legal knowledge. I have also proof 
 in my hands, in the writing of that veteran practitioner Crosley, which 
 will convince the most sceptical mind that other schemes have been 
 agitated to deprive me of my property, liberty, honour, and life. 
 
 " Here it is, gentlemen, — read it ; and after, read the proceedings of a 
 Bench of Magistrates ; and you will see, that for presuming to complain 
 of a most unlawful seizure of my property, which the Judge Advocate 
 joined in reprobating, it has been determined to ruin me. 
 
 " This precious document came into my hands as if by the inter- 
 position of Divine Providence : it was dropped from the pocket of 
 Crosley, and brought to me. That you may consider it at your leisure, 
 I annex a copy both of it and of the proceedings of the Bench of 
 Magistrates. 
 
 " My fifth objection is, because Richard Atkins, Esq., is my prosecutor 
 on this trial, and is so deeply interested to procure my conviction, that, 
 should he fail, nothing but the arm of power can save him from a criminal 
 prosecution, at this very bar, for false imprisonment of me. 
 
 " My sixth and last objection is, on his having already pronounced 
 sentence of condemnation against me, as is presumptively proved, and 
 can be clearly, by his declaring that the Bench of Magistrates had the 
 power to punish me by fine and imprisonment; thereby clearly demon- 
 strating an intention to deprive me of the benefit of my present trial. 
 
 " It will not, I presume, be denied that the Judge Advocate, from the 
 constitution of this Court, combines the two characters of judge and 
 juror ; and that it follows, as an indisputable consequence, that any 
 objection which applies to either character, is strictly applicable to him. 
 
 " All therefore that remains for me to do, is to lay before you the 
 legal authorities on which I found my right of challenge. 
 
 " First Authority. 
 ** ' The suspicion of prejudice may be reasonably inferred against a 
 
442 APPENDIX. 
 
 juror from his having an interest in the cause, whereby he may be led to 
 the condemnation of the prisoner. 
 
 " ' The prisoner must assign his cause of challenge, of the relevancy 
 of which the members are themselves the judges. The valid causes of 
 challenge are, suspicion of malice, of prejudice, and infamous character.' 
 -(Tytler.) 
 
 " Second Authority. 
 
 " ' So jealous is the law of the perfect impartiality of jurors, that it is 
 allowed to be a good cause of challenge that the juror has been heard to 
 give his opinion beforehand, that the party is guilty.'— (Ty tier.) 
 
 " Third Authority. 
 
 " ' Two causes of challenge, impossible to be overruled, are the 
 
 charges of corruption or bribery, verified by competent proof, and 
 
 malice of hostile enmity expressed by word or deed against the prisoner. 
 
 Infamous character is also a most relevant ground of challenge.' — ( Tytler. ) 
 
 " Fourth Authority. 
 " ' It hath been allowed a good ground of challenge on the part of the 
 prisoner, that the juror hath declared his opinion beforehand that the 
 party is guilty.' — (Burn's Justice.) 
 
 " Fifth Authority. 
 " * The Mayor of Hereford was laid by the heels for sitting in a cause 
 when he himself was lesser of the plaintiff" in ejectment, though he by 
 the charter was sole Judge of the Court.' — (Burn's Justice.) 
 
 " Sixth Authority. 
 " ' The cause of Foxham tithing in the county of Wilts, a justice of 
 peace was surveyor of highways, and a matter which concerned his office 
 coming in question at the sessions, he joined in making the order, and 
 his name was put in the caption. Determined by Lord Chief Justice 
 Holt, it ought not to be ; as, if an action be brought by my Lord Chief 
 Justice Trevor, in the Court of Common Pleas, it must be before 
 Edward Neville, Knight, and his associates, and not before Thomas 
 Trevor ; and it was quashed.' — (Burn's Justice.) 
 
 " Seventh Authority. 
 " ' And the better to remove all cause of suspicion of partiality, it 
 was wisely provided by the statutes 4th Edw. III. cap. 2 ; — 8th Richard 
 II. cap. 2 j— and 33d Henry VIII. cap. 24 j— that no Judge of Assize 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 443 
 
 shall hold pleas in any county wherein he was born or inhabits.' — 
 (Blackstone's Commentaries.) 
 
 " Eighth Authority. 
 " ' Jurors may be challenged for suspicion of bias or partiality : this 
 may be either a principal challenge, or to the favour. A principal 
 challenge is such, where the cause carries with it evident marks of 
 suspicion, either of favour or malice ; — as that he hath an interest in the 
 cause ; there is an action pending between him and the party : these 
 are principal grounds of challenge, and, if true, cannot be over-ruled.' — 
 (Blackstone's Commentaries.) 
 
 " Gentlemen, — It would be an unpardonable waste of your time, and 
 an insult to your understandings, to press upon you more authorities, for 
 those I have submitted are clear to the point. 
 
 " You will now decide, gentlemen, whether Law or Justice shall 
 finally prevail over the contrivances of George Crosley : you have the 
 eyes of an anxious public upon you, trembling for the safety of their 
 property, their liberty, and their lives. 
 
 " To you has fallen the lot of deciding a point which involves perhaps 
 the happiness or misery of millions yet unborn ; and I conjure you in 
 the name of the Almighty God, in whose presence you stand, to consider 
 the inestimable value of the precious deposit with which you are 
 entrusted. 
 
 " For my own part, knowing you as I do, I have no apprehensions. I 
 feel assured, that neither expectations of reward and favour, nor dread 
 of persecution, will influence your decision. 
 
 " It is to the Officers of the New South Wales Corps that the admi- 
 nistration of justice is committed ; — and who that is just has any thing 
 to dread 1 
 
 (Signed) M John Macarthur." 
 
 " Sydney, January 25, 1808." 
 
 No. 4. Page 116. 
 
 Deposition. 
 
 " The prisoner John Macarthur, Esq., now before the Court, claims 
 their protection, he having received information from divers friendly 
 persons, that a large body of men are armed, with orders to carry into 
 execution a warrant from the Judge Advocate against him for exercising 
 
444 APPENDIX. 
 
 his lawful right of challenge against the said Judge Advocate, and 
 assigning his reasons for it, as he was directed to do hy the Court. 
 
 " The deponent farther swears, that from the information he has 
 received, he considers his life in danger from the unprincipled and 
 atrocious characters that are combined against him under the direction 
 of the infamous George Crosley : he therefore declines giving any hail, 
 and entreats the Court will be pleased to put him under the protection 
 of a military guard, they being the only persons in whose hands he could 
 consider himself secure. 
 
 (Signed) " J. Macarthur." 
 
 " Sworn before the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction, 
 this 25th day of January, 1808. 
 
 (Signed) " A. F. Kemp, Senior Member, 
 J. Brabyn, Lieut. 
 Wm. Moore, Lieut. 
 Thos. Laycock, Lieut. 
 Wm. Minchin, Lieut. 
 Wm. Lawson. Lieut." 
 
 No. 5. Page 126. 
 
 " To the Keeper of His Majesty's Jail at Sydney. 
 " You are hereby required and directed immediately to deliver into 
 the custody of Garnham Blaxcell and Nicholas Bayly, Esqrs., the hody 
 of John Macarthur, Esq., who was committed by warrant dated the 
 25th instant, signed by Richard Atkins, Thomas Arndell, Robert Camp- 
 bell, and John Palmer, Esqrs. ; it having been represented to me by the 
 officers composing the Court of Criminal Judicature, that the bail bond 
 entered into by the said Garnham Blaxcell and Nicholas Bayly remains 
 in full force. — Herein fail not, as you will answer -the same at your peril. 
 " Given under my hand and seal at Sydney, New South Wales, 
 this twenty-sixth day of January, 1808. 
 
 (Signed) " George Johnston, I. P. 
 
 " Lieutenant Governor, and Major commanding 
 
 New South Wales Corps." 
 
 No. 6. Page 129. 
 
 " The regiment marched down from the barracks, led on by Major 
 Johnston and the Other officers, with colours flying and music playing as 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 445 
 
 they advanced to the house. Within a few minutes after, the house was 
 surrounded ; the soldiers quickly broke into all parts of it, and arrested 
 all the magistrates, Mr. Gore the provost-marshal, Mr. Griffin my secre- 
 tary, and Mr. Fulton the chaplain. I had just time to call to my orderly 
 Serjeant to have my horses ready, while I went up stairs to put on my 
 uniform, the family being then in deep mourning; when, on my return, 
 as I was standing on the staircase waiting for my servant with my sword, 
 I saw a number of soldiers rushing up stairs with their muskets and fixed 
 bayonets, as I conceived to seize my person. I retired instantly into a 
 back room, to defeat their object, and to deliberate on the means to be 
 adopted for the restoration of my authority, which in such a critical 
 situation could only be accomplished by my getting into the interior of 
 the country adjacent to the Hawkesbury, where I knew the whole body 
 of the people would flock to my standard. To this situation I was pur- 
 sued by the soldiers, and after experiencing much insult was conducted 
 below by Lieut. Minchin, who told me that Major Johnston was waiting 
 for me. We passed together into the drawing-room, every part being 
 crowded with soldiers under arms, many of whom appeared to be in- 
 toxicated. 
 
 " I then received a letter brought by Lieut. Moore, and signed by 
 Major Johnston (calling himself Lieutenant Governor), requiring me to 
 resign my authority, and to submit to the arrest under which he placed 
 me ; which I had scarcely perused, when a message was delivered to 
 me that Major Johnston wished to speak to me in the adjoining room, at 
 the door of which he soon after appeared, surrounded by his officers 
 and soldiers ; and in terms much to the same effect as his letter, he 
 there verbally confirmed my arrest. Martial law was proclaimed, my 
 secretary and my friends were prevented from seeing me, and I was 
 left only with my daughter and another lady. 
 
 " By Major Johnston's order several persons seized my cabinet and 
 papers, with my commission, instructions, and the great seal of the 
 colony. These were locked up in a room guarded by two sentinels, and 
 several others were placed round the house to prevent my escape. 
 
 " On the following day Lieut. Moore came with Major Johnston's 
 orders, and carried away my swords and what fire-arms he found in 
 the house." 
 
 The following is a copy of the letter alluded to by the Governor. 
 
 " Head Quarters, 26th January, 1808. 
 " Sir, 
 
 *' I am called upon to execute a most painful duty : you are charged 
 
446 APPENDIX. 
 
 by the respectable inhabitants of crimes that render you unfit to 
 exercise the supreme authority another moment in this colony ; and in 
 that charge all the officers serving under my command have joined. 
 
 " I therefore require you in His Majesty's sacred name to resign your 
 authority, and submit to the arrest which I hereby place you under by 
 the advice of all my officers, and by the advice of every respectable 
 inhabitant in the town of Sydney. 
 
 " I am, Sir, 
 
 " Your most obedient humble servant, 
 (Signed) " George Johnston, 
 
 " Acting Lieutenant-Governor, and Major com- 
 manding New South Wales Corps." 
 
 " To William Bligh, Esq. F.R.S. 
 &c. &c. &c." 
 
 No. 7. Page 147. 
 
 " General Orders. 
 
 V Horse-Guards, 2nd July, 1811. 
 " At a General Court-Martial, held at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, 
 on the 7th of May, 1811, and continued by adjournment to the 5tb 
 of June following, Lieut.-Col. George Johnston, Major of the 102d 
 regiment, was arraigned upon the under-mentioned Charge, viz. — 
 • That Lieut.-Col. George Johnston, Major as aforesaid, did, on or about 
 the 26th day of January, 1808, at Sydney, in the colony of New South 
 Wales, begin, excite, cause, and join in, a mutiny, by putting him- 
 self at the head of the New South Wales Corps, then under his 
 command and doing duty in the colony, and seizing and causing to 
 be seized and arrested, and imprisoning and causing to be im- 
 prisoned, by means of the above-mentioned military force, the 
 person of William Bligh, Esq., then Captain-General and Governor 
 in Chief in and over the territory of New South Wales.' 
 " Upon which Charge the Court came to the following decision :— 
 " ' The Court having duly and maturely weighed and considered the 
 whole of the evidence adduced on the prosecution, as well as what has 
 been offered in defence, are of opinion that Lieut.-Col. Johnston is Guilty 
 of the act of mutiny as described in the charge, and do therefore sen- 
 tence him to be cashiered.' 
 " His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, in the name and on behalf 
 
APPENDIX, 447 
 
 of His Majesty, was pleased, under all the circumstances of this case, to 
 acquiesce in the sentence of the Court. 
 
 " The Court, in passing a sentence so inadequate to the enormity of 
 the crime of which the prisoner has been found guilty, have apparently 
 been actuated by a consideration of the novel and extraordinary cir- 
 cumstances, which, by the evidence on the face of the proceedings, 
 may have appeared to them to have existed during the administration of 
 Governor Bligh, both as affectingthe tranquillity of the colony, and calling 
 for some immediate decision. But although the Prince Regent admits 
 the principle under which the Court have allowed this consideration to 
 act in mitigation of the punishment which the crime of mutiny would 
 otherwise have suggested, yet no circumstances whatever can be re- 
 ceived by His Royal Highness in full extenuation of an assumption of 
 power, so subversive of every principle of good order and discipline, as 
 that under which Lieut.-CoL Johnston has been convicted. 
 
 " The Commander in Chief directs that the charge preferred against 
 
 Lieut.-Col. Johnston, together with the Sentence of the Court, and His 
 
 Royal Highness the Prince Regent's pleasure thereon, shall be read at 
 
 the head of. every regiment, and entered in the Regimental Orderly 
 
 Book. 
 
 " By command of His Royal Highness 
 
 " The Commander in Chief, 
 
 " Hahry Calvert, Adj.-Gen." 
 
 No. 8. Page 159. 
 
 Extracts from a Report, by Governor Macquarie, to Earl Bathurst, 
 dated London, July 27, 1822. 
 
 " I found the colony barely emerging from infantile imbecility, and 
 suffering from various privations and disabilities ; the country im- 
 penetrable beyond forty miles from Sydney ; agriculture in a yet lan- 
 guishing state ; commerce in its early dawn ; revenue unknown ; 
 threatened with famine ; distracted by faction ; the public buildings in a 
 state of dilapidation, and mouldering to decay ; the few roads and 
 bridges formerly constructed rendered almost impassable ; the popu- 
 lation in general depressed by poverty; no public credit nor private 
 confidence ; the morals of the great mass of the population in the lowest 
 state of debasement, and religious worship almost totally neglected. 
 
 " Part of those evils may perhaps be ascribed to the mutiny of the 
 
448 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 I02d regiment; the arrest of Governor Bligh; and the distress oc- 
 casioned to the settlers hy the then recent floods of the Hawkeshury and 
 Nepean Rivers, from whose banks chiefly the colony was at that time 
 supplied with wheat. 
 
 " Such was the state of New South Wales when I took charge of its 
 administration on the 1st of January, 1810. I left it in February last, 
 reaping incalculable advantages from my extensive and important dis- 
 coveries in all directions, including the supposed insurmountable barrier 
 called the Blue Mountains, to the westward of which are situated the 
 fertile plains of Bathurst; and, in all respects, enjoying a state of private 
 comfort and public prosperity, which I trust will at least equal the ex- 
 pectation of His Majesty's Government. This change may indeed be 
 ascribed in part to the natural operation of time and events on individual 
 enterprise : how far it may be attributed to measures originating with 
 myself, as hereinafter detailed, and my zeal and judgment in giving 
 effect to my instructions, I humbly submit to His Majesty and his 
 Ministers. 
 
 " I have much satisfaction in having it in my power to state to your 
 Lordships, that the progressive improvement and internal resources of 
 the colony, in the great increase of the flocks and herds, and in the 
 quantity of ground cleared and brought into tillage, keep pace with the 
 great increase of population, as your Lordship will see by the fol- 
 lowing Comparative Statement : namely,— 
 
 " Statement of Population, &c. in March, 1810, on the first general 
 
 Muster and Survey after my arrival in the colony : 
 
 Population, including the 73rd and 102nd regiments . 11,590 
 
 Horned cattle ...... 12,442 
 
 Sheep ....... 25,888 
 
 Hogs 9,544 
 
 Horses ....... 1,134 
 
 Acres of land cleared and in tillage under various crops 7,615 
 
 And in October, 1821, on the last general Muster and Survey before 
 my departure : 
 
 Population, including the military . . . 38,778 
 
 Horned cattle ...... 102,939 
 
 Sheep 290,158 
 
 Hogs 33,906 
 
 Horses ....... 4,564 
 
 Acres of land cleared and in tillage under various crops 32,267 
 
APPENDIX. 449 
 
 " On my taking the command of the colony in the year 1810, the 
 amount of Port Duties collected did not exceed ,£8000 per annum, and 
 there were only ^£50 or ^60 of a balance in the treasurer's hands; but 
 now duties are collected at Port Jackson to the amount of from ,£28,000 
 to ^30,000 per annum. In addition to this annual colonial revenue, 
 there are port duties collected at Hobart Town, and George Town in 
 Van Dieman's Land, to the amount of between ,,£8000 and ^IOjOOO per 
 annum. 
 
 " The decayed and dilapidated state of all the public buildings both at 
 Sydney and the subordinate settlements, and the state of the public 
 roads and bridges throughout the colony, claimed my early attention ; 
 but the resources then under my control were very inadequate to repairs 
 and improvements of that nature ; my plans were circumscribed, and my 
 progress retarded accordingly. 
 
 " At that time there were no colonial funds to defray the expense of 
 constructing such works ; and there were then very few convict artificers 
 or labourers in the colony : but since the existence of a colonial 
 revenue, and after so great an increase of convict artificers and labourers 
 as has taken place within the last seven years, all the public buildings 
 in the colony (with a very few exceptions) have been erected by the 
 government artificers and labourers ; as have also all the roads and 
 bridges." • 
 
 •No. 9. Page 316. 
 
 Extract of the Assignment Regulations established by Sir Richard Bourke. 
 
 " 2. Convicts will be assigned to persons holding under any of the 
 foregoing tenures, according to the following scale, viz. : — 
 160 acres 1 man 
 
 320 . . 2 . . 
 
 480 . . 3 . . 
 
 640 .. 4 .. 
 
 And one man additional for every forty acres, not exceeding 640 acres, 
 under plough or hoe culture. 
 " For every additional 160 acres of any quantity not exceeding 
 
 1280, 1 man. 
 
 " For every additional 640 acres, . . . . . 2 men. 
 
 Provided that no one person shall in the whole have more than seventy 
 assigned convicts in his service at any one time. 
 
450 APPENDIX. 
 
 " Persons holding under any of the foregoing tenures less than 160 
 acres will be allowed convict labourers, but not mechanics, for land under 
 plough or hoe culture, in the following proportions : — 
 
 20 acres 1 man. 80 acres 3 men. 
 
 40 . . 2 men. 120 . . 4 . ." 
 
 The tenures alluded to in the preceding Regulation are freehold and 
 leases of not less than three years. 
 
 Additional Assignment Regulations. 
 
 " 1. The Board of Assignment having reported to the Governor, with 
 reference to the 33rd paragraph of the Regulations for the assignment of 
 male convicts, dated the 9th May, 1835, that a larger supply of convict 
 labour may hereafter be appropriated to private service, than was con- 
 templated when the scale contained in the 2nd paragraph of these Regu- 
 lations was framed ; His Excellency has been pleased to direct that the 
 following scale of qualification, according to which agricultural labourers 
 and mechanics will in future be assigned, be adopted in lieu of that pro- 
 mulgated by the Regulations referred to, namely — 
 
 160 Acres 2 men. 
 
 240 3 men. 
 
 320 .4 men. 
 
 400 ........ 5 men. 
 
 480 6 men. 
 
 560 7 men. 
 
 640 8 men. 
 
 " For every additional 160 acres, not exceeding in 
 
 the whole 1920 acres 1 man. 
 
 " For every additional half section or 320 acres, 
 
 above 1920 acres 1 man. 
 
 " And in addition 
 
 " For 20 acres under hoe or plough culture . 1 man. 
 
 ..40 .... do. do. . . 2 men. 
 
 . . 60 , . . . do. do. . . 3 men. 
 
 . . 80 . . . . do. do. . . 4 men. 
 
 And one man additional for every 40 acres above 80, and not ex- 
 ceeding 640 acres, under hoe or plough culture. 
 
 " Provided that no person shall, in the whole, have more than seventy 
 convicts assigned to his service at any one time, exclusive of domestic 
 servants and boys, under Regulations of 18th March, 1833. 
 " Persons holding less than 160 acres will be allowed convict la- 
 
APPENDIX. 451 
 
 bourers, but not mechanics, for land under hoe or plough culture, in the 
 following proportions : — 
 
 20 acres .1 man. 
 
 40 ditto 2 men. 
 
 60 ditto . . . . . . 3 men. 
 
 80 ditto 4 men. 
 
 100 ditto . . . . . . 5 men. 
 
 120 ditto 6 men. 
 
 "2. It is to be understood that the land forming the qualification for 
 assigned servants is to be held under the terms and conditions required 
 by the first paragraph of the Regulations of the 9th May, 1835. 
 
 " 3. Any persons who, having made the regular applications and returns 
 through the Special Sessions in September last, are desirous of availing 
 themselves of the enlarged scale now published, will address themselves 
 direct to the Board of Assignment, stating the number of labourers or 
 mechanics they require. Such persons as failed to apply at the Special 
 Sessions in consequence of their being fully supplied, according to the 
 former scale, will send in applications and returns in the form and 
 manner specified in the fourth paragraph of the Regulations of the 9th of 
 May, to the nearest petty sessions or magistrate acting singly, who will 
 forward the same with the report required by paragraph 5 of those 
 Regulations, to the Board of Assignment. 
 
 - " 4. Persons desirous of availing themselves of any additional quali- 
 fication in land, obtained at any time after their applications have been 
 made to the Special Sessions, in September, in any year, are permitted to 
 send in to the Board of Assignment amended applications and returns of 
 such newly acquired land, through the nearest petty sessions or ma- 
 gistrate acting singly, in form and manner required by the fourth para- 
 graph of the Regulations of the 9th of May last. 
 
 " 5. It is to be distinctly understood, that nothing herein contained 
 is intended to annul the 5th paragraph of the Regulations of the 9th 
 May last, which directs that all applications for convict labourers and 
 mechanics assignable in the country shall be renewed at the Annual 
 Special Sessions, to be held in September of each year. 
 
 " 6. Not more than one domestic servant of each description will be 
 assigned to any one individual ; and the Petty Sessions and magistrates 
 are specially requested and enjoined to sign no application for domestic 
 servants, unless the parties applying are in a condition of life to require 
 them. 
 
 " 7. Any person not possessing the qualification required by the 
 
452 APPENDIX. 
 
 existing Regulations, who, by assignments made previously to the 
 operation of the Regulations of the 9th of May, 1835, is found to have 
 convicts in his service, will not receive any domestic servants, whatever 
 may be his condition of life, until the number of such be reduced below 
 four ; and any person having by former assignment more than the full 
 number of assigned servants allowed by the scale now promulgated, will 
 not receive any convicts as a domestic servant until the excess be 
 reduced below four. 
 
 "8. It having heen represented to the Governor, that much in- 
 convenience and loss have been experienced by assignees who have 
 been deprived of one or more of their assigned servants by reason of the 
 capital conviction or transportation of those servants, and the im- 
 possibility, in some of the more remote parts of the colony, of obtaining 
 free labourers to supply their places ; His Excellency is pleased to 
 direct, that in all cases in which it shall appear that the Regulations of 
 Government have been fully carried into effect for the maintenance and 
 control of the assigned servants so convicted or transported, and that the 
 commission of the offence was not in any way attributable to misconduct 
 or neglect of the assignee, he shall be immediately supplied with the 
 number of labourers, including the equivalent for any mechanic, of 
 which he may have been thus deprived by sentence of the law. Ap- 
 plications for servants under the circumstances stated, are to be made to 
 the Governor, through the Colonial Secretary, accompanied by a cer- 
 tificate of the conviction of the servants, and of the committing ma- 
 gistrate, as to the circumstances attending the commission of the 
 offence. 
 
 " 9. Vacancies in the number of assigned servants occasioned by 
 death, will be filled as soon as circumstances permit, upon the casualty 
 being reported by the assignee to the Principal Superintendent of 
 Convicts, and by the latter to the Board of Assignment." 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 453 
 
 No. 10. Page 344. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE CENSUS OF THE POPULATION 
 OF NEW SOUTH WALES TAKEN IN SEPTEMBER, 1833. 
 
 Male. 
 
 Female. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Free. 
 
 Convict. 
 
 Free. 
 
 Convict. 
 
 Above 12. 
 
 Under 12. 
 
 
 Above 12. 
 
 Under 12. 
 
 
 17,542 
 
 5256 
 
 21,845 
 
 8522 
 
 4931 
 
 2698 
 
 60,794 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 Protestant. 
 43,095 
 
 Roman Catholic. 
 17,238 
 
 Jews. 
 345 
 
 Pagans. 
 56 
 
 Uncertain. 
 
 42 
 
 POPULATION OF SYDNEY IN 1833. 
 
 Male. 
 Free. Convict.! 
 
 Female. 
 
 Above 12. 
 6108 
 
 Under 12. 
 1850 
 
 Free. 
 
 I Above 12. 
 1855 I 3697 
 
 Under 12. 
 1837 
 
 Convict. 
 
 885 
 
 Total. 
 
 16,232 
 
 Protestant. 
 12,079 
 
 Roman Catholic. 
 3922 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 Jews. 
 
 209 
 
 Pagans. 
 22 
 
 Uncertain. 
 
 ESTIMATE OF THE PRESENT AMOUNT OF THE GENERAL 
 POPULATION. 
 
 Population, as per census 2d Sept., 1833 
 
 Emigrants arrived from 2d Sept. to 31st Dec. 1833, being 1 
 
 average of the year J 
 
 Convicts do. do. do. 
 
 Births do. do. do. 
 
 Emigrants arrived from 1st Jan., 1834, to 30th June, 1836 
 
 Convicts do. do. do. 
 
 Births do. do. being average of 1834 
 
 Deaths from 2d Sept., 1833, to 30th June, 1836, average 
 Population, 30th June, 1836, 
 
 60,794 
 
 892 
 
 1,380 
 620 
 3,616 
 8,559 
 5,000 
 
 20,067 
 
 80,861 
 3,500 
 
 77,361 
 
454 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. 11. Page 364. 
 
 RETURN OF THE AMOUNT OF IMPORTS AND EXPORTS, INTO A] 
 FROM NEW SOUTH WALES, DURING THE FOLLOWING YEA] 
 AND OF THE NUMBER OF VESSELS AND AMOUNT OF TONNAi 
 EMPLOYED. 
 
 1. IMPORTS. 
 
 From 
 
 Tonnage 
 
 M< 
 
 
 
 
 Foreign 
 
 
 Number 
 
 
 Year. 
 
 Gt. Britain. 
 
 British Colo- 
 nies. 
 
 States and 
 Fisheries. 
 
 Total. 
 
 of 
 Vessels. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 
 £. 5. d. 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 
 
 1828 
 
 399,891 7 11 
 
 125,862 7 9 
 
 44,246 4 4 
 
 570,000 
 
 137 
 
 32,559 
 
 1829 
 
 423,463 
 
 135,486 
 
 42,055 
 
 601,004 
 
 158 
 
 37,342 
 
 1830 
 
 268,935 
 
 60,356 
 
 91,189 
 
 420,480 
 
 157 
 
 31 ,225 
 
 1831 
 
 241,989 
 
 68,804 
 
 179,359 
 
 490,152 
 
 155 
 
 33,900 
 
 1832 
 
 409,344 
 
 47,895 
 
 147,381 
 
 604,620 
 
 189 
 
 36,020 
 
 1833 
 
 434,220 
 
 61,662 
 
 218,090 
 
 713,972 
 
 210 
 
 50,144 
 
 1834 
 
 669,663 
 
 124,570 
 
 197,757 
 
 991,990 
 
 245 
 
 57,442 
 
 1835/ 
 
 707,183 
 
 144,784 
 
 240,533 01 
 
 1,092,500 
 
 260 
 
 63,019 
 
 2. EXPORTS. 
 
 
 
 To 
 
 
 
 
 Tonnage 
 
 
 
 
 Foreign 
 
 
 Number 
 
 
 
 Year. 
 
 Gt. Britain. 
 
 British Colo- 
 nies. 
 
 States and 
 Fisheries. 
 
 Total. 
 
 of 
 
 Vessels. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Me 
 
 
 £. s. d 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 £. 5. d. 
 
 
 
 
 1828 
 
 84,005 17 8 
 
 4,845 13 10 
 
 1,198 18 2 
 
 90,050 9 8 
 
 69 
 
 20,186 
 
 1,91 
 
 1829 
 
 146,283 
 
 12,692 
 
 2,741 
 
 101,716 
 
 168 
 
 37,586 
 
 2,9? 
 
 1830 
 
 120,559 
 
 15,597 
 
 5,305 
 
 141,461 
 
 147 
 
 28,822 
 
 2,3t 
 
 1831 
 
 211,138 
 
 60,354 
 
 52,676 
 
 324,168 
 
 165 
 
 35,252 
 
 2,8* 
 
 1832 
 
 252,106 
 
 63,934 
 
 68,304 
 
 384,344 
 
 114 
 
 42,857 
 
 3,3t 
 
 1833 
 
 269,508 
 
 67,344 
 
 57,949 
 
 394,801 
 
 209 
 
 48,335 
 
 3,51 
 
 1834 
 
 400,738 
 
 128,311 
 
 58,691 
 
 587,640 
 
 220 
 
 53,373 
 
 3,9C 
 
 1835 
 
 495,937 
 
 68,721 
 
 66,223 
 
 630,881 
 
 269 
 
 66,964 
 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 455 
 
 No. 11. — (Continued.) 
 
 RETURN OF THE PRINCIPAL ARTICLES IMPORTED INTO 
 NEW SOUTH WALES, DURING THE YEARS 1828 to 1835. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Spirits. 
 
 Wines. 
 
 Beer and 
 Ale. 
 
 Tea. 
 
 Sugar. 
 
 Coffee. 
 
 
 Gallons. 
 
 Gallons. 
 
 Gallons. 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 1828 
 
 339,978 
 
 197,360 
 
 194,750 
 
 129,404 
 
 4,412,800 
 
 15,708 
 
 1829 
 
 283,198 
 
 227,987 
 
 238,418 
 
 355,236 
 
 1,987,897 
 
 5.346 
 
 1830 
 
 99,459 
 
 52,671 
 
 214,956 
 
 338,825 
 
 4,746,560 
 
 3,623 
 
 1831 
 
 130,976 
 
 78,751 
 
 76,067 
 
 602,709 
 
 3,119,648 
 
 17,380 
 
 1832 
 
 373,599 
 
 161,410 
 
 244,490 
 
 106,849 
 
 4,668,578 
 
 5,795 
 
 1833 
 
 204,089 
 
 65,975 
 
 198,193 
 
 407,624 
 
 3,778,880 
 
 55,188 
 
 1834 
 
 352,721 
 
 221,057 
 
 226,756 
 
 789,945 
 
 7,445,781 
 
 23,189 
 
 1835 
 
 501,282 
 
 283,234 
 
 274,798 
 
 1,272,853 
 
 5,422,196 
 
 200,002 
 
 Year. 
 
 Salt Pro- 
 
 Tobacco. 
 
 Cottons. 
 
 Linens. 
 
 Silks. 
 
 Woollens. 
 
 Soap, Tal- 
 low, and 
 
 
 visions. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Candles. 
 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Yards. 
 
 Yards. 
 
 Yrds. 
 
 Yards. 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 1828 
 
 710,376 
 
 384,067 
 
 659,463 
 
 351,752 
 
 31,048 
 
 3 £20,849 V alue. 
 
 353,921 
 
 1329 
 
 536,432 
 
 230,404 
 
 498,212 
 
 156,103 
 
 23,940 
 
 
 264,127 
 
 1830 
 
 413,317 
 
 42,471 
 
 391,444 
 
 66,166 
 
 17,725 
 
 
 11,296 
 
 1831 
 
 94,268 
 
 165,000 
 
 781,226 
 
 76,235 
 
 7,200 
 
 
 68,419 
 
 1832 
 
 1,841,812 
 
 84,241 
 
 120,663 
 
 126,318 
 
 28,867 
 
 
 251,080 
 
 1833 
 
 307,440 
 
 312,419 
 
 878,625 
 
 200,694 
 
 28,365 
 
 139,500 
 
 301 ,058 
 
 1834 
 
 3,147,159 
 
 289,828 
 
 1,447,839 
 
 283,358 
 
 38,962 
 
 305,795 
 
 259,286 
 
 1835 
 
 388,458 
 
 249,851 
 
 1,642,390 
 
 140,770 
 
 38,415 
 
 313,656 
 exclusive of 
 18,071 pairs 
 of blankets, 
 
 6cc. &c. 
 
 485,024 
 
456 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. 11.— (Continued.) 
 RETURN OF THE PRINCIPAL ARTICLES OF COLONIAL EXPOF 
 SHIPPED FROM NEW SOUTH WALES, DURING THE FOLLOWII 
 YEARS. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 New- 
 Zealand 
 Flax. 
 
 
 
 
 Cocoa J 
 
 Year. 
 
 Wool. 
 
 Cedar. 
 
 Blue 
 Gum. 
 
 Tree- 
 nails. 
 
 Sperm 
 Oil. 
 
 Black 
 Oil. 
 
 Whale- 
 bone. 
 
 and Se 
 
 Elepha 
 
 Oil. 
 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Feet. 
 
 Feet. 
 
 No. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Tons 
 
 1828 
 
 834,343* 
 
 847,805 
 
 285,541 
 
 65,837 
 
 60 
 
 311 
 
 28 
 
 17 
 
 123 
 
 1829 
 
 1,005,333 
 
 940,486 
 
 608,647 
 
 181,817 
 
 270 
 
 921 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 1830 
 
 899,750 
 
 368,830 
 
 179,403 
 
 23,959 
 
 602 
 
 983 
 
 98 
 
 9 16 
 
 92 
 
 1831 
 
 1,401,284 
 
 580,393 
 
 302,410 
 
 24,316 
 
 751f 
 800i 
 
 1571 
 
 505 
 
 28 
 
 57\ 
 
 1832 
 
 1,515,156 
 
 418,930 
 
 214,462 
 
 186,831 
 
 2491 
 
 695 
 
 43 
 
 
 1833 
 
 1,734,203 
 
 1,086,437 
 
 147,170 
 
 328,503 
 
 211 
 
 3048,1 
 
 418 
 
 27 
 
 — 
 
 1834 
 
 2,246,933 
 
 899,492 
 
 35,550 
 
 212,467 
 
 391 
 
 27591 
 
 976 
 
 4 12 
 
 — i 
 
 1835 
 
 3,776,191 
 
 922,542 
 
 209,128 
 
 196,969 
 
 244 
 
 2904 
 
 1159 
 
 108 
 
 — 
 
 The quantity of wool shipped in 1819 
 
 was 71,299 lbs. 
 
 1820 
 
 112,616 
 
 1821 
 
 175,433 
 
 1822 
 
 172,880 
 
 1823 
 
 198,240 
 
 1824 
 
 275,*560 
 
 1825 
 
 411 ,600 
 
 1826 
 
 552,960 
 
 1827 
 
 407,116 
 
 Year. 
 
 Seal- 
 skins. 
 
 Hides. 
 
 Butter and 
 Cheese. 
 
 Salt Pro- 
 visions. 
 
 Maize. 
 
 Flour and 
 Biscuit. 
 
 Coals. 
 
 Cattle. 
 
 Hon 
 
 
 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 
 
 1828 
 
 8,723 
 
 4,415 
 
 
 
 
 
 974 
 
 
 
 1829 
 
 11,362 
 
 8,771 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1830 
 
 9,720 
 
 10,747 
 
 
 313,152 
 
 
 272,037 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 1831 
 
 4,424 
 
 14,320 
 
 131,376 
 
 361,760 
 
 7,280 
 
 504,000 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 1832 
 
 1,415 
 
 44,335 
 
 156,566 
 
 1,265,764 
 
 10,437 
 
 982,339 
 
 866 
 
 54 
 
 18 
 
 1833 
 
 1,890 
 
 12,117 
 
 150,528 
 
 1,122,240 
 
 6,347 
 
 1,489,600 
 
 1,339 
 
 298 
 
 16 
 
 1834 
 
 890 
 
 40,830 
 
 1,408,736 
 
 1,722,000 
 
 22,038 
 
 1,198,960 
 
 2,023 
 
 186 
 
 9 
 
 1835 
 
 667 
 
 35,679 
 
 224,000 
 
 1,675,520 
 
 954 
 
 846,720 
 
 2,492 
 
 111 
 
 10 
 
 Year. 
 
 Sheep. 
 
 Tobacco and 
 Snuff. 
 
 Soap and 
 Candles. 
 
 Tallow. 
 
 1831 
 1832 
 1833 
 1834 
 1835 
 
 264 
 
 862 
 2,402 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 21,448 
 
 19,936 
 
 44,184 
 
 128,211 
 
 Pounds. 
 43,344 
 48,993 
 87,752 
 25,200 
 76,160 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 110,125 
 42,025 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 457 
 
 No. 12. Page 364. 
 
 VIEW OF THE PROGRESSIVE INCREASE OF THE REVENUE 
 
 OF THE COLONY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 1826 
 1827 
 1828 
 1829 
 1830 
 1831 
 1832 
 1833 
 1834 
 1835 
 1836 
 
 72,220 18 
 
 79,309 13 
 
 94,862 7 
 
 102,784 16 
 
 104,729 4 
 
 121,065 14 11 
 135,909 15 6 ; J 
 164,063 5 10 
 
 Estimated amount, including"! 
 ,£60,000 of estimated balance v 
 over expenditure for 1835 J 
 
 More probably .... 
 
 205,535 10 C Z\ 
 273,744 13 11* 
 
 259,300 
 
 300,000 
 
 No. 13. Page 375. 
 RETURN OF VESSELS BELONGING TO THE UNITED STATES 
 OF AMERICA THAT HAVE ARRIVED IN NEW SOUTH 
 WALES FROM 1832 TO JUNE 15, 1836. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Vessels. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Whence. 
 
 1832 
 
 Tybee 
 
 298 
 
 United States 
 
 1833 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto 
 
 South Sea Islands 
 
 — 
 
 Black Warrior . 
 
 248 
 
 United States 
 
 1834 
 
 Tybee 
 
 298 
 
 Ditto 
 
 — 
 
 Black Warrior . 
 
 248 
 
 Ditto 
 
 — 
 
 Augustus . 
 
 241 
 
 South Sea Islands 
 
 — 
 
 Malta . 
 
 149 
 
 Ditto 
 
 — 
 
 Ditto . 
 
 ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1835 
 
 Henry Clay 
 
 435 
 
 United States 
 
 — 
 
 Margaret Oakley 
 
 250 
 
 South Sea Islands 
 
 — 
 
 Black Warrior . 
 
 248 
 
 Ditto 
 
 — 
 
 Brothers 
 
 258 
 
 United States 
 
 ' — 
 
 Charles Doggett 
 
 110 
 
 Ditto 
 
 — 
 
 Draco 
 
 258 
 
 Ditto 
 
 — 
 
 Huron . . 
 
 290 
 
 Sperm Fishery 
 
 — 
 
 Tybee 
 
 298 
 
 United States 
 
 — 
 
 Tim . 
 
 164 
 
 Ditto 
 
 — 
 
 Chalcedony 
 
 214 
 
 Ditto 
 
 — 
 
 Corvo 
 
 348 
 
 Ditto 
 
 — 
 
 Augustus . 
 
 241 
 
 Manilla 
 
 — 
 
 Sarah Lee . . 
 
 235 
 
 Sperm Fishery 
 
 — 
 
 Halcyon 
 
 311 
 
 South Sea Islands 
 
 — 
 
 Charles Doggett 
 
 110 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1836 
 
 Vermont 
 
 292 
 
 Sperm Fishery 
 
 — 
 
 Favourite . 
 
 293 
 
 Ditto 
 
 — 
 
 Chalcedony 
 
 214 
 
 New Zealand 
 
 — 
 
 Black Warrior . 
 
 248 
 
 United States 
 
 
 Palinure 
 
 369 
 7,115 
 
 Ditto 
 
 JM.B. The cargoes from the United States have hitherto consisted 
 chiefly of flour, bread, furniture, turpentine, &c. &c. 
 
 VOL. I. TI 
 
458 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. 14. Page 382. - 
 
 Extract of Melville's Letter to his owners in London, on the subject of 
 establishing a Sperm- Whale Fishery in New South Wales. 
 
 " Ship Britannia, Sydney, Port Jackson, Nor. 29th, 1791. 
 
 " Gentlemen, 
 
 " I have the pleasure to inform you of our safe arrival in Port 
 Jackson, in New South Wales, after a passage of fifty-five days from 
 the Cape of Good Hope. 
 
 " The day hefore we made the island of Amsterdam, we saw two shoals 
 of sperm whales. After we doubled the south-west cape of Van 
 Dieman's Land, we saw a large sperm whale off Maria's Islands, but did 
 not see any more, being very thick weather and blowing hard, till within 
 fifteen leagues of the latitude of Port Jackson. Within three leagues of 
 the shore we saw sperm whales in great plenty : we sailed through dif- 
 ferent shoals of them from twelve o'clock in the day till after sunset, all 
 round the horizon, as far as I could see from the mast-head : in fact, I 
 saw a very great prospect in making our fishery upon this coast, and 
 establishing a fishery here. Our people were in the highest spirits at so 
 great a sight, and I was determined, as soon as I got in and got clear 
 of my live lumber, to make all possible dispatch on the fishery on this 
 coast. 
 
 " On our arrival here, I waited upon His Excellency Governor Phillip, 
 and delivered my letters to him. I had the mortification to find he 
 wanted to dispatch me with my convicts to Norfolk Island, and likewise 
 wanted to purchase our vessel to stay in the country ; which I refused to 
 do. I immediately told him the secret of seeing the whales, thinking 
 that would get me off going to Norfolk Island, that there was a prospect 
 of establishing a fishery here, and might be of service to the colony, and 
 left him. I waited upon him two hours afterwards with a box directed 
 to him : he took me into a private room ; he told me he had read my 
 letters, and that he would render me every service that lay in his power ; 
 that next morning he would dispatch every long-boat in the fleet to take 
 our convicts out, and take our stores out immediately ; which he did ac- 
 cordingly, and did every thing to dispatch us on the fishery. Captain 
 King used all his interest in the business. The secret of seeing whales 
 
APPENDIX. 459 
 
 our sailors could not keep from the rest of the whalers here: the news put 
 them all to the stir, but have the pleasure to say, we were the first ship 
 ready for sea, notwithstanding they had been some of them a month 
 arrived before us. We went out, in company with the William and Ann, 
 the eleventh day after our arrival. The next day after we went out, we 
 had very bad weather, and fell in with a very great number of sperm 
 whales. At sun-rising in the morning, we could see them all round the 
 horizon. We run through them in different bodies till two o'clock in 
 the afternoon, when the weather abated a little, but a very high sea run- 
 ning. I lowered away two boats, and Bunker followed the example ; in 
 less than two hours we had seven whales killed, but unfortunately 
 a heavy gale came on from the south-west, and took the ship a-back with 
 a squall, that the ship could only fetch two of them ; the rest we were 
 obliged to cut from, and make the best of our way on board to save the 
 boats and crew. The William and Ann saved one; and we took the 
 other, and rode by them all night with a heavy gale of wind. Next morning 
 it moderated, and we took her in ; she made us twelve barrels. We saw 
 large whales next day, but were not able to lower away our boats ; we 
 saw whales every day for a week after, but, the weather being so bad, we 
 could not attempt to lower a boat down. We cruised fifteen days in all. 
 The day after we came in, the Mary Ann came in off a cruise, having met 
 with very bad weather, shipped a sea, and washed her try-works over- 
 board. He informed me he left the Matilda in a harbour to the north- 
 ward, and that the Salamander had killed a forty-barrel whale, and lost 
 her by bad weather. There is nothing against making a voyage on 
 this coast but the weather, which I think will be better next month ; I 
 think to make another month's trial of it. If a voyage can be got upon 
 this coast, it will make it shorter than going to Peru. 
 
 " The colony is all alive, expecting there will be a rendezvous for the 
 fishermen. We have the pleasure to say, we killed the first four whales 
 on this coast. 
 
 " I am, Sirs, your humble servant, 
 
 " Thomas Melville." 
 
 " Messrs. Samuel Enderby and Sons." 
 
460 
 
 APPENDIX, 
 
 No. 15. Page 383. 
 
 RETURN OF THE PRODUCE OF THE FISHERIES BY VESSEL 
 BELONGING TO NEW SOUTH WALES DURING THE YEARS M 
 TO 1835, INCLUSIVE. 
 
 Year. 
 
 No. 
 
 Vessels. 
 
 Men. 
 
 Sperm 
 Oil. 
 
 Black 
 Oil. 
 
 Sea 
 
 Elephant 
 
 Oil. 
 
 Seal 
 Skins. 
 
 Whalebone. 
 
 Value 
 
 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 No. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 £• 
 
 1828 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 311 
 
 28 
 
 31 
 
 8,723 
 
 17 
 
 27,011 
 
 1829 
 
 28 
 
 2,739 
 
 421 
 
 885 
 
 — 
 
 48 
 
 12,350 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1830 
 
 32 
 
 3,687 
 
 444 
 
 1282 
 
 582 
 
 47 
 
 5,617 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1831 
 
 31 
 
 5,391 
 
 592 
 
 1914 
 
 1,004 
 
 — 
 
 4,972 
 
 — 
 
 120,752 
 
 1832 
 
 20 
 
 3,497 
 
 415 
 
 1482 
 
 391 
 
 — 
 
 891 
 
 10 
 
 87,558 
 
 1833 
 
 27 
 
 6,922 
 
 784 
 
 3483 
 
 420 
 
 — 
 
 2,465 
 
 24 
 
 169,278 
 
 1834 
 
 34 
 
 5,534 
 
 647 
 
 2243 
 
 1,124 
 
 — 
 
 1,105 
 
 41 
 
 139,498 
 
 1835 
 
 22 
 
 5,162 
 
 609 
 
 2339 
 
 1,288 
 
 — 
 
 850 
 
 127 
 
 147,373 
 
 LIST AND TONNAGE OF VESSELS BELONGING TO NEW SOUTI 
 WALES, EMPLOYED IN THE WHALE-FISHERY, DEC. 31, 1835. 
 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Australian 
 
 . . 264 
 
 Anastatia . 
 
 . . 211 
 
 Avon . . 
 
 . . 261 
 
 Bee . . . 
 
 . . . 134 
 
 Caernarvon 
 
 . . . 222 
 
 Caroline 
 
 . . 196 
 
 Cape Packet 
 
 . . . 210 
 
 Clarkstone 
 
 . . 278 
 
 Cornwallis 
 
 . . . 177 
 
 Denmark Hill 
 
 . . 252 
 
 Earl Stanhope 
 
 . . 295 
 
 Elizabeth . 
 
 . . . 363 
 
 Fame . . 
 
 . . 203 
 
 Governor Bou 
 
 •ke . 214 
 
 Governor Hal] 
 
 :et . 332 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Genii 164 
 
 Guide 147 
 
 Juno 212 
 
 Jane 221 
 
 Lady Blackwood . 253 
 
 Lady Leith ... 153 
 
 Lady Wellington . 196 
 
 Lunar 165 
 
 Lynx 180 
 
 Louisa 242 
 
 Lucy Anne . . . 214 
 
 Mary 250 
 
 Nereus ..... 125 
 
 Nimrod .... 231 
 
 Nourmahul . . . 197 
 
 Tom 
 
 Pocklington . . . 2C 
 
 Proteus .... 25 
 
 Scamander ... IS 
 
 Sisters 28 
 
 Tamar IS 
 
 Tigress IS 
 
 Vittoria .... 28 
 
 William Wallace . 26 
 
 Wolf 26 
 
 Woodlark .... 24 
 
 William . . . . Si 
 
 Total 923 
 41 Vessels in all. 
 
 No. 16. Page 384. 
 RETURN OF THE GROSS DECLARED VALUE OF EXPORTS AN] 
 IMPORTS TO AND FROM THE PORTS OF NEW SOUTH WALES 
 AND ANY PART OF NEW ZEALAND, DURING 1833-1835. 
 
 Exports. 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 In 1833, 14,199 
 
 In 1834, 23,498 
 
 In 1835, 40,746 
 
 Custom House, Sydney, 
 14th July, 1836. 
 
 Imports. 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 20,333 
 
 18,037 
 
 28,711 
 
 J. GIBBS, Collector. 
 
 R. S. WEBB, Acting Controller. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 461 
 
 No. 17. Page 388. 
 
 RETURN OF THE NUMBER OF VESSELS BUILT AND RE- 
 GISTERED IN NEW SOUTH WALES, FROM 1822 TO 1835. 
 
 
 Vessels Built. 
 
 Vessels Registered. 
 
 Crew. 
 
 Year. 
 
 No. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 No. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 No. 
 
 1822 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 163 
 
 
 1823 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 182 
 
 
 1824 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 157 
 
 
 1825 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 119 
 
 
 1826 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 654 
 
 
 1827 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 434 
 
 
 1828 
 
 6 
 
 162 
 
 13 
 
 478 
 
 
 1829 
 
 15 
 
 512 
 
 5 
 
 428 
 
 51 
 
 1830 
 
 3 
 
 72 
 
 25 
 
 1,777 
 
 
 1831 
 
 5 
 
 112 
 
 38 
 
 3,224 
 
 392 
 
 1832 
 
 5 
 
 222 
 
 21 
 
 2,143 
 
 241 
 
 1833 
 
 6 
 
 393 
 
 29 
 
 2,655 
 
 233 
 
 1834 
 
 9 
 
 376 
 
 19 
 
 1,852 
 
 139 
 
 1835 
 
 7 
 
 303 
 
 21 
 
 2,267 
 
 192 
 
 No. 18. Page 390. 
 
 BANK OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 Instituted November, 1816. Capital ,£150,000, in 1500 Shares 
 
 Result of Affairs, 30th June, 1836. 
 
 £. s. d. 
 Stock . . . 92,955 
 Notes out. . . 32,222 
 Deposits . . .159,131 11 1 
 Profit . . . 7,946 7 4 
 Unclaimed dividends 214 12 6 
 
 
 £• *, 
 
 <;'. 
 
 Bills discounted 
 
 . 214,893 18 
 
 4 
 
 Coin 
 
 . 74,751 10 
 
 5 
 
 Mortgages 
 
 . 2,524 2 
 
 •j 
 
 Furniture, &c. 
 
 300 
 
 
 
 292,469 10 11 292,469 
 
 Dividend, 30th June, 1836, 9 percent for that half-year. 
 
 BANK OF AUSTRALIA. 
 Instituted February, 1826. Capital .£220,000, 
 Result of Affairs, 30th June, 1836. 
 £. s. d. 
 
 Stock 
 Notes out 
 Deposits . 
 Accumulating fund 
 Profit 
 
 86,186 5 
 
 37,103 
 
 147,501 14 5 
 
 2,000 
 
 8,855 5 
 
 
 £* s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Bills discounted 
 
 . 223,130 
 
 6 
 
 Coin . 
 
 . 54,502 18 
 
 5 
 
 Mortgages 
 
 . 3,400 
 
 
 
 Bonds 
 
 613 5 
 
 6 
 
 281,646 4 5 281,646 4 
 
 Dividend, 30th June, 1836, 8 per cent, with 2^ per cent from the 
 accumulating fund, making the dividend for the half-year 10.' per cent. 
 
462 
 
 APPENDIX, 
 
 COMMERCIAL BANKING COMPANY OF SYDNEY. 
 
 Instituted November, 1834. Capital £300,000, in 3000 Shares. 
 Result of Affairs, 30th June, 1836. 
 
 £■ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 £• 
 
 5. 
 
 d. 
 
 Stock . . . 115,567 
 
 
 
 
 
 Bills discounted 
 
 . 201,587 
 
 
 
 
 
 Notes out . . 30,320 
 
 
 
 
 
 Coin . 
 
 . 40,645 
 
 
 
 
 
 Deposits . . . 99,036 
 
 
 
 
 
 Bonds 
 
 . 6,274 
 
 
 
 
 
 Profits by discount . 9,864 
 
 
 
 
 
 Balances due by 
 
 } 4,973 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 Expenses, salaries . 803 
 
 
 
 
 
 other Banks . 
 
 
 Interest on deposits . 1,081 
 
 
 
 
 
 Real estate . 
 
 '. 2,325 
 
 
 
 
 
 Loss by a forgery . 9 
 
 
 
 
 
 Furniture, &c. . 
 
 876 
 
 
 
 
 
 256,680 256,680 
 
 Dividend, 30th June, 1836, 7\ per cent for that half-year. 
 
 BANK OF AUSTRALASIA. 
 
 Commenced business in the colony 14th December, 1835. Capital 
 £200,000 paid up. Interest allowed on current Accounts, at the rate 
 of 4 per cent per Annum. 
 
 Result of Affairs, 11th April, 1836. 
 
 6,755 17 
 
 Notes in circulation l 
 
 notbearing interest j 
 Bills in circulation "I 
 
 not bearing interest J 
 Bills and Notes in"| 
 
 circulation bearing > 
 
 interest J 
 
 Balance due to other \ 
 
 Banks . . .J 
 Cash deposited not "I a* 400 
 
 bearing interest . J ' 
 Cashdepositedbear- 1 . nins .- Q 
 
 ing interest . .} 10 ' 106 14 8 
 
 2,508 17 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 14 2 
 
 Total 
 re- 
 
 liabilities 
 
 )tal liabilities 1 ^qq^ q 
 rithin the colony J 4 °> b71 6 
 
 Coin and bullion in 
 
 Bank . 
 Landed property of 1 
 
 the Corporation . J 
 Bills of other Banks 
 Balance due from "I 
 
 other Banks . . J 
 
 £• 
 
 } 25,256 
 
 s. d. 
 14 10 
 
 
 
 
 429 6 10 
 
 B «oVeBa d ni btSdU :}«»-«< i 8 « 
 
 Total assets within! Qc .^^ 
 the colony . .) 86,172 
 
 In addition to the above assets, the average amount of the paid up 
 capital of the Corporation in hands of the Court of Directors in London, 
 for the use of the Colonial Establishment, was ,^98,630. 9s. 2d. 
 
 AUSTRALIAN MARINE ASSURANCE COMPANY. 
 
 Established July, 1831. Capital ,,£140,000; ,£14,000 paid up. 
 Dividend, 30th June, 1836, 8£ per cent for that half-year. 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 463 
 
 UNION ASSURANCE COMPANY OF SYDNEY. 
 
 Established January, 1836. Capital ^250,000, in 5000 Shares. Capital 
 paid up, £2. 10s. per Share, ^12,500. Profits not to be divided for three 
 years. Capital increased to ^16,659, 30th June, 1836. 
 
 SAVINGS' BANK. 
 
 Established by Act of Council, 9th March, 1835. 
 
 Result of Affairs, 31st December, 1835. 
 
 Amount to the credit") 
 of 584 depositors, in- 
 cluding interest, at 
 5 per cent, to 31st 
 Dec. 1835 
 
 Amount deposited' 
 by Government on 
 account of 2175 con- 
 victs, including in- 
 terest, at 5 per cent, 
 to 31st Dec. 1835 . 
 
 Amount to credit of 
 the Hibernia sub- 
 scription fund, in- 
 cluding interest, at 
 5 per cent, to 3lst 
 Dec. 1835 
 
 Balance of 
 interest in 
 favour of 
 the institu- 
 tion, after 
 allowing 5 
 per cent 
 on all de- 
 posits 
 
 Deduct charge for 1835. 
 
 Account's 1 
 salary ,j' 
 
 Stationery, 
 iron chest, 
 &c. . 
 
 Furniture 
 for, alter- 
 ations to, 
 and secu- 
 ring new 
 office 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 24,469 17 6 
 
 - 8,023 18 11 
 
 121 13 6 
 
 1,759 1 4 
 
 200 
 
 19 1 
 
 105 8 9 
 
 324 9 9 
 
 1,434 11 7 
 
 34,050 1 6 
 
 of- 
 
 23,876 18 
 
 Amount lent on 60" 
 mortgages, with in- 
 terest due thereon, 
 to 31st Dec. 1835 . 
 Do., lent on 40 bills . 8,166 10 11 
 Do., in hands of the 1 g Qgg *e> 4 
 colonial treasurer J 
 
 34,050 1 6 
 It was resolved by the Trustees, 
 and approved by the Governor, that 
 in addition to the 5 per cent placed 
 to the credit of the depositors, 3f 
 per cent should be added, making 
 the interest to 31st Dec. 1835, 8| 
 per cent. 
 
464 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. 19. Page 390. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE ESTIMATED EXPENDITURE OF THE 
 
 COLONIAL GOVERNMENT, FOR THE YEAR 1837. 
 
 Service. 
 
 Salaries. 
 
 Contingencies. 
 
 Totals. 
 
 His Excellency the Go- 1 
 vernor and Judges . j 
 Civil Establishment 
 Survey and Public Works 
 Judicial Establishment . 
 Police and Jails 
 Church Establishment . 
 School Establishment 
 Military Establishment . 
 Pensions .... 
 Miscellaneous Services . 
 
 £■ u d. 
 
 10,000 
 
 22,615 6 3 
 14,275 15 
 11,643 18 9 
 31,224 10 
 11,557 10 
 
 996 3 6 
 91 5 
 
 860 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 9,427 13 7i 
 29,689 11 
 
 8,585 5 
 13,976 12 6 
 
 7,610 
 12,018 15 5 
 
 56,101 14 10 
 
 £■ s. d. 
 
 10,000 
 
 32,042 19 101 
 43,965 6 
 20,229 3 9 
 45,200 13 4 
 19,167 10 
 13,014 18 11 
 91 5 
 860 
 56,101 14 10 
 
 103,263 19 4 
 
 137,409 12 
 
 4.1 
 
 £ 
 
 240,673 11 8^ 
 
 Amounting in all to two hundred and forty thousand, six hundred 
 and seventy-three pounds, eleven shillings, and eight pence, half- 
 penny. 
 
 ALEXANDER M'LEAY, Colonial Secretary. 
 
 The Ways and Means to meet this charge are- 
 Customs Duty on Spirits 
 Duty on Tobacco 
 Ad valorem Duty 
 Miscellaneous 
 
 Tolls, Ferries, and Market Dues 
 Licenses for retailing Spirits 
 Auction Duties 
 Duty on Colonial Spirits 
 Fees collected in Public Offices 
 Collections by Agent of the Church and School "1 
 
 Estates . . . . . . j 
 
 Post Office ...... 
 
 Miscellaneous ..... 
 
 Probable Balance of Revenue of Crown Lands 1 
 
 after deducting Charges of Immigration . j 
 
 Balance unexpended on 31st December, 1835 
 
 £• 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 120,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 12,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 10,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 3,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 4,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 10,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 4,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 1,200 
 
 
 
 
 
 9,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 4,500 
 
 
 
 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 3,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 .80,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 18,845 
 
 2 
 
 7 
 
 Total 
 
 . £284,545 2 7 
 
 To the Ways and Means for 1837, thus shown to amount to 
 ,£284,545. 2s. 7d. may be added the value of Treasury Bills due to the 
 Colony amounting to ,£80,000, and making in the whole the sum of 
 ,£364,545. 2s. 73. to meet the charge of £241,423. lis. 813. 
 
 The Charge of the Supplementary Estimate for 1836 will be fully met 
 by the excess of Revenue over Expenditure in the present year. 
 
 5th July, 1836. RICHARD BOURKE. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 465 
 
 No 
 
 .20. Page 391. 
 
 
 
 Contents in 
 
 Names of Counties. 
 
 Square miles. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Cumberland . 
 
 1,445 
 
 924,800 
 
 Camden 
 
 2,188 
 
 1,400,320 
 
 Northumberland 
 
 2,342 
 
 1,498,880 
 
 Durham 
 
 2,117 
 
 1,354,880 
 
 Hunter 
 
 2,056 
 
 1,315,840 
 
 Cook . 
 
 1,665 
 
 1,065,600 
 
 Westmoreland 
 
 1,592 
 
 1,018,880 
 
 Argyle 
 
 1,951 
 
 1,248,640 
 
 Murray 
 
 2,248 
 
 1,458,080 
 
 King . 
 
 1,781 
 
 1,159,840 
 
 Georgiana 
 
 1,924 
 
 1,231,360 
 
 Bathurst 
 
 1,860 
 
 1,190,400 
 
 Roxburgh 
 
 1,519 
 
 972,160 
 
 Phillip 
 
 1,618 
 
 1,035,520 
 
 Brisbane 
 
 2,344 
 
 1,500,160 
 
 Bligh . 
 
 1,683 
 
 1,077,120 
 
 Wellington . 
 
 1,656 
 
 1,059,840 
 
 Gloucester . 
 
 2,930 
 
 1,875,200 
 
 Macquarie 
 
 2,000 
 
 1,280,000 
 
 St. Vincent . 
 
 2,667 
 
 1,706,880 
 
 39,586 
 Extent of land alienated up to 31st December, 1835 
 
 Extent of unappropriated land within the colonial "1 
 territory J 
 
 25,374,400 
 3,835,744 
 
 21,538,656 
 
 No. 21. Page 416. 
 
 RETURN OF GRAIN, FLOUR, &c, IMPORTED INTO NEW 
 SOUTH WALES, AND OF THE AVERAGE PRICE OF 
 WHEAT PER BUSHEL, DURING THE FOLLOWING YEARS. 
 
 
 Wheat in 
 bushels of 
 60 lbs each. 
 
 Barley 
 and 
 Oats. 
 
 Flour and 
 Bread. 
 
 Rice. 
 
 Pota- 
 toes. 
 
 Grain. 
 
 Average 
 
 price of 
 
 Wheat per 
 
 bushel. 
 
 Year. 
 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Bshls. 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 1828 
 
 85,716 
 
 8,689 
 
 331,520 
 
 403,200 
 
 369 
 
 
 10 8J 
 
 1829 
 
 107,929 
 
 2,575 
 
 42,076 
 
 183,703 
 
 548 
 
 2000 
 
 9 4 
 
 1830 
 
 70,904 
 
 183 
 
 2,226 
 
 29,898 
 
 190 
 
 
 6 5| 
 
 ia3i 
 
 71,892 
 
 758 
 
 358,154 
 
 54,161 
 
 142 
 
 
 5 7 
 
 1832 
 
 42,106 
 
 929 
 
 48,664 
 
 90,252 
 
 93 
 
 
 4 8| 
 
 1833 
 
 19,507 
 
 7,081 
 
 14,272 
 
 39,200 
 
 422 
 
 
 4 3| 
 
 1834 
 
 16,171 
 
 2,682 
 
 281,566 
 
 304,445 
 
 396 
 
 
 8 3 
 
 1835 
 
 122,908 
 
 15,997 
 
 1,377,018 
 
 1,139,551 
 
 520 
 
 
 8 6£ 
 
 Wheat, barley, oats, and potatoes, are imported chiefly from Van 
 Dieman's Land ; potatoes, partly from New Zealand ; rice, flour, and 
 bread, from Tndia and the United States. In 1828, one of the years of 
 drought, a Sydney miller bought 6000 bushels of Van Dieman's Land 
 wheat at 20s. per bushel. The value of the imports above enumerated in 
 1835 was ^74,113. 
 
END OF VOL. I 
 
 PRINTED BY A. J. VALPY, 
 RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 Just published in small octavo, price 6s. 6d. bds. 
 
 TRANSPORTATION 
 
 AND 
 
 COLONIZATION ; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE COMPARATIVE FAILURE OF 
 
 THE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM 
 
 IN THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES: 
 
 WITH SUGGESTIONS 
 
 FOR ENSURING ITS FUTURE EFFICIENCY IN SUBSERVIENCY 
 TO EXTENSIVE COLONIZATION. 
 
 " The contents of this volume are worthy the attention of His Ma- 
 jesty's government, of the legislature, and the whole British public : 
 indeed, although it contained no other statements and reasonings than 
 those which bear upon the subject of secondary punishments, or no other 
 suggestions than those which immediately concern the framers of cri- 
 minal laws, Dr. Lang deserves the gratitude of his countrymen, whether 
 at home or abroad." — Monthly Review. 
 
AN HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL 
 ACCOUNT 
 
 OF 
 
 NEW SOUTH WALES, 
 
 BOTH 
 
 AS A PENAL SETTLEMENT 
 AND AS A BRITISH COLONY. 
 
 BY JOHN DUNMORE LANG, D.D., 
 
 SENIOR MINISTER OF THE SCOTS CHURCH, AND PRINCIPAL OF THE 
 AUSTRALIAN COLLEGE, SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 " We have seen the land, and, behold, it is very good." — Judges xviii. 9. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, 
 
 WITH NUMEROUS ADDITIONS, BRINGING DOWN THE HISTORY OF THE 
 COLONY TO THE CLOSE OF 1836. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. II. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 A. J. VALPY, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET 
 
 BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH. 
 1837. 
 

 - 
 
 PRINTED BY A. J. VALPY, 
 Rl T l> LION COURT, FLEET STREET. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 On the distribution, employment, condition, and character of 
 
 the convict population 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Journey over-land to Hunter's River, with a description of an 
 
 Australian farm 60 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Notices of the settlements of Bathurst and Illawarra . . 102 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Geological features of the colony, with remarks on its climate 
 
 and diseases . . . . . . . .142 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Statement of the advantages which New South Wales holds 
 
 forth to various classes of emigrants . . . .164 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FACE 
 
 Enumeration and description of the localities in New South 
 Wales, which are at present open to emigration from the 
 mother country 194 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Estimate of the state of morals and religion in the colony, with 
 a view of the existing religious establishments and de- 
 nominations in New South Wales . . . .216 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 View of the state of education in the colony, with an account 
 
 of the establishment of the Australian college . . 315 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The Colonial Press 380 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Emigration ; or, the value and importance of the colony of 
 New South Wales to Great Britain as a practicable and 
 inexpensive outlet for her surplus population . . 448 
 
 Appendix 466 
 
AN 
 HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL ACCOUNT 
 
 OF 
 
 NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON THE DISTRIBUTION, EMPLOYMENT, CONDITION, 
 AND CHARACTER OF THE CONVICT-POPULATION. 
 
 Exilium non supplicium est, sed perfugium portusque supplicii. 
 
 Cicero pho Cjecin. o. 34. 
 
 " Banishment was not decreed as a species of punishment by the 
 laws of* Rome, but was rather a state of refuge and an asylum, of which 
 the law, in certain cases, permitted the criminal to avail himself." 
 
 For some time after the original establishment of the 
 colony of New South Wales in the year 1788, the 
 whole of the convict-population of the colony, with the 
 exception of those individuals who were retained as 
 house-servants by the Government officers of the set- 
 tlement, were employed on account of the Government, 
 either in agriculture or in the public works. In process 
 
 VOL. II. A 
 
2 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 of time, however, a few families of free emigrants 
 arrived and settled in the colony ; and many individuals 
 who had arrived as convicts became free by servitude, 
 and established themselves advantageously, either as 
 agriculturists in the country, or as mechanics or shop- 
 keepers in the towns. In this state of things, it became 
 a usual practice, on the part of the colonial govern- 
 ment, to assign one or more convicts to private persons 
 who were able to maintain and employ them either in 
 ►Sydney or in the country ; to relieve the government of 
 the cost of their maintenance on the one hand, and to 
 assist deserving individuals to w T hom their services were 
 of value on the other. The convicts so assigned were 
 employed variously according to the pursuits or occu- 
 pation of the master ; some as house-servants, some as 
 shopmen, some as mechanics, but the great majority as 
 farm-servants and stock-keepers : and to incite the 
 convict or prison population of the colony to good con- 
 duct, persons of that class, who had conducted them- 
 selves well, but were not entitled to any indulgence 
 from the Government, were occasionally favoured with 
 tickets of exemption from Government-labour, and 
 allowed to employ themselves for the period specified 
 in the ticket for their own advantage ; while persons of 
 the same class who had served a certain number of 
 years, without being guilty of any fresh misdemeanour, 
 were allowed tickets of leave, which implied a per- 
 manent indulgence of a similar kind during good 
 conduct. The ticket of leave was procurable, ac- 
 cording to the colonial regulations, by a convict for 
 seven years at the expiration of four years; by a 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 6 
 
 convict for fourteen years, at the expiration of six 
 years ; and by a convict for life, at the expiration of 
 eight years. The Governor was empowered, moreover, 
 to grant both conditional and absolute pardons when- 
 ever he deemed it expedient to do so ; either of which, 
 as well as a certificate of freedom, implying that the 
 period for which the individual had been transported 
 had expired, was supposed to restore him to all the 
 rights and privileges of a free subject in the colony. 
 That such a system of management was well calculated 
 to promote the grand object of Government, in the 
 establishment of the colony of New South Wales — I 
 mean the reformation of its convict-population — the 
 reader will doubtless acknowledge ; and that it actually 
 had such an effect in many instances I am happy to 
 bear testimony. It is only to be regretted that a 
 counteracting influence, arising both from, the measures 
 of Government and the general procedure of its officers, 
 was too often and too successfully exerted in the modes 
 I have already particularized ; and that the private 
 interests and the passions of individuals, from whom 
 better things might have been expected, were supposed 
 to be linked with the perpetuation and extension of the 
 vice of the colony, rather than with its gradual ad- 
 vancement in the practice of virtue. 
 
 Till the year 1821, when the current of free emi- 
 gration began to set in strongly for New South Wales, 
 the number of free persons in the territory was com- 
 paratively small, and the great majority of the convict- 
 population had consequently to be employed variously 
 in the service of Government. I have already had oc- 
 
4 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 casion to show that this was decidedly a most unfortu- 
 nate state of things for the colony ; and that the health 
 and vigour of its body politic would have been promoted 
 in a great variety of ways, had the system so early and 
 so strongly recommended by Governor Phillip been 
 duly followed up, or, in other words, had there been a 
 much earlier influx and a much greater amount of free 
 emigration. 
 
 The talent for managing masses of men is unquestion- 
 ably one of the rarest gifts of the Creator; and the case 
 is surely by no means altered, nor the difficulties it 
 implies in any way diminished, when the persons to be 
 so managed are in a state of thorough depravity. In 
 short, it was a matter of absolute necessity that the 
 government of the colony, being thus deprived of the 
 stay and support of a numerous free population, should 
 have been entrusted, in the earlier stages of its existence, 
 to men who really possessed this talent and who were 
 known to do so ; for the command of the troops that 
 were required to protect the settlement was a matter of 
 very inferior consideration. Great mistakes, however, 
 were committed in this respect ; and the management 
 of the convict-population of the colony was entrusted, 
 in many instances, to men who had neither the wisdom 
 nor the virtue which a situation of so much real diffi- 
 culty imperatively required. The consequences, as 
 might well be anticipated, were unfavourable in the 
 highest degree to the morals of the settlement. 
 
 I have already particularized the modes in which 
 the numerous convicts in the service of Government, up 
 to the close of Governor Macquarie's administration, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. O 
 
 were distributed. A large proportion of them were 
 employed in the various processes connected with the 
 Government buildings and the other pubJic works in 
 progress throughout the colony : the remainder were 
 employed chiefly on the Government or experiment- 
 farms. The erection of such buildings and the esta- 
 blishment of such farms, were temptations into which the 
 Government of the colony naturally fell, from the 
 superabundance of convict-labour — of which it always 
 possessed the unlimited command and the absolute 
 disposal, and from the want of a free emigrant agri- 
 cultural population, to enable it to disperse the convicts 
 all over the territory, and to employ them in much 
 greater number in the labours of the field. 
 
 This superabundance of convict-labour led, during 
 the earlier part of the administration of Sir Thomas 
 Brisbane, to an arrangement which was highly beneficial 
 to a number of respectable settlers in certain parts of 
 the colony, but of which the continued influx of free 
 settlers prevented the extension to other districts, in 
 which it would doubtless have been equally beneficial, 
 and soon led to its entire discontinuance. The arrange- 
 
 CD 
 
 ment I allude to, consisted in the institution of cleaiing- 
 gaitgs, or parties of convicts in the service of Govern- 
 ment, each under the charge of an overseer — who were 
 stationed for certain periods on the lands of private 
 individuals to fell and to burn ofT the standing timber. 
 This was done at so much per acre, the proprietor who 
 obtained the indulgence engaging to pay the Govern- 
 ment in wheat — the produce of the land so cleared by 
 Government-labour. 
 
O HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 This arrangement, which was introduced at the sugges- 
 tion of Major Goulburn, then Colonial Secretary of New 
 South Wales, was exceedingly well devised ; for, while 
 it provided suitable employment for the convicts in 
 Government-service, and ensured the enforcement of 
 a uniform and salutary discipline, it was of singular 
 benefit to the free settler, in enabling him to cultivate 
 a much greater extent of land than he could otherwise 
 have done. The clearing-gangs were all numbered, 
 and were under the charge of a general superintendent, 
 who could ride about to the different farms on which 
 tfyey were respectively stationed, and inspect them 
 occasionally ; while the overseer of each was respon- 
 sible for the due performance of the allotted quantum 
 of task- work. Had a system of free emigration been 
 encouraged and promoted, as it ought to have been 
 from the first settlement of the colony, and had the 
 Government assisted the free settlers by some such 
 arrangement as this, the following good effects would 
 have resulted to the colonial community : a large extent 
 of land would have been brought into cultivation, and 
 the Government would have been saved the necessity 
 of importing wheat from foreign settlements at a 
 prodigious expense ; a large proportion of the convict- 
 population would have undergone a species of training 
 in the service of Government, that would afterwards 
 have rendered them useful servants to the free settlers, 
 and disposed and fitted them for the peaceful pursuits 
 of agriculture on the attainment of their freedom ; 
 while those useless and expensive conservatories of vice 
 and villany — the Government-farms and penal settle- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. / 
 
 ments of the colony — that grew up under a different 
 and impolitic system, would never have existed ; and 
 the towns of the colony would have been assemblages 
 of industrious citizens instead of grand nurseries of 
 dissipation. Nay, if the colonial government had even 
 employed a portion of the superabundant convict- 
 labour of the colony in clearing small farms for eman- 
 cipated convicts of good character, and retained pos- 
 session of such farms till the expense of clearing them 
 had been paid for from the produce of the soil, it would 
 assuredly have been consulting the best interests of the 
 colony, and promoting in a high degree the gradual 
 reformation of its convict-population. In short, it was 
 so much the interest and the duty of the colonial 
 government to disperse the convicts over the territory, 
 and to employ them as much as possible in the labours 
 of the field, that, if a concentration of the convict- 
 population had even been the result of circumstances 
 unconnected with the measures of Government, the 
 Government ought to have interposed in every possible 
 way to effect their dispersion. 
 
 It has hitherto been the practice of the government 
 of New South Wales to pursue the same uniform system 
 of treatment in the case of all convicts arriving in the 
 colony from the mother country, without regard to the 
 various degrees of their previous criminality.* The 
 
 * There have been a few instances of atrocious criminals being for- 
 warded at once to a penal settlement, on their arrival in the colony, in 
 consequence of express orders to that effect from home ; and Sir Robert 
 Peel, when Secretary of State for the Home Department, directed the 
 literary or educated convicts to be sent to the penal settlement of Wei- 
 
O HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 forger, the betrayer of trust, the highwayman, the thief, 
 the pickpocket, the burglar, are all treated in precisely 
 the same way as the Whiteboy from the bogs of Ireland, 
 who has probably been sentenced to transportation 
 under the provisions of the Irish Insurrection Acts. In 
 short, there has never been any attempt in the colony to 
 classify the convicts according to the various degrees of 
 their transmarine criminality. 
 
 This has surely been a great error in the penal system 
 of the colony, and its evil tendency has been apparent 
 in three different ways. In the first place, it has tended 
 to reduce to the same level in iniquity those whom the 
 law had improperly visited with the same punishment, 
 without regard to their respective demerits : in the 
 second place, it has tended to blunt the moral sense of 
 the prison-population of the colony, in regard to their 
 power of discriminating between the lighter and the. 
 darker shades of criminality : and finally, by placing 
 before the free portion of the community cases of indi- 
 viduals, whose punishment, when compared with that of 
 other criminals of a more atrocious character, had ap- 
 parently exceeded their criminality, it has given rise to 
 a sort of morbid sympathy on the part of no inconsider- 
 able portion of the colonial community, — a feeling, 
 which regards the state of a convict as the result of 
 misfortune rather than of misconduct. 
 
 The colonial government, however, has not been so 
 much to blame in this matter as the reader may perhaps 
 imagine : for if the criminal courts of the mother coun- 
 
 lington Valley in the interior. These however have been but rare 
 exceptions to the general rule. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 9 
 
 try have sentenced one individual to fourteen years' 
 transportation, for a crime of much inferior enormity to 
 that of another who has been, sentenced only to trans- 
 portation for seven years, it is not for the colonial 
 government to attempt to remedy the acknowledged 
 defects of the penal system of Great Britain, by order- 
 ing a new apportionment of punishment in New South 
 Wales. The root of the evil is to be sought for in the 
 penal code of the empire, the defects of which are great 
 and obvious, and ought forthwith to be remedied. Be- 
 sides, it very frequently happened ill the earlier years 
 of the colony, that no record of the convict's guilt was 
 transmitted along with him to the land of his banish- 
 ment. The convicts were landed from the transport- 
 ship, like a herd of cattle, on the shores of Port Jack- 
 son, — one for seven years, another for fourteen, and a 
 third for life ; but the why and the wherefore they were 
 so landed on these distant shores could be learned only 
 by inspecting the records of the Old Bailey at the other 
 extremity of the globe, or by searching the ponderous 
 registers of Newgate and Kilmainham. 
 
 When a convict-ship arrives in Sydney harbour, it is 
 the practice of the colonial government to reserve as 
 many of the convicts, whether labourers or mechanics, 
 as are required for the public service : # the rest are 
 assigned to persons who have previously transmitted 
 
 * The public works in the colony, with the exception of roads and 
 bridges, and other works of a similar kind, requiring mere labour and not 
 mechanical skill, are now uniformly performed by contract, — very much 
 to the benefit of the public. The convicts reserved by Government are 
 consequently very few in number, comparatively, now. 
 
10 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 duly attested applications for convict-servants, agreeably 
 to a code of regulations recently established by the 
 present Governor, and denominated the Assignment 
 Regulations.* One pound sterling is paid to Govern- 
 ment for each convict so assigned, as the price of his 
 bedding and slop-clothing, which he carries along with 
 him to his future master's. If the master resides in 
 Sydney, he is employed in the various menial capacities 
 in which house-servants are employed in Europe : if 
 he resides in the country, as is much more frequently 
 the case, he is employed in tending sheep or cattle, or 
 as a farm-servant. 
 
 The convict-servants on the different farms of the 
 colony are usually lodged in huts formed of split-timber, 
 and thatched with long grass or straw, at a little dis- 
 tance from the proprietors house. Two of these huts, 
 with a partition between them, form one erection ; and 
 each of them is inhabited by four men. A large fire- 
 place is constructed at one end of the hut, where the 
 men cook their provisions, and around which they as- 
 semble in the winter evenings, with a much greater 
 appearance of comfort than the sentimentalist would 
 imagine. Rations, consisting of ten and a half pounds 
 of flour, seven pounds of beef or four and a half pounds 
 of pork, with a certain proportion of tea, sugar, and 
 tobacco, are distributed to each of them weekly ; and 
 they receive shoes and slop-clothing either twice a year, 
 or whenever they require them. Pumpkins, potatoes, 
 and other vegetables, they are allowed to cultivate for 
 themselves. 
 
 * Vide vol. i. Appendix, No. 9. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. ]1 
 
 On my brother's farm at Hunter's River— and I be- 
 lieve a similar system is pursued on most of the large 
 agricultural farms throughout the colony — the overseer 
 rises at day-break, and rings a bell, which is affixed to 
 a tree, as a signal for the men to proceed to their 
 labour. The greater number follow the overseer to the 
 particular agricultural operation which the season re- 
 quires ; the rest separate to their several employments, 
 one to the plough, another to the garden, and a third 
 to the dairy, while a fourth conducts the cattle to their 
 pasture. The bell is again rung at eight o'clock, when 
 the men assemble for breakfast, for which they are 
 allowed one hour ; they again return to their labour till 
 one o'clock, when they have an hour for dinner, and 
 they afterwards labour from two till sunset. 
 
 The condition of a convict in New South Wales de- 
 pends greatly on the character of his master : it is in 
 the power of the latter to render his yoke easy and his 
 burden light; it is equally in his power, however, to 
 make him superlatively miserable. In general, the lot 
 of a convict in the colony is by no means a hard one : 
 for the most part, he is better clothed, better fed, and 
 better lodged, than three-fourths of the labouring agri- 
 cultural population of Great Britain and Ireland ; while, 
 at the same time, his labour is beyond all comparison 
 much less oppressive. In a great many instances, in- 
 deed, the object of the convict evidently is to get as 
 much in the shape of allowances, and to do as little in 
 the shape of hard labour, as possible. 
 
 The grand secret in the management of convict-ser- 
 vants is to treat them with kindness, and at the same 
 
12 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 time with firmness ; to speak to them always in a con- 
 ciliating manner, and at the same time to keep them 
 constantly employed : and it is nothing less than abso- 
 lute blindness to his own interest, and a want of com- 
 mon sense amounting to downright infatuation, that 
 can lead any master to treat them otherwise. It must 
 be acknowledged, however, that such infatuation has 
 prevailed in New South Wales to a lamentable extent ; 
 and has greatly retarded the advancement of the colony 
 on the one hand, and occasioned much misery on the 
 other. 
 
 A free emigrant settler, who has perhaps been riding 
 about the country for a fortnight — neglecting his own 
 affairs and troubling his neighbours — returns to his 
 farm, and finds that his convict servants have been very 
 idle during his absence : he talks to them on the sub- 
 ject, and his choler rises as he talks ; and he curses and 
 swears at them as if he had taken his degree at Bil- 
 lingsgate, instead of being a free landed proprietor in 
 His Majesty's colony of New South Wales. One of 
 the convicts — a man who has perhaps seen better days- 
 replies in no measured terms ; and the master imme- 
 diately exclaims, with the highest indignation, '•' You 
 convict-scoundrel, do you speak to me at this rate?" 
 and, taking the overseer to witness that the man has 
 spoken insolently to his master, he forthwith hies both 
 overseer and man to the nearest magistrate, who per- 
 haps resides ten miles off, and gallops after them him- 
 self an hour or two afterwards. On arriving at the 
 magistrate's, the settler, who is a remarkably good 
 Protestant, kisses the book, and swears that the man 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 13 
 
 spoke to him insolently : the overseer, who is a stanch 
 Roman Catholic, confirms his master's deposition by 
 kissing the same book on the other side ; on which the 
 worthy magistrate — who knows that the Bible was sent 
 him for kissing and not for reading — has religiously 
 pasted a bit of whity-brown paper, cut with a pair of 
 scissors, in the form of a cross. When this religions 
 ceremony has been gone through, the magistrate, as- 
 suming a very grave aspect, sentences the convict to 
 receive twenty-five lashes for insolence to his master, 
 and he is accordingly delivered over to the scourger of 
 the district. In the mean time, the farm is deprived of 
 the superintendence of the master, the exertions of the 
 overseer, and the labour of the convict ; while the other 
 convicts, disheartened and disgusted at the obvious in- 
 justice with which their fellow-labourer has been treated, 
 do just as little as possible. 
 
 As soon the man who has been flogged is fit for 
 labour, he is ordered to the plough ; but perceiving that 
 a thick strong root crosses the furrow at a particular 
 point, he contrives the next time the bullocks reach 
 that point to run the plough right against the root and 
 snap it asunder. " You did it on purpose, you scoun- 
 drel !" says the infuriated settler, who has indeed good 
 reason to be angry, for the season for ploughing is per- 
 haps nearly over, and two or three days must elapse be- 
 fore the plough can be repaired, as there is probably no 
 blacksmith within fifteen miles. The man, to whose cor- 
 rupt nature revenge is so delicious that he does not 
 deny the charge, but who is perhaps the best plough- 
 man on the farm, is accordingly hied off immediately to 
 
14 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 his worship again ; and, after the same pious ceremony 
 of kissing the calf's-skin binding of the desecrated 
 book, and the whity-brown-paper cross has been re- 
 acted, is sentenced to " three months' hard labour on 
 the roads, to be returned to his master at the expiration 
 of that period." 
 
 The man returns accordingly at the expiration of his 
 sentence ; but being addicted, as most convicts are, to 
 the use of colonial tobacco, he allows a spark to fall 
 from his tobacco-pipe, on his way to his labour, very near 
 his master's largest wheat-stack, at a time when the latter 
 happens to be off the farm ; and in less than a quarter 
 of an hour after the stack is observed to be on fire. 
 One would naturally suppose that in such a case 
 of emergency, all the men on the farm would immedi- 
 ately run to extinguish the flames : such a supposition, 
 however, would be very far from the truth. The con- 
 victs are so conscientious, forsooth, that they will not 
 do any thing which their master has not particularly 
 told them to do ; and he has never told them to ex- 
 tinguish the flames when any of his stacks should acci- 
 dentally catch fire. Besides, they have a task assigned 
 them, which they must not leave : in short, nothing gives 
 them greater pleasure than to see their master's stack 
 burning ; for they know he must give them the regu- 
 lar ration, procure it where he may, or send them back 
 to Government, in which case they will have a chance 
 of being assigned to a better master. By and by, the 
 master returns at full gallop in time enough to see 
 where his stack stood. He has reason to suspect that 
 a conspiracy has been formed against him by his men ; 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 15 
 
 but to save him the trouble of bringing any of them to 
 justice, four of them immediately take to the bush, i.e. 
 become bush-rangers, or runaway convicts, subsisting 
 on plunder. In a month or two after, two of them 
 are apprehended for robbing a settler's cart on the 
 highway, and tried, and convicted, and condemned 
 to death ; and the wretched men assure the minister 
 who may happen to visit them in the jail or attend 
 them on the scaffold — (I have received such information 
 in such circumstances myself when it was too late to 
 falsify) — that it was the arbitrary and unfeeling con- 
 duct of their master alone, that brought them to an 
 untimely end. 
 
 I may be told, perhaps, that this is a supposititious 
 case, and that all of these circumstances have not oc- 
 curred in any single instance. It is immaterial, how- 
 ever, whether they have or not, as I can testify right 
 well where and when they have all occurred singly. 
 
 " I have no doubt," says Governor Macquarie, in a 
 letter to Earl Bathurst, of date, London, 10th October, 
 1823, " that many convicts, who might have been 
 rendered useful and good men, had they been treated 
 with humane and reasonable control ; have sunk into 
 despondence by the unfeeling treatment of such masters ; 
 and that many of those wretched men, driven to acts of 
 violence by harsli usage, and who by a contrary treat- 
 ment might have been reformed, have betaken them- 
 selves to the woods, where they can only subsist by 
 plunder, and have terminated their lives at the gallows." 
 
 Some settlers think it necessary, forsooth, to humble 
 their convict-servants, and to make them fear them. An 
 
16 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 instance of this kind I have heard of in the colony with 
 indignation and horror. A settler, requiring some office 
 of a very disagreeable and offensive character to be per- 
 formed on his premises, ordered one of his convict- 
 servants to perform it, instead of adopting the much 
 more efficacious mode of offering him a small reward 
 on his doing it — a piece of tobacco, for instance, or a 
 little wine. The man had perhaps seen better days, and 
 therefore, feeling indignant at being set to such an em- 
 ployment, flatly refused. The master coolly ordered him 
 off to a magistrate, who sentenced him to receive either 
 twenty-five or fifty lashes for disobedience. The man 
 returned to his master, who gave him the same order a 
 second time ; which the man a second time refused to 
 obey : he was again taken before the magistrate, and 
 sentenced to be flogged as before : and it was not till 
 this degrading and brutalizing operation had been re- 
 peated a third time, that the spirit of the miserable 
 convict was sufficiently broken to allow him to obey the 
 mandate of his relentless tyrant.* 
 
 That there are incorrigible characters whom neither 
 kindness nor severity can overcome, I am quite willing 
 to allow; but that kind and judicious treatment will 
 render the great majority of convicts peaceable, indus- 
 trious, and contented, is, I conceive, equally indubi- 
 
 * Man is essentially a tyrant : it is education — I use the word in its 
 widest sense— that makes him humane in any instance. Whatever ar- 
 rangement of society, therefore, invests any man with such power over 
 the person and happiness of his fellow-creature, as is possessed by the 
 master of a convict or the holder of a slave, is essentially evil, and ought 
 doubtless to be deprecated as indicative of an unhealthy state of the body 
 politic. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 17 
 
 table. One of the best-regulated farms, or rather estates 
 in the colony, is that of Colonel Dumaresq, a brother- 
 in-law of the late Governor Sir Ralph Darling, and 
 lately a resident landholder on Upper Hunter's River. 
 The law on Colonel Dumaresq's estate is the law of 
 kindness; and incitements to industry and good con- 
 duct are rewards, and not punishments. The convict- 
 labourers or farm-servants reside in white-washed cot- 
 tages, each having a little garden in front ; and prizes 
 are regularly awarded to those who keep their cottages 
 in the best order. Divine service is performed every 
 Sabbath at twelve o'clock, agreeably to the forms of 
 the Church of England ; all the farm-servants being re- 
 quired to attend. The result of such a system is just 
 what might be expected : — the men are sober, indus- 
 trious, and contented. 
 
 On those farms or estates on which the convict-ser- 
 vants are treated with kindness, and at the same time 
 with firmness, they will generally evince as much de- 
 votedness in their master's service on occasions of 
 emergency, as is ever shown by free servants in the 
 mother country. An alarming fire happened to break 
 out on my brother's farm during one of the years of 
 drought, which, communicating with the upper branches 
 of a number of lofty forest-trees in the immediate 
 vicinity of a range of farm-buildings, containing pro- 
 perty to a considerable amount, threatened for thirty 
 hours in succession to destroy both the buildings and 
 the property they contained. The exertions of all the 
 convict-servants on the farm to extinguish the flames 
 were zealous and unremitted, and it was only through 
 
18 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 these exertions that the property was saved • one man 
 having had the very jacket he wore half-burnt in the 
 fire ; while another, for his equally laudable exertions, 
 received a ticket of leave from the Governor, on being 
 recommended for that indulgence by his master. 
 
 The influence of religion, I am sorry to acknowledge, 
 is scarcely ever taken into account by the great ma- 
 jority of the settlers of the colony, in their procedure 
 towards their convict-servants. Divine service is per- 
 formed regularly every Sabbath by a few of the more 
 respectable proprietors — in some cases according to the 
 forms of the Church of England, in others according to 
 those of the Church of Scotland — certainly, however, 
 not in the proportion of one case out of every five, per- 
 haps ten. Not a few of the settlers weigh out their 
 servants' weekly rations and settle their farm-accounts 
 on Sunday ; while in many instances the men are al- 
 lowed to cultivate ground for themselves on the Sabbath, 
 on the plea that they would probably be doing some- 
 thing worse if they were not so employed ; and no 
 account is taken of the manner in which they spend the 
 day ; no attempt is made to induce them to spend it in 
 a way conducive to their spiritual welfare. In short, 
 Sunday is the day appropriated by a large proportion 
 of the settlers for paying and receiving visits, for dining 
 any where but at home, and for attending to any thing 
 but the concerns of religion. The influence of such 
 procedure on the general morality of the territory, and 
 its evident tendency to counteract the benevolent designs 
 of His Majesty's Government for the reformation of the 
 convict-population, may be easily conceived. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 19 
 
 From the preceding details it will doubtless ap peat- 
 evident to the reader, that it is not only quite possible 
 for a respectable family to live comfortably in the midst 
 of a number of convict-servants, but that kind and judi- 
 cious treatment will in all likelihood render even such 
 servants obedient on the one hand, and highly profit- 
 able to their master on the other : for although there 
 is nothing more common in the colony than to hear 
 masters exclaiming against the idleness, and the inso- 
 lence, and the discontentedness, and the villany of their 
 convict-servants, I have seen enough to induce me to 
 believe that the fault is not unfiequently on the other 
 side. • In fact, there are comparatively few masters in 
 the colony who manage their convict-servants with the 
 requisite discretion. 
 
 When a convict or prisoner (for that is the colonial 
 phrase) becomes free, either by serving out the period 
 of his sentence of transportation or by obtaining a 
 pardon, he employs himself in the way in which he is 
 most likely to succeed in the colony ; and if an in- 
 dustrious man, the experience he has already gained 
 in the country speedily enables him to find eligible 
 employment. The only difference in this respect, be- 
 tween a person who has thus acquired his entire freedom 
 and a ticket-of-leave holder, is, that the latter is con- 
 fined to a particular district, and is liable to lose his 
 ticket for various petty misdemeanours, — as for drunken- 
 ness or disorderly conduct, — which would not affect the 
 standing of a free subject. 
 
 I had occasion to visit the settlement of Illawarra, 
 
20 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 about seventy-five miles to the southward of Sydney, 
 in the month of April, 1830. The journey being too 
 long for a single day's ride, I had to spend a night by 
 the way. The house of a magistrate of the territory, 
 whose cordial hospitality I had repeatedly experienced 
 on former visits to the interior, lay near my route ; but, 
 choosing rather to confer than to receive a favour, I 
 turned aside to the little cottage of a small settler, who 
 I knew had arrived in the colony as a convict, though 
 he had been free at the time I allude to for many years. 
 The settler had originally been a Presbyterian from the 
 north of Ireland : he had enlisted in a Scotch regiment 
 quartered in the north of England, whither I understood 
 he had gone as a petty dealer or hawker. Having 
 committed some crime, however, of a minor character, 
 he was sentenced to seven years' transportation. His 
 wife, whom he had married in the colony on obtaining 
 his freedom, was a native of the south of Scotland : 
 her mother had died when she was very young ; and 
 her father, who I understood had been a person of in- 
 different character, had married a second time, and left 
 the children of his former wife to find their way through 
 the world as they best could. I have reason to believe, 
 however, that both husband and wife were not merely 
 outwardly reformed, but really and sincerely penitent ; 
 and from the gratification which my tarrying for the 
 night under their roof afforded them, I could both per- 
 ceive and feel, that when one has nothing else to give 
 than that friendly countenance which the Word of God 
 imperatively calls for, on behalf of those who are 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 21 
 
 turning from the error of their ways, there is never- 
 theless a deep and affecting meaning in the Scripture 
 maxim, It is more blessed to give than to receive. 
 
 " I bought this farm," the settler told me in the 
 course of my visit, "the year I got my liberty : it's a 
 thirty-acre farm — very good land, Sir; and I was to 
 pay a hundred pounds for it, for you know it was 
 cleared but not stumped,* The year I got it I only put 
 in four acres of wheat, for it was rather late in the 
 season. The wheat was very cheap that year ; but the 
 next year I put in fifteen acres with the hoe — all with 
 my own hands — and I had as many bushels off it as 
 there are days in the year." (i. e. 365 bushels, or 24J 
 bushels per acre.) " The wheat was very dear that 
 season, and I sold a great part of my crop at 14s. 6d., 
 but the cheapest I sold was half-a-guinea a bushel ; and 
 I cleared my farm that year. I lived in that hut you 
 see till the debt was paid, and then 1 built this weather- 
 boarded house. We have every thing comfortable now 
 — plenty of wheat, corn, potatoes, and every thing else 
 we require. Indeed, it's a good country, Sir, for an 
 industrious man. At home I would only have had a 
 day's labour and little for it, and perhaps not even that ; 
 but here I have a farm of my own, and every thing 
 comfortable. I have much reason to be thankful that 
 ever I came here, and I hope there 's forgiveness for 
 what 's past." 
 
 In short, the aspect of things about the settler's little 
 establishment justified the account he had given me 
 
 * I. e. the roots of the trees were left standing in the ground. 
 
22 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 both of it and of himself; and I was most happy to 
 afford him such general commendation and such pas- 
 toral encouragement as his character and circumstances 
 peculiarly called for. As I had two days' journey to 
 perform on horseback, ere I could reach his little 
 cottage on my return to Sydney, I gladly availed 
 myself of his offer to supply me with a fresh horse, 
 that my own might be in better spirits and condition on 
 my return ; and in riding rapidly along on the spirited 
 Australian steed — the produce of sheer industry and 
 economy — I could not help wishing, from the very 
 bottom of my heart, that a hundred thousand families 
 of the labouring agricultural population of Great Britain 
 and Ireland could be gradually conveyed to a country 
 in which the same industry and economy would in- 
 fallibly lead them to the same degree of comfort and 
 independence. 
 
 On my first journey over-land to Hunter's River, in 
 the year 1 827, my guide and fellow-traveller proposed 
 to halt for an hour, to procure some refreshment for 
 ourselves and our horses, at the house of a small settler 
 whom he knew about twenty-five miles from Sydney. 
 I assented, of course ; for it was then high noon, and 
 we had as much farther to ride ere we could reach our 
 resting-place for the night. While the settler and my 
 fellow traveller were attending to the horses, I stepped 
 into the cottage or hut, which was a tolerably good log- 
 hut, formed of split timber and covered with thatch ; 
 and while water was boiling to make tea for our re- 
 freshment — for in the hush, or uncultivated country, in 
 New South Wales, tea is the universal beverage, and is 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 23 
 
 drunk at all times and by all sorts of persons— I got 
 into conversation with the settler's wife, who was nur- 
 sing an interesting little child, and who willingly gave 
 me a history of her family. 
 
 She was a native of the colony : her parents had 
 arrived (of course as convicts) in the first or second 
 fleet during the government of Captain Phillip. On 
 acquiring their freedom, and probably on their mar- 
 riage, they had got a small grant of land at Toon- 
 gabbe, the first agricultural settlement in the territory : 
 on this land they continued to live — cultivating the 
 ground, and rearing poultry, pigs, and cattle — till by 
 industry and good management they had acquired 
 several other small farms, and till their stock of cattle 
 had increased to a considerable herd. In the mean 
 time they had reared a family of seven or eight chil- 
 dren ; all of whom had arrived at manhood, and most of 
 whom were married and settled throughout the terri- 
 tory : for as any native of the colony of good cha- 
 racter could easily obtain a small grant of land from 
 Government at the time I allude to, a young man, 
 whose parents had trained him to industrious habits, 
 and given him a few pigs and cattle to begin with, had 
 only to go forth with his axe and hoe into the forest, 
 to make himself comfortable and independent for life. 
 
 The settler entered the hut just as his wife had related 
 these particulars • and as the latter had to be otherwise 
 engaged, in making the requisite preparations for our 
 homely refreshment, I easily induced him to give me 
 his Personal Narrative also : for persons in the lower 
 walks of life, who have done tolerably well in the 
 
24 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 world, are seldom backward in relating the successive 
 steps that have led them to their ultimate prosperity. 
 He had been bred a cobbler, and been transported for 
 seven years from the city of York. Being an indus- 
 trious man, he had been enabled to earn a little money 
 ere he had accomplished his term of penal servitude, 
 by making or mending shoes on his own time for the 
 small settlers in the neighbourhood of the place in 
 which he had been assigned as a convict-servant. 
 With this money, and a little more which he had saved 
 from his earnings after he obtained his freedom, he 
 had purchased the farm on which he then resided : it 
 was a hundred-acre farm, and was entirely covered with 
 timber at the time he bought it : it had cost him in 
 this state £58. 10s. In the mean time he had married 
 that there woman ; at which announcement his affec- 
 tionate spouse laughed heartily, with an expression of 
 countenance, moreover, which indicated that she had 
 no reason to regret the event. 
 
 Some time after the cobbler had purchased the hun- 
 dred-acre farm, he ascertained that the new line of road 
 to Hunter's River would run along the side of it. This 
 immediately enhanced its value a hundred percent ; and 
 he was accordingly offered double the price he had paid 
 for it ere he had cut down a single tree : he wisely 
 however preferred retaining it in his own hands, and had 
 accordingly been living on it at the time I refer to about 
 two years. He had got a considerable part of it cleared 
 and fenced during that interval, and had a field of wheat 
 of several acres of extent, and another of maize, besides 
 a plot of potatoes and vegetables, and had even pur- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 25 
 
 chased another hundred-acre farm in the immediate 
 neighbourhood. I presume his wife had brought him a 
 few cattle and pigs as her dowry : these had increased 
 to a considerable herd ; and two of their children (for 
 they had four in all — three boys and a girl) were out 
 with them in the bush, # or forest, — one with the pigs, 
 and the other with the cattle. The settler told me he 
 had a mare also, which he afterwards showed me with 
 no small degree of self-complacency as I was mounting 
 my horse. I commended his industry and economy in 
 the strongest terms, and was thereby enabled to pro- 
 cure his favourable attention to recommendations and 
 advice of a different description. 
 
 It is unnecessary to direct the reader's attention to the 
 bearing of this case, as well as of the others previously 
 detailed, on the highly interesting and important ques- 
 tion as to the propriety or impropriety of continuing 
 transportation as a species of punishment for felony. 
 Had the Toongabbee settlers been sent to serve out 
 their term of transportation in the Hulks, or in a Peni- 
 tentiary in England, they would in all likelihood have 
 returned to their former haunts at the expiration of their 
 period of sentence, to prowl upon society as before ; 
 and the one would in all likelihood have rotted in jail, 
 and the other have died on the scaffold. They were 
 transported however to a penal colony, and were there 
 transformed into industrious and reputable citizens — 
 acquiring property both in land and cattle by their own 
 
 * The word bush, which sometimes signifies the country in general, 
 but more properly the uncleared part of it, is merely the Dutch word 
 bosch, signifying wood or forest. 
 
 VOL. II. B 
 
26 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 good conduct, and rearing a numerous family of chil- 
 dren; each of whom, on attaining man's estate, goes 
 forth with his axe into the vast forest to extend the 
 limits of civilization, and to fill the wilderness and the 
 solitary place with the habitations of men. In like 
 manner, had the York cobbler been sentenced to serve 
 out his seven years of transportation in the Hulks or in 
 a Penitentiary at home, he would probably have re- 
 turned to his native city, to look for employment on 
 obtaining his freedom : but he would there have found, 
 to his cost, that he had irretrievably lost caste in so- 
 ciety, and that no respectable master would employ a 
 liberated felon : he would thus have sunk in his own 
 estimation. He would therefore in all likelihood have 
 returned perforce to his former courses, and he would 
 perhaps have cost the Government in the end much 
 more to try and to hang him, than it actually did to 
 transport him. In the penal colony of New South 
 Wales he has become a reputable member of society, 
 and an independent proprietor of land and horses and 
 cattle, — the husband of a virtuous wife, and the father 
 of four interesting children. 
 
 With the knowledge of such facts as these, one can- 
 not help feeling somewhat surprised at the confidence 
 with which sweeping assertions like the following are 
 hazarded in England. In allusion to the various de- 
 scriptions of punishment either in practice or in con- 
 templation, Archbishop Whately observes, " It has been 
 decidedly proved that transportation is worst of all, and 
 open to more objections than any that has been or can 
 be proposed, or conceived as a substitute." And again, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 27 
 
 " The removal of criminals to our Australian colonies 
 was an experiment, whose failure, though not anticipated 
 to the extent that should have been expected, has in 
 some degree been forced by experience upon the minds 
 of most." 
 
 " The transportation of felons," observes Archbishop 
 Whately, " is an experiment whose failure has been 
 decidedly proved." Now I ask whether any man, after 
 perusing the preceding sketches of the history of New 
 South Wales, can say that that experiment has ever yet 
 been fairly or properly tried ? The fact of the matter is 
 simply this : for a long period after the colony of New 
 South Wales was originally established, and during 
 the most important period of the past existence of that 
 colony as a penal and experimental settlement, the 
 attention of the British Government was entirely ab- 
 sorbed by the overwhelming concerns of a just and 
 necessary ivar, which, however it may have eventually 
 increased the glory of the nation in the estimation of 
 fools, has only served, in the estimation of every 
 rational and Christian man, to demoralize the nation, 
 and fearfully to increase the amount of the national 
 misery and crime. Meanwhile the entire management 
 of the noblest experiment that was ever made by any 
 civilized nation since the foundation of the world — 
 I mean the experiment of a penal colony on a great 
 scale — was recklessly entrusted to mere chance, to 
 ignorance, to incapacity, to the full play and the uncon- 
 trolled operation of the worst passions that disgrace 
 humanity. And is it in such circumstances that we 
 are to be coolly told by His Grace of Dublin, sitting 
 
28 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 in his study sixteen thousand miles from the scene 
 of action, that the experiment has decidedly proved a 
 failure ? 
 
 Instead of investing a naval or military officer with 
 the multifarious and often incompatible powers that 
 were most injudiciously combined in the person of the 
 Governor of New South Wales, from the first establish- 
 ment of the colony, had the British Government ap- 
 pointed a council of seven members, — consisting of 
 men of experience in the management of criminals, 
 men of general intelligence, of decision of character, 
 and of approved philanthropy, — entrusting to that 
 council the administration of the whole affairs of the 
 colony, giving them a strong and efficient police for 
 their support, and placing the officer in command of 
 the troops required for the protection of the settlement 
 entirely under their control, — the important experiment 
 involved in the establishment of the colony of New 
 South Wales would have received a fair trial ; and its 
 issue, I am confident, would have been entirely satis- 
 factory ; the reformation of the convicts would have 
 been general, rapid, and progressive ; and thousands, 
 and tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of 
 British money, which, to say the very least, were 
 lavishly and unprofitably expended under the system 
 actually pursued, would have been saved to the nation. 
 It is only after an experiment conducted in some 
 such way as this — I mean in a way somewhat ac- 
 cordant with right reason and common sense — shall 
 have been made and eventually proved a failure, that I 
 shall ever be induced to subscribe to the sentiments of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 29 
 
 the Irish Archbishop ; for, of all species of punishment, 
 I am persuaded that, under a proper system of manage- 
 ment, transportation would be found to combine, in the 
 highest degree, all the four requisites which the Arch- 
 bishop himself most wisely establishes, in being humane, 
 corrective, cheap, and formidable, 
 
 I am quite willing to admit, that the transportation 
 system, as it has hitherto been administered in New 
 South Wales, has in great measure proved a failure ; 
 but I maintain, without fear of contradiction, that that 
 failure has not arisen from any thing inherent in the 
 transportation system itself, but has rather been the 
 natural and necessary result of a state of things which 
 ought never to have existed in the Australian colonies, 
 and from which no other result could possibly have 
 been anticipated by any reasonable man. As I have 
 entered into this subject very fully, however, in another 
 work recently published, I shall not go over the same 
 ground again, but shall merely refer the reader to that 
 publication.* 
 
 The system pursued in the colony, in regard to the 
 distribution and assignment of female convicts, is some- 
 what similar to the one I have already described in 
 regard to the other sex. When a female convict-ship 
 arrives in the harbour, the circumstance is duly an- 
 nounced in the Government Gazette, and families re- 
 quiring female servants are invited to make application 
 according to a prescribed form. The applications are 
 
 * " Transportation and Colonization ; or, The Causes of the Com- 
 parative Failure of the Transportation System in the Australian Colonies : 
 with Suggestions for ensuring its future efficiency in subserviency to 
 extensive colonization." 
 
30 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 generally more numerous than the Government can 
 meet, and the females are assigned only to reputable 
 families, according to the best judgment of the Board 
 appointed for the purpose. Many of them make good 
 servants, and in due time get well married — chiefly to 
 emancipated convicts, living either as agriculturists in 
 the country, or in one or other of the various capacities 
 in which the humbler classes of society are employed 
 in towns ; the colonial government being always willing 
 to grant permission for the marriage of a female con- 
 vict, provided she is either a spinster or a widow, and 
 provided also that the intended husband is a freeman, 
 and able to maintain a family. 
 
 It sometimes unfortunately happens, however, that 
 the female convict, who has an opportunity of forming 
 an eligible connexion in this way, and thereby acquiring 
 her liberty forthwith, has a husband alive in England, 
 or has been imprudent enough to declare herself mar- 
 ried on her arrival in the colony, under the idea that 
 she will be more respected, forsooth, (for that is the 
 usual account of the matter,) as a married woman. In 
 such cases, it becomes a matter of importance to prove 
 either the death or the nonentity of the English hus- 
 band, and the expedients that are resorted to with this 
 view are often highly ingenious. About ten years 
 ago, I solemnized a marriage between a reputable 
 young man, a native of the colony, and a female con- 
 vict who had been transported from Paisley, in the 
 west of Scotland, for some malpractices in a manufac- 
 turing establishment in which she had been employed. 
 The young man was a carpenter, and it seemed his 
 Scotch wife turned out so much to his satisfaction, that 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 31 
 
 his brother was induced to think seriously of espousing 
 another Scotch female convict who had arrived by the 
 same vessel from the same part of Scotland. The bro- 
 ther's intended was the assigned servant of a respect- 
 able Scotch family residing near Sydney, and was 
 naturally enough desirous of being on her own hands, 
 as the wife of a free mechanic who could earn from 
 thirty shillings to two pounds sterling a week ; but she 
 had a husband in Paisley, and how to get him disposed 
 of was the difficulty, for she had duly informed the 
 Government of her being a married woman on her 
 arrival in the colony. The difficulty, however, was 
 not too great to be surmounted — at least the parties 
 thought so ; and a letter was accordingly written, pur- 
 porting to have come from some relative of the female 
 in Paisley, and communicating the distressing intelli- 
 gence of the Scotch husband's death. The letter was 
 brought me for my perusal by the two brothers, with a 
 view to my soliciting permission from Government 
 (which must uniformly be obtained in the first instance 
 by some clergyman of the territory, in the case of 
 either party being a convict,) for the publication of 
 banns. I observed to the young men, before reading the 
 letter, that it had no post-mark ; but they readily ex- 
 plained that circumstance, by informing me that it had 
 been brought out by the Scotch carpenter of a convict- 
 ship lately arrived, who knew the parties ; and indeed 
 the exterior of it bore the appearance of its having been 
 for months in a carpenter's tool-chest, or in some situa- 
 tion in which it would have been equally soiled. The 
 letter was dated sufficiently far back for the accom- 
 
32 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 plishment of a voyage to New South Wales in the in- 
 terval, and was written with great ingenuity. It com- 
 municated a variety of particulars relative to persons 
 and events in the town of Paisley, which in any ordi- 
 nary case would have given it the character of a 
 genuine letter : there were even a few incidental notices 
 respecting one of the ministers of Paisley, which were 
 exceedingly well conceived for the purpose of practising 
 on clerical gullibility. Unfortunately, however, in 
 lamenting, towards the close of the letter, that the 
 female convict to whom it was addressed was destined 
 to spend the remainder of her days in so distant a part 
 of the earth, the letter-writer had written the word 
 earth in the cockney-style — hearth. It immediately 
 struck me that this peculiarly English species of bad 
 spelling could not have occurred so far north as the 
 town of Paisley, wbere the vowel sound commencing a 
 word is never aspirated ; and I therefore returned the 
 letter to the young men, telling them that I was per- 
 suaded it had been written in the colony, and that no 
 such marriage as they contemplated would be allowed 
 by the Government. A few weeks afterwards, the 
 woman absconded from her master's service, and was 
 married to the currency lad by an episcopal clergyman 
 in the interior, as a free woman : as her flight, how- 
 ever, was immediately reported to the authorities, she 
 was traced, apprehended, and sent to the third class in 
 the factory — the place of punishment for female con- 
 victs — the marriage being held null and void. 
 
 Many of the female convicts conduct tbemselves in 
 an unexceptionable manner, and rear large families 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 33 
 
 of interesting and promising children, when reputably- 
 married in the colony ; for it is not an unusual case for 
 a woman, who has been exceedingly depraved and 
 absolutely unmanageable in a single state, to conduct 
 herself with propriety when advantageously married. 
 Others, however, are indifferent enough in either con- 
 dition, and when assigned as servants to respectable 
 families, are got rid of and returned to Government with 
 all convenient speed. But the fault is by no means 
 uniformly on the side of the convict. A remark — whicli 
 I recollect having heard the eccentric, but truly apo- 
 stolic, Rowland Hill make at a public meeting of the 
 friends of a Female Penitentiary Society in London 
 many years ago — is unfortunately too well suited to 
 the meridian of New South Wales: "Mistresses are 
 always complaining," said the venerable old man, " of 
 their having bad servants ; but I will tell you what, 
 ladies ; there are a great many bad mistresses too." 
 
 There are instances of persons of the industrious 
 classes of society, who have arrived free in the colony, 
 marrying female convicts, and having no reason sub- 
 sequently to regret the step they have taken : the 
 experiment, however, is a dangerous one, and is some- 
 times attended with a different result. About ten 
 years ago, a reputable Scotch mechanic, who was 
 able shortly after his arrival in the colony to take jobs 
 on his own account, was infatuated enough to marry a 
 female convict of prepossessing appearance, but unfor- 
 tunately of little else to recommend her. Previous 
 to his marriage, he had been regular in his attendance 
 on the ordinances of religion ; but his wife had various 
 
34 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 other more eligible modes of spending the Sabbath than 
 going to church, and he had accordingly to accompany 
 her on Sunday excursions of pleasure to the country. 
 Unfortunately, however, his wife very soon got into 
 trouble, as it is technically termed in the colony ; i. e, 
 into the commission of some crime or misdemeanour, 
 which issues in the individual's flagellation, or im- 
 prisonment, or transportation, or death by the law — 
 for the phrase is sufficiently extensive in its signifi- 
 cation : she had been concerned in a riot, which two 
 free persons lodging in her husband's cottage had 
 raised during his absence, and was immediately carried 
 by the constables before the police magistrate of 
 Sydney, who decides in a summary way in all cases 
 in which convicts, whether married or not, are con- 
 cerned. The offender was in this instance sentenced to 
 three months' confinement, in the third or lowest class 
 in the factory at Parramatta. One of the rules of that 
 institution is, that no female shall be admitted into the 
 third class without having previously undergone the 
 operation of shaving the head ; and the poor husband 
 was so much distressed at the sorry appearance which 
 he thought his wife would exhibit, when divested of 
 her hair, that he actually called at my house to request 
 that I would forward a petition which he had prepared 
 to the authorities, that the operation might for once be 
 dispensed with in his wife's favour. During the con- 
 versation that took place on the occasion, I took an 
 opportunity to remind the Scotchman of his recent 
 neglect of the ordinances of religion, and I accordingly 
 saw him in church for a few Sabbaths after : his 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 35 
 
 wife, however, returned to him again at the expiration 
 of her sentence, and I saw him no more. 
 
 When female convicts are returned to Government 
 by the families to which they have been assigned, or 
 are sentenced to punishment by the magistrates for 
 petty misdemeanours, they are forwarded in a covered 
 waggon to a sort of Bridewell at Parramatta, called 
 the Female Factory, in which there are generally from 
 two to five hundred female convicts, under the charge 
 of a matron and the superintendence of a committee of 
 management.* They are divided into three classes. 
 The First Class consists of those who from particular 
 circumstances have not been assigned as maid-servants 
 to private families on their arrival in the colony, or of 
 those who have been returned to Government by their 
 masters without having any crime charged against 
 them, or of those whose good conduct has merited their 
 elevation from the inferior classes. All the females of 
 this class are assigned as maid-servants, on being 
 applied for by reputable persons, in the same way as on 
 the arrival of a female convict-ship ; the state of the 
 Factory being announced weekly for the information of 
 the public in the Government Gazette. The Third 
 Class consists of incorrigible females, or of those who 
 have been sentenced to a certain period of penal con- 
 
 * The Female Factory at Parramatta has, for several years past, been 
 under most exceptionable management ; insomuch as to have proved an 
 absolute nuisance to the colony, and a fruitful source of demoralization. 
 I am happy, however, to find by the last accounts from the colony, that it 
 has at length been subjected to the salutary process of purgation ; certain 
 dismissals, which were long and loudly called for, having recently taken 
 place. It will now, in all likelihood, be a very efficient establishment. 
 
36 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 finement in the Factory on account, of some mis- 
 demeanour ; and the Second Class consists of those 
 who have served out their period of sentence in the 
 Third, and who are undergoing probation ere they are 
 again advanced to the First. The inmates of the 
 Factory are employed variously, according to their 
 characters and stations in the establishment, but chiefly 
 in the processes connected with the manufacture of a 
 coarse woollen cloth, called Parramatta cloth, of which 
 blankets and slop-clothing are made for the convict 
 servants of settlers throughout the territory. 
 
 With a view to disperse the female convicts more 
 widely over the territory, and to enable respectable 
 families in the interior to procure female servants 
 with greater facility, the present Governor has esta- 
 blished subordinate factories at Bathurst and Hunter's 
 River, to which a proportion of the female convicts 
 from each ship are forwarded on their arrival, and 
 in which those that have been returned to Government 
 by their masters are kept for re-assignment in the 
 district ; and I am happy to add, that the measure 
 has been attended with general benefit. Indeed, the 
 system pursued for a long time previous, in regard to 
 that portion of the prison population of the colony, 
 was obviously and outrageously preposterous : for, 
 instead of adopting every possible means to effect the 
 dispersion of the female convicts, that they might at 
 least have some chance of getting reputably settled, 
 and even winking at pettier peccadilloes for the ac- 
 complishment of so important an object; they were 
 generally immured, to the number of five or six hun- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 37 
 
 dred, within stone walls and iron gates. The impolicy 
 of such a system will appear from the following con- 
 sideration, in addition to various others that will na- 
 turally suggest themselves to the reader ; viz. that 
 there are frequent instances in the colony, as I have 
 already had occasion to observe, of females who had 
 been absolutely unmanageable when imprisoned in the 
 Factory, subsequently becoming remarkably quiet and 
 well-behaved wives and mothers of children. 
 
 There are comparatively few instances of female con- 
 victs committing capital offences in New South Wales : 
 an instance of the kind, however, happened to fall 
 under my own observation several years ago, in the 
 following rather singular way. I was proceeding alone 
 in a gig one Monday morning to solemnize a marriage 
 at a considerable distance in the interior, when a young 
 man, decently attired in the garb of a sailor or ship- 
 carpenter, requested to know whether I was some other 
 person whom he named. There was a feeling of dis- 
 tress portrayed in the young man's countenance, that 
 induced me to ask him some question, that immediately 
 elicited his affecting story. He had arrived in the 
 colony a few months before, as the carpenter of a 
 convict-ship ; and, finding tha+ he could obtain eligible 
 employment in Sydney, had obtained his discharge from 
 the vessel, and remained on shore. On the Saturday 
 evening previous, he was sitting in his lodging, after 
 having finished his week's labour, when some person, 
 entering the house, incidentally mentioned that he had 
 just been at the Supreme Court, and had heard 
 sentence of death pronounced on a man and woman for. 
 
38 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 robbing their master, a respectable settler, residing 
 about forty miles from Sydney. The name of the 
 woman, which the stranger also mentioned at the time, 
 coinciding with that of a sister of his own, who had 
 suddenly disappeared from her father's house in London 
 about two or three years before, and had never after- 
 wards been heard of by her relatives, it immediately 
 struck him that the woman might possibly be his lost 
 sister: he accordingly went forthwith to the jail; and, 
 having obtained admittance, found to his inexpressible 
 grief that the woman under sentence of death was 
 actually his own sister. His parents, he told me, were 
 poor but honest people, who had reared a large family 
 of eight or nine children, and she was the only one of 
 the number who had gone astray. On consulting some 
 person as to what was proper for him to do in such 
 circumstances, he was told to get a memorial to the 
 Governor drawn up on his sister's behalf, and to have 
 it recommended, if possible, by her master: he, there- 
 fore, went forthwith to a person in Sydney who wrote 
 memorials for hire, and got a document of the kind 
 drawn up. The writer was an emancipated convict, 
 and the memorial was written in the usual style of such 
 writers— taking for granted, as a matter of course, and 
 strongly protesting, the innocence of the criminal, and 
 insinuating that her present situation was the result of 
 misfortune rather than of misconduct. It was eleven 
 o'clock at night, before the precious document, which 
 cost, if I recollect aright, two dollars, was finished ; but, 
 as soon as it was completed, the young man, who had 
 never been a mile out of Sydney before, instantly set 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 39 
 
 off alone and on foot through the gloomy forest to the 
 residence of his sister's late master, to request him to 
 recommend the memorial. He had reached his desti- 
 nation, and had got about half-way to Sydney on his 
 return, when I met him on the following Monday morn- 
 ing. On reading the memorial, I was apprehensive it 
 would rather do harm than good, and therefore desired 
 the young man to accompany me to a house a little 
 way on, where we could obtain materials for writing, 
 and where I should write something, which I had 
 reason to hope would be of more service to him. The 
 young man gladly accepted my offer ; and I accord- 
 ingly wrote a short account of the manner in which he 
 had discovered his sister, and the anxiety he had mani- 
 fested on her behalf; soliciting, that if the ends of justice 
 could possibly be attained by a milder punishment, the 
 feelings of the community might not be outraged by 
 the execution of a female, who had probably been her- 
 self the unhappy victim of some unprincipled seducer. 
 The young man was extremely grateful for the little 
 service done him, and I was happy to learn afterwards 
 that his unfortunate sister's sentence of death was 
 commuted into a milder punishment. 
 
 Convicts who have been guilty of crimes and mis- 
 demeanours in the colony are subjected to various sorts 
 of punishment, according to the real or supposed enor- 
 mity of their respective offences : these punishments 
 are Jfagellation, the tread-mill, hard labour in irons on 
 the roads, transportation to a penal settlement, and death. 
 Of these, the first two are awarded by a Bench of 
 Magistrates j the third and fourth by the Court of 
 
40 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Quarter-Sessions ; and the fourth and fifth by the Cri- 
 minal or Supreme Court. In regard to the first of 
 these species of punishment, viz. flagellation, it is gene- 
 rally allowed that its tendency is to degrade, to bru- 
 talize, and to harden the individual ; and it cannot be 
 denied that it is often resorted to in the colony at the 
 instance of masters, when milder treatment would be 
 much more efficacious. His Excellency, the present 
 Governor of New South Wales, seems to have been of 
 this opinion ; for in a colonial enactment, to which I 
 have already alluded at considerable length, he has con- 
 siderably restrained the power of the inferior judicatories, 
 in regard to the infliction of that punishment. The 
 second and third species of punishment I have enume- 
 rated are unexceptionable in their character ; and they 
 have this in particular to recommend them, that their 
 infliction is directly conducive to the benefit of the com- 
 munity ; the tread-mill being employed to grind corn, 
 while the labour of the road-gangs opens up new, or 
 improves existing lines of communication with the dis- 
 tant interior. There are strong objections, however, to 
 the frequent recourse that has hitherto been had to the 
 fourth species of punishment above-mentioned, viz. 
 transportation to penal settlements ; and the same ob- 
 jections that are urged in the mother country to the 
 punishment of death, except for murder and for certain 
 other crimes of peculiar enormity, apply with undi- 
 minished, if not with increased force, to the case of New 
 South Wales. 
 
 There are three objections to the system of trans- 
 portation to penal settlements, which has hitherto pre- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 41 
 
 vailed in New South Wales, which I conceive the Colo- 
 nial Legislature, or rather the British Government, 
 which bears the whole expense of these establishments, 
 would do well to consider. In the first place, the penal 
 settlements are enormously expensive : in the second 
 place, they are productive of little or no benefit to the 
 colony : in the third place, they are almost entirely 
 unnecessary. 
 
 During the government of Major-General Macquarie 
 and Sir Thomas Brisbane, there were penal settlements, 
 either simultaneously or in succession, at Emu Plains, 
 on the Nepean River, at the eastern base of the Blue 
 Mountains ; at Wellington Valley, on the Macquarie 
 River, about eighty miles beyond Bathurst,in the western 
 interior; at Newcastle, at the mouth of Hunter's River; 
 at Port Macquarie, at the mouth of the River Hastings; 
 at Moreton Bay, at the mouth of the Brisbane River ; 
 and at Norfolk Island ; the last three having been formed, 
 and the one at Newcastle discontinued, during the go- 
 vernment of Sir Thomas Brisbane. The convicts at 
 these settlements were employed in erecting buildings, 
 such as barracks for soldiers, convict-barracks, jails, 
 lumber-yards, hospitals, houses for the various officers 
 attached to the respective establishments, &c. &c, and 
 in clearing, fencing, and cultivating land. All these 
 operations were carried on at a prodigious expense to 
 the British Government ; but as that expense was in- 
 cluded under the general head of the " Expense of the 
 Convict Establishments of the Colony," the whole of 
 which is borne by the mother country ; it would be 
 difficult, as it is otherwise unnecessary, to estimate the 
 
42 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 cost of each particular settlement. In process of time, 
 however, when the influx of free emigrants and the 
 demand for convict-labour occasioned the breaking up, 
 first of one and then of another, of these penal settle- 
 ments, it was found, that the buildings, which had cost 
 so much in the erection, were for the most part of no 
 use whatever to the colony, and were consequently 
 suffered to go to ruin or sold for the merest trifle ; and 
 that hundreds and thousands of convicts had thus been 
 in reality occupied laboriously for years together — doing 
 absolutely nothing. At Newcastle, for instance, there 
 were large commodious buildings erected, during the 
 government of Major-General Macquarie, of all the 
 different descriptions I have just enumerated: but 
 when Hunter's River was thrown open to free emi- 
 gration during the government of Sir Thomas Brisbane, 
 and the convicts removed to Port Macquarie, it was 
 found that, as there was not a single acre of land near 
 Newcastle worth the trouble and expense of cultivating, 
 the proper site for a town for the district was at the 
 head of the navigation of the river, at a distance of 
 twenty miles from the actual place of settlement. New- 
 castle, therefore, became a deserted tillage; property 
 in it was not worth the having ; and several of the 
 Government buildings consequently fell into a state of 
 gradual dilapidation. As it was necessary, however, to 
 maintain a Government establishment in the district for 
 the general welfare of the population, it was still sta- 
 tioned at Newcastle, on account of the buildings already 
 erected in that locality — to the great inconvenience and 
 annoyance of the settlers, who were thus compelled, for 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 43 
 
 instance, to carry every sick convict they required to 
 send to the district hospital, twenty miles farther than 
 the station at which such a building ought to have been 
 erected. At Emu Plains also, various Government 
 buildings were erected, though not to the same extent, 
 which eventually proved equally unserviceable ; and 
 though a considerable extent of land was cleared 
 fenced, and cultivated at that settlement, it cannot be 
 doubted, that every acre so cleared and cultivated cost 
 the Government double, triple, or quadruple the sum it 
 will ever realize. 
 
 The establishment, growth, and magnitude of the 
 penal settlements, in the formation of which so much 
 valuable labour was thus lost to the colony, and so 
 much British money absolutely thrown away, were 
 attributable chiefly to the impolitic system pursued by 
 Governor Macquarie, and to the check which was given 
 during his government to free emigration. It remains 
 to be inquired, how far such settlements are necessary 
 — whether they might not be dispensed with in great 
 measure with much benefit to the colony — and, sup- 
 posing that they ought to be retained to a certain 
 extent, what purpose the formation of a penal settle- 
 ment ought to serve in the New South Wales colonial 
 system ? 
 
 I do not suppose that it would either be practicable 
 or expedient to dispense with penal settlements alto- 
 gether. There are incorrigible offenders who must be 
 thrust out of society, as well for their own benefit as 
 for that of the public, and whose pestilestial influence 
 would corrupt and debase even an iron-gang. For the 
 
44 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 confinement and punishment, if not for the reformation, 
 of such offenders, the penal settlement of Norfolk 
 Island is admirably adapted, as it presents no possi- 
 bility of escape to the criminal. It would be proper, 
 therefore, I conceive, to retain that dependency as a 
 permanent penal settlement, in which the atrocious 
 criminal might receive his bitter portion of hopeless 
 exile and hard labour for life, and in which the criminal 
 of a lighter shade of guilt might be put to his probation 
 for a longer or shorter period, according to the degree 
 of his criminality. In regard, however, to the majority 
 of the convicts who are now sent under colonial sen- 
 tences of transportation to Norfolk Island, and to the 
 other penal settlement of Moreton Bay — I am confident 
 I express the opinion of every person of intelligence of 
 the class of free settlers in New South Wales, when I 
 state my own — that the ends of justice could be equally 
 attained by subjecting them to hard labour in irons on 
 the roads and bridges of the settled parts of the colony, 
 under the vigilant superintendence of an efficient police ; 
 the degree of restraint being proportioned to the degree 
 of criminality, and the convicts who had been found 
 guilty of more serious offences being stationed in the 
 more distant and wilder parts of the territory. By this 
 arrangement, the labour of the majority of the convicts, 
 now for the most part unprofitably employed at penal 
 settlements, would be expended usefully for the colony, 
 while the mother country would be entirely relieved 
 of the cost of their maintenance. Their safe custody 
 could, with proper precautions, be secured in the one 
 case as effectually as in the other, while the punish- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 45 
 
 ment could with the utmost facility be rendered equally- 
 
 severe. 
 
 The useful purpose which penal settlements ought to 
 serve in the New South Wales colonial system, inde- 
 pendently of the means they afford of subjecting in- 
 corrigible offenders to a comparatively severe system of 
 penal discipline, is to prepare the way for the successive 
 formation of a series of free settlements throughout the 
 territory. This purpose, however, could undoubtedly 
 be served without any such waste of money and labour 
 as has hitherto occurred at the penal settlements formed 
 on Governor Macquarie's principle ; for I see no reason 
 whatever, why every tree that is cut down, and every 
 stone or brick that is laid upon another, at the expense 
 of Government, in any part of the territory, should not 
 contribute to the permanent prosperity and progressive 
 advancement of the colony, as well as such operations 
 uniformly do when carried on by private individuals 
 acting for their own private advantage. In the event, 
 therefore, of a certain amount of convict-labour being 
 disposable for the purpose of forming a penal settle^ 
 ment in a part of the territory previously unoccupied, 
 let it be kept steadily in view, that the object of that 
 settlement is merely to prepare the way for the forma- 
 tion of a free settlement, and that all the operations to 
 be performed by the convicts are to be of such a kind 
 
 * The huts of the road -gangs at every encampment could be enclosed 
 within a strong stockade, for the construction of which there are mate- 
 rials in abundance in all parts of the territory ; while the superintendent 
 and the officer of the guard could be lodged in comfortable frame-houses, 
 that could be taken asunder and removed on the backs of pack-bullocks, 
 and set up again at the next encampment. 
 
46 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 only, as shall most effectually facilitate the accomplish- 
 ment of that object. With this view let an accurate 
 survey of the locality intended for the new settlement 
 be made in the first instance, and its capabilities, in 
 regard to soil and to available means of communication, 
 be fully ascertained. Let a site for a future town be 
 fixed on, and a plan of it drawn; and let such buildings as 
 may be permanently required for Government purposes, 
 after its discontinuance as a penal settlement, be erected 
 in suitable situations. Let roads be formed in every 
 proper direction, and a large extent of land cleared for 
 future cultivation : and when these operations shall 
 have been duly performed, let the whole establishment 
 be removed to another locality, and the township and 
 district thrown open for the settlement of free persons, 
 whether emigrants or emancipists ; those convicts who 
 have fulfilled their term of banishment, or have other- 
 wise merited such an indulgence, being allowed to 
 remain. In this way penal settlements would form the 
 vanguard of civilization in the colony ; they would pre- 
 pare the way for its progressive and rapid advancement ; 
 and they would render the circumstances of free persons 
 occupying newly opened settlements much more com- 
 fortable than they can possibly be under the present 
 system. 
 
 Had the penal settlement of Newcastle been con- 
 ducted on this principle, and had the labour of the 
 numerous convicts, who were so unprofitably employed 
 at that settlement for years together, been expended in 
 clearing land, and in forming roads for the free settlers 
 to whom the land was afterwards to be surrendered, the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 47 
 
 result, in regard to the circumstances and condition 
 of the earlier settlers at Hunter's River, and the gene- 
 ral prosperity of that important district, would have 
 been very different from what it actually was. Nay, 
 the Government might even have been repaid by the 
 settlers the whole expense incurred in the clearing of 
 the land. 
 
 Were an extensive emigration of reputable free agri- 
 cultural labourers, with their wives and children, to take 
 piace from the mother country to New South Wales, 
 penal settlements might in every instance be converted, 
 in the way I have just mentioned, into nourishing agri- 
 cultural free settlements almost instantaneously. The 
 land might be divided for this purpose into small 
 farms, varying in extent from twenty to a hundred 
 acres, according to the nature of the soil ; a certain 
 number of acres being cleared and fenced by Govern- 
 ment on each farm, and a log-house of the simplest 
 construction erected for the accommodation of a family. 
 Each of these farms might be let by the Government, 
 on the opening of the settlement, at a rental payable in 
 grain at the nearest commissariat store ; the tenant 
 having it in his power to purchase the farm at a certain 
 price and within a certain period by instalments. In 
 this way also, numerous emancipated convicts and 
 ticket-of- leave holders, of reputable character, might 
 be advantageously settled in the out-stations of the 
 colony, where they would be removed from the influ- 
 ence of strong temptations, and be encouraged to pro- 
 priety of conduct by the good example of a virtuous 
 population. In short, an extensive emigration of the 
 
48 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 kind I have described is absolutely necessary to ensure 
 the proper working of the penal system, as well as the 
 moral health and welfare of the colonial community. 
 
 In regard to the infliction of the punishment of death, 
 except for murder and for certain other crimes of pecu- 
 liar enormity, it is generally acknowledged that the 
 penal code of Great Britain is still both sanguinary and 
 inefficient. The excellence of the criminal code of any 
 country consists in the due apportionment of punish- 
 ments to offences; and the excellence of the judicial 
 system of any country consists in making the punish- 
 ments so apportioned uniformly follow the crimes to 
 which they have been awarded. It argues a lamentable 
 imperfection in the state of the law, and exceedingly 
 impedes the course of justice, for the royal prerogative 
 of mercy to be systematically resorted to, to correct the 
 real or supposed severity of the former, and to render 
 the latter accordant with right reason and the better 
 feelings of enlightened humanity. Much rather let 
 such punishments be decreed in the first instance, as 
 the judges will award and the executive inflict. In 
 short, it intimately concerns the interests of morality 
 throughout the British empire, to effect a speedy and 
 complete change in so anomalous a system. 
 
 The punishment of death has little or no influence in 
 the colony in deterring from the commission of crime ; 
 for it is not inflicted in the great majority of cases in 
 which the sentence has been actually passed. Besides, 
 the criminal has every advantage in New South Wales, 
 from the frequency of perjury, and from the prevalence 
 of that foul system of legal chicanery, which regards 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 49 
 
 the screening of the most consummate villain from the 
 punishment he has merited, as an achievement equally 
 honourable and equally meritorious with the deliverance 
 of innocence itself from the gibbet or the stake. But 
 when the punishment of death is actually inflicted, as 
 it is not unfrequently for crimes of much inferior enor- 
 mity to that of murder, it has just as little influence on 
 the prison-population in general, as the prospect of it 
 has actually had on the criminal. In fact, the criminal 
 is regarded by those whom the spectacle of his punish- 
 ment is supposed likely to influence, merely as an un- 
 successful speculator in the grand lottery of the law, 
 who has staked his last dollar and drawn a halter : he 
 is sympathized with accordingly by his old companions, 
 who assemble in great numbers to see how he dies ; and 
 who are doubtless encouraged from the profanation of 
 the services of religion, that not unfrequently takes 
 place on such occasions, to believe that if it should 
 come to the worst with themselves also, a little timely 
 intercourse with a minister of religion, and especially 
 with a Roman Catholic priest, will settle all accounts, 
 and make them happy at last. Nay, the dead body of 
 the criminal is perhaps carried to the house of some 
 relative or acquaintance after the executioner has done 
 his duty, where it is waked over with all due formality, 
 and where the particulars of his last mishap are cir- 
 cumstantially related by a crowd of visitors ; the proper 
 degree of censure being dealt out on the lawyer who 
 conducted the defence, for not acting his part as he 
 usually does on such occasions; and poor Paddy or 
 Joe or Dan, who of course is pronounced happy now, is 
 
 VOL. II. c 
 
50 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 at length followed to the grave by a numerous train of 
 mourners. In one case of this kind, in consequence of 
 having visited the criminal in the jail previous to his 
 execution, I was waited on by a deputation of his 
 friends to read prayers, forsooth, over his carcase in 
 the burying-ground of Sydney, that he might be earthed 
 over with some degree of eclat. 
 
 The uniformly demoralizing character of such scenes, 
 and the withering and blasting influence of the feelings 
 they awaken, might surely teach the legislature of 
 Great Britain the propriety of limiting the punishment 
 of death to the crime of murder, and to those other 
 enormous offences which all Christian nations have 
 agreed to visit with the last punishment of the law. 
 In witnessing such scenes as those I allude to, I have 
 been irresistibly impressed with an idea, which my own 
 experience of the miserable perverseness of human na- 
 ture has induced me to believe neither unreasonable 
 nor unfounded; viz. that there are individuals who would 
 actually be incited to crime by the prospect of such a 
 death and such a burial. Better surely that the system 
 of Venice — revolting as it seems to Britons — should be 
 revived, than that such a system should be continued ; 
 that the criminal should be conducted at midnight over 
 the Bridge of Sighs, and the work of death performed 
 by torchlight and in solemn silence, in the presence of 
 no other witness than the jailer and the sheriff! 
 
 Besides, it has happened in New South Wales, as it 
 has done repeatedly in the mother country, that the in- 
 nocent have suffered the last punishment of the law, 
 while the guilty have escaped. In the earlier times of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 51 
 
 the colony, a private of marines, who had settled on the 
 Hawkesbury and was known to have accumulated con- 
 siderable property, announced his intention speedily to 
 return to England : just as he was ready, however, to 
 pack up and be off, his cottage was attacked at mid- 
 night by armed ruffians, and in the scuffle that ensued he 
 was mortally wounded : his house was then rifled, and 
 a quantity of property carried off. Property of the de- 
 scription stolen being subsequently found in the house 
 of two men residing at Windsor, about twelve miles far- 
 ther up the river, suspicion was immediately awakened, 
 and the men were of course apprehended, and charged 
 with the robbery and murder. The property that was 
 identified was a quantity of tea, with which a number of 
 nails of a particular kind were found mixed ; the ma- 
 rine's wife having testified in the course of the trial that 
 a number of nails of that kind had accidentally fallen 
 into their box of tea. The widow having sworn, more- 
 over, to one of the men as the person who fired at her 
 husband, they were both found guilty, and condemned 
 to death. The men acknowledged that they had gone 
 down the river in a boat on the night of the robbery, 
 with an intention to rob the marine's house, but not to 
 commit murder : on arriving at the spot, however, they 
 found they had been anticipated ; another party of de- 
 speradoes being actually engaged at the moment in rob- 
 bing the house. In these circumstances, they concealed 
 themselves at a little distance from the house, to watch 
 the issue of the affair; and observed the robbers plant 
 or conceal a quantity of the property, of which they had 
 just plundered the cottage, in their immediate neigh- 
 
52 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 bourhood. Watching their opportunity, therefore, they 
 carried off the property to their boat, and made the best 
 of their way to Windsor. But the whole story was ap- 
 parently so improbable, that nobody believed it, and the 
 men were accordingly executed forthwith. Several years 
 afterwards, however, an emancipated convict settler of 
 the name of Fitzpatrick, who lived several miles farther 
 down the river than the unfortunate marine, was found 
 guilty of some capital offence, and condemned to death. 
 Before his execution, Fitzpatrick, whose apparently re- 
 putable character and easy circumstances had com- 
 pletely diverted suspicion into other channels, confessed 
 that it was he who had robbed and murdered the ma- 
 rine ; that he had gone up the river with one or more ac- 
 complices on the night of the murder, and with an inten- 
 tion to rob the house, in a boat with muffled oars ; and 
 that, after shooting the marine and rifling the house, he 
 had concealed a quantity of the plunder in the neigh- 
 bourhood ; but that on returning afterwards to carry it 
 off, he had found, to his astonishment and disappoint- 
 ment, that some person had sprung the plant — a cant 
 phrase for discovering and carrying off property which 
 another person has stolen and concealed. 
 
 In the year 1828, six criminals, who had all been 
 found guilty of capital offences and had received sen- 
 tence of death, were ordered for execution : three of 
 them were Protestants, and three Roman Catholics. I 
 had visited the former repeatedly before the execution 
 of the sentence had been definitively fixed on by the 
 executive council. One of them maintained his entire 
 innocence of the crime of which he had been found 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 53 
 
 guilty ; but, as that is no uncommon occurrence, I paid 
 no attention to it. All of them, however, indulged the 
 hope of a commutation of their sentence into transport- 
 ation to a penal settlement for life ; especially as their 
 crimes had not been attended with bloodshed or per- 
 sonal violence : but as soon as the sheriff had at length 
 announced to them that their sentence was to be carried 
 into execution, two of the Protestants confessed that, in 
 addition to the crime for which they were deservedly to 
 suffer death, they had also committed the highway 
 robbery, of which the third Protestant and one of the 
 Roman Catholics — a very young man of the name of 
 Lynch — had been found guilty, on the evidence of a 
 woman who swore to their persons ; but that they 
 had (naturally enough) concealed the circumstance 
 so long as they had any hope of escaping with their 
 own lives. 
 
 The execution was to take place on a Monday morn- 
 ing ; the sheriff's announcement to that effect having 
 been made to them on the Thursday or Friday previous. 
 I did not see the men after the intimation had been 
 given them till late on the Saturday evening ; but I was 
 then forcibly struck at the earnestness with which the 
 two Protestants maintained their own exclusive guilt, 
 and the entire innocence of the third Protestant and the 
 Roman Catholic Lynch. Determined, however, not to 
 do any thing in the matter precipitately, I visited them 
 again on the Sabbath morning ; and the impression made 
 upon my mind of the truth of the men's statement the 
 preceding evening being then confirmed, I determined 
 to mention the circumstance to the sheriff, and accord- 
 
54 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 ingly did so during the interval between the morning 
 and afternoon service ; intending, in the event of that 
 gentleman's opinion coinciding with my own, to ride up 
 to Parramatta (where the Governor was then residing, 
 about fifteen miles off,) in the evening, to solicit a re- 
 prieve for the third Protestant and the Roman Catholic 
 Lynch. 
 
 The sheriff observed that it was no uncommon thing 
 for criminals under sentence of death to act precisely in 
 the way I had described — one or more, on finding that 
 it is all over with themselves, confessing themselves 
 guilty of crimes they had not committed, merely to get 
 off some old companion, perhaps, who is really guilty, 
 and thereby render him the last service in their power : 
 and, conceiving that the case I have detailed was just 
 one of that character, he dissuaded me from applying 
 to the Governor on the subject. This was a view of the 
 case which had not occurred to me ; and, as it served 
 materially to weaken the impression produced by the 
 scene I had witnessed in the jail, I determined not to 
 interfere any farther in the matter. 
 
 I again visited the criminals, however, about ten 
 o'clock on the Sabbath evening, and, from what oc- 
 curred during my visit, I was fully persuaded of the 
 correctness of my first impression ; for while the man 
 who had uniformly protested his innocence was ap- 
 parently calm and collected, the agony of the other two 
 at having brought two innocent persons to the scaffold 
 was extreme, and I may add, if I know any thing at all 
 of human nature, was undoubtedly unfeigned. Be- 
 sides, I ascertained that they had no previous ac- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 55 
 
 quaintance with the third Protestant; who had been 
 an assigned servant to a settler on the Hawkesbury, 
 and was characterized by his master as a quiet inoffen- 
 sive man. 
 
 In these circumstances, I considered it my duty im- 
 mediately to report the case to the Governor. With 
 this view, I wrote out a statement of it on going home, 
 as I did not expect to find His Excellency up at the 
 early hour at which it would be necessary for me to 
 reach Parramatta, in order to return to Sydney before 
 the execution. I reached Government House at Parra- 
 matta before six o'clock on Monday morning, and 
 found both the Governor and the Colonial Secretary in 
 the area in front of it, the latter having been at 
 Government House the preceding night, and being then 
 just about proceeding to Sydney. The Governor — 
 General Darling — heard my verbal statement of the 
 case, and held a private consultation with the Secretary 
 on the written one ; the result of which was that they 
 both coincided in opinion with the Sheriff, and deemed 
 it inexpedient to delay the execution of the sentence. 
 
 I accordingly returned immediately to Sydney, and 
 about two miles from Parramatta met the late Roman 
 Catholic priest of Sydney, the Rev. Mr. Power, who 
 had come to the same conclusion with myself, in regard 
 to the innocence of the lad Lynch, and was actually 
 on his way to the Governor on the very same errand. 
 Having apprised him, however, of the result of my 
 visit, he deemed it unnecessary to proceed any farther, 
 and we accordingly returned together to Sydney. I 
 saw the men once more, immediately before the exe- 
 
66 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 cution, which took place about nine o'clock, when they 
 all suffered death ; and I still firmly believe that two of 
 them were entirely innocent of the crime for which they 
 were hanged. Cases of this kind, which it is evident 
 may occur in any country, should surely have some 
 weight in inducing the imperial legislature to render 
 the punishment of death somewhat less frequent than 
 it has hitherto unfortunately been, under the operation 
 of the sanguinary criminal code of Great Britain and 
 Ireland. 
 
 I have already hinted at the frequency of perjury 
 in the criminal courts of the colony. In a Community 
 so peculiarly constituted as that of New South Wales, 
 such a state of things is, doubtless, to be expected. I 
 have long been of opinion, however, that the practice 
 of the criminal courts of the colony, in regard to the 
 mode of administering oaths, has a direct tendency to 
 lessen the guilt of that enormous crime, and conse- 
 quently to weaken the obligation of an oath in the 
 estimation of the public. There is nothing, it will 
 doubtless be acknowledged, of greater importance to a 
 community than the prevalence of a high regard for 
 the sanctity of an oath ; and there is nothing which the 
 legislative and judicial systems of any country ought 
 to guard against with more watchful jealousy, than the 
 prevalence of an opposite feeling. The immense supe- 
 riority of the practice of the criminal courts of Scot- 
 land, in this particular, over those of England and the 
 colonies, cannot fail to be obvious to any person who 
 has had an opportunity of contrasting the method of 
 procedure in the one case, with that which obtains in 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 ",7 
 
 the other. In the courts of Scotland, the administra- 
 tion of an oath is regarded as a matter of too much 
 importance to be entrusted to any person but the judge 
 or highest law-officer of the court. When an oath is 
 to be administered, a deep silence prevails all over the 
 court; the judge rises from his seat; and, desiring the 
 witness to hold up his right hand to heaven, repeats in 
 a solemn manner some such formula as the following, 
 which the witness repeats after him, only changing the 
 pronouns : — " You swear in the presence of Almighty 
 God, before whom you shall answer at the great day 
 of judgment, that you will tell the truth, the whole 
 truth, and nothing but the truth — So help you God !" 
 In short, the scene is impressive and affecting in the 
 highest degree ; and the happy result is the general 
 prevalence of a feeling of reverence for the sanctity of 
 an oath among all classes of the Scottish people, 
 amounting in those of the humbler walks of life almost 
 to superstition. Long may such a feeling prevail among 
 my countrymen ! It is one of the best bulwarks of 
 the national virtue — one of the best securities for the 
 national prosperity. 
 
 In the criminal courts of England, however, (I 
 mean in those of the British colonies,) oaths are ad- 
 ministered amid the jabbering of the lawyers, and the 
 tittering of their clerks ; the judges being perhaps em- 
 ployed in arranging their papers, and the spectators 
 each talking to his neighbour ! Oaths are administered, 
 moreover, in the English courts, (horresco referens,) by 
 the common crier- or lowest officer of the court! As 
 soon as a witness has taken his place in the box, this 
 
58 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 personage steps up to him with the court Bible in his 
 hand, and asks him whether he is a Protestant or a 
 Roman Catholic — handing him the Bible with the plain 
 side of the cover upwards, if he is a Protestant ; but if a 
 Roman Catholic, with the other side uppermost, which 
 of course has a cross etched upon it, like the whity- 
 brown paper-cross on the magistrate's affidavit Bible. 
 The crier then pronounces the following words, in a 
 tone of voice somewhat similar to that of a crier of 
 'Almanacks for the ensuing year:' — "The evidence 
 you shall give in the case between our Sovereign Lord 
 the King and the prisoner at the bar shall be the truth, 
 the whole truth, and nothing but the truth — So help 
 you God ! " The witness then kisses the book or the 
 cross, and returns the Bible to the crier. In short, if 
 an oath is to be regarded as a solemn appeal to the 
 judgment-seat of Almighty God for the decision of 
 matters of importance between man and man, a more 
 complete desecration of a deeply affecting religious 
 service cannot well be imagined, than the English 
 colonial practice in regard to the administration of oaths, 
 or a more direct encouragement of perjury among the 
 lower classes of the colonial population. 
 
 Besides, as the obligation of an oath depends, in the 
 estimation of illiterate persons of the prison-population 
 of the colony, on the circumstance of bringing the lips 
 into actual contact with the book or cross, a witness of 
 this description, who is desirous of giving evidence to 
 suit his employer, kisses only the nail of his thumb, 
 and of course swears falsely with a clear conscience. 
 Again, it is quite in the power of a lawyer of ability of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 59 
 
 a certain description, who is accustomed to deal with 
 evidence of this kind, to get a pliable witness to say 
 whatever he chooses by merely putting what are technic- 
 ally called leading questions ; while those of the Crown 
 lawyer are in all likelihood uniformly answered in the 
 style of the famous Majocchi, Non mi ricordo. On the 
 other hand, if a witness has a mind of his own, and will 
 not be led, the colonial lawyer of the class I have just 
 been describing has another resource for his client ; and 
 that is, to browbeat him, and put him down with impu- 
 dent and irrelevant questions, or by pretending to have 
 discovered some minute discrepancy between the dif- 
 ferent parts of his evidence> and thereby insinuating a 
 suspicion of his having perjured himself. In a state of 
 society in which such procedure and such practices pre- 
 vail around the fountain of justice, it is not to be won- 
 dered at that there should be comparatively little reve- 
 rence for the sanctity of an oath. In short, the courts 
 of justice in the Australian colonies are doubtless one 
 of the prime sources of colonial demoralization ; and if 
 some such reform as the one proposed by the late 
 Jeremy Bentham could be effected in the judicial 
 system of these colonies, I am sure their best interests 
 would be essentially promoted. 
 
60 
 
 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 JOURNEY OVER-LAND TO HUNTER'S RIVER, WITH 
 A DESCRIPTION OF AN AUSTRALIAN FARM. 
 
 Sic ego desertis possim bene vivere sylvis, 
 Qua nulla humane- sit via trita pede". 
 
 Propertius. 
 
 Thus could I live in desert wilds, 
 Where human foot had never trod. 
 
 The principal agricultural and grazing district in the 
 colony of New South Wales is that of Hunter's River, 
 to the northward of Sydney. Hunter's River empties 
 itself into the Pacific Ocean at Newcastle — a small town 
 beautifully situated at the head of a romantic bay, the 
 entrance of which is about seventy miles distant from 
 the heads of Port Jackson. At the entrance of the Bay 
 of Newcastle there is a small but rather lofty island, 
 called Nobby's Island, somewhat resembling the Craig 
 of Ailsa, or the Bass Rock on the coasts of Scotland, 
 and consisting apparently of indurated clay support- 
 ing a stratum of sand-stone, over which there is a 
 stratum of coal, the clay appearing to rest on a sub- 
 stratum of silicious substance. The indurated clay,, 
 of which I have seen various specimens, although 
 I have not myself landed on the island, consists 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 61 
 
 .of thin laminse, into which it may be easily sepa- 
 rated with a knife, and which present innumerable im- 
 pressions of vegetables. I have seen such impressions 
 in specimens of the clay obtained at a height of fifty to 
 a hundred feet above the level of the sea : it appears 
 indeed to consist entirely of masses of vegetable matter, 
 which, at some former period in the history of the 
 earth, must have floated in a solution of clay. Nobby 's 
 Island has evidently been originally joined to the main- 
 land ; the intervening channel to the southward being 
 still narrow, shallow, and rocky, and the successive 
 strata of which it is composed corresponding with 
 those of the main. It is a very remarkable and in- 
 teresting object on the coast. 
 
 There are now three steam-boats plying between 
 Sydney and Hunter's River, each of which makes a 
 trip twice a week. The steam-boat leaves Sydney at 
 seven o'clock in the evening, reaches Newcastle about 
 the same hour next morning — the ocean part of the 
 voyage being thus performed during the night — and 
 arrives at the Green Hills, or the head of the navigation 
 of the Hunter, at the distance of four miles from the 
 town of Maitland, about ten o'clock ; the whole distance 
 being about one hundred and twenty miles. The town 
 of Newcastle, I have already observed, has somewhat 
 the appearance of a deserted village : it is reviving 
 rapidly, however, and is likely to become a place of 
 considerable importance, as it is situated in the centre 
 of the great coal-field of the colony, and as the Bay 
 forms a good harbour for small vessels. 
 
 Coal abounds along the east coast of New South 
 
62 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Wales to a vast and unknown extent : it is frequently 
 discernible from a black streak along the face of the 
 perpendicular cliffs that form the coast-line, a mile or 
 two off at sea; and it is worked at Newcastle with 
 comparative facility. The Australian Agricultural Com- 
 pany enjoy the exclusive privilege of working the coal- 
 mines of the colony for a certain number of years, and 
 they have erected works for the purpose in the imme- 
 diate vicinity of Newcastle, of considerable extent. The 
 main-shaft is on the declivity of a hill or bank running 
 parallel to the course of the river, about a furlong from 
 the water's edge ; and the coal is raised to the surface 
 by steam- machinery : it is then placed in trucks, which 
 descend along an inclined plane by their own weight ; 
 the angle of inclination being about thirty degrees, and 
 the weight of each descending truck being employed to 
 raise an empty one, by means of a connecting chain 
 passing around a system of wheels or rollers at the 
 upper extremity of the plane. The truck is then 
 pushed, by one or two men stationed for the purpose 
 along an elevated horizontal railway, which terminates 
 in a jetty ; the moveable extremity of which is so con- 
 structed as to place the truck right over the deck or 
 open hold of a vessel loading coals in the river. The 
 slip-bottom of the truck, which is moveable by a spring, 
 is then thrown open, and its whole contents descend 
 into the vessel's hold without farther trouble. 
 
 Coals are sold at the jetty on behalf of the Company 
 at nine shillings a ton. I have not ascertained the 
 quantity sold last year; but the sale, and of course the 
 consumption, has been increasing rapidly for several 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 63 
 
 years past, and there is reason to believe that it will ere 
 long be increased tenfold, and that their coal-mines will 
 therefore eventually yield a large revenue to the Com- 
 pany : for besides the quantity sold for exportation, and 
 the daily increasing consumption in steam-engines and 
 factories, families in Sydney begin to find coal a less 
 expensive and more convenient fuel than wood. 
 
 When Newcastle was a penal settlement, a jetty or 
 breakwater was commenced, to extend from the main- 
 land to Nobby's Island, with a view to improve the na- 
 vigation at the entrance of the harbour, by shutting up 
 the shallow, rocky channel to the southward of the 
 island, and thereby widening and deepening (which it 
 was expected would be the result of the operation) the 
 channel to the northward. The work, however, was 
 discontinued during the governments of Sir Thomas 
 Brisbane and General Darling ; but it has been resumed 
 since the accession of the present Governor, and will, 
 according to the estimate of Captain Barney, of the 
 Royal Engineers, the present able and active director 
 of public works in the colony, afford suitable employ- 
 ment for two hundred convicts under colonial sentences 
 for five years to come. Some colonial Goth, whose 
 antipathy to interesting natural scenery seems to be a 
 sort of inherent or original sin, has proposed to level 
 Nobby's Island together, on the plea of its having been 
 repeatedly found guilty of taking the wind out of the 
 sails of vessels entering the harbour — a sort of misde- 
 meanour, amounting, I presume, to petty larceny on the 
 part of the island. I trust, however, the colonial 
 government will adopt the wiser expedient of erecting 
 
64 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 a light-house on its elevated summit ; for Nobby's 
 Island has surely been long enough at a penal set- 
 tlement, to entitle it to indulge the reasonable hope of 
 escaping decapitation — the last punishment of the law. 
 
 Hunter's River, or the Coquun, as it is called by the 
 Aborigines, runs in an easterly direction for upwards 
 of a hundred miles, from the high ranges of mountains 
 in the interior to the Pacific Ocean. It is formed from 
 the junction of various smaller rivers, that traverse these 
 ranges in various directions to the right and left : it is 
 navigable, however, only for about twenty-five miles in 
 a direct line, or about thirty-five by water, from the 
 coast. At the distance of twenty miles by water from 
 Newcastle, it receives another river of considerable mag- 
 nitude from the northward, called William's River, or 
 the Doorribang ; and at the head of the navigation, or 
 about thirty-five miles from Newcastle by water, it re- 
 ceives a second river, called Patterson's River, or the 
 Yimmang, each of which is navigable for a consider- 
 ably greater distance than the principal stream or main 
 river. 
 
 For the first fifteen or twenty miles by water from 
 the mouth of the river, the land on either side is gene- 
 rally low, swampy, and sterile, though for the most 
 part thickly covered with timber ; but higher up, and 
 along the banks of the two tributary streams, the soil for 
 a considerable distance from the banks is entirely allu- 
 vial and of the highest fertility, and the scenery from 
 the water exceedingly beautiful. Let the reader figure 
 to himself a noble river, as wide as the Thames in the 
 lower part of its course, winding slowly towards the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 65 
 
 ocean, among forests that have never felt the stroke of 
 the axe, or seen any human face till lately but that of 
 the wandering barbarian. On either bank, the lofty 
 gum-tree or eucalyptus shoots up its white naked stem 
 to the height of 150 feet from the rich alluvial soil, 
 while underwood of most luxuriant growth completely 
 covers the ground ; and numerous wild vines, as the 
 flowering shrubs and parasitical plants of the alluvial 
 land are indiscriminately called by the settlers, dip their 
 long branches covered with white flowers into the very 
 water. The voice of the lark, or the linnet, or the night- 
 ingale, is, doubtless, never heard along the banks of 
 the Hunter ; for New South Wales is strangely deficient 
 in the music of the groves : but the eye is gratified in- 
 stead of the ear ; for flocks of white or black cockatoos, 
 with their yellow or red crests, occasionally flit across 
 from bank to bank ; and innumerable chirping parro- 
 quets, of most superb and inconceivably variegated 
 plumage, are ever and anon hopping about from branch 
 to branch. 1 have been told, indeed, that there is no- 
 thing like interesting natural scenery in New South 
 Wales : my own experience and observation enable me 
 flatly to contradict the assertion. There are doubtless 
 numerous places throughout the territory uninteresting 
 enough, as the reader may conceive must necessarily be 
 the case in situations where the prospect of a settler's 
 cleared land is bounded on every side by lofty and 
 branchless trees : but in many parts of the territory, 
 both to the northward and the southward of Sydney, 
 both beyond the Blue Mountains to the westward, and 
 for many miles along the Hawkesbury and Nepean 
 
66 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 rivers that wash their eastern base, I have seen natural 
 scenery combining every variety of the beautiful, the 
 picturesque, the wild, and the sublime ; and equalling 
 any thing I had ever seen in Scotland, England, Ireland, 
 or Wales. 
 
 The following pastoral by an Australian poet, whose 
 name I am not at liberty to mention, will show that 
 there is something to captivate the admirer of nature in 
 the woods and wilds of Australia, and will also afford 
 the reader some idea of the rural scenery on the banks 
 of Hunter's River and its tributary streams : — 
 
 ODE TO YIMMANG RIVER. 
 
 On Yimmang's banks I love to stray 
 
 And charm the vacant hour away, 
 
 At early dawn or sultry noon, 
 
 Or latest evening, when the moon 
 
 Looks downward, like a peasant's daughter, 
 
 To view her charms in the still water. 
 
 There would I walk at early morn 
 Along the ranks of Indian corn, 
 Whose dew-bespangled tossels shine 
 Like diamonds from Golconda's mine, 
 While numerous cobs outbursting yield 
 Fair promise of a harvest-field. 
 
 There would I muse on Nature's book, 
 By deep lagoon or shady brook, 
 When the bright sun ascends on high, 
 Nor sees a cloud in all the sky ; 
 And hot December's sultry breeze 
 Scarce moves the leaves of yonder trees. 
 
 Then from the forest's thickest shade, 
 Scared at the sound my steps had made, 
 The ever-graceful kangaroo 
 Would bound, and often stop to view, 
 And look as if he meant to scan 
 The traits of European man. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 67 
 
 There would I sit in the cool shade 
 By some tall cedar's branches made, 
 Around whose stem full many a vine 
 And kurryjong* their tendrils twine ; 
 While beauteous birds of every hue — 
 Parrot, macaw, and cockatoo — 
 Straining their imitative throats, 
 And chirping all their tuneless notes, 
 And fluttering still from tree to tree, 
 Right gladly hold corrobory.f 
 
 Meanwhile, perch'd on a branch hard by, 
 With head askance and visage sly, 
 Some old Blue-Mountain parrot chatters 
 About his own domestic matters : 
 As how he built his nest of hay, 
 And finish'd it on Christmas-day, 
 High on a tree in yonder glen, 
 Far from the haunts of prying men : 
 Or how madame has been confined 
 Of twins — the prettiest of their kind — 
 How one 's the picture of himself— 
 A little green blue-headed elf — 
 While t'other little chirping fellow 
 Is like mamma, bestreak'd with yellow : 
 Or how poor uncle Poll was kill'd 
 When eating corn in yonder field ; 
 Thunder and lightning ! — down he flutter'd — 
 And not a syllable he utter'd, 
 But flapp'd his wings, and gasp'd, and died, 
 While the blood flow'd from either side ! 
 As for himself, some tiny thing 
 Struck him so hard, it broke his wing, 
 
 * The kurryjong is a tree or shrub abounding in alluvial land, the inner 
 bark of which is used by the natives for the manufacture of a sort 
 of cord, or twine, of which they make nets, bags, &c. 
 
 t Corrobory is a native word, and signifies a noisy assemblage of the Abo- 
 rigines : it is also used occasionally in the colony, to designate a meeting 
 of white people, provided their proceedings are not conducted with the 
 requisite propriety and decorum. 
 
68 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 So that he scarce had strength to walk off! 
 It served him a whole month to talk of ! 
 
 Thus by thy beauteous banks, pure stream ! 
 I love to muse alone and dream, 
 At early dawn or sultry noon, 
 Or underneath the midnight moon, 
 Of days when all the land shall be 
 All peaceful and all pure like thee ! 
 
 The country along the course of the Hunter appears 
 to have undergone considerable changes in its physical 
 conformation from the inundations of the river. In 
 some places the river has been diverted from its 
 former channel, leaving a line of long narrow lagoons 
 to designate the place of the ancient rushing of its 
 waters ; in other parts of its course, lakes, whose 
 existence cannot be doubted for a moment, have gra- 
 dually disappeared, and been succeeded^ by grassy 
 plains, islands, or peninsulas. This is particularly ob- 
 vious at Patrick's Plains, a level tract of alluvial land 
 of considerable extent, about thirty miles from the 
 town of Maitland, as well as at the Green Hills at 
 the head of the navigation. At the latter of these 
 localities, the rivers Hunter and Patterson, or, as they 
 are called by the black natives, the Coquun and the 
 Yimmang, approach to within two hundred yards of 
 each other, and, then diverging, enclose between their 
 deep channels a peninsula of upwards of eleven hundred 
 acres of alluvial land, forming almost a dead level. 
 The peninsula, which the natives call Narragan, but 
 which the late proprietor, Mr. Harris, a native of 
 Dublin, called the Phoenix Park, is without exception 
 the finest piece of land, both for quality of soil and for 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 69 
 
 beauty of scenery and situation, I have ever seen, — 
 being entirely of alluvial formation, and bounded on all 
 sides, with the exception of the narrow isthmus that 
 connects it with the main-land, by broad and deep 
 rivers, the banks of which are ornamented with a 
 natural growth of the most beautiful shrubbery ; while 
 over its whole extent, patches of rich grassy plain, 
 of thirty or forty acres each, alternate with clumps 
 of trees or narrow beltings of forest, as if the whole had 
 been tastefully laid out for a nobleman's park by a 
 skilful landscape gardener. Mr. Harris has informed 
 me, however, that in digging a well, somewhere near 
 the centre of the peninsula, he found pieces of charred 
 wood at the depth of nine feet from the surface, or 
 beneath the present level of the river. It cannot be 
 doubted, therefore, that the beautiful peninsula of 
 Narragan was formerly a lake, and that it owes its 
 existence to successive deposits of alluvium from the 
 two rivers. 
 
 Previous to the introduction of steam-navigation in 
 the year 1831, the uncertainty and danger of the 
 existing mode of conveyance by water, between Sydney 
 and Hunter's River, induced the majority of those who 
 either resided in, or occasionally visited, the latter 
 district, to travel by land. The distance is about one 
 hundred and thirty miles, and the journey generally 
 occupied three days. 
 
 The first time I travelled across the mountains — in 
 the year 1827 — I had a young man, who lived as a 
 settler at Hunter's River, for my fellow-traveller and 
 guide. Our horses had each a long tether-rope wound 
 
70 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 about their necks, to fasten them with at night : we 
 had each a valise or portmanteau affixed to the saddle 
 behind, containing a small supply of provisions for the 
 mountain-part of the road, and a boat-cloak lashed 
 to it before, to serve as our covering when bivouacking 
 in the open forest during the night. A tin quart-jug to 
 make tea in on the mountains, and a pistol to strike a 
 light, completed our equipment. 
 
 The country from Sydney to Parramatta — the first 
 part of the road to Hunter's River, comprising a 
 distance of fourteen or fifteen miles — is in general 
 of inferior quality as to soil, though in some parts 
 of it there appears to be good land : its vicinity to 
 Sydney, however, renders it valuable : the greater 
 part of it has therefore been cleared for a considerable 
 distance on either side of the road ; and the number 
 of neat cottages and comfortable villas that are seen 
 at moderate intervals to the right and left indicate 
 the neighbourhood of a bustling and thriving capital. 
 Indeed, land of any kind adjoining a public and well- 
 frequented road in the colony is always considered 
 highly valuable ; for, though it should produce ab- 
 solutely nothing to the agriculturist, it will at least 
 serve to build a public-house on — a sort of crop which 
 is cultivated in all parts of the territory in which it 
 can possibly be grown with the least prospect of 
 success. Indeed, the number of these nuisances, each 
 of which produces £25 annually to the colonial revenue, 
 is the most striking feature in the scenery of the 
 Parramatta road, and speaks volumes for the colony. 
 There are the Spinning Wheel, and the Cheshire Cheese, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 7] 
 
 and the Cherry Gardens, and the Ship, and the Duke of 
 Wellington, and I do not know how many other 
 signs of the times along the highway from Sydney 
 to Parramatta ; at each of which the poor emancipated 
 convict-settler, who is just beginning perhaps to do 
 well in the world, may easily get himself dead-drunk on 
 returning home from Sydney market with the price of 
 his load of wheat, or maize, or pigs, or poultry : and 
 lest he should have resolution enough to drive his 
 bullock-cart forward without stopping to bait, there 
 are Jem Tindall and Dennis Flanagan, sitting quite com- 
 fortable in the tap with the window wide open, bawling 
 out to him " to stop a bit, and they '11 go along with 
 him ; for it is getting dark, and the bush-rangers are 
 out." 
 
 I have heard of a poor settler of this class, who 
 left the Hawkesbury with a well- furnished team and 
 a well-filled cart of produce, coming to Sydney, and 
 disposing of his goods at a fair price : unfortunately, 
 however, he happened to meet in the market an old 
 associate, who had arrived in the colony as a seven 
 years' man and had just obtained his ticket of leave, and 
 with whom perhaps he had often stolen in company 
 in merry England. It was impossible to resist the 
 temptation to adjourn with so old and tried a friend to 
 one or other of the public-houses adjoining the market- 
 place, to talk over their eventful histories. There the 
 narrative of the ticket-of-leave man became so in- 
 teresting, and the Bengal rum so enticing, that all 
 thoughts of home and the Hawkesbury were thrown to 
 the winds ; and the price of one bushel of wheat was dealt 
 
72 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 out after another, till the whole proceeds of his load 
 were gone. He had still, however, a good cart and 
 team, and the publican "knew a friend who had just 
 need of such a thing at his farm." A bargain was accord- 
 ingly struck — " no bad bargain either," the publican 
 assured him — and the two friends continued to drink. 
 t( Haven't you a bit of land at the Hawkesbury V* said 
 the publican to his oblivious guest, after he had so- 
 journed at his house so long that the price of the 
 team and cart was nearly exhausted. "Have I not?" 
 said the settler : " as good a thirty-acre farm as in the 
 township, every acre of it cleared." " I have a mind to 
 buy a farm thereabouts," said the publican ; " what 
 would you say to thirty pounds for it ?" " You mean to 
 make a man of me all at once," said the settler sarcas- 
 tically, recollecting that the price offered was not one- 
 fourth the value of the farm ; but he was not in the 
 humour of higgling about the price of his property, and 
 the publican, therefore, soon brought him to his own 
 terms. The deed of sale was accordingly made out in 
 due form ; for it is easily done " where no stamps are 
 used." The price was then paid before witnesses, in 
 dollars at five shillings. The settler thought there was 
 some mistake in that mode of reckoning the price, as he 
 had certainly meant sterling ; but the publican assuring 
 him he had meant no such thing, the matter was 
 amicably arranged. It was only, however, after the 
 price of his farm had been reduced to ten dollars, that 
 the settler awoke from his dream, and determined to 
 proceed homeward. He left Sydney with a light purse 
 and a heavy heart, imprecating curses upon himself 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 73 
 
 and on all the publicans of the colony at every public- 
 house he passed on the way to Parramatta. He had 
 resolution enough to pass through the camp* without 
 visiting any of its haunts of dissipation ; but on reaching 
 the half-way house to Windsor, he met the Hawkes- 
 bury carts coming to Sydney with produce, and was 
 tempted to "stop a bit" with some of his old neigh- 
 bours, to learn how matters had been going on in his 
 absence, and to explain the circumstance of his tarrying 
 so long in Sydney. He had still his ten dollars re- 
 maining, and he had only to take one glass of the 
 publican's Bengal to have them no longer : in short, 
 he very soon got dead drunk again ; and when he 
 awoke from his stupor, he found he had been sleeping 
 in an out-house, and that his good blue- cloth jacket 
 and black beaver hat of colonial manufacture had 
 been exchanged for an old canvass jacket and straw 
 hat not worth a farthing. Jn this respectable attire he 
 made the best of his way to the Hawkesbury, whose 
 broad and quiet stream he had not gazed on for seven 
 weeks before. His heart throbbed instinctively as he 
 looked in the direction of his log-hut, at the door of 
 which his affectionate Molly — I am sorry I cannot 
 call her his wife, although she was the mother, of his 
 children — used to watch his return from Sydney. No 
 Molly was there ; and when he reached the scene of 
 desolation, he found that there was neither pig re- 
 maining in the sty nor stool in the cottage ! Leaning 
 
 * The old hands, as they are called in the colony, who still recollect the 
 time when the towns of Sydney and Parramatta were mere encampments 
 or rows of huts, generally prefer the old appellation. 
 
 VOL. II. D 
 
74 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 on the door-post of his deserted cabin, with his head 
 resting disconsolately on his shoulder, he continued for 
 some time utterly lost in the bitterness of self-reflection ; 
 till he was roused at length to fury and desperation by 
 the unsolicited information he incidentally received 
 from a neighbour passing his door. " Molly," said 
 the rustic, observing that he looked rather sorrily — 
 "Molly has gone to live with M'Manus t'other side 
 the river, and has taken the childer with her." 
 
 Some of the largest estates and some of the largest 
 fortunes in New South Wales have been gotten together 
 in some such way as the one I have just exemplified, 
 viz. by doing business in the public line. Nay, there 
 are gentlemen in the colony — magistrates of the ter- 
 ritory, and men of unquestionable honour, forsooth, — 
 who are mean enough to speculate on this lamentable 
 propensity of the lower orders to drunkenness, by 
 building public-houses in the most alluring situations, 
 and getting them licensed by the bench of magistrates 
 in the district, and letting them at exorbitant rents ! 
 
 The country between the Blue Mountains and the 
 Pacific Ocean generally consists of a thin coating of 
 sandy soil on a substratum of tenacious clay. The 
 clay retains the moisture which percolates through the 
 soil above it, and thus renders land comparatively pro- 
 ductive, which in England would be good for nothing. 
 This is quite the character of the cultivated land near 
 the village or town of Parramatta ; the population of 
 which, including that of its immediate neighbourhood, 
 amounts to between six and seven thousand persons. 
 Parramatta has a rural aspect, and there is an ap- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 75 
 
 pearance of quiet and retirement about it which the 
 town of Sydney certainly does not exhibit ; and in 
 George- Street, the principal street of the town, which 
 is about a mile in length, the houses are all detached 
 from each other, and have generally small gardens in 
 front as well as in the rear. Government House, a 
 plain building of two stories, occupies an elevated and 
 commanding situation, within a pretty extensive do- 
 main commencing at the upper end of George-Street ; 
 and the Commissariat Store, a large brick-building on 
 the bank of the river, to the course of which the street 
 runs parallel, forms its termination at the other ex- 
 tremity. 
 
 The Hunter's River road branches off from the road 
 to Windsor and the Hawkesbury, about three miles 
 beyond Parramatta. For several miles onwards, the 
 forest on either side of it consists chiefly of lofty iron- 
 bark trees, the soil being moderately good, and the 
 pasture in moist seasons highly luxuriant. About nine 
 miles from Parramatta the road crosses the settlement 
 of Castle-Hill, one of the earliest formed agricultural 
 settlements in the territory. In this neighbourhood 
 there is a large extent of cleared land of good quality, 
 and the country has an undulating appearance, which 
 relieves the eye, and is highly pleasing. 
 
 It was at this part of our route that my fellow-tra- 
 veller and myself halted for refreshment at the cottage 
 of the ci-devant cobbler, the particulars of whose history 
 I have already related. After a ride of twenty- five 
 miles from the settler's cottage through a very unin- 
 teresting and sterile country, in which sand- stone hills 
 
76 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 and stunted trees were the only objects that the eye 
 could discover, the sun was just beginning to descend 
 beyond the distant Blue Mountains, when we were 
 suddenly delighted with the view of the broad Hawkes- 
 bury River, winding along in a deep valley far beneath 
 us. In the upper part of its course the Hawkesbury 
 flows through a champaign country, on which its own 
 successive inundations have gradually deposited many 
 feet of the richest alluvial soil : but, for sixty or seventy 
 miles towards the ocean, the mountain ridges on either 
 side of it approximate so nearly, that the river has 
 scarcely room to flow between them ; and it merely 
 leaves a small patch of alluvial land, sometimes on the 
 one side and sometimes on the other, as it sweeps 
 more closely to the opposite bank. At the point, however, 
 at which the road to Hunter's River crosses its channel, 
 the valley of the Hawkesbury is of considerable width : 
 the river, which at this part of its course is at least a 
 quarter of a mile broad, suddenly changes its direction ; 
 and, as it sweeps close to the precipices on the one 
 side, it leaves a delta of alluvial land of several hundred 
 acres on the other of the highest fertility. Nearly 
 opposite this point of land it also receives a tributary 
 stream called the First Branch, on either bank of which 
 there are numerous small settlers located for a distance 
 of many miles, as the rich alluvial land which the set- 
 tlers chiefly cultivate is more frequently met with on 
 the Branches than on the main river. The delta I have 
 just mentioned belongs to Mr. Solomon Wiseman, a 
 very prosperous settler, whose large two-story stone- 
 house had been most opportunely transformed, at the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 77 
 
 time I refer to, into a comfortable inn; the situation of 
 which, overlooking the delta and the river, and facing 
 the mountains on the opposite bank, is interesting and 
 romantic in the highest degree. 
 
 The rays of the setting sun were glowingly reflected 
 from the smooth glassy surface of the broad river, when 
 this beautiful scene suddenly burst upon our view. 
 Patches of wheat nearly ready for harvest, and fields 
 of Indian corn, appeared to the right and left along the 
 main river, and, as far as the eye could trace it among 
 the mountains, on either bank of its tributary stream ; 
 while the yellow tints of the one, and the deep healthy 
 green of the other, beautifully contrasted with the 
 sombre shades of the forest, and the gray rocks that 
 were ever and anon peering forth along the sides of the 
 mountain. The road, from the high level from which 
 we had first seen the river to the plain below, was 
 formed by the late colonial government, across deep 
 ravines and along the edge of frightful precipices, with 
 prodigious labour, and doubtless at very great expense. 
 It is an easy task, however, to descend a mountain by 
 a good road. We were speedily at the foot of the pre- 
 cipices, and safely lodged in the inn. Our evening 
 repast was light and pleasant. Shortly after it was 
 finished, we invited our host and hostess to attend our 
 evening devotions, and we then retired to our separate 
 places of repose, to resume our journey at day-break. 
 
 The first rays of the rising sun were just beginning to 
 gild the summits of the lofty ridges on either bank of 
 the Hawkesbury, when we led our horses on the follow- 
 ing morning towards the river, which we crossed in a 
 
78 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 punt or ferry-boat constructed for the conveyance of 
 men and cattle. The road on the opposite bank is still 
 more precipitous, and has obviously required greater 
 labour for its construction : numerous convicts were at 
 work on it as we climbed the mountain. Having slowly 
 gained the summit of the ridge, we again mounted our 
 horses, and trotted at a brisk pace along an excellent 
 road, over a mountainous and sterile country, for about 
 twelve miles : we then dismounted for breakfast, near 
 a small stream of limpid water, in a valley called the 
 Twelve-Mile Hollow, unsaddled our horses, and, fixing 
 the ends of their tether-ropes, turned them out to 
 browse for a little on the miserable vegetation which 
 the place afforded. My fellow-traveller then struck a 
 light with his pistol, and immediately kindled a fire, on 
 which he placed the tin-jug or quart-pot, which he had 
 strapped for the purpose to his saddle-bow on our 
 leaving the small settler's, and which he had previously 
 filled with water from the brook. When the water 
 boiled, he measured the requisite quantity of tea in the 
 palm of his hand, and threw it into the pot ; and then, 
 adding a quantity of sugar, he broke off a twig from 
 the dead branch of a tree, which he humorously told 
 me was called a spoon in the Australian dialect, and 
 stirred the mixture. When the tea was sufficiently 
 boiled, he carried the jug to a little pool of water, in 
 which he placed it for a few minutes, to cool it, — and 
 we then breakfasted, not less comfortably than roman- 
 tically. 
 
 For a mile or two from the place where we halted for 
 refreshment, the road, which was only a footpath at 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 79 
 
 the time I refer to, though it is now a good road through- 
 out, lay along the bottom of the valley ; but we were 
 soon obliged to dismount again to climb up the pre-* 
 qipitous side of a steep mountain, to gain the summit 
 of what the colonists call " a dividing range." These 
 ranges, which are flanked on either side by deep and 
 sometimes impassable ravines, traverse the country in 
 many places for a great distance, either in a northerly 
 and southerly or easterly and westerly direction; and 
 the traveller has therefore merely to ascertain the proper 
 range, to ascend to its summit, and to follow it in all 
 its circumvolutions, to reach the proposed termination 
 of his journey ; for, if he should attempt to pursue a 
 direct course by descending into the gulleys, he would 
 in all probability lose his way, and perhaps perish of 
 hunger. The summits of these ridges are just broad 
 enough for the construction of a carriage-road, and they 
 are often so level, that a person on horseback can trot 
 along them for miles together without the slightest 
 interruption. 
 
 The stage we had now commenced was eighteen 
 miles in length ; but the frequent mountings and dis- 
 mountings, to climb or to descend the rocky sides of 
 the mountains, made it appear much longer. In many 
 parts of the route the road was so very bad, that I am 
 sure most English horses would have refused to face it : 
 it seemed as precipitous in some places as the stair of a 
 church-steeple ; and how the poor horses could either 
 ascend or descend, I was frequently at a loss to conceive. 
 The colonial horses, however, are remarkably adept in 
 such situations : my own was an Australian by birth, 
 
80 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OP 
 
 and was so trustworthy and so much au fait on the 
 mountain-road, that I had only to throw the reins on 
 his neck at the dismounting places, and he would either 
 ascend or descend the steepest and ruggedest precipices, 
 as quickly as I could possibly follow him, without ever 
 leaving- the track. 
 
 Along the miserable valley of the Ttvelve-Mile Hol- 
 low, and up the sides of the rugged and sterile mountain 
 beyond it, to a height, I should suppose, of not less than 
 fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, I was ex- 
 ceedingly gratified at observing innumerable specimens 
 of one of the most splendid flowers in the whole botanical 
 kingdom, — I mean the Doryanthes, (or spear-flower, as 
 the word signifies,) commonly called by the colonists the 
 gigantic lily. This splendid flower shoots up a single 
 upright stem, about an inch and a half in diameter, from 
 a tuft of blady and acuminated leaves, to the height 
 of from six to twelve feet, which all at once expands at 
 its highest point into a bunch of beautiful blood-red 
 flowers considerably larger than a man's head. The 
 contrast which this splendid flower, which would 
 doubtless constitute one of the most attractive orna- 
 ments in the gardens of kings, forms with the stunted 
 trees around it, and the sterile sandy soil from which 
 it springs in the crevices of the rocks, is striking in the 
 highest degree ; and it strongly recalled to my recol- 
 lection the beautiful lines of the poet, which were 
 surely never more appropriate — 
 
 Full many a gem of purest ray serene 
 
 The dark unfathora'd caves of ocean bear : 
 
 Full many a flower is born to bloom unseen, 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air* 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 81 
 
 At the termination, of our second stage, we arrived at 
 a place, of which the mere name is a sufficient de- 
 scription — The Hungry Flat : it affords neither bread 
 for man nor grass for horses, and its only recom- 
 mendation is a stream of delicious water, at which both 
 the horse and his rider gladly and luxuriously quench 
 their thirst. We again unsaddled our horses at this 
 resting-place, and allowed them to roll themselves on 
 the sand, or to pick up any thing in the shape of 
 sustenance they could find among the bushes. My own 
 horse, however, being an old traveller, and having more 
 good sense than his four-footed companion, thought 
 it better to await the opening of my little portmanteau 
 than to swallow a few nauseous leaves of the gum-tree, 
 and accordingly received a piece of a damper — the 
 colonial name of an unleavened wheaten cake baked in 
 the ashes — with neighing satisfaction. 
 
 In half an hour we were again on horseback, trotting 
 along towards the valley of the Wollombi, at the head 
 of which we arrived towards sunset, after traversing 
 about eight or ten miles more of sterile mountainous 
 country. The valley of the Wollombi extends in a 
 northerly direction towards Hunter's River for about 
 thirty miles : it is bounded on either side by mountain- 
 ranges covered with timber to their summits, and 
 throws off numerous arms, as the settlers call them, to 
 the right and left, some of which extend for a distance 
 of twenty or thirty miles among the mountains. These 
 arms, as well as the principal valley, abound in ex- 
 cellent pasture, and afford sustenance for numerous 
 flocks of sheep and herds of cattle; and the contrast, on 
 
82 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 descending the mountain, from a region of absolute 
 sterility into a fertile valley, in which the hungry horses 
 are ever and anon tempted to steal a mouthful of grass 
 as they trot along to the next resting-place — is equally 
 striking and agreeable. The numerous cattle-tracks, 
 however, in this part of the country, and the com- 
 parative thinness of the timber, rendered the road par- 
 ticularly intricate to inexperienced persons, about the 
 time I allude to. 
 
 About a year after my first journey over-land to 
 Hunter's River, I had occasion to visit that district 
 a second time. I was accompanied by a respectable 
 proprietor of land at Hunter's River, and by a convict- 
 servant of my brother's : I was the only one of the 
 party, however, who had ever travelled the road before ; 
 and, as it was winter, and consequently quite dark when 
 we reached the foot of the mountains after a long and 
 fatiguing day's journey, I acknowledged myself quite 
 unable to point out the way along the valley, and pro- 
 posed to trust ourselves to the guidance of my horse, 
 of whose ability to act creditably in the responsible 
 capacity in which I proposed to employ him, I felt 
 perfectly confident. To this proposal, however, my 
 fellow-traveller, who had but recently arrived in the 
 colony, was unwilling to consent, and he therefore led 
 on in what appeared to him the broadest track. In the 
 direction of that track we rode along between two 
 ranges of mountains for seven or eight miles. At 
 length, however, we lost the track, and ascertained 
 beyond all doubt that we had also lost our way. 
 As it would have been absolute madness to have 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 83 
 
 either gone forward or attempted to retrace our steps 
 in such circumstances, we agreed to bivouack for the 
 night on the side of a hill near a pool of water ; and 
 accordingly, unsaddling our horses, and fastening the 
 ends of their tether-ropes to trees in the neighbour- 
 hood, we struck a light and kindled a large fire, each 
 of us collecting for that purpose numerous branches of 
 fallen trees ; and our convict-servant speedily made us 
 a very comfortable tankard of tea. As soon as we had 
 finished our repast, I read a chapter from a small 
 Greek Testament, which I had carried with me as a 
 pocket-companion, by the light of our large fire ; and we 
 then knelt down together to offer up our evening devo- 
 tions to the God of the hills and the valleys, the dry land 
 and the sea. Our convict-servant — a tall brawny 
 Scotchman, who was remarkably attentive to our com- 
 fort — then gathered an armful of fern, (Scotice braken,) 
 of which there was abundance in the neighbourhood, 
 for each of us to repose on ; and accordingly, wrapping 
 ourselves in our boat-cloaks, we lay down to sleep as 
 near the fire as possible, for it was exceedingly cold. 
 For my own part, I was unable to sleep, and lay for 
 several hours listening to the horses browsing at hand 
 or the owls whooping in the distance, or gazing at the 
 smoke of our large fire curling upwards, and losing 
 itself among the branches of the tall trees around us. 
 About one o'clock in the morning, the moon arose over 
 the tops of the mountains ; and as soon as she had 
 attained a sufficient height to illuminate the valley, I 
 arose also, and, leaving my two fellow-travellers sound 
 asleep by the fire, walked first a mile or two in one 
 
84 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 direction, and then a mile or two in another, to endea- 
 vour to find the footpath we had lost trace of the even- 
 ing before. Bush-roads, as they are called in New 
 South Wales, are formed by the person who first tra- 
 verses the forest, notching the trees with an axe in the 
 direction of his route ; and the way to ascertain which 
 of two doubtful tracks is the public road, or a mere 
 cattle-track, is to examine which of them has the trees 
 notched along its course. I could find, however, nei- 
 ther notched trees, nor the marks of any horses' foot- 
 steps but our own, along the various tracks I examined 
 in the clear moonlight ; and I was therefore obliged to 
 return to our large fire, and await the rising of the sun. 
 At day-break we again mounted our horses ; and, retra- 
 cing the track we had travelled along the preceding 
 night, we were fortunate enough to regain the road, and 
 were enabled to pursue our journey. 
 
 On my .first journey along with the Hunter's River 
 settler, — who was better acquainted with the route, — we 
 rode about nine miles down the valley after sunset, 
 and bivouacked on the declivity of a hill near a pool of 
 water. We happened to be near the sheep-station of a 
 respectable free-emigrant settler ; and the convict-shep- 
 herd or overseer in charge of it — a very obliging sort of 
 person — brought us a bucket to hold water for our tea, 
 and a piece of salt pork to relish it. He roasted the 
 pork for us by using a branch of a tree sharpened at 
 one extremity as a substitute for a fork, and holding 
 it within a reasonable distance of our bonfire. After 
 breakfasting in the morning, we acknowledged his kind- 
 ness by giving him all that remained of our mountain- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 85 
 
 store, as we had again got within the limits of civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 The valley of the Wollombi consists rather of pasture 
 than of arable land, and during the years of drought it 
 afforded plentiful subsistence to numerous flocks of 
 sheep and herds of cattle. In the upper part of it, a 
 chain of ponds, forming in one place large sheets of 
 water, gives an interesting character to the landscape ; 
 in the lower part of it, clumps of trees, alternating with 
 considerable patches of naturally clear land, diversify 
 the scene. The late colonial government Established 
 about ten families of the Royal Veteran Corps in the 
 lower part of the valley of the Wollombi, giving each 
 of them about a hundred acres of land, with one or 
 two cows and rations for a certain period, and building 
 each of them a good cottage or log-house. Families of 
 the same corps were also established, during General 
 Darling's government, at Maitland and Patterson's 
 Plains, in the district of Hunter's River, at Bong Bong 
 in Argyle, and in the district of Illawarra. Soldiers, it 
 is true, generally make but indifferent farmers : they 
 are neither industrious in their habits nor economical in 
 their domestic arrangements ; and they usually sell their 
 land as soon as their length of possession entitles them 
 to do so : but the attempt on the part of the Jate 
 colonial government was undoubtedly praiseworthy, 
 and the plan pursued for the comfortable settlement of 
 the veterans highly judicious. 
 
 Every habitable district in the colony has its tribe of 
 aborigines or black natives ; and many of these tribes 
 
86 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 are not unfrequently in a state of warfare with each 
 other, though at peace with the Europeans. The Wol- 
 lombi tribe had a deadly feud a few years ago with the 
 tribe inhabiting the adjoining district of Illalong ; and 
 the latter, I was informed by a respectable settler in 
 the valley the last time I travelled over-land to Hunter's 
 River, had a short time before testified their vindictive 
 feelings in a most ferocious manner. Three boys of 
 the Wollombi tribe had been induced by three different 
 settlers in the valley to reside in their respective fami- 
 lies : they were marked out as objects of vengeance 
 by the Illalong natives; and, accordingly, about a 
 hundred of the latter, who were seen at sunset one 
 evening at Illalong, travelled a distance of between 
 twenty and thirty miles during the night — a thing 
 almost unheard of among the aborigines — and arrived 
 in the neighbourhood of the settlers' houses in the 
 Wollombi very early on the following morning. Two 
 or three of their number were detached to each of the 
 houses to entice the boys out. The latter, it appeared, 
 were apprehensive at first that their neighbours had 
 come to their vicinity with no good intentions ; but, 
 being at length prevailed on to join the corrobory of 
 Illalong natives, the latter suddenly formed a circle 
 around them, and, attacking them simultaneously, beat 
 them to death with their noddies. Immediately after 
 the perpetration of this deed of murder, the Illalong 
 natives returned to their own district. My informant 
 happened to pass the assemblage just as the boys were 
 dying; but, as he was alone and unarmed, his inter- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 87 
 
 ference with the infuriated natives would have been 
 dangerous to himself, and could have been of no avail 
 to their unfortunate victims. 
 
 In the course of our third day's journey, I called, 
 along with my fellow-traveller, at the houses of several 
 respectable settlers on our way ; and at sunset 1 had the 
 pleasure of reaching my destination on the fertile banks 
 of the Hunter. 
 
 Hunter's River was named in honour of Governor 
 Hunter, during whose administration it was discovered : 
 its two tributary rivers were called William's and 
 Patterson's Rivers, in honour of Colonel William Patter- 
 son, of the New South Wales Corps. Preposterously 
 enough ! for all the three rivers had native names 
 much more beautiful, and highly significant, as all the 
 native names are, from time immemorial. Indeed, every 
 remarkable point of land, every hill and valley in the 
 territory, has its native name, given, as far as can be 
 ascertained from particular instances, from some re- 1 
 markable feature of the particular locality ; insomuch 
 that the natives can make appointments in their forests 
 and valleys, with as much accuracy in regard to place, 
 as an inhabitant of London in the streets of the metro- 
 polis. Thus Jerran, or Frightful, is the very appropriate 
 name of a frightfully precipitous mountain near Liver- 
 pool Plains ; Bardo Narang, or Little Water, is the name 
 of a small stream or creek that empties itself into the 
 Hawkesbury; and Cabramatta, or Cabra-pool, is the 
 equally appropriate and descriptive name of a chain of 
 ponds abounding with the cabra, an insect of the teredo 
 family, resembling in appearance the contents of a 
 
88 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 marrow-bone, which insinuates itself into the hardest 
 timber under water, and of which the aborigines make 
 many a delicious meal. Surely then, when there are 
 such unexceptionable and really interesting names 
 affixed already to every remarkable locality in the 
 country, it is preposterous in the extreme to consign 
 these ancient appellations to oblivion, in order to make 
 way for the name of whatever insignificant appendage 
 to the colonial government a colonial surveyor may 
 think proper to immortalize. Such, however, was the 
 system uniformly pursued in the colony by all the pre- 
 decessors of Major Mitchell, the present enlightened 
 and talented Surveyor- General of New South Wales ; 
 who, I am happy to say, has set his face against this 
 egregious folly, and has thereby in great measure 
 reformed the colonial nomenclature, by retaining the 
 native name of any remarkable locality whenever it can 
 be ascertained, and by using English names very 
 sparingly. Indeed, if the native names are to be 
 changed in any instance, let them be displaced only for 
 those of men who deserve to live in the memory of the 
 colonists, and not for such nomina obscurorum virorum,* 
 as are at present stuck in every direction over the whole 
 chart of the territory. For my own part, 
 
 I like the native names ; as Parramatta, 
 
 And Illawarra, and Woolloomoolloo ; 
 Nandowra, Woogarora, Bulkomatta, 
 
 Tomah, Toongabbee, Mittagong, Murroo ; 
 Buckobble, Cumleroy, and Coolingatta, 
 
 The Warragumby, Bargo, Monaroo ; 
 
 * Names of obscure persons. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 89 
 
 Cookbundoon, Carrabaiga, Wingycarribbee, 
 The Wollondilly, Yurumbon, Bungarribbee. 
 
 I hate your Goulburn Downs, and Goulburn Plains, 
 And Goulburn River, and the Goulburn Range, 
 
 And Mount Goulburn, and Goulburn Vale. One's brains 
 Are turned with Goulburns ! Pitiful— this mange 
 
 For immortality ! Had I the reins 
 
 Of government a fortnight, I would change 
 
 These common-place appellatives, and give 
 
 The country names that should deserve to live. 
 
 I had frequently inquired of intelligent settlers 
 residing on one or other of the three rivers in the dis- 
 trict of Hunter's River, what the native names of these 
 rivers were ; and I confess I was not a little surprised 
 to find that none of them ever had the curiosity to 
 ascertain them, or could give me any information on 
 the subject. I happened, however, when riding alone 
 in the district one day, about seven or eight years ago, 
 to overtake a solitary black native who was travelling 
 in the same direction, and whose name he told me was 
 Wallaby* Joe — a name which had probably been given 
 him by some of the convict-servants of the neighbour- 
 ing settlers. I found him rather an intelligent and 
 somewhat communicative personage ; for on asking him, 
 among a variety of other questions bearing on the 
 native mythology, the native names of the three rivers, 
 he immediately told me that the main or Hunter's 
 River was called Coquun ; the first branch, or Wil- 
 liam's River, Dooribang ; and the second, or Patter- 
 son's River, Yimmang. These names are now pretty 
 well known in the district. The first of them — Coquun 
 
 * Wallaby is the native name of a small species of kangaroo. 
 
90 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 — is not likely to displace the English name, nor is it 
 desirable that it should ; although the native name is 
 occasionally preferred by the Australian versifier, as 
 the following quotation from another colonial pastoral, 
 by the author of the " Ode to Yimmang Water," will 
 evince. But, with all due respect for the memory of 
 Colonel William Patterson, whose most unclassical 
 name is already sufficiently immortalized in the town- 
 ship of Patterson's Plains, I think it high time, and in 
 every way desirable, that the native names of the 
 rivers Yimmang and Dooribang should forthwith be 
 restored . 
 
 Exhausted by the summer sun, 
 The school-boy fords the broad Coquun ; 
 For then the slow-meandering stream 
 Shrinks from the hot sun's fiery beam, 
 And like a wounded serpent crawls 
 From Cumleroy to Maitland Falls. 
 But when the autumnal deluge swells 
 Each little brook in yonder dells, 
 And twice ten thousand torrents pour 
 From cliff and rock with deafening roar ; 
 O, then he rolls with manly pride, 
 Nor steam nor storm can stem his tide. 
 
 Although the reader will be able to form a general 
 idea of rural life and of farming operations in New 
 South Wales, from the desultory remarks scattered over 
 the preceding pages, it may not be improper to give a 
 more particular description of an Australian farm, and 
 especially of one combining in some measure the various 
 characteristics of an agricultural, grazing, sheep and 
 dairy establishment on a pretty large scale. If I had 
 been equally well acquainted with the present state and 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 91 
 
 progressive improvement of any other farm of a similar 
 kind in the territory, I should certainly not have se- 
 lected one belonging to a near relative of my own : but 
 as all the information I have acquired of the interior of 
 the colony has been obtained chiefly in the course of 
 rapid visits to its different settlements in the discharge 
 of clerical duty, I cannot be supposed to have had 
 equal opportunities for observation in any other quarter. 
 Besides, as the farm I allude to was not taken posses- 
 sion of till the actual commencement of the long 
 drought, — the most unfavourable period for agricultural 
 operations which the colony has ever experienced ; and 
 as the improvements effected upon it have rather been 
 the result of persevering industry and judicious eco- 
 nomy, than of a large outlay of capital ; and as the 
 convict-servants .employed on it have to my certain 
 knowledge become for the most part, and indeed almost 
 without exception, useful, obedient, and contented ser- 
 vants, under a system of management, which any person 
 of a conciliating disposition, accompanied with the re- 
 quisite degree of firmness, could easily put in practice, 
 and would find equally successful ; — I do not know that 
 a fitter instance could have been selected. 
 
 My brother, Mr. George Lang, arrived in New South 
 Wales as a free emigrant in the year 1821, and obtained 
 a grant of a thousand acres of land, which he selected 
 on the banks of the Yimmang or Patterson's River, 
 about five miles from tile town of Maitland, in the 
 district of Hunter's River : as he held an appointment, 
 however, in the Commissariat department, he did not 
 immediately take possession of his land, but retained 
 
92 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 that appointment till the month of December, 1824, 
 when he resigned it with the intention of proceeding 
 forthwith to his farm ; but, being seized in the mean 
 time with an inflammatory fever,* he died in Sydney in 
 the month of January following, in the twenty-third 
 year of his age, and during my own absence in England. 
 The land subsequently fell to my younger brother, 
 Mr. Andrew Lang, who had arrived in the colony a 
 few months before as an agricultural emigrant, and 
 who afterwards obtained an order for a grant of land 
 on his own account from Earl Bathurst, which he se- 
 lected in the same district, to the extent of twelve hun- 
 dred and eighty acres, about thirty miles farther up the 
 river. My surviving brother did not take possession of 
 the land on which my late brother proposed to settle, 
 till January, 1826 ; and, as he had to reside in Sydney 
 the whole of that year, he entrusted it to the manage- 
 ment of an emancipated convict overseer, who proved a 
 very inefficient servant, and did very little in the way 
 of improving it. Nothing in reality could be said to 
 have been effected on the land till the beginning of 
 the year 1827, when my brother settled upon it himself. 
 My deceased brother's grant — which he had named 
 Dnnmore, as a mark of filial affection towards a revered 
 relative still alive, to whose Christian principles and 
 uncommon energy of character I shall ever be under 
 the strongest obligations — consisted partly of a belt of 
 heavily timbered alluvial land, extending about a mile 
 and a half in length along the windings of the river, 
 which at that part of its course and for several miles 
 higher up is both deep and broad — sufficiently so in- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 93 
 
 deed for the largest vessels — although towards the 
 ocean, which is about forty miles distant by water, 
 there are shallows which a large vessel could not get 
 over. Beyond the belt of alluvial land, there are two 
 large lagoons, nearly parallel to the course of the river 
 — the frequent resort of innumerable wild ducks, and 
 occasionally of pelicans and black swans. The beds 
 and banks of the lagoons consist of the richest alluvial 
 soil ; the rest of the farm being good forest pasture- 
 land, very lightly timbered. 
 
 The settlement of the Scots Church in Sydney having 
 been attended with much greater difficulty and expense 
 than was anticipated, and certain influential Scotsmen 
 in the colony having rather augmented than diminished 
 the burden that was thus entailed on its friends, my 
 relatives had been induced to make common cause with 
 myself, in bringing whatever capital and credit they 
 could command in the colony to bear upon the ultimate 
 accomplishment of that object : my brother was con- 
 sequently left with comparatively little capital to com- 
 mence with upon his land ; but he was fortunate enough 
 to escape the influence of the sheep and cattle mania, 
 which was then just at the highest ; for while various 
 other settlers, who had also but recently commenced 
 farming at Hunter's River at that period, mortgaged 
 their land to buy large herds of cattle to stock it, he 
 remained satisfied with the few he already possessed, 
 and determined not to buy more till he could pay for 
 them. With these cattle a dairy establishment on a 
 small scale was formed on the farm, while agricultural 
 operations were commenced on the alluvial land. The 
 
94 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 dairy produce, which was then bearing a high price in 
 the colony, was regularly forwarded to Sydney to meet 
 the various items of expenditure incurred in the main- 
 tenance of the convict-servants on the farm. 
 
 These servants, whose number was gradually in- 
 creased from four to upwards of thirty, — as additional 
 men could from time to time be obtained from the 
 colonial government, and as maintenance could be 
 raised for them from the land — were variously employed 
 in felling and burning off trees for the clearing of land 
 for cultivation, or in grubbing up the roots of those 
 that had been already felled ; in ploughing, sowing, 
 reaping, threshing, and grinding wheat ; in planting, 
 hoeing, pulling, and threshing Indian corn ; and in the 
 numberless other operations that require incessant at- 
 tention and incessant exertion on a large agricultural 
 establishment in New South Wales, where the soil, the 
 intending emigrant will bear in mind, is not hidden 
 from the view, as in the British provinces of North 
 America, for six or seven months together, under an 
 impenetrable covering of frozen snow ; but where the 
 plough and the hoe and the sickle are kept in successive 
 and unremitting motion all the year round. 
 
 In this way several hundred acres of heavily-timbered 
 land have been successively cleared and cultivated ; the 
 stumps of the trees, which are usually left standing in 
 the first instance, being for the most part rooted or 
 burnt out. The cleared land is uniformly cropped either 
 with wheat or maize. 
 
 The wheat is generally ground into flour, and sold in 
 that state in the town of Maitland in the immediate 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 95 
 
 neighbourhood ; the maize being either forwarded for 
 sale to Sydney, or used in feeding horses, or in fattening 
 pigs and poultry on the farm. Potatoes and tobacco 
 are also grown for sale, besides supplying the con- 
 sumption on the farm, which, in the latter article 
 especially, is by no means inconsiderable. The dairy 
 produce during the four summer months, November, 
 December, January, and February, is cheese, which is 
 sold in Sydney by the hundred weight or ton ; during 
 the rest of the year it consists of butter, which is 
 forwarded to Sydney by the steam-boat in a fresh state 
 every week, and sold in the market. The price of that 
 article of produce varies from one shilling to eighteen- 
 pence, or even two shillings a pound. 
 
 In the course of the year 1832, when the cattle on 
 my brother's farm had increased to a herd of about 
 three or four hundred, he purchased a flock of fine- 
 woolled sheep, which at that time cost fifteen shillings 
 each, with the intention of forming a grazing establish- 
 ment on his own grant of land, which had previously 
 been lying waste. The dairy-cattle being accordingly 
 separated from the herd, all the rest, with the sheep and 
 young horses, were sent, under charge of a hired over- 
 seer and two convict-servants, to form a grazing station 
 at the distance of thirty miles. 
 
 In the mean time, as several hired mechanics with 
 their families were occasionally employed on the farm, 
 besides free sawyers and other hired labourers, all of 
 whom received rations of flour, &c. as part of their 
 wages, it was found that there was a considerable loss 
 of time and waste of material in grinding wheat for so 
 
96 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 many people — about sixty in all — with the common 
 steel mills in general use in the interior : a horse-mill 
 was therefore erected, and afterwards a windmill ; a 
 threshing-mill, and a mill for the manufacture of 
 Scotch barley — the first that had been constructed 
 in the colony — being subsequently appended to the 
 original machinery. 
 
 A garden, in which all the sorts of fruit-trees I have 
 enumerated in a preceding chapter were successfully 
 cultivated, had been formed on the farm by a free emi- 
 grant Scotch gardener, hired for the purpose ; but the 
 site being within reach of the inundations of the Hunter, 
 it was completely destroyed by a high flood in the year 
 1830. A second garden, however, was afterwards 
 formed beyond the reach of inundations, with a vine- 
 yard of about an acre ill extent, and an extensive 
 orchard. The gardener was one of the machine-breakers, 
 transported from the agricultural counties of England 
 in the year 1831 : he had been employed in the same 
 capacity for many years, in the garden of a clergyman 
 in Shropshire, and was assigned to my brother on his 
 arrival in the colony. He is, without exception, the most 
 industrious man I have ever seen ; and one of the com- 
 missions I was charged with on leaving the colony for 
 England, in the year 1833, was to endeavour, if possible, 
 to get out his wife and child, as he told me he had no 
 doubt of being able to do well both for himself and his 
 family in New South Wales. I forwarded his letter 
 on my arrival in London, requesting the party to whom 
 it was addressed to communicate with me on the sub- 
 ject to which it related, as I had it in my power to facili- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 97 
 
 tate the attainment of the poor man's desire ; but I 
 received no answer, and poor Joseph had never heard 
 of his wife and child up to the time of my leaving the 
 colony again for England in July, 1836. 
 
 On my return to the colony in the year 1834, I found 
 that my brother had purchased a valuable property of 
 about 1400 acres adjoining his own, making the whole 
 extent of his farm on the Yimmang or Patterson's River 
 upwards of 2400 acres, with a navigable river frontage 
 of upwards of five miles, and an extent of arable land 
 of the first quality amounting to 1500 acres, of which 
 a third is now cleared and under cultivation. The crop 
 for the year 1835 and 1836 was as follows : — 
 
 Land under wheat, 150 acres ; produce, 3500 bushels, 
 or 23| bushels per acre ; price of wheat in the colony 
 during 1835 and 1836, from eight to twelve shillings 
 per bushel. 
 
 Land under maize, 164 acres ; produce, 8000 bushels, 
 or 484 bushels per acre ; price of maize, from four to 
 five shillings per bushel. 
 
 Land under barley, 25 acres ; produce, 600 bushels, 
 or 24 bushels per acre ; price of barley, five shillings 
 per bushel. 
 
 Potatoes — ten tons sold at £10 per ton, besides the 
 consumption on the farm. 
 
 Tobacco — all used on the farm. 
 
 Dairy produce sold to the amount of at least £200. 
 
 Pork, reared chiefly on maize, sold to the amount of 
 upwards of £200. 
 
 Wool sold to the amount of about £300, the farm 
 having hitherto been chiefly agricultural. 
 
 VOL. II. E 
 
98 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 The vineyard, comprising about an acre of ground, 
 produced upwards of two tons of grapes. 
 
 The first dwelling-house erected on my brother's farm 
 was formed of rough slabs of split timber, the lower 
 ends of which were sunk in the ground, the upper 
 extremities being bound together by a wall-plate : it 
 was thatched with reeds or coarse grass, and contained 
 three apartments — a parlour or sitting-room, a store- 
 room, and a bed-room — each of which, however, was 
 occasionally used for other purposes. The kitchen was 
 detached, and was inhabited by a convict-servant and 
 his wife. The bare ground served as a floor, and the 
 interstices between the slabs were plastered with a 
 composition of mud, the walls being white-washed both 
 within and without. This homely building, which I am 
 sure would not cost £20, was afterwards furnished with 
 glass windows and a floor of rough boards, and served 
 as the farm-cottage for three or four years. By that 
 time considerable improvement had been effected on 
 the land, and a suitable situation had been pitched on 
 for the future and permanent dwelling-house. A range 
 of out-buildings of stone, intended for a kitchen, store- 
 room, &c, was accordingly erected in that situation, 
 and fitted up and occupied as a second temporary resi- 
 dence ; the wooden building being then given up to the 
 farm-overseer. At length, a permanent dwelling-house 
 was erected adjoining the out-buildings, on an elevated 
 and commanding situation, between the two lagoons, 
 and about half a mile from the river. It is a two-story 
 house, built of cut stone, having a verandah or covered 
 portico all round. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 99 
 
 In short, the maxim of all prudent settlers in the 
 salubrious climate of New South Wales is the one 
 divinely recommended by King Solomon, nearly three 
 thousand years ago, to the Jewish colonists whom he 
 seems to have settled in some of the conquests of his 
 father David ; for it can scarcely apply to the case of 
 a country already settled : " Prepare thy work zeithout, 
 and make it fit for thyself in the field; and after- 
 wards build thine house."— Proverbs, xxiv. 27. A 
 prudent settler, who expends his capital in improving 
 his land, and in securing a profitable and regular return 
 for his labour in the first instance, will be able, in a 
 very few years after his first settlement, to build a much 
 better house than he is likely to erect on his farm 
 when there is no other improvement effected upon it ; 
 and the inconvenience of being but indifferently lodged 
 in the mean time is but a small matter comparatively in 
 a climate like that of New South Wales. 
 
 The advantages enjoyed in such cases as the one I 
 have just described, over those likely to be enjoyed by 
 respectable free emigrants arriving in the colony at 
 present, are, 1st, The more eligible tenure of the land ; 
 which, in the case of emigrants arriving in the colony a 
 few years ago, was granted in portions of five hundred to 
 two thousand five hundred and sixty acres at a small quit- 
 rent, but which is now uniformly sold by the colonial 
 government at a price of not less than five shillings an 
 acre. 2nd, Superior locality; the farm I have just 
 described being situated in the centre of a compara- 
 tively populous district, and possessing the inestimable 
 advantage of steam-navigation. 
 
 At the same time, in other respects equally import- 
 
100 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 ant, the circumstances of the colony are much more 
 favourable now than they were ten years ago for the 
 settlement of a respectable family, either in the interior 
 or on the coast. The same amount of capital which it 
 required to stock a large farm moderately with horses, 
 sheep, and cattle, ten years ago, will probably be re- 
 quired to stock the same extent of land now ; but 
 although the settler will now have to pay for his land, 
 he will have whatever number of free farm-servants or 
 labourers he may choose to carry out with him landed in 
 the colony free of cost. Besides, the cost of maintain- 
 ing a family for twelve or eighteen months after their 
 arrival is at present much less than it was at the period 
 I refer to, while the price of wool — the staple article of 
 colonial produce — is higher than ever. To the sheep or 
 cattle farmer, distance is a matter of very small mo- 
 ment ; for cattle travel to the market themselves ; and 
 the cost of conveying wool to the shipping-port, from a 
 great distance in the interior, is comparatively trifling. 
 On the other hand, the extension of steam-navigation 
 along the eastern coast of New Holland will very soon 
 render it a matter of no consequence to the agricul- 
 turist, whether he is fifty or five hundred miles from 
 the capital, provided he is within reach of a navigable 
 river, or harbour, or good roadstead, on the coast. 
 There will very shortly be a steam-boat plying regu- 
 larly between Sydney and Hobart Town, the capi- 
 tal of Van Dieman's Land : in that case an agricul- 
 turist would be just as favourably situated for the colo- 
 nial market at Twofold Bay, at the southern extremity 
 of the Australian land, as at Hunter's River. 
 
 In short, I see no reason, why persevering industry, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 101 
 
 or rather vigilance and economy, should not lead to 
 equally favourable results in the present circumstances 
 of the colony, with those to which they have evidently 
 led in the instance I have mentioned, as well as in 
 many others, with which I am not so intimately 
 acquainted. Let the reader not imagine, however, that 
 there is any thing to be gained in New South Wales 
 without persevering industry conjoined with prudent 
 management and economy. Wherever our lot is cast 
 in the wide world, — whether we are called to earn a 
 mere livelihood by contending with the unpropitious- 
 ness of the seasons and the stubbornness of the soil, 
 or to struggle for far higher interests with hostile prin- 
 cipalities and powers, — this is the uniform condition of 
 mortality, — 
 
 Nil sine magno 
 Vita labore dedit mortalibus ; 
 
 or, in other words, " In the sweat of thy face shalt 
 thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground." 
 
102 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 NOTICES OF THE SETTLEMEISTTS OF BATHURST 
 AND ILLAWARRA. 
 
 " The man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became 
 very great : for he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, 
 and great store of servants." — Genesis, xxvi. 13. 
 
 The road to Bathurst, or, as it is more frequently- 
 called, the Great Western Road, branches off from the 
 Parramatta road at the eastern extremity of the town 
 of Parramatta. At the distance of a few miles* from 
 Parramatta is the settlement of Prospect, the residence 
 of several small settlers, and of a few families of a higher 
 class. In this neighbourhood, the country, which is of 
 an undulating character, exhibits that singular feature 
 which I have already mentioned, and which is else- 
 where observable in the colony ; the ground on the 
 declivities and on the summits of the hills being of 
 inexhaustible fertility, while in the hollows or lower 
 levels it is comparatively unproductive. I have myself 
 frequently observed, when riding in the interior, either 
 before sunrise or after sunset during the winter months, 
 that while the temperature on the high grounds was 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 103 
 
 mild and pleasant, it was extremely cold in the hollows ; 
 perhaps in consequence of the colder and denser air 
 sinking, from its greater specific gravity, to the lower 
 levels. The black natives of the colony have observed 
 this peculiarity in the Australian climate ; for instead of 
 making their encampments for the night, and kindling 
 their diminutive fires, in the gulleys or hollows, as one 
 should have supposed they would have done, they more 
 frequently select as their temporary resting-place some 
 elevated situation. I should not imagine that this 
 atmospherical peculiarity has any thing to do with the 
 nature of the soil in such localities, but it may perhaps 
 have some influence on the vegetation. 
 
 Beyond the settlement of Prospect, the Western. 
 Road skirts along the old government agricultural 
 establishments of Toongabbee and Rooty Hill, and the 
 houses of respectable landholders are observable at 
 irregular intervals to the right and left. At length, the 
 Blue Mountains are seen, through an opening in the 
 forest, towering upwards, at a distance of ten or twelve 
 miles directly in front ; the road running for a consider- 
 able distance, in a due westerly direction, as straight as 
 an arrow, and the lofty trees on either side of it forming 
 a vista somewhat similar to that which is formed by 
 two corresponding rows of pillars in an old Gothic ca- 
 thedral. The intervening valley of the Hawkesbury 
 then opens gradually on the view, presenting a large 
 extent of champaign country, through which the river 
 Nepean, spreading fertility in its progress, like the an- 
 cient river of Egypt, winds romantically along the base 
 of the mountains. 
 
104 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 The hospitable mansion of Sir John Jamison, of Re- 
 gentviile, occupies an elevated and commanding situ- 
 ation at a considerable distance to the left of the road, 
 having a great extent of rich alluvial country in front ; 
 the Blue Mountains, with their dark mantle of forest, 
 to the left ; and the river Nepean flowing placidly be- 
 tween. The river is crossed in a punt at Emu Ferry, 
 about thirty-five miles from Sydney ; the deserted go- 
 vernment establishment of Emu Plains— where it is in- 
 tended to form a town, for which indeed the locality is 
 admirably adapted — being situated between the river 
 and the mountains. From Emu Plains the mountain 
 road ascends Lapstone Hill — a steep and difficult ascent 
 of four miles ; the summit of which, with the level 
 ground beyond it, forms a sort of pedestal for the 
 higher mountains to spring from. There is a comfort- 
 able inn on the top of Lapstone Hill, at which travellers 
 generally halt for their first day's journey, the distance 
 from Sydney being about forty miles. The first time I 
 travelled to Bathurst, however, my fellow-travellers 
 and myself rode a few miles farther, and halted at a 
 military station called Spring-wood, the accommodations 
 on the mountains being then very inferior to what they 
 are now. Our host at Spring-wood was a corporal of 
 the third regiment, or Buffs, now in India ; the wooden 
 walls of whose humble dwelling were ornamented with 
 a portrait of " Lord Anson," a picture of the " West 
 India Docks/' another of " Christmas drawing near at 
 hand," and a third exhibiting " the Stages of Man's 
 Life compared to the twelve months of the year ;" the 
 homely character and style of which may be inferred 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 105 
 
 from the circumstance of their being for sale, at suf- 
 ficiently low prices, at the " Wholesale Toy and 
 Marble Warehouse, Great St. Andrew's Street, Seven 
 Dials." 
 
 A serjeant or corporal of the 48th regiment had been 
 stationed some time before the period I allude to at 
 Cox's River, another military station on the Bathurst 
 road : he had been an industrious man, and had 
 accumulated some property both in goods and cattle in 
 the colony— as much even as amounted to £300 : but 
 the regiment being ordered to India, and no interest 
 or entreaty being available to procure his discharge, he 
 disposed of his property ; and on coming to Sydney, 
 in a state of mind which the reader will doubtless com- 
 miserate, he commenced drinking the price of it with 
 some of his old companions in right earnest. In this 
 inglorious employment he was unfortunately so suc- 
 cessful, that in the space of six weeks he had left 
 himself quite pennyless, and was consequently ready to 
 embark on equal terms with the rest of his company 
 for India. Though I cannot by any means defend the 
 soldier for thus sinking under the pressure of adversity, 
 I cannot but pity him ; and I cannot help regretting, 
 moreover, the operation of a system, which thus de- 
 prived the colony of an industrious and deserving in- 
 dividual, who would in all likelihood have reared a 
 virtuous family, and been a blessing to his neighbour- 
 hood, for the purpose of landing an additional drunkert 
 soldier on the ramparts of Fort George. 
 
 There is another subject of regret connected with the 
 military system of the mother country, as it regards the 
 
106 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 colonies and the Indian empire. The regiments of the 
 line that are stationed in the Australian colonies, of 
 which there are now three in New South Wales and 
 one in Van Dieman's Land, are uniformly sent to 
 India after five or six years' service in these colonies. 
 At the expiration of that period, there is always a 
 numerous flock of interesting sprightly children be- 
 longing to the regiment about to proceed to India, all 
 of whom must of course follow their parents to that 
 deadly climate, where both parents and children are 
 mowed down like the standing corn before the sickle of 
 the reaper. Now there might surely be some better 
 and more humane arrangement effected without de- 
 triment to His Majesty's service ; the families to be 
 allowed, for instance, to remain in the colony, and a few 
 unmarried recruits to be forwarded from the mother 
 country to supply their place. It would doubtless be 
 the interest of the colony of New South Wales to 
 reimburse the mother country from the colonial land- 
 revenue for all the additional expense which such an 
 arrangement would cost to procure so large a periodical 
 accession to its free population. We have had colonial 
 projectors who would willingly have lodged a detainer 
 upon the children in all such cases, and allowed the 
 parents to proceed to India with their respective 
 regiments, placing their orphaned offspring at agri- 
 cultural nursery establishments in the interior of the 
 colony, to be conducted on the soup-kitchen or Owen 
 and parallelogram style : but although persons of this 
 class are evidently of the order of cold-blooded animals 
 themselves — an order, which the naturalists inform us 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 107 
 
 is entirely destitute of natural affection — British sol- 
 diers, it must not be forgotten, are of the order mam- 
 malia, having warm blood and breathing by lungs, and 
 are consequently possessed in a high degree of the 
 feelings and affections of men. Their children, in short, 
 are not to be torn from them and penned up in a 
 separate stock-yard, like a number of colonial calves, 
 to be fed till they reach maturity out of a common 
 pail. 
 
 From the top of Lapstone Hill to a short distance 
 beyond Spring- wood the ascent is so gentle as to be 
 scarcely perceivable : the country consists chiefly of 
 forest-land of inferior quality; the trees are lofty, and 
 for the most part of the iron-bark species ; and though 
 the inferior vegetation is scanty, there is food for horses 
 and cattle. For the next thirty-five or forty miles, 
 however, the country which the road traverses consists 
 of immense masses of sandstone-mountain piled over 
 each other in the wildest confusion, like Pelion on Ossa ; 
 while trees of moderate elevation and of an endless 
 variety of botanical families are seen in every direc- 
 tion, moored in the rifted rock. The mountain range 
 traversed by the Bathurst road is the dividing range 
 that separates the numberless deep gulleys that com- 
 municate with the valley of the Grose river — one of 
 the parent streams of the Hawkesbury — to the right, 
 from a similar series of impassable ravines, communi- 
 cating with the valley of Cox's River above its junction 
 with the Warragumby, or rather the Wollondilly,* to 
 
 * The reader will easily perceive that the last-mentioned of these 
 rivers is the only one of the three that has heen permitted to retain its 
 
108 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the left. The road has consequently to follow all the 
 sinuosities of the range ; so much so, that the course of 
 a traveller on the mountains very much resembles that 
 of a ship beating up against a head-wind ; for he finds, 
 to use the maritime phraseology, that although his log 
 indicates a rapid progressive motion, he has after all 
 made but a very few miles of westing. 
 
 Having left Spring-wood long before day-break, on a 
 cold winter morning, when the ground was covered with 
 hoar-frost, we had reached the summit of a lofty emi- 
 nence called King's Table Land, nearly four thousand 
 feet above the level of the sea, in time to behold the 
 glorious phenomenon of the rising sun gradually lifting 
 up the dark veil of night from the valley of the 
 Hawkesbury, as it lay outstretched in silent loveliness 
 far beneath us ; while in a few minutes after the 
 clear river skirting along the yellow corn-fields in the 
 valley seemed like a border of silver on a web of cloth 
 of gold. The oblique rays of the sun, that fell power- 
 lessly in the mean time on the top branches of the lofty 
 trees in the numerous deep gulleys to the right and 
 left, served only to render visible the dismal darkness 
 of these gloomy ravines, the precipitous sides of some 
 of which are not less than two thousand feet in height, 
 and which had doubtless never been trodden by the 
 foot of man. 
 
 After a smart ride of three or four hours, my fellow- 
 travellers and myself arrived at the Weather-boarded 
 
 mellifluous and doubtless highly appropriate barbarian appellative. 
 Truly the colonial literati will ere long have good reason to exclaim with 
 Cato, " Vera nomina rerum amisimus." — Sallust, De Conjur. Catilin. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 109 
 
 Hut, which in 1826 was merely a military station, with 
 a keen appetite for breakfast; but we were not a little 
 mortified to find that there was nothing to be had at the 
 station but pure water, every particle of flour having 
 been consumed on the preceding day ; and two soldiers, 
 who had been despatched by the Serjeant in command 
 to the nearest settlement for a supply, not having re- 
 turned. Our mortification was perhaps heightened, 
 when we recollected that the corporal's wife at Spring- 
 wood had offered to make us a comfortable breakfast 
 before we started in the morning; but we could not 
 mend the matter ; and we had consequently to postpone 
 our morning's repast till the evening, when it was calcu- 
 lated we should reach a comfortable inn at the western 
 extremity of the mountains, where we proposed to rest 
 for the night. 
 
 On crossing the mountains a second time, after an 
 interval of six years, I found a comfortable inn at the 
 Weather-boarded Hut, where my fellow-traveller and 
 myself halted for breakfast, after a ride of upwards of 
 twenty miles from the inn near Lapstone Hill, where we 
 had rested the preceding night. There is a stream of 
 fresh water, sufficient in ordinary seasons to turn a mill, 
 in the valley of the Weather-boarded Hut, which, at the 
 distance of two or three miles down the valley, suddenly 
 precipitates itself over a precipice, whose perpendicular 
 height cannot be less, I. should imagine, than double 
 the height of the ledge of rocks across the channel of the 
 great Canadian River, which forms the celebrated cata- 
 ract of Niagara. After breakfast I proposed to my 
 fellow-traveller to walk down to the Falls, as our horses 
 
110 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 required two or three hours' rest before resuming our 
 journey; but the length of the morning's ride and the 
 heat of the day (for it was then January, or midsummer 
 in the colony,) induced him to prefer awaiting my return 
 in the inn. I accordingly got two boys who belonged 
 to the station for guides, and walked towards the Falls, 
 where I was happy to find that the magnificence of the 
 scenery far more than compensated for the additional 
 exertion. 
 
 The valley of the Weather-boarded Hut terminates 
 abruptly at the Falls, in a much more extensive valley, 
 crossing its direction at right angles, the boundary of 
 the latter valley being a line of perpendicular cliffs of 
 immense height. At the point where the rivulet leaps 
 over the precipice, the cliffs recede considerably, forming 
 two bold headlands of fearful elevation, and enclosing 
 a basin of prodigious depth, in which the tops of lofty 
 trees are seen many hundred feet below the edge of the 
 precipice. On gaining the edge of the precipice, the 
 waters of the rivulet seem to shrink instinctively from 
 the frightful leap to which they have been conducted in 
 their course down the valley ; each individual drop ap- 
 pearing endowed with a separate volition, and seeming 
 determined to shift for itself; and the whole mass of 
 fluid resolving itself into what appears like innumerable 
 particles of frozen snow. Were the Ottawa, or any of 
 the other mighty tributaries of the river St. Lawrence, 
 to descend the valley of the Weather-boarded Hut, I 
 am confident its fall over the precipice I have thus im- 
 perfectly described would take precedence of the Falls 
 of Niagara : as it is, however, I have been told, that 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. Ill 
 
 when the rivulet is flooded, the scene is of surpassing 
 magnificence. 
 
 About twenty miles beyond the Weather- boarded 
 Hut, the mountain-range traversed by the Great Western 
 Road terminates abruptly in a steep and almost pre- 
 cipitous mountain, called Mount York, upwards of 
 three thousand six hundred feet above the level of the 
 sea : and as the range presents in every other di- 
 rection a line of perpendicular rocks of several hundred 
 feet in height towards the valley on either side, it was 
 absolutely necessary to descend this mountain, to reach 
 the lower level beyond it. To effect this object, the 
 original projectors of the Bathurst Road seem to have 
 imagined that the most expeditious way of getting 
 down the mountain was to descend headlong, for the 
 original road was as precipitous as can well be imagined. 
 The superintendence of the roads of the colony being 
 afterwards entrusted to Major Lockyer, of His Majesty's 
 57th regiment, a great improvement was effected on 
 the descent of Mount York, a new road being formed 
 under Major Lockyer's direction, in which the descent 
 was diminished to one foot in every four. The ac- 
 clivity, however, was still distressing for cattle pro- 
 ceeding towards Sydney with heavily-laden drays ; and 
 the descent was so dangerous, that the drivers of 
 bullock- carts had uniformly to cut down a tree on the 
 summit of the mountain, and fasten it as a drag to the 
 cart-wheels before attempting it. At length, Major 
 Mitchell, the Surveyor-General of New South Wales, 
 whose talents in this most important department of en- 
 gineering are of the highest order, being appointed by 
 
112 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 His Majesty's Government to the general superintend- 
 ence of the roads of the colony, a bold and original ex- 
 pedient for gaining the lower level was happily devised 
 and successfully executed, to the incalculable benefit of 
 the inhabitants of the extensive and important country 
 in the western interior. 
 
 Parallel to Mount York, Major Mitchell observed 
 another mountain of equal elevation called Mount Vit- 
 toria, which he found connected with the former moun- 
 tain for a certain distance from their base by a natural 
 dyke or narrow ledge of rocks stretching across the in- 
 tervening abyss. He therefore threw down a portion 
 of the rocky summit of Mount York till he reached the 
 summit-level of the connecting dyke, and then carrying 
 the road in a sloping direction along this natural cause- 
 way to Mount Vittoria, lengthened out the remaining 
 descent by cutting a gently inclined plain along the 
 precipitous side of the latter mountain to the valley 
 below. It was one of those bold conceptions that occur 
 only to men of original genius, and it can only be duly 
 appreciated on the spot by a skilful observer of the 
 striking locality. The dyke or ledge of rocks, on which 
 the road now crosses the intervening valley, is so nar- 
 row, and withal so elevated, that it seems quite aerial, 
 and the traveller can scarce divest himself of a feeling 
 of insecurity in passing along it. The valley to the east- 
 ward is designated the Vale of Clywd, after a well- 
 known valley in North Wales, which it is thought to 
 resemble in its general outline. I recollect admiring 
 the beauties of that justly celebrated vale from the 
 ruins of Denbigh Castle, during a solitary pedestrian 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 113 
 
 tour which I happened to make in North Wales, on 
 being let loose upon the world from a Scottish Uni- 
 versity in the year 1821 : but I confess I experienced 
 far higher emotions — emotions of an overpowering and 
 spirit-stirring character — when sitting on horseback and 
 contemplating the sublimer features of the Australian 
 valley from the pass of Mount Vittoria. 
 
 Two miles and three quarters in point of distance 
 were saved to the travelling public of the colony by this 
 important public work, while the descent was diminished 
 from one foot in every four to one in every fifteen : 
 it is evident therefore that the talents of an officer of 
 Major Mitchell's ability, in so important a depart- 
 ment of the public service, are of vast consequence 
 to the community at large, in a country of such ano- 
 malous geological formation as New South Wales. I 
 am sorry to state, however, that, in consequence of 
 some of those petty jealousies, dislikes, and antipathies, 
 which are found so frequently to affect the motions 
 of the state- carriage in the colonies, Major Mitchell 
 was laid entirely on the shelf, in as far as regarded the 
 laying down of the lines of roads, or the prosecution of 
 geographical discovery in the interior, during the late 
 colonial administration. Any person's line of road was 
 preferred to that officer's, and thousands and tens of 
 thousands of the public money were consequently ex- 
 pended to no purpose, in clearing and forming lines 
 of road, which will now be superseded by others of far 
 less cost and of far greater utility. I am happy to state, 
 however, that the present Governor has acted in this 
 important particular in greater accordance with the 
 
114 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 interests of the community. It is doubtless the highest 
 mark of wisdom on the part of a ruler to avail himself 
 of eminent talent for the advancement of the general 
 welfare, in whatever department of the public service 
 or in whatever quarter it is evinced : it is an evidence 
 alike of intellectual weakness and of something im- 
 plying a betrayal of trust, to commit the weightier con- 
 cerns of the public to drivelling incapacity. 
 
 To the westward of Mount Vittoria, the country con- 
 sists chiefly of hills and valleys watered by running 
 streams, and abounding in excellent pasture for sheep 
 and cattle : there has consequently been a considerable 
 extent of land located in this part of the route ; and the 
 different roads to Bathurst — of which there are at pre- 
 sent no fewer than four, three of which, however, have 
 nearly been superseded by Major Mitchell's new line — 
 conduct the traveller to many interesting spots, where 
 prosperous farming establishments have been formed in 
 the wilderness, in the neighbourhood of which the 
 bleating of sheep and the lowing of oxen are heard in 
 the dewy morning, enlivening the inland " woods and 
 wilds" of Australia, and recalling the cherished recol- 
 lections of rural scenes far beyond the annual northern 
 journey of the sun. 
 
 The highest land on the Blue Mountains' road occurs 
 at the distance of ninety or a hundred miles from Syd- 
 ney ; the road crossing the dividing range that separates 
 the eastern from the western waters in that part of the 
 route. There is a singular circumstance connected with 
 these waters not undeserving of attention. Those flow- 
 ing to the westward, or the interior of the continent, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 115 
 
 abound in a species of perch, or cod, as they are called 
 in the colony, of which the waters flowing to the east- 
 ward are entirely destitute ; and the ultimate direction 
 of any stream of unknown destination found winding 
 along the trackless ravines of the intervening moun- 
 tains, can be determined with the utmost certainty from 
 this circumstance. The cod caught in the river Lachlan 
 are large and well-flavoured, and are preserved by drying 
 them in the sun. I have seen them in this state at the 
 table of a respectable settler at Bathurst, who had them 
 brought as a delicacy from his grazing station, at a 
 distance of seventy-five miles overland. The gentleman 
 I allude to related an amusing anecdote connected with 
 Australian fishing, which had fallen under his own ob- 
 servation a short time before. He had been out for 
 several days on an excursion in the interior, with one or 
 two other settlers of the Bathurst district, and two or 
 three black natives : one of the latter had a complete 
 suit of slop-clothing, consisting of a gray jacket and 
 trowsers, which had been given him by my informant, 
 to whom it seems he was much attached, and whose 
 name he had even adopted as a mark of respect. In 
 the course of the expedition, the party caught a quantity 
 of fish in one of the western rivers ; and after roasting 
 as many of them as they required at the time, the rest 
 were entrusted to Jackie to carry to the next resting- 
 place. Jackie had no fish-basket, but he had ingenuity 
 enough to find a substitute ; for, cutting off both of the 
 sleeves of his jacket close by the shoulder, and tying 
 up the ends of them, he packed them both full offish, 
 
116 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 and slung them round his neck, perfectly unconscious 
 of the ludicrous appearance he exhibited. 
 
 The view of the plain of Bathurst from the elevated 
 land to the eastward, from which it is first seen at a 
 great distance, is singularly interesting. The eye is so 
 much accustomed to forest scenery in New South Wales, 
 that the sight of clear land is naturally associated with 
 the idea of a vast expenditure of human labour, and 
 the view of an extensive plain naturally destitute of tim- 
 ber consequently affects the traveller with a mingled 
 emotion of surprise and delight. The plain of Bathurst 
 is about nineteen miles in length, and from six to eight 
 in breadth, containing about one hundred and twenty 
 square miles of naturally clear land. It is by no means 
 a dead level, but consists rather of a series of gentle 
 elevations with intervening plains of moderate extent, 
 the surrounding forest-country being generally very 
 thinly timbered, and patches of forest stretching at 
 irregular intervals a considerable distance into the plains, 
 like points of land into a lake. 
 
 It were no easy task to account for the existence of 
 such open plains in the interior of a country so uni- 
 formly covered with timber in all other localities as the 
 territory of New South Wales, and especially in situa- 
 tions where the soil is evidently by no means unfavour- 
 able for the growth of timber. For my own part, I am 
 inclined to believe, that the plains of Bathurst, and 
 others of a similar character in the colony, both to the 
 northward and southward, have at some former period 
 been covered with timber, in common with the other 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 117 
 
 parts of the territory ; but that the timber having been 
 in great measure destroyed in the course of some long 
 drought similar to the one experienced during the go- 
 vernment of General Darling, the frequent burning of 
 the rich long grass on the plains by the black natives 
 has gradually destroyed the remainder of the forest, and 
 prevented the growth of any succeeding generation of 
 young trees. In confirmation of this idea, I observed 
 depressions in some parts of the plains, exactly similar 
 to those which are formed by the burning out of a large 
 tree, while in other places perpendicular holes of two or 
 three feet in depth, rather more than sufficient to admit 
 a horse's leg, and for that reason somewhat dangerous 
 to horsemen, are not unfrequently met with, and seem 
 to indicate the places in which smaller trees of hard 
 timber had gradually wasted away. On the other hand, 
 there are parts of the territory, as for instance in the 
 upper portion of the district of Hunter's River, where 
 the country is but lightly timbered, in which all the 
 standing trees are evidently of great age, but in which 
 there are no young trees springing up to supply the 
 places of those that are dying away. In short, to use 
 the words of Humboldt, which, however, I quote 
 merely from memory, — " The distribution of organized 
 beings over the surface of the globe is a problem too 
 difficult for man to solve in the present state of his 
 knowledge and of his powers." 
 
 I have elsewhere observed that the plain of Bathurst 
 is traversed in the direction of its length by the river 
 Macquarie, which pursues a meandering course along 
 the plains, having its banks occasionally ornamented 
 
118 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 with a handsome though rather melancholy-looking 
 tree, called the swamp-oak. During my stay at Ba- 
 thurst, I ascended a conical hill of about three or four 
 hundred feet in height, called Mount Pleasant, situated 
 on the extensive estate of Major- General Stewart, on 
 the left bank of the river, from the summit of which the 
 scenery reminded me of the view from Stirling Castle 
 in Scotland. The level plain lay extended to the right 
 almost as far as the eye could reach, like a large lake 
 with a belt of forest skirting its deeply-indented shores, 
 while numerous flocks of sheep and herds of cattle were 
 roaming in every direction over its luxuriant pasture. 
 The river, which had traversed its whole extent through 
 an avenue of melancholy swamp-oaks, seemed as if it 
 were mournfully winding its silent way to the distant 
 and unknown interior, like a young adventurer weeping 
 unwillingly as he leaves the joyous scenes of his boy- 
 hood for some far remote and foreign land. The houses 
 of respectable settlers, with their extensive farm-yards 
 and out-buildings, their orchards and their patches of 
 cultivated land, were seen at irregular distances all over 
 the plains ; while the numerous turf-built, thatched, and 
 white-washed cottages of the smaller settlers enlivened 
 the scene. 
 
 The great extent of naturally clear land of superior 
 quality formed the chief attraction of the Bathurst dis- 
 trict when the stream of free emigration had begun to 
 flow to the shores of Australia : but the difficulties of 
 the mountain-road, which at that period were manifold 
 and prodigious, could only be overpowered by men pos- 
 sessed both of energy and capital. The Bathurst country 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 119 
 
 was therefore for the most part apportioned out in 
 grants of two thousand acres each, to families of re- 
 spectability ; and I am happy to state that the district 
 has hitherto maintained its superior character, both in 
 the state of harmony in which the respectable settlers 
 appear to live with each other, and in the regard they 
 manifest for the ordinances of religion, and for the reli- 
 gious instruction of their families and servants. As 
 nearly one half of the respectable families of the district 
 belong to the Presbyterian communion, there are both 
 an Episcopal clergyman and a Presbyterian minister of 
 the Church of Scotland stationed at Bathurst; the 
 Episcopal Church being situated on the east, and the 
 Presbyterian or Scots Church on the western side of 
 the river. The Episcopal clergyman is the Rev. Mr. 
 Keane, a graduate of the University of Dublin; the 
 Scotch clergyman is the Rev. K. D. S my the, A. M. ; 
 and it gives me sincere pleasure to add, as a valuable 
 testimony in their favour, that the worshipping of God 
 in their own families — a much-neglected service, the 
 benign and humanizing influence of which, however, 
 cannot but be seen and felt wherever it is duly ob- 
 served — is generally practised by the more respectable 
 settlers of both communions on the plains. I wish it 
 were only in my power to give an equally favourable 
 testimony of a single other district similarly circum- 
 stanced in the territory. A Roman Catholic priest has 
 recently been appointed for the Bathurst district, and a 
 Wesleyan missionary has been stationed in the vicinity 
 of the settlement during the past year. 
 
 Besides the respectable families I have just alluded 
 
120 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 to, there are many small settlers residing on different 
 parts of the plains of Bathurst, of whom not a few have 
 made themselves comfortable and independent, though 
 others are distinguished only for their reckless dissi- 
 pation. A settlement of veteran soldiers was formed 
 by the colonial government several years ago* at a place 
 called the Black Rock; and the indulgences that were 
 afforded them might certainly have placed them event- 
 ually in comparative independence : but a military life 
 seems, in the great majority of instances, to have a 
 thoroughly depraving influence on the common soldier; 
 and, of the few individuals that escape that influence, 
 the majority are absolutely good for nothing in any 
 other department of life. Such, at all events, has 
 hitherto been the uniform result of all the attempts of 
 Government, in the way of forming settlements of 
 veteran soldiers in the colony. A number of small 
 settlers of a more hopeful character were located a few 
 years ago in Queen Charlotte's Vale, a valley communi- 
 cating with the plains on the farther side of the river, 
 and approaching the nearest in its original state to the 
 beau ideal of natural scenery of any thing I have ever 
 beheld. It is traversed for several miles by a rivulet 
 which empties itself into the river Macquarie, the 
 native grass on either side of which has a verdant ap- 
 pearance quite refreshing to the eye ; and trees of 
 moderate height, and of highly graceful foliage, are 
 disposed at irregular intervals over its whole extent, so 
 as to produce the most picturesque effect imaginable. 
 I called at the cottage of a respectable free emigrant 
 Scotch settler who had been long in the colony, but 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 121 
 
 had only recently settled with his large and highly 
 reputable family at the entrance of the vale. His cot- 
 tage was built of turf, and covered with thatch ; but 
 being plastered with a composition of mud, and white- 
 washed both within and without, it had an air of neat- 
 ness and comfort quite attractive. On the open lawn 
 in front of it there were two or three trees of a peculiarly 
 ornamental character ; and as I had reason to suspect 
 that in that spirit of irreconcileable enmity to all stand- 
 ing timber, which is almost uniformly evinced by the 
 Australian colonists, their extirpation had already been 
 determined, I could not help interceding for their 
 preservation ; telling my worthy friend at the same 
 time, that if he cut them down notwithstanding, he 
 would deserve to be summoned before the Kirk Session, 
 or Presbyterian Parochial Ecclesiastical Court, for a 
 misdemeanour. 
 
 The locality occupied by the public buildings at 
 Bathurst, around which a town of considerable size 
 and importance is now in rapid progress of formation, 
 is called the Settlement. In the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of the Settlement a few small grants of land were 
 apportioned by the late colonial government as home- 
 stations, to various respectable proprietors who already 
 possessed extensive tracts in the surrounding country ; 
 and it is greatly to be regretted that the practice had 
 not been earlier introduced and more generally followed. 
 It would have brought all the respectable proprietors of 
 a large extent of country within a moderate distance of 
 each other, and within reach of the means of religious in- 
 struction, and of an education for their children, superior 
 vol. n. F 
 
122 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 to what families residing far apart from each other can 
 obtain; while their numerous flocks and herds could 
 have ranged over the surrounding pastoral country for 
 hundreds of miles as freely as they do now. Indeed, 
 the peculiar adaptation of the plains of Bathurst for 
 such a purpose is so strikingly obvious, and the adoption 
 of that purpose would have proved so evidently con- 
 ducive to the general welfare of the colony, that it is 
 almost marvellous that the idea should not have sug- 
 gested itself to the last two Governors of New South 
 Wales ; by both of whom the Crown lands of the 
 Bathurst district were, with only a few inconsiderable 
 exceptions, recklessly and irrecoverably alienated in large 
 tracts, without the least regard for the real welfare of 
 its future inhabitants. I should be sorry to insinuate 
 that any proprietor on the plains has more land than he 
 ought to have had : I only maintain that the general 
 interests of the community required that individuals 
 should not have had so much as they actually obtained 
 in that particular locality ; and that the Governors I 
 allude to were, therefore, greatly in fault, in overlooking 
 so important a consideration. 
 
 Several of the more respectable wool-growing settlers 
 in the Bathurst district can afford to run carriages or 
 curricles of their own ; but the expense of maintaining 
 an equipage in New South Wales is much less than in 
 England. This of course gives the plains rather a bril- 
 liant appearance — very different I apprehend from that 
 of most of the back-settlements of Upper Canada ; and 
 the cottages of some of the settlers (for such is the ge- 
 neral style of building in the interior) would do credit 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 123 
 
 to some of the more tasteful suburbs of the British me- 
 tropolis, I was particularly struck with the admirable 
 taste and even elegance displayed in the cottage and 
 grounds of Captain Piper, a Scotch gentleman from 
 Ayrshire, well-known in the colony, who has resided 
 with his large family for several years past in the Au- 
 stralian Highlands. Captain Piper's cottage is situated 
 on a gentle eminence to the eastward of the plains, over 
 which it commands an extensive and highly interesting 
 view; the prospect in front being bounded in the distance 
 by a range of hills of moderate elevation in the western 
 interior : indeed I do not know, that " the banks an' 
 braes o' bonnie Doun," the well-known classical locality 
 in the west of Scotland, so beautifully celebrated in the 
 Doric dialect of Ayrshire by the poet Burns, can exhibit 
 features more interesting or more beautiful than those of 
 the Australian locality which Captain Piper has named 
 after it # to keep it in remembrance. I spent an after- 
 noon at Captain Piper's during my visit to Bathurst, 
 and I was much gratified to find that the evening obla- 
 tion was offered up with all due solemnity, in the midst 
 of a numerous family circle, on the going down of the 
 sun. Shortly afterwards, when we were just about 
 taking leave, to pursue our course across the plains to our 
 head-quarters in the clear moonlight, a musical band, 
 consisting entirely of a few of the farm-servants, who had 
 each learned to play on some musical instrument, struck 
 up a lively Scottish air under the verandah, which, I 
 confess, was, on my own part at least, equally unex- 
 pected and animating. 
 
 * Alloway Bank. 
 
124 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 The sorts of wood most frequently met with in the 
 forest-ground nearest the settlement are those de- 
 signated by the colonists the white gum, the honey- 
 suckle, the dwarf-box, and the swamp-oak : I cannot 
 pretend to assign them their botanical names. From 
 the lower side of the leaves of the white gum a sub- 
 stance of a whitish colour exudes in considerable quan- 
 tity, and is found lying on the grass underneath the 
 branches, in the dewy morning, like hoar-frost. It is 
 called manna in the colony ; but whether its chemical 
 qualities are exactly similar to those of the manna of 
 commerce, I do not know : it is of a sweetish taste, and 
 is by no means unpleasant ; but its relish reminds one too 
 much of the medicine-chest to be particularly agreeable. 
 
 The openness of the country around Bathurst is ra- 
 ther more favourable for hunting and shooting than 
 most other parts of the territory, with the exception of 
 Argyle and Liverpool Plains. The kangaroo and the 
 emu, a bird resembling the ostrich, are hunted with 
 dogs : they are both feeble animals, but they are not 
 altogether destitute of means of defence : in addition 
 to their swiftness of foot, which they possess in common 
 with the hare and the ostrich of other countries, the 
 emu has great muscular power in his long iron limbs, 
 and can give an awkward blow to his pursuer by 
 striking out at him behind like a young horse ; while the 
 kangaroo, when brought to bay by the dogs, rests him- 
 self on his strong muscular tail ; seizes the dog with his 
 little hands or fore feet ; and, thrusting at him with one 
 of his hind feet, which is armed for the purpose with a 
 single sharp-pointed hoof, perhaps lays his side com- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 125 
 
 pletely open. When hotly pursued, the kangaroo some- 
 times takes to the water, where, if he happens to be fol- 
 lowed by a dog, he has a singular advantage over all 
 other quadrupeds of his own size, from his ability to 
 stand erect in pretty deep water. In this position he 
 waits for the dog, and when the latter comes up close 
 to him, he seizes him with his fore feet, and presses him 
 under the water till he is drowned. The bustard or na- 
 tive turkey is occasionally shot in the Bathurst country : 
 it sometimes weighs eighteen pounds, and it differs 
 from the common turkey in the flesh of the legs being 
 white, while that of the breast is dark-coloured. The 
 quail, the snipe, the wood-duck, the black or water- 
 duck, the curlew, the mutton-bird, and the spurwing 
 plover also abound in the neighbourhood. At the period 
 of my first visit to Bathurst, in the year 1826, there was 
 a club or society in great vigour in the district, called 
 The Bathurst Hunt. It was formed chiefly for the ex- 
 tirpation of the native dog, which was then rather trou- 
 blesome in the district on account of its sheep-killing 
 propensities ; and the members had each to appear at 
 all meetings of the Hunt in a green coatee with silver 
 buttons, a red vest and white under-clothing, the lower 
 extremities being encased in top-boots. I have never 
 been able to learn who the man of genius was who had 
 invented a uniform sufficiently grotesque for a member 
 of the French Institute ; but I was not sorry to learn, 
 on my second visit, after an interval of six years, that 
 the Hunt had died a natural death, the members, I 
 presume, having arrived in the mean time at years of 
 discretion. 
 
126 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 The plain of Bathurst is upwards of two thousand 
 one hundred feet above the level of the sea — an eleva- 
 tion which compensates for ten degrees of latitude, the 
 vegetation at Bathurst being exactly similar in its 
 character to that of Van Dieman's' Land, ten degrees 
 farther to the south. This elevation is remarkably con- 
 ducive to the general health of the district, Bathurst 
 being unquestionably the Montpelier of New South 
 Wales. The cheeks of the children beyond the moun- 
 tains have a rosy tint, which is seldom observable in the 
 lowlands of the colony ; and diseases which affect the 
 human frame in other parts of the territory are there in 
 great measure unknown. For persons exhibiting a 
 tendency to phthisis pidmorialis, medical men consider 
 the climate of Bathurst as perhaps the most favourable 
 in the world, both from the mild temperature and the 
 rarefaction of the air. A gentleman possessed of con- 
 siderable property in the Bathurst district had long 
 been a victim to an asthmatic affection in the mother 
 country, and was so ill during his residence in Sydney, 
 that he could not venture to go to bed, but had uni- 
 formly to spend the night leaning his head on his arms 
 at a table : on ascending the Blue Mountains, how- 
 ever, he found, to his great surprise and delight, that 
 the distressing affection had completely left him. He 
 resided for several years in perfect health in the Bathurst 
 district; but in occasionally coming to Sydney on busi- 
 ness, he found that the affection uniformly returned 
 when he reached a certain level in descending towards 
 the low country on the coast. As the presence or ab- 
 sence of the asthmatic affection did not depend in the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 12? 
 
 least on the state of the weather, the case can only be 
 accounted for from the greatly diminished denseness of 
 the atmosphere on the elevated table-land of the west- 
 ern interior. In short, I am inclined to believe that 
 there is no country on the face of the globe so well 
 adapted for the residence of persons either suffering 
 under, or threatened with, affections of the lungs, or 
 for the refitting of shattered India constitutions, as 
 the district of Bathurst in New South Wales. The 
 climate of Argyle, however, and of the high land gene- 
 rally to the south-westward, is exactly similar to that of 
 Bathurst, and, of consequence, equally salubrious. 
 
 The direct distance from Sydney to the town of 
 Wollongong, in the district of Illawarra, or, as it is 
 frequently called, the Five Islands, from five small 
 islands on that part of the coast, is not greater than 
 forty-five miles ; and the communication with the 
 capital, except for travellers, is managed chiefly by 
 water : but as the intervening country is intersected 
 by numerous ravines, as well as by several arms of the 
 sea, the road to Illawarra describes two sides of an 
 equilateral triangle, of which the coast line forms the 
 base — running for a certain distance to the south-west- 
 ward, and then suddenly breaking off eight points to 
 the south-eastward after heading the ravines. The dis- 
 tance by land is therefore about seventy miles, the road 
 passing through the towns of Liverpool and Campbell- 
 town. 
 
 The road to Liverpool, which is twenty miles distant 
 from Sydney, turns off to the left from the road to 
 Parramatta, about five miles from the capital. It is 
 
128 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 exceedingly uninteresting ; the country on either side 
 being a dense forest, and the soil for the most part poor 
 and unproductive. The patches of cultivated land which 
 are fallen in with on the Liverpool road are chiefly in 
 the vicinity of public-houses — and these are by no means 
 few in number — by the way-side. The town of Liver- 
 pool is situated at the head of the navigation of George's 
 River, which empties itself into Botany Bay, and forms 
 the grand thoroughfare for the extensive country to 
 the southward and westward. The chief object of 
 attraction which it exhibits is a handsome hospital, 
 erected during the government of Sir Thomas Brisbane, 
 which ought certainly never to have occupied such a 
 locality. Indeed, the convenience of the public seems 
 to have almost uniformly been the last thing considered 
 in the erection of such edifices in New South Wales. 
 A plain temporary wooden building, that could easily 
 have been erected at an insignificant cost, would have 
 been of incalculable benefit as a district hospital to 
 an extensive neighbourhood in the colony : and if a 
 colonial surgeon had been appointed to visit two or 
 three such hospitals — each situated in the centre of its 
 own district — the health of the colony would have been 
 much more effectually secured, than by erecting an ex- 
 tensive and costly edifice in a distant and inconvenient 
 locality : for the Liverpool Hospital, intended for an 
 extensive tract of country to the south-westward, and 
 the Newcastle Hospital, intended for the extensive dis- 
 trict of Hunter's River, are each as preposterously situ- 
 ated for the purposes they were respectively intended 
 to serve, as the Custom-House in the British metropolis, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 129 
 
 which is intended chiefly for the shipping on the Thames, 
 would have been, if it had been erected at the distance 
 of fifteen miles out of London on the Great North Road. 
 And the reader is not to suppose that the evil in the 
 cases I have just mentioned has been merely imaginary, 
 or is objectionable only on the score of inconvenience 
 and expense ; for unfortunate individuals, of the class 
 of assigned servants or convict-labourers, have actually 
 died on their way to these hospitals, merely from ex- 
 posure to the hot sun, perhaps for two or three days 
 together, on a bullock-cart. 
 
 The distance from Liverpool to Campbelltown is thir- 
 teen miles ; and along the whole intervening line of road 
 there are neat cottages at irregular intervals belonging 
 to respectable resident proprietors, the appearance of 
 which greatly enlivens the scenery. In the immediate 
 neighbourhood of Campbelltown, the country, which 
 consists of a succession of hills and dales, has much 
 more of an English aspect than most other parts of the 
 territory, and the proportion of cleared land is very con- 
 siderable ; Campbelltown having been the centre point 
 to which the efforts of Governor Macquarie were long 
 and systematically directed, in attempting to form a 
 race of small farmers out of the emancipated convict- 
 population of the colony. The district of Campbelltown, 
 however, is unfortunately situated in regard to water; 
 the soil of the surrounding country being strongly im- 
 pregnated with alum, which renders the water brackish. 
 But the evil is not without remedy; and a substantial 
 proprietor in the neighbourhood, Mr. Thomas Rose, of 
 Mount Gilead, has deserved well of the colonial public in 
 
130 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 demonstrating the efficacy of that remedy, and the prac- 
 ticability of its general application. In the neighbour- 
 hood of Campbelltown, and in many other parts of the 
 colony, the country is intersected by numerous water- 
 courses, which in rainy seasons contain running streams 
 of considerable size, but which are quite dry at all other 
 times. Across one of these water-courses, Mr. Rose 
 formed a strong embankment sufficiently broad at the 
 surface to serve the additional purpose of a cart-road 
 from bank to bank. The result has equalled his highest 
 anticipations : the embankment has permanently dam- 
 med up a large quantity of water of excellent quality, 
 sufficient to afford an abundant supply at all seasons 
 for his farming establishment, besides forming an orna- 
 mental sheet of water in the vicinity of his residence. 
 Water dammed up in this way, or even collected in 
 large basins formed for the purpose, is not liable to be- 
 come putrid in New South Wales, as it frequently does 
 in similar circumstances in Great Britain. There are 
 many farms in the colony that have no other water than 
 what is thus collected from the surface during heavy rains 
 in natural basins or water-holes, as they are called by the 
 colonists ; the water in such holes or basins remaining 
 pure and wholesome to the last drop. It would be diffi- 
 cult to account for the formation of these natural basins 
 or reservoirs, some of which are of great depth, and have 
 more the appearance of artificial than of natural pro- 
 ductions ; but their existence in all parts of the terri- 
 tory is a blessing of incalculable value to the colonial 
 community. 
 
 About three miles beyond Campbelltown to the right 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 131 
 
 is the dairy-farm or estate of Glenlee, to which I have 
 elsewhere alluded. There is a large extent of cleared 
 land on the Glenlee estate, the greater part of which 
 has been laid down with English grasses, the paddocks 
 being separated from each other by hedges of quince 
 or lemon-tree — the usual but seldom-used colonial sub- 
 stitutes for the hawthorn. The country is of an un- 
 dulating character, and the scenery from Glenlee House 
 — a handsome two-story house, built partly of brick 
 and partly of a drab-coloured sandstone — is rich, and 
 most agreeably diversified. On the opposite bank of 
 the Cow pasture River, which forms the boundary of 
 Mr. Howe's estate, is the much more extensive estate 
 of Camden, the property of the late John Maearthur, 
 Esq., and one of the largest and best-conducted esta- 
 blishments in the colony. Indeed, Mr. Macarthur's 
 family deserve the highest credit for the highly ju- 
 dicious mode of treatment they have uniformly pursued 
 towards the numerous convict-servants on their estate, 
 and for the interest they have uniformly taken in pro- 
 moting their comfortable settlement on their attainment 
 of freedom. The Messrs. Maearthur, Jun., who are 
 both magistrates of the territory, have lately erected a 
 splendid mansion on the Camden estate, and their 
 extensive gardens are a model to the colony. The vine- 
 yard at Camden is the most extensive and the most 
 forward in the country. There are many other estates, 
 however, besides those I have just mentioned, be- 
 longing to respectable resident proprietors in this part 
 of the colonial territory ; and I know no part of the 
 world, in which families of moderate capital, and pos- 
 
132 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 sessing ability to manage their affairs with the requisite 
 discretion, could more easily assemble around them a 
 large proportion of the comforts, I might even add the 
 elegancies and the luxuries, of rural life. 
 
 From Campbelltown to Appin, a distance of eleven 
 miles, the country continues to exhibit the same plea- 
 sing appearance of fertility, and the proportion of cleared 
 and cultivated land continues very considerable. About 
 six miles from Campbelltown to the left of the road is 
 Brookdale cottage, the residence of Hamilton Hume, 
 Esq., a Scoto-Australian, whom I have already had 
 occasion to mention, and to whom the colony is under 
 considerable obligations. The natives of New South 
 Wales are noted for their ability to find their way in the 
 forest, in places where the most sagacious European 
 would be in the utmost danger of being irrecoverably 
 lost; and Mr. Hume possesses this quality of his coun- 
 trymen in a superior degree, conjoined with a singu- 
 larly enterprising spirit and indomitable perseverance. 
 It was this gentleman who first ferreted his way, 
 through a series of miserable jungles and across rugged 
 and unpromising ravines, to what is now called The 
 New Country, or the district of Argyle ; and I have 
 already mentioned, that he has since reached Bass's 
 Straits, in company with Mr. Hovell, a respectable 
 settler in the same vicinity, by crossing the country to 
 the southward. Mr. Hume uses neither compass nor 
 quadrant ; but, like the Indians of America, he manages 
 to find his way through the forest to any particular 
 locality with a precision often unattainable by those who 
 are most skilful in the use of both. Mr. Hume is de- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 133 
 
 scended from one of the collateral branches of the 
 ancient and noble family of the same name, to which 
 the dormant earldom of March on the Scottish border 
 anciently belonged. 
 
 The remainder of the old route to Illavvarra is still a 
 mere bush-road, the regular Government road, on 
 which a gang of convicts have been employed for some 
 time past, being not yet completed. For many a long 
 mile from Appin the country is exceedingly sterile and 
 uninteresting; but, on gaining the summit of the Illawarra 
 Mountain — a lofty and precipitous range running paral- 
 lel to the coast, and supporting the elevated table-land 
 to the westward — the view is indescribably magnificent : 
 for all at once, the vast Pacific Ocean, stretching far 
 and wide to the eastward, bursts upon the view, while 
 almost right under foot it is seen lashing the black rocks 
 that form its iron boundary to the westward, like an 
 angry lion lashing the bars of his cage with his bushy 
 tail, or dashing its huge breakers on the intervening 
 sandy beaches in immense masses of white foam, and 
 with a loud and deafening noise. In short, after the 
 long and uninteresting ride from Appin, the scenery 
 from the summit of the Illawarra Mountain is over- 
 poweringly sublime. 
 
 The district of Illawarra consists of a belt of land 
 inclosed between the mountain and the ocean, increa- 
 sing in breadth to the southward, and, though generally 
 thickly wooded, for the most part of exuberant fertility. 
 The descent of the mountain, which is probably about 
 fifteen hundred feet high, is the most precipitous I have 
 seen used in the colony for a road, and horses that are 
 
134 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 unaccustomed to the route betray the utmost unwilling- 
 ness to proceed in certain parts of it. The rider uni- 
 formly dismounts at the top of the mountain, and pre- 
 cedes the horse, holding the end of the bridle in his 
 hand ; but on reaching any part of the descent more 
 than usually steep, the horse occasionally stops short 
 from absolute fear, and the rider has actually to pull 
 him down by the bridle at the risk of his rolling over 
 him. 
 
 I had occasion to visit the district of Illawarra along 
 with my brother, who had never been in that part of 
 the colony before, in the month of May, 1836. After 
 leaving the stage-coach at Campbelltown, thirty-three 
 miles from Sydney, we were detained for several hours 
 before we could procure horses for the remainder of our 
 journey, and it was consequently quite dark ere we 
 reached the summit of the Illawarra mountain. We 
 attempted the descent, however, in the darkness ; but 
 after having got down a little way, we found it too 
 hazardous to proceed, and were accordingly obliged to 
 spend the remainder of the night, which was extremely 
 cold, on the mountain, sitting at the roots of trees with 
 our horses' bridles in our hands. 
 
 There is a resting-place for travellers ascending the 
 mountain, about half-way up, called the big tree : it is 
 a dead tree of immense size, the internal parts of which 
 have been consumed by fire, although it is still of about 
 a hundred feet in height. My fellow traveller and 
 myself entered into the hollow, into which there is an 
 entrance on one side as wide as a church-door, with 
 both our horses ; and, although the latter were both of 
 
NEW SOUTH "WALES. 135 
 
 the largest size of riding horses in the colony, I per- 
 ceived that there was room enough for a third rider and 
 his steed. My fellow-traveller told me, indeed, that on 
 a former journey he had actually been one of three 
 horsemen, all of whom had, together with their horses, 
 been accommodated within the big tree at the same 
 time. 
 
 The vegetation of the district of Illawarra is .very 
 peculiar, and has more of a tropical character than that 
 of other districts in the colony considerably farther to 
 the northward. This may arise partly from its being 
 sheltered from the cold westerly winds of the winter 
 months, by the mountains that run parallel to the 
 coast. I presume, however, it is owing chiefly to the 
 nature of the soil, the district exhibiting various indi- 
 cations of a volcanic origin. The peculiarity I have 
 just mentioned is observable even on the mountain, 
 where the rich variety of the vegetation contrasts 
 beautifully with the wildness of the scenery ; the fern- 
 tree shooting up its rough stem, of about the thickness 
 of the oar of a ship's long-boat, to the height of fifteen 
 or twenty feet, and then suddenly shooting out a num- 
 ber of leaves in every direction, each of four or five feet 
 in length, and exactly similar in appearance to the leaf 
 of the common fern or braken ; while palms of various 
 botanical species are ever and anon seen shooting up 
 their tall slender branchless stems to the height of 
 seventy or a hundred feet, and then forming a large 
 canopy of leaves, each of which bends gracefully out- 
 wards and then downwards, like a Prince of Wales's 
 feather, the whole tree strongly resembling a Chinese 
 
136 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 mandarin's umbrella. Baron Hugel, an Austrian noble- 
 man, who resided for some time in New South Wales 
 during the year 1834, devoting himself to scientific re- 
 searches, observed that the scenery and vegetation of 
 the district of Illavvarra strongly reminded him of scenes 
 he had visited in the interior of Ceylon. 
 
 The species of palm most frequently met with in the 
 low grounds of Illavvarra is the fan-palm or cabbage- 
 tree ; and in some parts of the district there are grassy 
 meadows, of fifty to a hundred acres in extent, quite 
 destitute of timber, and surrounded with a border of 
 lofty palms of this most beautiful species. Another 
 species of palm, abounding in the district, and equally 
 graceful in its outline, is called by the black natives 
 the Buiigolo. The cedar of Illawarra I have already 
 mentioned ; the nettle-tree, which is also met with in 
 the brushes, is not only seen by the traveller, but oc- 
 casionally felt and remembered, for its name is highly 
 descriptive; and the sassafras with its odoriferous bark 
 abounds in the jungles. The lofty eucalyptus and the 
 iron bark-tree, the swamp- oaks and the weeping mimo- 
 sas of the other parts of the territory, abound also at 
 Illawarra; and the undergrowth of wild vines, para- 
 sitical plants, and shrubbery, is rich and endlessly 
 diversified. 
 
 From the estate of Bullai, which is now the property 
 of Captain Westmacott, aide-de-camp to His Excel- 
 lency Sir Richard Bourke, and is beautifully situated at 
 the foot of the Illawarra mountain, the distance to the 
 town of Wollongong is nine miles. The path usually 
 followed by travellers on horseback is along the beach, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 137 
 
 as near the water as possible, the wet sand being as 
 hard and firm as a turnpike- road. I found it very 
 awkward, however, to pursue this path with the young 
 spirited horse from the interior which I rode on my last 
 journey but one to Illawarra; for as the sea was break- 
 ing heavily on the beach, it left him ever and anon, to 
 his great alarm, up to the ankles in white foam ; and I 
 was therefore obliged occasionally to wade through the 
 dry sand beyond the tide-mark, or to strike into the 
 forest. 
 
 There are a few respectable settlers in the neighbour- 
 hood of the thriving village of Wollongong, which is 
 well situated on the sea-coast on an indifferent harbour, 
 capable, however, of great improvement ; but the ma- 
 jority are of a humbler order. It is evident, however, 
 from the natural fertility of the soil, that the district is 
 capable of affording both employment and subsistence 
 to a numerous agricultural population ; and as the 
 pasture at Illawarra is generally deemed less favourable 
 for the rearing of sheep and cattle than that of the 
 more elevated lands of the colony, it is evident that the 
 formation of an agricultural population was just the 
 purpose to which the district ought to have been appro- 
 priated, and for which indeed its immediate vicinity to 
 water-carriage might have proclaimed its peculiar adapt- 
 ation to incapacity itself. It is mortifying, however, 
 to observe, at every step in the colony of New South 
 Wales, fresh evidences of an entire want of foresight on 
 the part of the former rulers of the colony, or rather of 
 a most unjustifiable disregard of the best interests of the 
 community : for, instead of reserving the fertile tracts 
 
138 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 of Illawarra for the settlement of industrious families of 
 the humbler classes of society, on small farms of thirty 
 to fifty acres each, to cultivate grain, roots, vegetables, 
 fruit, vines, and tobacco, and to rear pigs and poultry 
 for the Sydney market ; the land in this district has in 
 great measure been granted or sold off by the former 
 Governors to non-resident proprietors, in tracts varying 
 from two thousand to five thousand acres each. These 
 proprietors will naturally suffer their land to remain in 
 its present wild and uncultivated state as mere cattle- 
 runs, till the increase of the population of the colony, 
 and the extension of steam-navigation along the east 
 coast from Moreton Bay to Cape Howe, shall have ren- 
 dered every acre ten times more valuable than it is at 
 present. 
 
 Nature, or rather the God of Nature, evidently 
 intended that the territory of New South Wales should 
 become a pastoral country, and be devoted in great 
 measure to the rearing of sheep and cattle : but there 
 are particular localities on its extensive surface equally 
 well adapted for the pursuits of agriculture ; and it was 
 therefore the bounden duty of the colonial government, 
 in time past, to have reserved such localities for the set- 
 lement and use of its agricultural population. There 
 are sheep and cattle stations already from four to five 
 hundred miles from Sydney, and the proprietors of the 
 stock at these stations experience little or no incon- 
 venience from the distance ; but it would be ruinous for 
 an agriculturist to cultivate grain or potatoes for the 
 Sydney market at one-third of that distance over-land : 
 it was therefore impolitic in the highest degree to 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 139 
 
 alienate so large a portion of the fertile land in the 
 district of Illawarra, in the inconsiderate manner I have 
 described. Nay, so much superior was the land in that 
 district considered by agriculturists of the humbler 
 classes in the colony, to land of fair quality in certain 
 other parts of the territory, that during the years of 
 drought there were instances of persons of this class 
 actually abandoning the land which they had cleared 
 and cultivated, and of which they possessed the freehold 
 in other districts, to cultivate a few acres on lease in 
 the district of Illawarra : for, independently of the in- 
 estimable advantage of water-carriage and the natural 
 fertility of the soil, the vicinity of the ocean ensures a 
 more frequent supply of rain in that district than usually 
 falls to the lot of other parts of the territory ; while the 
 range of mountains, by which it is bounded to the west- 
 ward, shelters it from the blighting winds that proved so 
 fatal to the crops of 1828. on the Hawkesbury and at 
 Hunter's River. 
 
 It was Saturday morning before I could leave Illa- 
 warra for Sydney ; and my fellow-traveller and myself 
 proposing to reach Liverpool, a distance of upwards of 
 fifty miles, in time for the afternoon coach to Sydney, 
 we mounted our horses long before daybreak, and rode 
 towards the beach. It was quite dark, and it rained 
 heavily ; and our horses being frightened at the rolling 
 of the white surf on the sea-beach, ,we were tempted to 
 try the road through the forest ; but, unfortunately, lost 
 both our time and our way. The rain fell in torrents 
 as we scrambled up the Illawarra mountain, sometimes 
 on all-fours; and we were consequently completely 
 
140 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 drenched ; but on reaching the summit, it became fair ; 
 and we again rode at a brisk pace towards Appin, 
 where we halted for rest and refreshment. The next 
 twenty-four miles to Liverpool, our high-spirited Au- 
 stralian horses, apparently in no way fatigued with their 
 long morning's stage, enabled us to complete in two 
 hours and a half; but we were not a little disappointed 
 to find, on arriving at Liverpool, that we had been at 
 fault in our calculations, and that the coach had started 
 a short time before. As I had to perform divine ser- 
 vice, however, on the following day, we resolved to 
 proceed to Sydney after giving our horses a few hours' 
 rest at the inn, and accordingly resumed our journey 
 late in the evening, when it had again become quite 
 dark. In moving at a slow pace through the gloomy 
 forest, the glorious constellations of the southern firma- 
 ment gradually gleamed more and more brightly as the 
 hour of midnight approached ; and as the outline of the 
 beautiful Magellan clouds appeared more distinctly 
 marked than usual on the heavens, I could not help 
 thinking, with a feeling of intense awe, of the incon- 
 ceivable majesty of that mighty Being, who could direct 
 the motions of each invisible star in these vast con- 
 glomerations of worlds, and attend to the minutest 
 concerns of each of their myriads of inhabitants, with- 
 out losing sight for a single instant of an insignificant 
 mortal wandering at midnight through the dark forests 
 of Australia. The clock at the Carters' Barracks — an 
 establishment in which convict-boys were formerly 
 taught mechanical employments — struck one on the 
 Sabbath morning as we passed through the Sydney 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 141 
 
 turnpike : we had consequently to pay double toll for 
 travelling on Sunday. We were happy, however, 
 to find ourselves at the termination of our journey, 
 after a long and fatiguing ride of upwards of seventy 
 miles. 
 
142 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GEOLOGICAL FEATURES OF THE COLONY, WITH 
 REMARKS ON ITS CLIMATE AND DISEASES. 
 
 Morborum quoque te causas et signa docebo. 
 
 Virgil, Georg. in. 
 
 Professor Blumenbach, of the university of Got- 
 tingen, has somewhere given it as his opinion, that the 
 vast continental island of New Holland was originally a 
 comet, which, happening to fall within the limits of the 
 earth's attraction, lighted at length upon its surface. 
 So tremendous a concussion as this would have infalli- 
 bly produced, would doubtless have been sufficient to 
 have occasioned the waters of Noah ; but then the reflux 
 of these waters, or the rolling back of the vast diluvial 
 wave over the Blue Mountains of Australia, would have 
 drowned the whole outlandish family of kangaroos and 
 ornithorynchi ; for whose benefit, I presume, the bold 
 hypothesis of the learned professor was partly, if not 
 especially, invented. 
 
 There are certain points, however, connected with the 
 physical conformation of the southern hemisphere, of 
 which the hypothesis of the Hanoverian professor would 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 143 
 
 doubtless afford a convenient explanation. It would ac- 
 count for the disappearance of the Terra Pacifca, or 
 Great South Land, of which, according to certain 
 theorists, the South Sea Islands are merely the tops 
 of the ancient mountains ; the intervening plains and 
 valleys having been submerged full many a fathom 
 deep beneath the impetuous surges of the boundless 
 Pacific. # Again, were a ball of soft clay thrown vio- 
 lently on a hard pavement, just as Professor Blumen- 
 bacb supposes his comet to have been thrown violently 
 on the hard surface of the earth, it would not only be 
 flattened into a sort of cake, but the parts towards the 
 centre would be depressed, while those towards the 
 circumference would be elevated or heaved up. Now it 
 cannot be denied that this is just the form which the 
 Australian continent has actually assumed, in whatever 
 manner that peculiar conformation may be supposed to 
 have originated. The eastern coast has apparently 
 been elevated or heaved up by some violent convulsion 
 of nature : hence the circuitous course of the rivers in 
 that part of the continent, and the liability of the 
 country they water to inundations ; while the waters 
 that run to the westward spread themselves over exten- 
 sive marshes in the low grounds of the western interior, 
 from whence they are again conjured up to the higher 
 regions of the atmosphere by the process of evaporation. 
 
 * " La plupart de ces isles ne sont en effet que des pointes de mon- 
 tagnes : et la mer, qui est au dela, est une vraie mer Mediterranee." 
 Buffon. The great French naturalist referred in these expressions to 
 the West India Islands and the Carribean Sea ; but the same idea has 
 been entertained by other philosophers in regard to the numberless 
 groups of Polynesia. 
 
144 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 The eastern coast of New Holland, from Bass's Straits 
 to the nineteenth degree of south latitude, presents a 
 range of mountains running parallel to the coast, and 
 consisting, with scarcely any exceptions, of vast con- 
 glomerations of sandstone. There is no granite to 
 be found in masses near the coast for an extent of 
 twelve hundred geographical miles : at the nine- 
 teenth parallel of south latitude, however, the country 
 assumes a different appearance ; and a chain of lofty 
 granitic or primitive mountains of various elevation, 
 forms the barrier towards the ocean till the fourteenth 
 parallel of south latitude, or for a distance of three hun- 
 dred geographical miles. At the latter of these points 
 the sandstone again resumes its reign, and th-e land 
 gradually dips till it loses itself in the sea to the north- 
 ward. From the twenty-fifth degree of south latitude, 
 coral reefs extend along the east coast to Torres's Straits, 
 a narrow passage varying from ten to twenty-five miles 
 in breadth intervening between them and the land. 
 This passage, however, is so intricate, that vessels bound 
 to the northward within the reefs have to cast anchor 
 every night. They are steered by the eye, and a man 
 is constantly stationed at the topmast-head to give no- 
 tice of breakers on the coral reefs to the right or left.* 
 
 * The following passage illustrative of the geology of the east coast of 
 New Holland in the neighbourhood of Port Jackson, is extracted from a 
 paper read before the defunct Philosophical Society of New South 
 Wales, by Alexander Berry, Esquire, Member of the Legislative Coun- 
 cil of the colony : — 
 
 " The line of coast presents in general an aspect of bold perpendicular 
 cliffs of sandstone, lying in horizontal strata. These cliffs, however, are 
 occasionally interrupted by sandy beaches, behind which the country is 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 145 
 
 The western coasts of all the large divisions of land 
 in the southern hemisphere are remarkably barren and 
 
 low and flat, the high land appearing to retire considerably. On a neai* 
 inspection these spaces now occupied by sandy beaches seem at no very 
 remote period to have formed the entrance of bays and of arms of the sea. 
 In many places they are even now so partially filled up, that we still find 
 extensive salt-water lagoons separated from the ocean only by a bank of 
 sand, through which the water yet occasionally forces a passage. The 
 strata of sandstone consist of beds lying one upon the other in the most 
 regular manner, so that they have evidently never undergone any devia- 
 tion from their original relative situation. It is true that the beds are not 
 invariably strictly horizontal, but this arises perhaps from a gentle yield- 
 ing of the sub-strata. Some of these beds, although perfectly horizontal, 
 and of regular thickness, consist of thin laminae, which incline at a con- 
 siderable angle to the north-east. This sandstone may generally be 
 called silicious : it is rarely argillaceous ; chiefly in this state over coal : 
 it is then soft and very decomposable. Among the coal measures we 
 occasionally meet thin beds of what may be called calcareous sandstone, 
 " The country immediately to the south of Hunter's River is (as is well 
 known) an extensive coal-field. The cliffs on the sea-shore present a 
 most interesting section of the coal-field strata. There, in one day, more 
 information may be obtained than in other places in many years. I traced 
 the strata for nine miles, when they abruptly terminated by suddenly 
 bending downwards, and sinking below the level of the sea. From this 
 place a long sandy beach and low land extend to the entrance of Lake 
 Macquarie (called also Reid's Mistake). The south head of Lake Mac- 
 quarie rises into high cliffs, in which the coal strata again present them- 
 selves. Dr. Hutton would have given much for a single day's walk 
 along this shore. Here we see at one glance the progress of some of the 
 most interesting operations of nature — the work of many ages. It appears 
 as if the crust of the earth had been broken, and a bold and regular sec- 
 tion foroed upwards, and presented to our examination. Between the 
 coal-beds we find strata of sandstone, and beds of slate clay with vege- 
 table impressions; — sometimes (but more rarely) indurated clay-stone. 
 Embedded in these strata there is found abundance of argillaceous iron 
 ore : this is occasionally cellular and in layers, but for the most part it 
 appears in the form of petrifactions of trees and branches irregularly 
 dispersed. Near the southern termination of the coal-field (that is, where 
 I have mentioned its sinking beneath the level of the sea,) two large 
 VOL. II. G 
 
146 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT'OF 
 
 unpromising in comparison with the eastern. That of 
 New Holland is as sterile and uninviting as it is possible 
 
 beds gradually approach, and at length meet. They do not however 
 incorporate, but run parallel ; and at this place there is a mass of highly 
 indurated pudding-stone, which reaches from the surface of the coal to 
 the top of the cliff. The coal- cliff' abruptly terminates at the entrance of 
 Hunter's River, then forming what is called Coal-head. On the north 
 side of the river a sandy beach and low land extend to the vicinity of 
 Port Stephens. 
 
 " The coal is decidedly of vegetable origin : the fibre of the wood is 
 often quite distinct. 
 
 " The vegetable impressions in the slate-clay under and over the coal 
 are no less worthy of an attentive consideration. I have seen some of 
 these subterranean plants in full flower, so that a skilful botanist might 
 ascertain even their species. I think that I have been able distinctly to 
 recognise the leaf of the lamia spiralis. 
 
 " I afterwards found by examining the ravines, that the sandstone 
 strata extended from the sea-coast to the river Nepean on the west. In 
 many of these ravines I found indications of coal, viz. coal-field schistus, 
 with vegetable impressions, argillaceous iron ore, the same calcareous 
 stone formerly indicated, and even fragments of coal. Through that ex- 
 tent of country the sandstone seems to spread like a level platform ; 
 and although the country rises in hills and ridges, these seem to consist 
 of a mass of clay, the surface of which has been worn into inequalities 
 by the action of water. Consequently the higher portions, which con- 
 tain most of the original soil, are more fertile than the bottoms of the 
 valleys, unless these have been covered by alluvial depositions. This 
 clay is generally at the surface red, and impregnated with iron : in some 
 places, however, it is white and saponaceous, appearing under the form 
 of beautiful pipe-clay ; and I have seen this white clay contain nodules 
 of calcareous stones resembling stalactites, and evidently formed by 
 aqueous deposition. At the depth of a few feet, it generally assumes 
 the appearance of schistus, impregnated with sulphate of alumina and 
 sulphate of iron. 
 
 " Beyond the Nepean River the sandstone strata are forced upwards, 
 and extend from north to south, forming the range of hills known in the 
 colony by the name of the Blue Mountains. Towards the north, these 
 mountains are sterile and rugged. Towards the south, however, the 
 sandstone is in many places covered or displaced by whin-stone, which 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 147 
 
 for land to be, with the exception perhaps of the vicinity 
 of Swan River : nothing is visible along the coast but 
 one interminable range of low sand-hills and calcareous 
 rocks : there are no mountains to relieve the eye, and 
 to afford, by the decomposition of their luxuriant vege- 
 tation, a rich soil for the valleys : there are no rivers to 
 conduct to the interior : scarcely even a spring of fresh 
 water can be found to recompense the voyager for the 
 trouble of landing : but the west coast of Southern 
 Africa, the west coast of South America, and the west 
 coast of New Zealand, are, with few exceptions, equally 
 barren. 
 
 In travelling to the westward on the parallel of Port 
 Jackson, granite is found in masses at the distance of a 
 hundred miles from the coast, and the country conse- 
 quently assumes a different and much more interesting 
 appearance. I have already noticed the striking re- 
 semblance which the elevated plain of Bathurst exhibits 
 in its general outline to that of a large lake or inland 
 sea. There are indications, however, still less equivo* 
 cal, of its having at some former period been the place 
 of the rolling of waters. There are various knolls or 
 elevations along its eastern margin, consisting chiefly of 
 innumerable pebbles of quartz, rounded apparently by 
 the action of water in rapid currents or waves. 
 
 sometimes assumes the form of common, at other times of porphyritic 
 trap. In the latter state it shows itself throughout the verdant, well- 
 watered, and very desirable pastoral district of Argyleshire. In this 
 country, wherever the soil lies upon sandstone, we find it consisting of 
 the common Australian clay : over the whin-stone, again, it invariably 
 consists of light black mould. On advancing farther to the south, both 
 granite and primitive lime-stone are found." 
 
148 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 The high land to the south-westward of Sydney 
 consists of ranges of lime- stone hills, perforated in all 
 directions with extensive subterranean caverns, exactly 
 similar, both in character and stalactitic adornment, to 
 those that are uniformly found in regions of a similar 
 formation both in Europe and America. The lime- 
 stone formation occurs also to the north-westward of 
 Sydney, at the head of William's River ; and a series of 
 the caves I have just mentioned has been discovered 
 in the lime- stone cliffs that form the banks of the river 
 Macquarie, at the settlement of Wellington Valley, 
 about two hundred miles to the westward of Sydney. In 
 one of these caves, George Ranken, Esq. of Bathurst, dis- 
 covered a quantity of fossil bones, which he entrusted to 
 my care for the Museum of the University of Edinburgh, 
 on my embarking for England in the year 1830. I hap- 
 pened to be the first person in Sydney to whom Mr. R. 
 showed the bones ; and perceiving the great importance 
 of the discovery, as it regarded the general interests of 
 science, I endeavoured to direct the attention of .trie 
 colony to the subject in an anonymous letter, which was 
 published at the time in one of the colonial papers, and 
 was afterwards republished by Professor Jameson, in 
 the New Edinburgh Philosophical Journal for 1831. 
 The bones were forwarded by Professor Jameson to a 
 Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, in London, 
 who afterwards transmitted the largest and most re- 
 markable in the collection, for farther examination, to 
 the late celebrated M. le Baron Cuvier of Paris, by 
 whom it was ascertained to have been the thigh-bone of 
 a young elephant. Professor Blumenbach's comet has 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 149 
 
 thus been ascertained to be of equal antiquity, and in 
 all likelihood of kindred origin, with the ancient con- 
 tinents of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, whose 
 right to their present position on the earth's surface 
 has never been disputed. The huge elephant has in 
 some former age traversed the plains of Australia, for 
 his bones are found occupying the same common re- 
 ceptacle with those of the singular didelphis family, 
 whose lively representatives — the kangaroos and opos- 
 sums of the present day — have long outlived the last of 
 his race, and still occupy the ancient land of their joint 
 inheritance. If the learned professor, however, would 
 do the scientific world the favour to pay a visit in per- 
 son to 
 
 Penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos, 
 
 the British colony inhabiting the stranded comet at the 
 extremity of the globe, I doubt not but he would dis- 
 cover many an important fact, relative to the past history 
 and the actual conformation of that interesting portion 
 of the earth's surface, which the lesser lights of Au- 
 stralian science are insufficient to elicit. 
 
 The mineralogy of New South Wales is doubtless 
 rich and various, though as yet in great measure un- 
 known. Coal and iron, the most valuable of minerals, 
 are met with in inexhaustible abundance, the latter 
 being not unfrequently found in the state of native iron 
 in large detached masses on the surface of the ground. 
 Lime-stone is still more abundant, and in some parts of 
 the territory, as in Argyle, it passes into marble, of 
 which beautiful specimens have already been cut and 
 
150 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 polished by a skilful artisan from London, now esta- 
 blished in Sydney. In one part of its course, Hunter's 
 River flows for a considerable distance over rocks of 
 jasper; and beautiful agates, opal, and chalcedony, 
 besides innumerable petrifactions, are found on its 
 banks. On several parts of the coast, as well as in the 
 distant interior, there are evident traces of volcanic 
 action; but Mount Wingen, in the upper part of the 
 district of Hunter's River, is the only burning mountain 
 within the present limits of the colony. There is no 
 crater, however, on Mount Wingen ; no unearthly ex- 
 plosions are heard in its neighbourhood ; there is no 
 perceptible ejection of lava from the overcharged 
 stomach of the mountain. From innumerable cracks 
 and fissures on its surface, a sulphureous flame, scarcely 
 visible in the day time, but discernible at a consider- 
 able distance at night, issues with a steady but by no 
 means powerful blaze ; leaving it still problematical, 
 whether the phenomenon should be ascribed to volcanic 
 action, or to the accidental ignition of some subterra- 
 nean stratum of bitumen or coal. # 
 
 * The following is an account of two visits to Mount Wingen, in the 
 years 1830 and 1831, by the Rev. C. P. N. Wilton, A.M., chaplain at 
 Newcastle, Hunter's River : — 
 
 ** Mount Wingen is situated on the south-eastern side of the dividing 
 range which separates the lands of Hunter's River from Liverpool 
 Plains, in latitude 31° 54' S., longitude 150° 5& E. ; and the elevation of 
 the portion of it under the process of combustion cannot be less than 
 one thousand four hundred to one thousand five hundred feet from the 
 level of the sea. At the period of my first visit, in the beginning of last 
 year, this comprehended parts of two declivities of one and the same 
 mountain, composed of compact sandstone rock. The progress of the 
 fire had previously been down the northern and highest elevation, and it 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 151 
 
 The great extent of coast-line towards the Pacific 
 Ocean, and the various elevation of different parts of 
 
 was then ascending with great fury the opposite and southern eminence. 
 From the circumstance of its being thus in a hollow between two ridges 
 of the same mountain, a former visiter was probably induced to give the 
 clefts in the mountain the appellation of a crater ; but the fact is, the 
 rock, as the subterraneous fire increases, is rent into several concave 
 chasms of various widths, of which I had an opportunity of particularly 
 examining the widest. The rock, a solid mass of sandstone, was torn 
 asunder about two feet in width, leaving its upper and southerly side 
 exposed to view, the part so torn asunder having slipped down, as it 
 were, and sunk into a hollow, thus forming the concave surface of the 
 heated rock. On looking down this chasm, to the depth of about fifteen 
 feet, the sides of the rock were perceived to be of a white heat, like that 
 of a lime-kiln ; while sulphureous and steamy vapours- arose from the 
 aperture, amidst sounds, which issued from a depth below, like blasts 
 f i"rom the forge of Vulcan himself. I stood on that portion of the rock 
 which had been cleft from the part above, and, on hurling stones down 
 into the chasm, the noise they made in the fall seemed to die away in a 
 vast abyss beneath my feet. The area of the mountain over which the 
 fire was raging was about an acre and a half in extent. There were 
 throughout it several chasms varying in width, from which are con- 
 stantly emitted sulphureous columns of smoke, accompanied by brilliant 
 flame ; the margins of these being beautified with efflorescent crystals of 
 sulphur, varying in colour from the deepest red-orange, occasioned by 
 ferruginous mixture, to the palest straw colour, where alum predomi- 
 nated. A black, tarry, and lustrous substance— a sort of bitumen — 
 abounded on the edges of these cliffs. Specimens of this were with 
 difficulty obtained from the intense heat under foot, and the suffocating 
 quality of the vapours emitted from the chasms. No lava or trachyte of 
 any description was to be met with ; nor was there any appearance of 
 coal, although abounding in the vicinity. The mountain has evidently 
 been on fire for a great length of time ; several acres of the part now 
 under combustion, on which trees are standing of a great age, having, as 
 it were, been steamed, and many of the stones upon it bearing the marks 
 of vitrification. The fire is still raging, and will probably continue to do 
 so with increasing fury. Materials from beneath from time to time 
 become ignited, whether by electricity or other unknown cause, and the 
 expansive powers of the heat and steam shiver and split into huge 
 
152 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the interior, ensure a considerable variety of climate in 
 different parts of the colony. I have already noticed 
 
 masses the solid rock of sandstone, and thus form continued chasms. 
 The sulphureous and aluminous products of the mountain have been 
 successfully applied in the cure of the scab in sheep. 
 
 " The fire, since the period of my former visit, had, I found, been by 
 no means inactive, having extended over a surface exceeding two acres, 
 and was now raging with increased fury up the eminence to the south and 
 south-south-west, and also on the hitherto^extinct portion of the mountain 
 — the northern elevation. There were still most splendid crystals of sul- 
 phur on the margins of the most extended crevices, where the fire was 
 turning with a white heat, and of ammonia on those of the less ; from both 
 of which suffocating fumes were incessantly evolving. The fire continued 
 roaring beneath, and stones thrown down into the chasms resounded to a 
 great depth in an interior abyss. The scene of disruption, the rocks of 
 solid sandstone cleft asunder, the innumerable fractures made on the 
 surface, the falling in of the strata, the half-consumed, prostrate trunks 
 of trees, and others only awaiting the slip of the rock beneath them to 
 fall in their turn, the pernicious vapours rising around amidst the roaring 
 of the internal fires, and the white and red heat of the burning crevices, 
 present an appearance on which the beholder cannot fail to gaze with 
 wonder, and at the same time to lament his inability to account with 
 any degree of certainty for the first natural cause of the spectacle before 
 him. 
 
 " At a little distance from the burning portions of Wingen, I picked up 
 several amorphous specimens of carnelion, white, pinkish, and blue ; an- 
 gular fragments of ribbon and fortification agates, and balls of agate, some 
 of them filled with crystals varying from the size of a pea to that of a 
 hen's egg, and others of a blueish white and clouded colour, having spots 
 of white dispersed throughout them, which, if cut and polished, would 
 present a very beautiful variety of this mineral. Mount Agate also, in the 
 neighbourhood of Wingen, presented me with some fine specimens, as 
 Well of agate, (fortification and ribbon occurring in the same specimen,) 
 as of fragments of white and blueish carnelion ; and had not the grass on 
 the mountain been so long and thick as it proved to be, I should doubt- 
 less have collected much finer. 
 
 " Several of the agates collected from Mount Wingen upon examina- 
 tion were found to have their surfaces crusted over with iron, some of 
 those from Mount Agate with native copper, while others from the same. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 153 
 
 the superior salubrity of the climate of Bathurst and 
 Argyle. In both of these districts, snow — which is 
 
 locality presented a most beautiful auriferous appearance. On Mount 
 Wingen we found, within but a few yards of that portion of it which is 
 now under combustion, the cast of a bivalvular fossil shell in sandstone, 
 a species of terebratula. Other similar specimens have been met with 
 in another part of the mountain. Only two specimens of organic remains 
 of the nature of petrified bone have hitherto been discovered in the 
 neighbourhood of Mount Agate ; viz. the sacrum of some large animal on 
 the Holdsworthy Downs, and the second cervical vertebra of another, 
 about ten miles west from Merton : but in neither instance was the 
 petrifaction embedded in the subjacent strata, but merely lying on the 
 surface of the soil ; and therefore most probably contemporary with the 
 petrified wood, which is found scattered very abundantly over this tract 
 of country. Near the chain of the Kingdon Ponds, forming one of the 
 sources of the Hunter, and rising in the dividing range a few miles N. 
 by VV. from Mount Wingen, are stumps of trees standing upright in the 
 ground, apparently petrified on the spot where they formerly grew. In 
 some places the wood is strongly impregnated with iron. About three 
 miles along the coast south of Newcastle in an upright position, at high 
 water mark under the cliff, and beneath a bed of coal, was also lately 
 found the butt of a petrified tree, which, on being broken, presented 
 a fine black appearance, as passing into the state of jet ; and on the top 
 of the cliff at Newcastle on which the telegraph stands, embedded at 
 about a foot beneath the surface, lying in a horizontal position and 
 nearly at right angles to the strata of the cliff, the trunk of another finely 
 grained and white — both specimens being traversed by thin veins of 
 chalcedony. The coal which is exposed to view on the face of the 
 cliffs is of the independent formation, and appears to run generally in 
 three parallel horizontal beds ; but in some places with a varying dip. 
 It alternates in one part of the cliff with slaty clay, sandstone, and 
 shale, with impressions of leaves ; at another with mill-stone grit, and a 
 hard chertzy rock. Nodules of clay iron-stone, and trunks and stems of 
 arundinaceous plants in iron-stone, are seen in abundance in the alter- 
 nating strata of the cliff : and in one place a narrow bed of iron-stone 
 bearing impressions of leaves is remarkable; while thin lamina? of the 
 same mineral, the surface of which is traversed by square and variously 
 shaped sections, are seen on several parts of the shore, both in the face of 
 
154 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 never seen in the lowlands of the colony — is frequent in 
 winter, though it seldom lies long on the ground ; and 
 the cold during the night is often intensely severe. 
 
 For eight months during the year, viz. from the first 
 of March to the first of November, the climate of New 
 South Wales — which, throughout the whole year, in- 
 deed, is at least equal, if not superior, to that of any 
 other country on the face of the globe — is peculiarly 
 delightful. The sky is seldom clouded ; and day after 
 day, for whole weeks together, the sun looks down in 
 unveiled beauty from the northern heavens. In ordinary 
 seasons, refreshing showers are not unfrequent ; but 
 although there are no periodical rains in the colony, as 
 in the torrid zone, it sometimes rains as heavily as it 
 does within the tropics. It seldom freezes in Sydney, 
 and never snows ;* but fires are requisite during the 
 day in the winter months, and for a considerable time 
 longer in the mornings and evenings. 
 
 The Australian summer extends from the first of 
 November to the first of March : during this period 
 the heat is considerable, but very rarely oppressive; the 
 thermometer seldom rising higher in Sydney than 75° of 
 Fahrenheit. There is generally a sea-breeze during the 
 day in the summer months, commencing about ten 
 o'clock in the forenoon, and dying away about four in 
 
 the cliff parallel with the beds of coal, and extending into the sea, form- 
 ing the strand at low water."— Abridged from the Australian Almanack. 
 
 * There was a shower of snow in Sydney on the 17th of June, 1836, — 
 the first that had ever fallen in that part of the colony. The younger 
 natives of the colonial capital, who had never seen any thing of the kind 
 before, called it white rain. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 155 
 
 the afternoon. This breeze, which usually blows pretty 
 fresh, and the immediate vicinity of the ocean, have so 
 powerful an influence on the temperature of the coast, 
 that it is generally ten degrees hotter at Parramatta 
 during the summer months, and ten degrees colder in 
 winter, than it is in Sydney. But although it is occa- 
 sionally hotter in summer than the average temperature 
 I have just mentioned, the mornings and evenings are 
 uniformly delightfully cool. 
 
 The most singular phenomenon in the meteorology of 
 New South Wales is the occasional prevalence of hot 
 winds from the north-westward. These winds occur on 
 an average about four times every summer, and blow 
 from twenty-four to thirty-six hours each time, the 
 atmosphere all the while feeling like a current of 
 heated air from a furnace, and the thermometer gene- 
 rally standing at from 90° to 100° of Fahrenheit. It 
 has even stood as high on one occasion within my own 
 experience as 112£°. The day I allude to was a Sun- 
 day, in the month of February, 1 824. I had to perform 
 divine service twice during the hottest part of the day ; 
 but I confess I experienced very little inconvenience 
 from the heat — less indeed than I have felt in a crowded 
 church in Scotland. This is to be ascribed entirely to 
 the extreme dryness of the atmosphere in New South 
 Wales ; for in a dry atmosphere one is able to bear a 
 much greater degree, either of heat or of cold, than 
 when the atmosphere is charged with moisture. In the 
 humid atmosphere of England, such a degree of heat as 
 I have just mentioned would be extremely oppressive, 
 if not quite intolerable. 
 
156 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 The phenomenon of the hot winds of New South 
 Wales is utterly inexplicable in the present state of our 
 knowledge of the interior of the continent of Australia, 
 and to hazard hypotheses on the subject is just the way 
 to prevent our speedy attainment of the knowledge de- 
 sired. Some suppose they are occasioned by extensive 
 conflagrations in the north-western interior ; others 
 ascribe them to the supposed existence of an extensive 
 tract of desert country in that direction. It is evident, 
 however, that two or three expeditions for discovery in 
 the interior, which could be fitted out by the colonial 
 government at a comparatively small cost, and which 
 would doubtless lead to important results in other re- 
 spects, would in all likelihood set the question com- 
 pletely at rest, either by affording the real explanation 
 of so singular a phenomenon, or by ascertaining that 
 it is altogether inexplicable.- At the same time, 
 it is worthy of remark, that the hot winds are scarce- 
 ly, if at all, experienced at Port Macquarie, a settle- 
 ment on the coast considerably to the northward of 
 Sydney. 
 
 When the hot wind has spent its strength, it is 
 usually succeeded instantaneously by a violent gust 
 from the southward, which immediately envelopes the 
 town of Sydney in a whirlwind of dust, and sometimes 
 proves fatal to inexperienced boating-parties in the 
 harbour. I have observed the hot wind terminate in- 
 stantaneously in a hail-storm of a few minutes' duration 
 from the south-westward, which, of course, caused the 
 mercury in the thermometer to descend with surprising- 
 velocity ; the difference of elevation, after a short interval, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 157 
 
 being on one occasion, when the wind had been un- 
 usually hot, not less than 40°. # 
 
 The salubrity of the climate of New South Wales is 
 indicated by the general health of the colonists ; the 
 diseases which actually occur being, in at least three 
 cases out of every four, the result of excess and dissi- 
 pation, rather than of those natural ills that flesh is heir 
 to in every country under the sun. Excess in the use of 
 animal and other stimulating food is a frequent source 
 of disease in the colony; it is the semita lethi — the by- 
 path pursued unwittingly by many an individual, who 
 slowly and unconsciously undermines his own consti- 
 tution, and at length lays himself completely open to 
 the fatal attacks of acute disease, under which he dis- 
 appears as suddenly from the face of society as a falling 
 star in the twilight. But excess in the use of ardent 
 spirits is the grand source of disease in New South 
 Wales ; it is the broad Appian Way, pursued by thou- 
 sands, to the grave. 
 
 The three forms of disease that are most frequent in 
 the colony are ophthalmia, dysentery, and influenza or 
 catarrh. By ophthalmia, however, I do not mean the 
 Egyptian ophthalmia, but affections of the eyes in 
 general : these arise from hot winds, from the re- 
 flection of the glare of sun-light from whitish surfaces, 
 from working in the sun without a covering for the 
 
 * Tn the month of February, 1835, the mercury in Fahrenheit's ther- 
 mometer descended twenty-five degrees in twenty minutes : this re- 
 markable descent occurred about six o'clock in the evening, and was 
 noticed in the Observatory at Parramatta. There had been a hot wind 
 during the day, the mercury haying previously stood for some time at 
 107° of Fahrenheit. 
 
158 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 head ; but in most cases from the use of ardent spirits. 
 From the last mentioned of these causes, entire blind- 
 ness sometimes, though rarely, ensues, among the con- 
 vict-population. Dysentery is also confined chiefly, 
 though by no means exclusively, to the lower classes of 
 the colonial population ; and mercury, in doses that a 
 medical practitioner in Great Britain would be afraid 
 to administer, is the grand specific whenever it occurs. 
 It is occasioned sometimes by drinking water containing 
 a solution of alum ; at others, by drinking cold water in 
 hot weather, when the body is in a state of perspira- 
 tion ; it arises occasionally from the use of salt pro- 
 visions, or from injudicious exposure to the sun in 
 summer; but I have reason to believe that the most 
 frequent source of this disease is dissipation. Catarrh 
 or influenza is sometimes almost epidemic in the colony : 
 it seldom proves fatal to persons in the prime of life, 
 but old people and children are apt to sink under it. 
 There have been three attacks of this epidemic ex- 
 perienced in New South Wales during the last ten 
 years, the first having occurred in the year 1827; and 
 it has been remarked that it is usually preceded by a 
 long continuance of westerly winds. Whether these 
 winds may bring along with them any miasmata from 
 the marshes of the distant interior, or whether the arid 
 state of the atmosphere, which generally attends them, 
 may induce inflammation of the glands of the throat, 
 and the other kindred accompaniments of violent colds 
 in England, I shall not presume to determine. I am 
 inclined to believe, however, that the exhalations of 
 marshes in New South Wales are in most cases in- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 159 
 
 noxious, and are incapable of being conveyed to a dis- 
 tance. There are localities in the territory which are 
 found perfectly salubrious, but which, I am sure, would, 
 in North America, or indeed in most other climates, be 
 infamous for their fevers and agues. I have heard, 
 indeed, of one or two instances of fever and ague in the 
 colony among the convict-labourers, on a farm almost 
 completely surrounded with lagoons in the lower part 
 of Hunter's River : such rare exceptions, however, tend 
 rather to confirm the general rule. Cases of con- 
 sumption have occasionally occurred and terminated 
 fatally among the native youth of the colony, but they 
 are by no means frequent; and Europeans who have 
 brought the genuine phthisis pulmonalis along with 
 them to the country, sink at last under the fatal in- 
 fluence of its deadly virus, although, humanly speaking, 
 they may be said to add three or four years to their 
 lives by going to New South Wales. I have known of 
 a few cases of gout in the colony, but they have uni- 
 formly exhibited the same filial relation to brandy and 
 port wine, which distinguishes that disease in the 
 mother country ; but cases of inflammation, arising 
 doubtless in great measure from the use of stimulants, 
 either directly or indirectly, are by no means rare. I 
 have also had frequent occasion to observe that diseases 
 in New South Wales are more frequently attended with 
 a speedy and entire prostration of the intellectual powers 
 than in England ; and the diseases that do attack the 
 human frame in the colony are generally more acute, 
 and arrive more speedily at their crisis. 
 
 The horrible disease called delirium tremens, or the 
 
160 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 trembling madness, is of frequent occurrence, and some- 
 times terminates fatally : it is uniformly the effect of 
 excessive dissipation, aggravated probably by the heat 
 of the climate in summer, and by the deleterious sub- 
 stances — such I believe as sulphuric or muriatic acid-— 
 with which the publicans of the colony are known to 
 adulterate their ardent spirits. The patient under this 
 disease is distracted with imaginary terrors ; he fancies 
 himself haunted by apparitions; the whole frame quakes 
 convulsively under the influence of a diseased imagina- 
 tion ; and the nervous system is so unnaturally excited, 
 that the bodily functions are intermitted or deranged, 
 and death frequently ensues. The exorcising of devils 
 is a branch of clerical duty, which in Protestant coun- 
 tries has generally fallen into disuse, and is supposed to 
 be practised only by the Roman Catholic priesthood in 
 the wilder parts of Ireland or Spain. I have twice, 
 however, been applied to for that purpose, by patients 
 labouring under this frightful disease in the colony. 
 One of the cases was that of an unfortunate country- 
 man of my own, a free emigrant from the Highlands of 
 Scotland. In what form the devil used to appear to 
 him, I do not exactly recollect ; but it seems he had been 
 incessantly at his window for a whole fortnight before 
 he informed me of his calamitous situation. It was about 
 the middle of January at the time ; and as I was pre- 
 viously unacquainted with the man's character and his- 
 tory, and therefore deemed it expedient to proceed with 
 caution, I observed that Christmas, which had occurred 
 very recently, was a season at which many people in the 
 colony were apt to exceed the bounds of moderation ; that 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 161 
 
 it was possible he might have erred himself after so evil 
 an example ; and that if he had, I was not surprised at 
 the visitation he had experienced ; for the devil seemed 
 to have great power in all cases of that kind in New 
 South Wales — much more indeed than appeared to be 
 allowed him in the Highlands of Scotland. The Celt 
 acknowledged in reply that he had not suffered either 
 Christmas or New Year's day to pass without due com- 
 memoration ; and even admitted — with the scrupulous 
 caution, however, peculiar to the Celtic portion of my 
 countrymen, in all cases in which their own characters 
 or interests are concerned — that he might have taken 
 more on both occasions than was likely to do him good ; 
 but he could not see why that should entitle the devil 
 to mark him out as the special object of his annoyance, 
 by presenting himself incessantly at his window, and 
 tempting him zvith more brandy and other such tempta- 
 tions. He promised, however, to follow my advice for 
 the future, and to try what effect sobriety would have 
 in keeping the Tempter at a more respectful distance. 
 
 There was something peculiar in the Highlander's 
 history ; and I was sorry to find that he had been unfairly 
 dealt with by certain parties in the colony, from whom 
 he had been entitled to expect very different treat- 
 ment. I accordingly wrote a memorial on his behalf to 
 General Darling, through which he was fortunate 
 enough to obtain a grant of five hundred acres of 
 land. Finding, besides, that he was a man of no de- 
 cision of character, and that he was consequently liable 
 to be led astray in Sydney, I found ways and means of 
 getting him packed off to his land, which was situated 
 
lt>2 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 at a considerable distance in the interior, and on which 
 he promised to settle : but on returning to the colony 
 after my second voyage to England, in the year 1831, I 
 was sorry to find that he had sold one half of the land 
 to a publican in Sydney, and that he was both frequent 
 and protracted in his visits to the publican's on the 
 strength of the remaining moiety. On one of these 
 occasions, he had been drinking in the Tap over-night, 
 and had fallen asleep with his head leaning on his hands 
 at the table, in which condition he was left by the pub- 
 lican's family on going to bed. On opening their house 
 at an early hour on the following morning, he was still 
 apparently asleep at the table ; but, on trying to awake 
 him, they found he was dead ! 
 
 Either the Royal College of Physicians, or one of 
 the other medical boards of London, transmitted a 
 series of questions a few years ago to certain medical 
 gentlemen in the colony, to ascertain the average dura- 
 tion of human life in New South Wales : it is scarcely 
 possible, however, to arrive at accurate conclusions on 
 such a subject for many years to come. There cannot 
 be any native of the colony (the phrase uniformly de- 
 signates a native of European descent) at this moment 
 more than forty-nine years of age ; and in regard to 
 those who have arrived as adults, whether free emi- 
 grants or convicts, there have hitherto been so many 
 disturbing circumstances, arising chiefly from the cha- 
 racter of the population, to counteract the natural salu- 
 brity of the climate, that the present colonial bills of 
 mortality would undoubtedly lead the man of figures 
 and calculations to most fallacious conclusions. For 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 163 
 
 my own part, I am inclined to believe that the proba- 
 bilities of life, for any number of children born in the 
 colony, are higher than for a similar number born in 
 England, but that fewer of that number are likely to 
 reach extreme old age in the colony than in Great Bri- 
 tain. In short, the lamp of life in the salubrious cli- 
 mate of New South Wales is like a taper immersed in 
 a vessel filled with oxygen gas ; it burns more brightly 
 than in common air, but is sooner extinguished. 
 
 Persons of temperate habits, who have passed the 
 meridian of life before their arrival, are doubtless likely 
 to live longer in the colorty than they would have done 
 in England. Individual cases are certainly no rule to 
 judge by; but I may be permitted to mention the 
 singular case of an old man of the name of Wright, who 
 had been many years in the colony, and who died 
 sometime ago in the Benevolent Asylum in Sydney, at 
 a hundred and five years of age. The only coherent 
 words he uttered, for two or three years before his 
 death, were such as he had doubtless been accustomed 
 to use when a whole century younger, for he was fre- 
 quently heard calling for — his mother ! 
 
164 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 STATEMENT OF THE ADVANTAGES WHICH NEW 
 SOUTH WALES HOLDS FORTH TO VARIOUS 
 CLASSES OF EMIGRANTS. 
 
 " Be not slothful to go, and to enter to possess the land. When ye go, 
 ye shall come unto — a large land — a place where there is no want of any 
 thing that is in the earth." — Judges xviii. 9, 10. 
 
 There are classes of persons in the mother country, 
 whom it would doubtless be preposterous in the highest 
 degree to advise to emigrate to New South Wales, or 
 indeed to any of the colonies. In an old country — a 
 country in a high state of civilization and advancement 
 — there are numerous arts and branches of business for 
 which there cannot possibly be any demand in a young 
 colony, or in a state of society altogether different ; and 
 it is in no small degree from inattention to this important 
 circumstance, on the part of numerous emigrants in all 
 the colonies of the empire, that the entire failure of many 
 of these emigrants, and their loud complaints against 
 the colonies generally, have originated. Previous to his 
 leaving his native land, the intending emigrant should 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 165 
 
 by all means ascertain, whether his habits and pursuits 
 are adapted to that new state of society which he will 
 find prevailing in the distant land of his adoption : for 
 although that land may be desirable enough as a place 
 of settlement for thousands and tens of thousands in 
 the mother country, it may be any thing but desirable 
 for him. I recollect, for example, the case of two 
 muslin-weavers, who had been tolerably comfortable in 
 their native country, arriving with large families in New 
 South Wales, and exclaiming loudly against the colony, 
 and threatening to write home against the government 
 agents and committees who had induced them to emi- 
 grate — simply because there was no employment for 
 them in that capacity. It would be a strange and most 
 unnatural thing, indeed, if there were employment for 
 muslin-weavers in a young colony. 
 
 For labourers of all classes, however, for shepherds, 
 and for mechanics of all those handicrafts that are in 
 requisition in the building of houses and ships, or in 
 the sustentation and maintenance of agriculture and 
 commerce, the colonies generally, and especially the 
 Australian settlements, present a boundless field for 
 employment, and a most favorable prospect of adequate 
 remuneration. And as the government are now appro- 
 priating the rapidly increasing revenue arising from the 
 sale of waste land in these settlements, towards the en- 
 couragement and promotion of the emigration of families 
 and individuals of all the classes I have enumerated, 
 the grand obstacle in the way of the emigration of such 
 persons to so distant a region, arising from poverty, 
 griping, poverty, at home, is now happily removed : 
 
166 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 for although the system which has thus been most 
 judiciously adopted is as yet onJy coming into operation, 
 and has hitherto been most inefficiently and badly 
 managed ; there is no doubt whatever but that it will 
 ere long be conducted on so improved and so extensive 
 a scale, as to afford eveiy British labourer or mechanic, 
 of reputable character and industrious habits, who 
 chooses to avail himself of the important privilege, a 
 free passage for himself and his family to the Australian 
 colonies. 
 
 For respectable families of moderate capital, or of 
 fixed income, arising either from money or from land, 
 the prospect from emigration to New South Wales is 
 favourable and encouraging in the highest degree. 
 
 There are many respectable families in the mother 
 country possessing property to the amount of £2000 to 
 £5000, but having no means of providing for the settle- 
 ment of their children, and having nothing else to 
 depend on for the future than the small income now 
 derivable in Great Britain from property of that amount. 
 To such families, New South Wales presents a most 
 eligible prospect for effecting a comfortable settlement. 
 With a comparatively small portion of their capital, they 
 could purchase a farm of moderate extent partially im- 
 proved, in one of the settled districts of the colony, 
 where, in all likelihood, they would find respectable 
 and agreeable society in their immediate neighbour- 
 hood, and be surrounded with the comforts and appli- 
 ances of civilization. A farm, or small estate, of the 
 kind I have just mentioned, would furnish a respect- 
 able family with all the necessaries and with many of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 167 
 
 the comforts of life. If they chose to embark largely 
 in sheep-farming or in grazing speculations, they could 
 either purchase or rent a tract of land from the Govern- 
 ment in the distant interior, where their sheep and cattle 
 could range in safety under the charge of a hired over- 
 seer, at the distance of two, or even three hundred miles : 
 but if they chose rather to lend out the remainder of 
 their capital at interest, they could obtain at least ten 
 per cent with the utmost facility, on security as good as 
 any in England. 
 
 In the year 1826, Mr. Henry Dangar, late Surveyor 
 for the Australian Agricultural Company, published a 
 large map of Hunter's River, accompanied with a list 
 and description of the agricultural settlements in the 
 district, and directions to intending emigrants. Sup- 
 posing a family to arrive in the colony with a capital of 
 £1000, Mr. Dangar advises that that capital should be 
 expended in the following manner: viz. 
 
 In the purchase of 
 
 200 improved ewes in lamb, which would 
 
 now cost £1 10s. each 
 
 £300 
 
 20 good cows at £5 each 
 
 100 
 
 1 bull 
 
 8 
 
 1 team of four oxen, with harness 
 
 40 
 
 1 brood-mare .... 
 
 40 
 
 1 riding-horse .... 
 A cart and other implements . 
 Clearing ten acres of land, and cropping 
 with wheat and potatoes 
 
 30 
 50 
 it 
 
 50 
 
 
 £618 
 
168 . H1STOEICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 The reader will recollect, however, that whereas the 
 colonial government was empowered to grant land to 
 respectable settlers at a moderate quit-rent in the year 
 1826, Crown land is now obtainable only by purchase at a 
 public auction, and at not less than five shillings per acre ; 
 the land so purchased, however, being free of quit-rent. 
 Supposing, therefore, that a family were now arriving 
 in the colony with a capital of £1000, they could afford 
 to purchase a sufficient extent of land from the govern- 
 ment, and still be in equally favourable circumstances 
 with the family emigrating in 1826; for, according to 
 Mr. Dangar's estimate, the quantity of stock and agri- 
 cultural implements, &c. enumerated in the preceding 
 list, would at that period have cost £815. In other 
 respects the circumstances and prospects of a respect- 
 able family settling in any part of the colony now, are 
 incomparably superior to what they were in 1826; while 
 the price of wool — the chief article of produce and the 
 chief article of export in New South Wales — has rather 
 risen than fallen during the last ten years. 
 
 The following estimate of the profits derivable from 
 the investment of capital in sheep-farming in New South 
 Wales, is founded chiefly on calculations appended to 
 Captain Sturt's account of his * Two Expeditions into 
 the interior of Southern Australia.' I have retained 
 Captain Sturt's numbers as far as relates to the pro- 
 gressive state of the flocks and their rate of increase, 
 but made such alterations in regard to prices as are 
 justified by the present state of the colony. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 169 
 
 No. 1.— Estimate of Increase. 
 
 Ewes 
 Suppose two flocks of ewes of improved breed purchased in 
 
 the colony, comprising 670 
 
 Increase of lambs at the usual rate of increase, exclusive of 
 
 deaths 595 
 
 Total number at the end of the first year .... 1265 
 
 Increase of lambs, exclusive of deaths, during the second year 610 
 
 Rams purchased 18 
 
 Total number at the end of the second year . . . 1893 
 
 Increase of lambs during the third year 875 
 
 Rams purchased 12 
 
 Total number at the end of the third year .... 2780 
 
 Increase of lambs during the fourth year 1143 
 
 Rams purchased 18 
 
 Total number at the end of the fourth year . . . 3941 
 
 Increase of lambs during the fifth year, exclusive of deaths 
 
 and lambs slaughtered 1513 
 
 Rams purchased 10 
 
 Total number of all ages at the end of the fifth year . . 5464 
 
 No. 2. — Estimate of Expenditure. 
 
 Original cost of 670 ewes at £1. 10s. a head 
 Expense of management during the first year 
 
 Total expenditure during the first year 
 
 Expense of management during the second year 
 Cost of rams purchased 
 
 Total expenditure duriDg the second year 
 VOL. II. 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 1005 
 
 80 
 
 1085 
 
 115 
 
 135 
 
 250 
 
170 
 
 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Expense of management during the third year 
 Cost of rams purchased .... 
 
 Total expenditure during the third year . 
 
 £. 5. d. 
 180 
 90 
 
 270 
 
 Expense of management during the fourth year 
 Cost of rams purchased 
 
 240 
 135 
 
 Total expenditure during the fourth year . 
 
 375 
 
 Expense of management during the fifth year . 
 Cost of rams purchased 
 
 290 
 75 
 
 Total expenditure during the fifth year 
 
 365 
 
 No. 3. — Estimate of Income. 
 
 1st year. 1265 fleeces of 2Jlbs. each, sold at Is. 6d. per lb.* 213 9 O 
 Deduct cost of management, &c 80 O 
 
 Income at the end of the first year . 
 
 2nd year. 1893 fleeces, do. do 
 
 Deduct cost of management and amount of purchases 
 
 Income at the end of the second year 
 
 3rd year. 2780 fleeces, do. do 
 
 Deduct cost of management and purchases 
 
 Income at the end of the third year . 
 
 4th year. 3941 fleeces, do. do. 
 
 Deduct cost of management and purchases 
 
 Income at the end of the fourth year 
 
 133 9 O 
 
 319 8 6 
 250 O 
 
 69 8 6 
 
 469 2 6 
 270 
 
 199 2 6 
 
 665 
 375 
 
 290 
 
 * During the last three years a very large portion of the wool of the 
 colony has been sold at two shillings a pound. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 171 
 
 5th year. 5464 fleeces, do. do. 
 
 Deduct cost of management and purchases 
 
 Income at the end of the fifth year . 
 
 of- 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 922 
 
 
 
 
 
 365 
 
 b 
 
 
 
 557 
 
 
 
 
 
 No. 4, — Estimate of Value of Flock at the end of the Fifth Year. 
 
 1614 Ewes from one to four years old at ^1. 10s. each . 2421 
 
 622 do. from four to seven years old at £l each . . 622 
 
 780 Female lambs at £ 1 each 780 
 
 2405 Wethers and Male Lambs at 15s. each . . . 1803 15 
 
 45 Rams at £5 each 225 
 
 Total value 5851 15 
 
 In short, New South Wales affords at this moment 
 the fairest prospect for prudent and industrious families 
 of moderate capital, whom the present circumstances of 
 the mother country may induce to emigrate. And let 
 it be remembered, by all who may have it in their 
 power to encourage and to promote the emigration of 
 such families to the colonies, that every such family 
 that settles in New South Wales contributes eventually 
 to the prosperity of Great Britain, through the more 
 extensive market which it opens for British manu- 
 factures, and the direct support it affords to British 
 commerce, not less certainly, and in all likelihood to a 
 much greater extent, than if it had never left the British 
 shore. 
 
 Suppose the case of a respectable family living in 
 England on £200 or £250 a year, the interest of their 
 whole capital of £5000 : they will doubtless consider 
 themselves fortunate in having been able to invest that 
 
172 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 capital on good security at four or five per cent interest : 
 but they would much rather have invested it in a good 
 business of any kind ; for the head of the family is per- 
 haps a man of some energy of mind, who is still in the 
 prime of life, and has a numerous offspring to provide 
 for. Deterred, however, from engaging in any kind of 
 business by the fear of losing their whole property in 
 the present competition for the profitable investment of 
 capital, they retire to the West of England, or to some 
 other part of the country, where they can rear and edu- 
 cate their children as economically as possible. In such 
 a situation, it is evident that the custom even of a very 
 respectable family is no great matter either to the 
 Birmingham or the Leeds manufacturer ; for they neces- 
 sarily contrive to do with as little as they can, and to 
 make every thing last as long as possible : for the 
 same reason, the ship-owner is very little in their debt 
 for all he gets by carrying home from beyond seas all 
 the tea and sugar, or other foreign commodities they 
 make use of. In short, the capital of the family is 
 comparatively dead to the nation, and so are the 
 energies of the capitalist ; for, instead of occupying the 
 important and influential place in society, which his 
 own abilities and education, combined with his pecu- 
 niary means, would in other and more favourable circum- 
 stances have enabled him to hold, his time is drivelled 
 away either in shooting on my Lord Somebody's grounds, 
 or in poring over the newspapers at the nearest reading- 
 room, or in speculating on the propriety of making his 
 son John a lawyer, and his son James a medical man, 
 and his son Thomas a clergyman. When the boys are 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 173 
 
 educated, — which, in the present circumstances of the 
 mother country, is not easily accomplished out of an 
 income of two hundred a year, — the capitalist, the 
 Englishman, forsooth, the man who, if he felt his own 
 weight, or knew his own place in the world, would 
 scorn the employment, — spends his pocket-money in 
 coach-hire, and his time in the antechambers of the 
 great, actually begging for situations for his sons ! Let 
 the reader look attentively at this picture, and then say 
 if it is not like, as a representation of the actual con- 
 dition of a thousand respectable families in England ! 
 
 Let him now look at the very same family emigrating 
 to such a colony as New South Wales. Fifteen hundred 
 pounds will in all likelihood be sufficient to land the 
 whole family in the colony, and purchase a partially 
 improved farm or estate with a good house on it, in a 
 settled part of the country, and within a moderate dis- 
 tance of Sydney ; on which, without any farther outlay 
 of capital, they may obtain all the necessaries and many 
 even of the luxuries of life, and which will afford, more- 
 over, suitable and sufficient employment for the most 
 active mind ! Two thousand pounds of their capital in- 
 vested, at 10 per cent interest, will afford them a yearly 
 return equal to their whole income in England, while 
 the remainder, if invested judiciously in cattle or in 
 sheep-farming, will in all likelihood yield them from 20 
 to 50 per cent interest. The circumstances of the emi- 
 grants will, therefore, be materially changed for the 
 better, and they will accordingly live in a style some- 
 what conformable to their larger income. But others 
 will be benefited by this change, as well as the emi- 
 
174 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 grants themselves ; for they will no longer be content 
 with the limited supply of Birmingham and Leeds 
 manufactures that they found sufficient in the West of 
 England, and they will consequently be much better 
 customers than they were before to the Birmingham 
 and the Leeds manufacturers ; whose workmen will of 
 course be better employed, better clothed, better lodged, 
 and better fed, than they were previously to their emi- 
 gration. They could scarce afford to keep a riding- 
 horse in England ; they can now keep a carriage, and 
 of course give employment to the various classes of 
 persons that are engaged in the manufacture of saddlery 
 and of coach-furniture in the mother country. They 
 now buy tea by the chest, and sugar by the ton, for 
 their large farm-establishment ; and the classes of mer- 
 chants, shipowners, and mariners are on that account, 
 as well as in consequence of their greatly increased 
 consumption of British goods, benefited by their emi- 
 gration to a much greater amount than they would have 
 been by their remaining at home. Nor is that benefit 
 merely indirect ; for a family of moderate capital, com- 
 mencing sheep-farming in the colony, will not have 
 been long resident in New South Wales, before they 
 will be in the way of receiving visits of business from 
 the shipmasters that frequent the port of Sydney, 
 offering to carry home their wool or other colonial 
 produce to London. 
 
 As a member of society, the capitalist of two hundred 
 pounds per annum, living in retirement in England, is 
 of comparatively little weight in the scale. In New 
 South Wales he becomes an important, and, if he 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 175 
 
 chooses, a highly influential personage. He is able, in 
 some measure, to give the tone to society in his own 
 neighbourhood. To those who are returning, though 
 irresolutely, from the paths of vice, his encouragement 
 gives firmness and resolution, while his virtuous ex- 
 ample drives immorality into the shade. If he has the 
 inclination, he has ample means of pursuing plans of 
 benevolence and philanthropy : if he has the spirit, he 
 can even erect an altar in his own vicinity, and cause 
 many to follow him to the sanctuary of God. His 
 advice is asked and taken in matters of government 
 and legislation, and his name is perhaps honourably 
 enrolled in the annals of an empire. 
 
 As a father, the means of education for his children 
 are within his reach in the colony, and the walks of 
 mercantile and professional exertion are still open to his 
 sons : but he is relieved from all anxiety as to their 
 obtaining a comfortable subsistence in the world ; and 
 if his son Thomas should actually turn out to be unfit 
 for any thing but " reading out of a book," (to use the 
 sarcastic language of the late Jeremy Bentham, when 
 estimating the qualifications usually required for the 
 clerical office in England,) he is under no temptation to 
 incur the guilt of thrusting an unfit person into the holy 
 office of the ministry, for he can give him a few hun- 
 dred head of cattle and a few flocks of sheep, and the 
 lad will have an independence for life. 
 
 Now can any person deny, that the man of moderate 
 capital, who thus lives in the colonies, does not live 
 much more usefully to the British nation, as well as to 
 himself, to his family, and to society, than the man 
 
176 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 who merely vegetates in England on two hundred a 
 year? 
 
 Were a family of moderate capital emigrating to 
 New South Wales, to purchase a partially improved 
 farm either at Hunter's River, at Bathurst, or at 
 Argyle, they would scarce experience any of the incon- 
 veniences to which emigrants of all classes are uniformly 
 exposed on settling in the wilderness. Besides finding 
 in their immediate neighbourhood respectable and well- 
 educated society, they would be much nearer a market 
 for their produce, and would find the expense of car- 
 riage to and from the colonial capital comparatively 
 inconsiderable. If they had children requiring instruc- 
 tion, they would find it much less difficult to get them 
 well-educated than in the distant interior ; while they 
 would be much nearer the House of God, and the hu- 
 manizing influences of the ordinances of religion. 
 
 Steam-navigation will in all likelihood be extended 
 very shortly from the settlement of Port Macquarie to 
 the northward, along the whole line of coast to the 
 southward, as far as Port Phillip in Bass's Straits : * 
 there will thus be a vast extent of eligible water- 
 communication available for reputable and industrious 
 families of still more moderate means, proposing to 
 devote their attention principally to the pursuits of 
 agriculture. The value of that species of communica- 
 tion, even in a moral point of view, is by no means in- 
 
 * There is already a steam-boat plying regularly between Sydney and 
 Port Macquarie, and another has been sent out lately from Scotland to 
 ply between Sydney and Hobart Town— touching, doubtless, at Twofold 
 Bay, which will thus form a very convenient half-way station. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. J// 
 
 considerable in a colony like New South Wales : for 
 if there were an agricultural settlement formed at 
 Twofold Bay, near Bass's Straits, as I have no doubt 
 there will be very shortly, the grain and other produce 
 of that settlement would be conveyed to Sydney — a dis- 
 tance of nearly three hundred miles — at a comparatively 
 small expense, and without putting it into the power 
 of a single convict-servant to get himself intoxicated 
 by the way. 
 
 It is quite unnecessary for a family of free emi- 
 grants to carry out any thing from the mother country 
 in the shape of furniture or agricultural implements : 
 such articles can be procured at as cheap a rate in the 
 colony as in England ; and to carry out any thing in 
 the shape of merchandise would be folly in the extreme. 
 Even clothing of all descriptions can now be purchased 
 at a moderate price in New South Wales. Neither is 
 it necessary for intending emigrants to purchase books 
 of agriculture, to teach them the processes of farming, 
 if previously unacquainted with them ; for such books 
 would in all likelihood do them more harm than good, 
 as they would most probably be unsuitable to the cli- 
 mate, and would only fill their heads with crotchets, 
 which might perhaps prove very expensive in the end. 
 The best way in which an intending emigrant of small 
 capital can employ the intervening time, between the 
 adoption of his resolution and his actual embarkation, 
 and the best preparation which he can make for settling 
 in New South Wales, is to learn to handle the axe, the 
 saw, the chisel, and the plane, by taking lessons for a 
 few months from a country carpenter : for although 
 
178 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 he may not find it absolutely necessary to employ him- 
 self in that way in the colony, he will find such accom- 
 plishments of the greatest utility, even in the way of 
 enabling him to give directions to his workmen or con- 
 vict-servants. A man who can assist in erecting a 
 house for his family on his own farm, or can make a 
 gate, a door, a table, or a stool, on an occasion of emer- 
 gency, with his own hands, is much more likely to pros- 
 per in New South Wales, than a mere theoretical farmer. 
 I am sorry the colony does not at present hold out 
 any adequate prospect to induce respectable young men 
 to emigrate from the mother country, in the hope of ob- 
 taining situations either under government or in mer- 
 cantile houses, as clerks or warehousemen. Candidates 
 for situations of this kind are numerous already ; the 
 class of emigrants I have just mentioned being unfor- 
 tunately the most numerous, while vacancies seldom 
 occur and are immediately filled up. I have heard of 
 two young gentlemen of this class — both of good 
 education and of respectable families, and who had both 
 been furnished with letters of introduction to mercantile 
 houses in the colony — who arrived in New South 
 Wales within the last few years ; but who, finding no 
 prospect of employment in the way they had antici- 
 pated, entered before the mast, or as common sailors, 
 in one of the colonial sperm-whalers. I admire their 
 noble spirit of independence : indeed, the want of 
 such a spirit has been the ruin of many a young man of 
 fair promise in the colony, who, if he had only stooped 
 to rise, in some such honest way as the one adopted by 
 the young gentlemen I refer to, might have risen at 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 179 
 
 length to comparative independence. The sentiment of 
 the Roman poet — 
 
 Tentanda via est qua me quoque possim 
 Tollere humo ; * 
 
 is a virtuous, a praiseworthy, and an honourable sentU 
 ment ; and in so far as it leads a man to endeavour to 
 obtain an honest livelihood by his own exertions, even 
 in the humblest sphere of life, it is abundantly sanc- 
 tioned by Christian precept and apostolic example. 
 Indeed, I do not know a more splendid subject for a 
 painter than that of the apostle Paul — the man whose 
 moral heroism was sufficiently exalted to plant the 
 standard of the cross on the battlements of Ephesus, 
 the strongest hold of Asiatic idolatry, and to make a 
 worthless Roman Governor tremble on his judgment- 
 seat — working by lamp-light with his sail-needle to 
 earn himself a livelihood as a journeyman tent-maker. 
 
 At the same time, it is much to be regretted that no 
 effort has hitherto been made in the colony to devise 
 ways and means of affording employment to young men 
 of this description, though in a somewhat different 
 sphere from the one best suited to their abilities. A 
 few thorough-going men of real benevolence in the in- 
 fluential classes of the colony might have done much in 
 this way with very slender means. A tract of land, for 
 instance, might have been procured from the Govern- 
 ment, on which suitable farm-buildings could have been 
 erected at a very moderate expense, while a herd of 
 cattle and a flock of sheep could have been collected in 
 the way of donations from the respectable settlers of the 
 
 * " I must try some way of raising myself from the ground." 
 
180 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 colony. An establishment of this kind might have an- 
 swered the double purpose of a temporary asylum for 
 respectable young men who had failed in their honest 
 endeavours to find employment of a different kind ; and 
 of an agricultural school, in which such young men 
 might have attained a knowledge of the various pro- 
 cesses of Australian farming, and from which they might 
 in due time have gone forth with certain previously- 
 understood facilities, to establish themselves as farmers 
 on their own account in the colonial wilderness. But, 
 unfortunately, we have either had no such men among 
 the influential classes of our colonial community, or the 
 energies of well-disposed individuals have been com- 
 pletely paralysed, under the influence of a most impolitic 
 and illiberal system, which has hitherto prevailed in the 
 colony, and confined the privilege and the means of 
 doing extensive good to the community, to men who 
 have studied only their own personal aggrandizement. 
 It is so much the interest of the colony, however, to 
 prevent respectable young men, who may be unsuccess- 
 ful in their endeavours to obtain employment in a mer- 
 cantile capacity on their arrival in the colony, from 
 sinking into despondency, dissipation, and ruin, and to 
 transform them into landholders and cultivators of the 
 soil throughout the territory, that I still entertain a 
 hope that some sort of machinery may shortly be de- 
 vised and put in motion for the accomplishment of so 
 desirable an object. When the spirits are buoyant and 
 the mind pliant, as is generally the case in early life, it 
 is by no means difficult to transform the individual, who 
 has been trained only to write at a desk or to measure 
 out haberdashery, into a man of ploughs and farm- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 181 
 
 produce, of sheep and cattle ; and in a country where a 
 young man of good character and industrious habits 
 merely requires a fair starting in the latter capacity to 
 ensure him a speedy, comfortable, and yearly-increasing 
 independence, it is surely an object of the first import- 
 ance to the community, that a process for effecting so 
 important a transformation should be put into early and 
 efficient operation. 
 
 In the year 1832, upwards of two thousand free emi- 
 grants arrived in the colony : of these, the greater 
 number consisted of persons of the humbler classes of 
 society, including a number of pensioners with their 
 wives and families. The colonial government had re- 
 ceived no orders relative to the pensioners, and had no 
 authority to grant them any indulgence : its efforts on 
 behalf of a few of their number were therefore feeble, 
 desultory, and inefficient; the great majority of the pen- 
 sioners, and many of the other free emigrants of the 
 humbler classes, being left to find their way in the 
 colony as they best could, with nobody to ask advice of, 
 and nobody to direct them ; and liable to be beset by 
 worthless individuals, or driven through despondency to 
 absolute desperation. 
 
 It was natural for most of the Scotch and North of 
 Ireland Presbyterian emigrants, who found themselves 
 in such circumstances, to apply for advice and informa- 
 tion to the resident minister of their own communion, 
 especially as I was known to have had something to do 
 with emigration. In fact, I was for some time literally 
 beset with applications for information and advice, in- 
 somuch that I recollect of there being on one occasion 
 
182 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 no fewer than three different parties of emigrants newly- 
 arrived, all waiting in different apartments of my house 
 at the same time. Knowing that there were many 
 places in the interior of the colony, where families and 
 individuals of the humbler classes of society could 
 easily obtain an eligible settlement, were their circum- 
 stances and abilities known, but possessing only limited 
 information on such a subject myself, it appeared to me 
 that if a society were instituted to collect information 
 of the kind required in such cases, and to form a sort of 
 connecting link between the emigrants and the respect- 
 able settlers in the interior, many families might be ad- 
 vantageously settled, or at least rescued from a state of 
 miserable suspense. I accordingly drew up a series of 
 papers on the subject, which were published anony- 
 mously in one of the colonial journals ; and the idea 
 was so well received, that on a public meeting being 
 held shortly after to form a society for the object 
 proposed, the attendance was both numerous and re- 
 spectable. 
 
 The Emigrants' Friend Society, as far as its operations 
 and success depended on the general and continued 
 support of the colonial public, was like most other colo- 
 nial abortions — a vapour, which appeared for a little sea- 
 son, and then vanished away : but it fortunately did 
 not require that support in the degree in which it is 
 necessary to the existence and prosperity of other socie- 
 ties. A publicly accredited agent of active benevolence 
 was what it chiefly required ; and a Scotch gentleman 
 of this character — W. Macpherson, Esq., Collector of 
 Internal Revenue — was appointed for that purpose Ho- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 183 
 
 norary Secretary, in which capacity he had almost the 
 exclusive management of its affairs devolved upon him. 
 Within a few months after its formation, Mr. Macpher- 
 son had procured situations in the interior for upwards 
 of seventy families and individuals. 
 
 Retired or half- pay officers of the army or navy are a 
 class of men who have generally fewer ties to bind them 
 to any particular spot in the mother country than most 
 other persons of the same rank in life ; while their 
 limited means, and the daily increasing difficulty of 
 providing for a large family in England, naturally pre- 
 dispose them to emigration. Besides, there is a posi- 
 tive inducement very properly held forth by His Ma- 
 jesty's Government to gentlemen of this class proposing 
 to settle with their families in the colonies, in the shape 
 of a remission of the purchase-money of whatever 
 Crown-land they may purchase on their arrival, to an 
 amount proportioned to their rank and length of service ; 
 a field-officer being entitled to a remission of £ 200 to 
 £300 ; a captain, to a remission of £150 to £200 ; and 
 a subaltern, to a remission of £100 to £150; or, in other 
 words, the field-officer settling in the colonies will receive 
 from eight to twelve hundred acres of land, purchased 
 at the minimum price, for nothing ; the captain, from 
 six to eight hundred ; and the subaltern, from four 
 to six hundred. Gentlemen of this class will be able to 
 estimate the advantages which New South Wales presents 
 for the settlement of a family from the preceding pages, 
 and it is therefore unnecessary to say any thing farther 
 on the subject. I shall only mention one circumstance, 
 which will doubtless suggest itself to the reader, from 
 
184 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the whole tenor of the preceding sketches, as an argu- 
 ment in favour of emigration to retired officers in gene- 
 ral, and to many respectable families of limited income 
 in the mother country ; viz. that what would barely be 
 sufficient to enable a respectable family to live in Eng- 
 land, would with common prudence enable them to live 
 in comparative affluence in New South Wales. 
 
 For respectable families of moderate capital pro- 
 posing to emigrate, New South Wales is in many re- 
 spects greatly preferable to Upper Canada. The Au- 
 stralian climate is incomparably superior to that of any 
 of the British provinces of North America. The pro- 
 ductions of New South Wales are far more various and 
 far more valuable ; for, to instance only one of them, 
 what are a few thousand logs of inferior timber, and a 
 few thousand barrels of potash, to the fleeces of the 
 sheep on a thousand hills in Australia? The society 
 which a respectable family is likely to meet with in the 
 neighbourhood of their place of settlement in the interior 
 of New South Wales is of a more congenial character 
 than what is usually to be met with in the back-settle- 
 ments of Upper Canada ; while the transportation- 
 system, which constitutes the grand objection to New 
 South Wales as a place to reside in, in the estimation 
 of most people at home, ensures a constant supply of 
 cheap and valuable labour. In short, New South Wales 
 is, beyond all comparison, the preferable country for a 
 gentleman-farmer. 
 
 It is now no longer necessary to institute comparisons 
 between the colonies of New South Wales and Van 
 Dieman's Land, to induce intending emigrants to direct 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 185 
 
 their course to the one of these colonies rather than to 
 the other. The fact that, during the last two years, 
 there has been a very considerable emigration from 
 Van Dieman's Land to New South Wales, insomuch 
 that more than two hundred persons have actually 
 crossed over from that island to the continent of New 
 Holland, carrying along with them upwards of thirty 
 thousand sheep, with horses and cattle in proportion, 
 and forming a settlement of squatters at Port Phillip in 
 Bass's Straits, is surely decisive of this question, as far 
 as intending emigrants are concerned. I should be 
 sorry to say a single word in the way of detraction in 
 reference to the colony of Van Dieman's Land, which, 
 I am happy to say, is undoubtedly one of the most 
 prosperous of the British colonies : but the much 
 greater difficulty of finding unlocated land of good 
 quality and in eligible situations, and the much greater 
 expense of effecting a settlement in that colony than in 
 New South Wales, are considerations of the utmost 
 importance to an intending emigrant, and will doubtless 
 have their due weight in determining his course. 
 
 The climate of Van Dieman's Land is unquestionably 
 more congenial to an English constitution than that of 
 the lowlands of New South Wales ; but it is not a 
 whit more congenial than that of the elevated table- 
 land of the western and south-western interior of the 
 elder colony. The wheat of Argyle to the south-west- 
 ward — the direction in which the stream of emigration 
 is now flowing— is equal to that of Van Dieman's 
 Land both in weight and quality, while the English 
 gooseberry arrives at as high a degree of perfection as 
 
186 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 in that island, and the cheeks of children exhibit the 
 same ruddy glow of entire health. On the other hand, 
 although the climate of the northern parts of Van Die- 
 man's Land is most delightfully salubrious ; that of 
 Hobart Town, from its immediate vicinity to Mount 
 Wellington — on which every cold blast from the South 
 Pole seems to stop for fresh orders on its journey to the 
 northward — is much more subject to those frequent 
 and violent transitions from summer heat to extreme 
 cold, which are so productive of rheumatisms and 
 tooth-aches, than any part of New South Wales. I 
 have been three times in Van Dieman's Land, and have 
 resided at Hobart Town about three months at different 
 seasons of the year; I do not speak, therefore, from 
 mere hearsay. 
 
 There is no article of agricultural produce raised in 
 Van Dieman's Land that is not cultivated successfully 
 in New South Wales ; but there are many articles of 
 produce cultivated, or that may be cultivated, in New 
 South Wales, that can never be raised profitably, if at 
 all, in Van Dieman's Land. Maize — an invaluable 
 grain to the agriculturist — is not grown in Van Die- 
 man's Land, and there are no orange -groves in that 
 island. The very timber that is used for joinery and 
 cabinet-work in Van Dieman's Land is imported from 
 New South Wales. 
 
 But the special advantage which New South Wales 
 enjoys over Van Dieman's Land is the illimitable extent 
 of pasture-land which it presents to the sheep-farmer, or 
 the proprietor of cattle, in almost every direction. Van 
 Dieman's Land is but a small island, not quite so large 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 187 
 
 as Ireland, and a great portion of its surface is abso- 
 lutely uninhabitable : the continent of New Holland 
 is as large as all Europe, and contains an extent of 
 available land equal to the whole extent of the united 
 territories of several European kingdoms. This is a 
 circumstance of no small moment in countries which 
 are chiefly valuable for their pasture, and the riches of 
 which must consist principally in their flocks and 
 herds ; for Van Dieman's Land will, at no distant 
 period, be over- stocked with sheep, and over-run with 
 cattle. Again, the climate of New South Wales is 
 universally allowed to be superior to that of Van 
 Dieman's Land for the growth of fine wool ; but the 
 reader is, perhaps, not aware that the pastures of New 
 South Wales are much better adapted for the rearing 
 and fattening of cattle than those of the more southern 
 colony. Such, however, is the fact; the native grass of 
 Van Dieman's Land being less nutritious than the 
 native pasture of New South Wales, while it is much 
 more liable to be destroyed during the longer and 
 severer winters of that island. The Van Dieman's 
 Land farmer has to provide artificial food for his cattle 
 — hay, straw, turnips, &c. — during the winter ; there is 
 nothing of the kind known in New South Wales. The 
 beef of the latter colony is of superior quality to that 
 of Van Dieman's Land ; and butcher-meat generally 
 sells in Sydney for little more than half the price that 
 it costs in Hobart Town. 
 
 It is preposterous to represent Van Dieman's Land 
 as the granary of New South Wales. Van Dieman's 
 Land, doubtless, exported wheat in great quantity to 
 
188 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 New South Wales, at a time when the elder colony 
 was suffering under an unprecedented visitation of God, 
 which had been aggravated by the almost unpre- 
 cedented folly of man : but what is the actual state of 
 matters in regard to the commercial relations of the two 
 colonies now, when things may be supposed to have 
 reached their proper level ? Why, the balance of trade 
 is now in favour of New South Wales j and the articles 
 exported from the elder colony to Van Dieman's Land 
 consist chiefly of beef and pork, dairy produce— chiefly 
 butter and cheese — horses, oranges, Sec. ; articles, for 
 the most part, which Van Dieman's Land might have 
 been supposed to have raised in sufficient quantity for 
 its own consumption, long before this time. In fine, 
 although Van Dieman's Land is undoubtedly greatly 
 superior, in regard to its climate and productions, to 
 any of the North American colonies, for a respectable 
 family of small capital to settle in, and though I shall 
 always be most happy to bear testimony to its pros- 
 perity and advancement ; — I am confident I speak the 
 truth, when I assert that New South Wales holds out a 
 much better prospect to the intending emigrant of 
 moderate capital, the future proprietor of sheep and 
 cattle, if not also to the practical agriculturist, or the 
 cultivator of the soil. 
 
 I should be sorry to say a single word that would 
 have the effect of impeding the prosperity of the 
 colony of Swan River, which, I am happy to state, has 
 survived the difficulties of its first settlement, and is 
 now in the highway to advancement ; but I cannot 
 help pointing out to the reader the vast difference that 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 189 
 
 there is between the circumstances of that colony, as a 
 place for the settlement of respectable free emigrants, 
 and those of New South Wales. Supposing both the 
 climate and the soil at Swan River to be equal to those 
 of New South Wales, there are no roads in Western 
 Australia ; labour is not to be procured but at an 
 exorbitant price ; and wool, the chief produce of the 
 soil, which is raised under all these disadvantages, is 
 sold at the very same price in England as the produce 
 of the eastern colony. 
 
 The superior claims of the recently formed colony of 
 Southern Australia have been put forth so prominently 
 and so often during the last few years, that it would be 
 unfair to the intending emigrant not to notice them. I 
 have not the slightest wish to depreciate that colony in 
 any way ; at the same time I cannot help remarking 
 that the principles on which it has been founded are 
 somewhat fallacious, as far as regards the best means of 
 colonization on the Australian continent. After all that 
 has been said and sung on the subject, land and labour 
 are not the only elements of colonization in countries 
 essentially pastoral ; for if they are, under what cate- 
 gory are we to rank the two millions of fine'woolled 
 sheep, and the vast herds of cattle that roam over the 
 boundless pastures of New South Wales, and form the 
 wealth of that most prosperous colony ? The unprece- 
 dented prosperity of that colony, notwithstanding the 
 unprecedented dispersion of its mere handful of inha- 
 bitants, gives the lie to all those fine-spun theories 
 that have from time to time been thrown off from the 
 looms of certain political economists in England during 
 
190 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the last few years, and that uniformly represent con- 
 centration as indispensably necessary to the prosperity 
 of a colony. In opposition to these theories, I main- 
 tain that dispersion is the order of nature — the course 
 evidently prescribed by the Creator — in the first settle- 
 ment of countries adapted in their natural state to the 
 rearing and depasturing of flocks and herds. It is only 
 when the natural advantages which such countries 
 present have been made extensively available by a 
 pastoral population ; it is only when, from the natural 
 increase of that population in particular localities, the 
 agricultural state of society begins to be superinduced 
 upon the pastoral, that concentration is found to be 
 either practicable or profitable. Those who imagine 
 that the progress of colonization in Southern Australia 
 will in this respect be at all different from what it has 
 uniformly been in New South Wales and Van Dieman's 
 Land, will soon find themselves egregiously mistaken. 
 The colonists in that settlement will doubtless very soon 
 discover, that it is much more profitable to follow their 
 flocks and herds into the far interior, than to sit down, 
 as cultivators of the soil, on a few acres of arable land 
 on the coast : and as soon as they make this discovery, 
 ingenious theories alone, which every day's experience 
 will tend to falsify, will not induce them to concentrate 
 in opposition to their own obvious interests. 
 
 The intending emigrant who bears in mind that the 
 colonies of New South Wales and Southern Australia 
 are separated from each other merely by an imaginary 
 line, which the progress of colonization in New South 
 Wales has very nearly reached already, and that the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 191 
 
 land on the one side of that line is just as good for all 
 the purposes of colonization as the land on the other, 
 will doubtless regard it as a circumstance of some im- 
 portance, in endeavouring to make up his mind as to 
 which of the colonies he should bend his course to, that 
 while land in Southern Australia is not sold for less 
 than one pound an acre, it may be procured on the New 
 South Wales side of the line for five shillings. It is 
 not probable indeed that so great a disproportion will 
 be maintained long, neither is it to be desired, in as far 
 as regards the progress and advancement of the elder 
 colony; but the intending emigrant will recollect that 
 this is the state of things in the two colonies at present. 
 
 As to the comparative facilities for obtaining free 
 labour for the purposes of colonization, there cannot 
 long be any material difference between the two colonies. 
 The same system is now pursued in both — that of ap- 
 propriating the funds arising from the sale of waste 
 land to the encouragement and promotion of emigration. 
 That system will undoubtedly ensure a vast importation 
 of free labour into both colonies ; while in that of New 
 South Wales, it cannot be denied, that the importation 
 of convict labour will increase, rather than diminish, the 
 facilities for obtaining labour of the kind required by free 
 emigrants of moderate capital in that settlement. 
 
 At the same time, as I have shown that both colonies 
 must necessarily be pastoral settlements for a long time 
 to come, it will be obvious, that in such a state of things 
 as that circumstance implies, the amount of labour re- 
 quired by any capitalist, to enable him to turn his land 
 
192 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 to account, will be much smaller than it will eventually 
 be when both colonies shall have reached their agricul- 
 tural state. It is by no means, therefore, of such im- 
 portance to the intending emigrant of moderate capital, 
 that there should be so superabundant a supply of 
 labour in the colonial market, as the projectors of the 
 colony of Southern Australia appear to think indis- 
 pensably necessary for the establishment and mainte- 
 nance of a colony on the Australian continent. A very 
 small number of labourers would be sufficient to manage 
 as many as ten thousand sheep and two thousand head 
 of cattle ; and such will, doubtless, for a long time to 
 come, be the purpose for which labour will be especially 
 in requisition in all the Australian colonies. 
 
 In regard to the character of the population of the 
 two settlements, it is not to be supposed that any 
 material difference will be observable in this particular, 
 any more than in the others already enumerated, for a 
 long period. The transportation system must and will 
 be amended, and the colony of New South Wales will 
 ere long experience the beneficial effects of that amend- 
 ment. The influx of free emigrants, under the new 
 system of emigration now in operation, will gradually 
 elevate the character of society in that colony, and 
 enable it to purify itself; while the ample means now 
 afforded for the religious instruction and education 
 of the colonists will aid and accelerate the process of 
 purification. In the mean time the boundary line be- 
 tween the two colonies will be crossed from both sides 
 of it, in the whole direction of its length ; and the popu- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 193 
 
 lation on the one side of it will speedily be assimilated, 
 in character as well as in pursuits, to the population on 
 the other. 
 
 The vast distance of the Australian colonies, and the 
 consequent expense of the voyage out, have hitherto 
 operated very unfavourably for these colonies. The 
 cost of a cabin-passage from London to New South 
 Wales has usually been as high as £70 to £90, and 
 that of a steerage-passage £35 or £40. Latterly, 
 however, the fares have been considerably reduced. 
 From Scotland a passage to New South Wales is gene- 
 rally much cheaper than from London; and from Liver- 
 pool it is now as low as £50 for the cabin, and £20 for 
 the steerage. Ship-owners, surely, do not require to be 
 informed that a reduction of the fare is a premium on 
 emigration ; or that the lower the rate of passage-money 
 is reduced, the more passengers are likely to offer. 
 
 VOL. I! 
 
194 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ENUMERATION AND DESCRIPTION OF THE LO- 
 CALITIES IN NEW SOUTH WALES, WHICH ARE 
 AT PRESENT OPEN TO EMIGRATION FROM THE 
 MOTHER COUNTRY. 
 
 " The time cannot be far distant, when the noble scheme of a systematic 
 emigration from all the over- peopled parts of the earth to the under- 
 peopled, preserving health to the mother-countries by moderate de- 
 pletion, and invigorating infant colonies by the infusion of full-grown 
 labour, will be recognised as the true political wisdom of all advanced 
 states, and generally adopted by them ; when an increase of population, 
 instead of being deplored and discouraged by short-sighted statesmen 
 and philosophers, will be hailed with delight as the means of adding to 
 the sum of human happiness, and extending the empire of civilization 
 over the globe." — Principles of Political Economy, by Mr. Poulett Scuope. 
 
 The stream of emigration is at present flowing in two 
 different directions within the territory of New South 
 Wales, — to the northward and to the southward, or 
 rather the south-westward, of Sydney. In the former 
 of these directions, the first settlement on the coast, 
 to the northward of Port Stephens, the site of the 
 Australian Agricultural Company's grant, is that of the 
 Manning River, on the banks of which there is a very 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 195 
 
 considerable extent of available land of the first quality, 
 still the property of the Crown. The Company's grant 
 was formerly bounded to the northward by the Manning ; 
 but the recent exchange of a large portion of their land 
 in that vicinity for an equally extensive tract in the 
 district of Liverpool Plains in the north-western interior, 
 has thrown open the whole of the lower part of that 
 river to the enterprise of industrious settlers. There is 
 already a considerable population in that vicinity, con- 
 sisting chiefly, if not exclusively, of cedar-cutters and 
 ship-builders, as the timber on the banks of the Man- 
 ning is of superior quality and in great abundance : 
 but there is still a sufficient extent of available land 
 for the establishment of a very considerable number of 
 additional settlers of the class of free emigrant agri- 
 culturists, the soil being eminently adapted for cul- 
 tivation. 
 
 The intervening country from the Manning River to 
 Port Macquarie is generally of a sterile and unpro- 
 mising character along the coast, the distance between 
 the two settlements being about sixty miles. At Port 
 Macquarie, however, there is a vast extent of available 
 land of the very best description, both for grazing and 
 for agriculture. Along the Hastings, the large na- 
 vigable river which empties itself into the Pacific at 
 Port Macquarie, the extent of alluvial land is con- 
 siderably greater than is generally found on the banks 
 of colonial rivers ; and the forest land beyond the reach 
 of its inundations presents a wide extent of eligible pas- 
 turage both for sheep and cattle. The Maria River, 
 which empties itself into the Hastings at John's Plains, 
 
196 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 about twelve or fifteen miles from the settlement, is 
 navigable for forty miles from its mouth in a north- 
 north-westerly direction ; and there is a large extent of 
 available land on its banks. About ten miles to the 
 northward, from the head of the navigation of the 
 Maria River, another navigable stream, called the 
 M'Leay, is found pursuing a north-north-easterly course 
 to the Pacific, into which it falls about eighty miles to 
 the northward of Port Macquarie. On the banks of 
 this river also the extent of available land is very con- 
 siderable, and the natives are numerous and friendly. 
 In short, the vicinity of Port Macquarie presents a 
 wide field for the settlement of an agricultural popu- 
 lation ; and although the harbours on that part of the 
 coast are all bar-harbours, there is reason to believe 
 that they are all available for steam navigation. 
 
 To the northward of Port Macquarie, Moreton Bay, 
 which has been occupied as a penal settlement for the 
 last twelve years, but will shortly be thrown open to 
 free emigration, presents a vast extent of available land 
 of the very first quality. Moreton Bay is an extensive 
 basin situated between the 27th and 28th parallels of 
 south latitude, on the east coast of New Holland, and 
 accessible for ships of large size by two different 
 channels ; the one to the northward, and the other to 
 the southward of Amity Island, at the entrance of the 
 bay. The Brisbane River enters the bay from the 
 westward, towards its southern extremity ; the entrance 
 being both guarded and concealed by a small island 
 called Bird Island. Close to the point of land which 
 helps to form the principal entrance of the river, the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 197 
 
 Government have a station called Dunwich, sub- 
 ordinate to the penal settlement on the banks of the 
 Brisbane. Vessels of considerable draught of water 
 anchor off Dunwich, close to Bird Island, while those 
 of lighter burden proceed to the settlement. Dunwich 
 forms an admirable site for a commercial city, which it 
 will doubtless become at no distant day ; for although 
 the land in its immediate vicinity is of very inferior 
 quality, there is a sufficient depth of water and safe 
 anchorage for the largest vessels ; while an extensive 
 bay abounding with the finest fish, including turtles, 
 &c, and four navigable streams, the Brisbane, the 
 Logan, the Tweed, and Scott's River, afford facilities 
 for a pretty extensive inland navigation. On the banks 
 of the last three of these rivers, or creeks, (for this is 
 their proper character) a considerable number of the 
 convicts at Moreton Bay are at present employed in 
 cutting cedar for the public service : it is brought 
 down in rafts to Dunwich, where it is cut up into plank, 
 and stored for use. The abundance of cedar on the 
 banks of these inlets is a sufficient indication to the 
 Australian settler of the quality of the soil, for the 
 beautiful cedar-tree is never found growing on sterile 
 or inferior land. 
 
 There is a bar at Amity Point, at the mouth of the 
 Brisbane River, which a vessel of considerable draught 
 of water cannot pass. It would present no obstacle, 
 however, to the progress of a steam- boat, which could 
 reach the settlement, or, as it is called, Brisbane Town, 
 about fofty or fifty miles up the river, just as the 
 
198 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Hunter's River steam-boats ascend that river to Mait- 
 land. The buildings at a penal settlement cannot be 
 expected to be either numerous or splendid ; but the 
 Military Barracks and the Commissariat Store are both 
 substantial buildings, and highly creditable to the 
 place ; and the town of Brisbane can in one most 
 important particular take precedence even of Sydney 
 itself; — in being supplied with abundance of excellent 
 water, which is now conveyed to the settlement in 
 pipes, through the exertions of Captain Clunie, the late 
 zealous and indefatigable commandant. 
 
 There is a large extent of alluvial land of the very 
 first quality on the banks of the Brisbane : it produces 
 prodigious crops of maize — as much as a hundred 
 bushels an acre; wheat being cultivated chiefly at 
 Eagle Farm, a tract of open forest land of superior 
 quality, considerably farther up the river, where the 
 country, which is hilly, is of limestone formation. 
 Sweet potatoes are cultivated in the neighbourhood of 
 Brisbane Town most successfully, the produce being as 
 much as fourteen tons per acre. Yams, both of the 
 white and purple varieties, are also raised, of large size 
 and excellent quality. The produce from a piece of 
 ground planted with arrow-root, on the bank of the 
 river, was at the rate of a ton per acre, the quality 
 being declared by the officers at the settlement to be 
 superior to that of any they had ever seen before. On 
 low swampy situations, the phormium tenax, or New 
 Zealand flax, thrives uncommonly well ; while tobacco, 
 cotton, and the sugar-cane can be cultivated to any 
 
NEW SOUTFI WALES. 199 
 
 extent, with the prospect of a copious return, in si- 
 tuations adapted respectively to the growth of these 
 tropical productions. 
 
 In the Government Garden at Brisbane Town, ci- 
 trons, shaddocks, oranges, lemons, limes, guavas, 
 peaches, nectarines, apricots, almonds, mulberries, 
 bananas, plantains, olives, &c, &c, &c, are all cul- 
 tivated most successfully. The citron-tree bears fruit 
 of large size and good quality, all the year round. The 
 shaddocks are of large size ; the mulberries most abun- 
 dant ; and the crops of plantains and bananas are 
 quite incredible in quantity. The cocoa-nut tree grows 
 pretty well, but has not yet come to maturity. The 
 coffee plant grows well. The pomegranate, the pe- 
 danga, the eugenia uniflora, the loquat, the quince, &c, 
 &c, are also among the botanical productions of More- 
 ton Bay; and culinary vegetables of all kinds are as 
 abundant and of as good quality as in any other part of 
 the territory. 
 
 The bush in the neighbourhood of Moreton Bay as- 
 sumes the most beautiful aspect, presenting an endless 
 variety of rare and valuable plants. Cedar is abundant, 
 and so also is timber for other purposes : the tulip 
 wood and the yellow wood, which are peculiar to 
 Moreton Bay, are the most valuable varieties. The 
 bamboo attains a large size in low sheltered situations : 
 it forms an excellent shade from the sun; and, when 
 encircling pools of water, it is highly ornamental. 
 
 The cattle that are reared at Brisbane Town main- 
 tain themselves in good condition, and the butter 
 and other dairy produce of that settlement are not 
 
200 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 inferior to those of the settlements to the southward : 
 but for the rearing of swine, Moreton Bay is un- 
 doubtedly the best settlement in New South Wales, 
 from the abundance of sweet potatoes, yams, and other 
 tropical fruits, which can be raised at that settlement at 
 all seasons and with the utmost facility. 
 
 As Mr. Allan Cunningham discovered and tra- 
 versed a splendid country, admirably adapted for the 
 rearing of sheep and cattle, directly to the westward of 
 Moreton Bay, the future settlers in that vicinity will be 
 enabled to vie with their southern neighbours in their 
 flocks and herds, and will thus, in due time, participate 
 in the woolly riches of Australia. 
 
 Whether Moreton Bay will ever become a wine 
 country, we cannot state with confidence ; but the 
 climate appears by no means unfavourable to the cul- 
 ture of the grape. The white, pale, or watery grape 
 grows well, but is subject to blight if exposed to the 
 direct rays of the sun : in a southern exposure, it is 
 not liable to be blighted. The black grape is of a 
 hardier constitution, and resists the blight. 
 
 At all events, the nature of the soil and climate at 
 Moreton Bay would strongly suggest the propriety of 
 attracting to that settlement a numerous body of emi- 
 grants from the southern provinces of Europe. 
 
 From the concurrent testimony of various runaway 
 convicts from Moreton Bay, who have reached the 
 settlement of Port Macquarie by travelling along the 
 coast to the southward, it appears that there are several 
 large rivers on that line of coast, with a large ex- 
 tent of land suitable in every respect for the settlement 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 201 
 
 and subsistence of civilized man. It is mortifying to 
 reflect, that we should be indebted for our information 
 respecting the capabilities of so extensive and so highly 
 promising a country to so exceptionable a source ; 
 especially when the colonial government have all along- 
 possessed the means of effecting discoveries along the 
 coast in that direction at a comparatively trifling ex- 
 pense. Indeed, one might suppose that His Majesty's 
 Government would, long ere this time, have been de- 
 sirous of knowing something more than they yet do of 
 the character and capabilities of their splendid estate of 
 New Holland. The country to the westward, both of 
 Moreton Bay and of Port Macquarie, has been ascer- 
 tained to be admirably adapted for the purposes of 
 grazing. 
 
 In the districts of Hunter's River, Bathurst, Illawarra, 
 and Argyle, there is still a large extent of land of supe- 
 rior quality available for the settlement of free emi- 
 grants ; but it is chiefly to the vast extent of available 
 land to the southward and south-westward of the dis- 
 tricts already settled, that the intending emigrant of 
 moderate capital should look. The extensive tract of 
 country on the banks of the Morumbidgee, in the latter 
 of these directions, has been pronounced by the Sur- 
 veyor-General, Major Mitchell, as well adapted both in 
 soil and climate for the settlement of an agricultural, as 
 well as of a pastoral population, as any tract of country 
 in the world : it has been partially occupied for several 
 years past by numerous squatters — people who sit down, 
 to use another appropriate colonial phrase, with their 
 numerous flocks and herds, on the first eligible and 
 
202 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 unlocated tract of waste land they can find in the great 
 wilderness, and who are generally able, from the profits 
 derivable from this mode of settling, to purchase the 
 land of which they have had the temporary occupation, 
 when it comes to be sold. But the country still farther 
 to the southward, in the neighbourhood of Twofold Bay 
 on the east coast, and of Port Phillip in Bass's Straits, is 
 at present the great centre of attraction for intending 
 emigrants : of this tract, or rather tracts, of country, the 
 following notice, which was written on board our good 
 ship after she had weighed anchor in Port Jackson, 
 and was sent ashore by the pilot for publication in a 
 colonial journal, in which it accordingly appeared on 
 the fourth of August last, may not be unacceptable to 
 the reader. 
 
 THE SOUTHERN SETTLEMENTS. 
 
 TWOFOLD BAY AND PORT PHILLIP. 
 
 " It is one of the most fortunate circumstances for the 
 general welfare and advancement of this colony that 
 could possibly have occurred, that the eligibility and 
 importance of the southern portions of this territory 
 were comparatively unknown to the colonists about ten 
 years ago, when the Australian Agricultural Company 
 planted itself on its immense grant of a million of acres 
 at Port Stephens. The monopoly of so large an extent 
 of the available land of this colony by a Company that 
 has hitherto done so little for the general welfare, and 
 is so exclusively selfish in all its plans and operations as 
 the Port Stephens' Company, is doubtless a great evil 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 203 
 
 to this community : but that evil would have been ten- 
 fold greater, and would have operated with tenfold 
 greater force as a drag and dead-weight upon the 
 colony, had the Company set itself down at Port 
 Phillip, and picked out a million of acres of the best 
 land in that most eligibly, situated and highly promi- 
 sing locality. Even if it had appropriated the less im- 
 portant harbour of Twofold Bay, and selected the same 
 extent of the best land within reach of that commanding 
 situation, the general advancement of the colony would 
 have been greatly retarded. We have therefore to feli- 
 citate ourselves, that two such important points on our 
 extensive sea-board have been saved from the iron 
 grasp of monopoly, and will in all probability be thrown 
 open shortly, under the existing land regulations, to the 
 competition of adventurous emigrants. 
 
 " Twofold Bay is admirably situated for a commercial 
 town, being a sort of half-way house between Sydney 
 and Hobart Town, Sydney and Launceston, Sydney 
 and Port Phillip. In short, it will be the general place 
 of call for the numerous steam-vessels that will shortly 
 be plying regularly along the coast, between the capital 
 and all the settlements to the southward, both on the 
 continent and on Van Dieman's Land. The rapid ad- 
 vancement and the commercial prosperity of the settle- 
 ment that will shortly be formed in that locality, may 
 therefore be reckoned on as a matter of course ; and 
 we may therefore anticipate that the price of town 
 allotments, wherever the township may be formed, as 
 well as of every acre of available land within a mode- 
 rate distance of the port, will bear a high price in the 
 
204 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 land market from the very first : and if the Govern* 
 ment were to adopt the principle of appropriating the 
 proceeds of all sales of land in such vicinities as Two- 
 fold Bay and Port Phillip, for the importation of free 
 emigrant mechanics and agricultural labourers into 
 these settlements respectively, setting them down in 
 the first instance at the port nearest that part of the 
 territory from which the requisite fund had been de- 
 rived from the sale of land to defray the expense of 
 their passage out ; leaving them, of course, to find their 
 way into whatever part of the territory they might 
 choose to settle in hereafter ; — the general interests of 
 the colony would be much better studied than under 
 the present arrangement. Supposing, for instance, that 
 any proprietor were investing £10,000 in the purchase 
 of land and town allotments at Twofold Bay ; it would 
 be hard to have the three hundred and thirty-five 
 families of agricultural labourers and mechanics, which 
 that amount would suffice to bring out from England, 
 at the rate allowed by the Government, all landed at Syd- 
 ney, and the capitalist who had invested money to so large 
 an amount on the capabilities of improvement held out 
 to him in that part of the territory, left to hire labourers 
 and mechanics probably on much less favourable terms 
 than he might otherwise have obtained in Sydney. 
 On the other hand, if the agricultural labourers and 
 mechanics, imported from the proceeds of the land and 
 town allotments to be sold in the vicinity of Twofold 
 Bay, were to be left to take their chance in that district 
 in the first instance, the value of all descriptions of pro- 
 perty in that neighbourhood would be greatly en- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 205 
 
 hanced, from the large, supply of available labour ; and 
 the Government would be the first to reap the benefit 
 of their own wise policy in the greatly increased value 
 of their land. 
 
 " Besides, it is by no means wise policy on the part of 
 this Government to make such arrangements in con- 
 nexion with the all-important subject of immigration, as 
 will have the effect of concentrating the population in 
 one or two large towns on the coast, and especially in a 
 single overgrown capital. It would be much better for 
 the colony at large, if a few moderately sized towns 
 could be created in eligible situations, either on the sea 
 coast or in the interior ; and nothing could possibly be 
 more conducive towards the attainment of that important 
 object, than the measure we have taken the liberty to 
 recommend. 
 
 " There is another suggestion, to which we conceive 
 the colonial government ought by all means to attend in 
 forming settlements in such localities as Port Phillip 
 and Twofold Bay. The facilities which the present 
 system of alienating Crown lands affords to grasping 
 monopolists, — who, in purchasing land of the very first 
 quality for cultivation, propose to occupy it merely as 
 sheep or cattle runs, — ought to demonstrate to the 
 Government the absolute necessity of rescuing such 
 tracts of land as are peculiarly eligible, either from 
 their situation or from the quality of the soil, for the 
 formation of agricultural settlements. It would be a 
 prodigious loss to this colony, for instance, if the large 
 extent of arable land of the first quality within reach of 
 water-carriage at Port Phillip should be portioned out 
 
206 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 into large sheep and cattle farms. If any such arrange- 
 ment could be devised and carried into operation as 
 would have the effect of cutting up a large portion of 
 the best tillage land in that neighbourhood into small 
 farms, we should soon have a numerous and thriving 
 peasantry to occupy many extensive tracts in that most 
 promising locality, which will otherwise remain mere 
 solitudes as sheep-walks and cattle runs. 
 
 M Twofold Bay is a safe and commodious, but by no 
 means an extensive harbour; Snug Cove, as it was 
 named by the accurate Captain Flinders, being only 
 large enough to afford mooring-room for about half a 
 dozen vessels : as a port, it will never compete with 
 Port Jackson ; but it would form an excellent harbour 
 for steam-boats and other coasting vessels ; and it will 
 doubtless very soon be a place of considerable trade. 
 The land in the immediate vicinity of Twofold Bay is 
 of very inferior quality, although about twelve miles 
 from the Bay there is a limited extent of tolerably fair 
 land. About thirty miles inland, however, the country 
 begins to improve, and a vast extent of land of the first 
 quality stretches far and wide to the northward and 
 westward, inviting alike the agriculturist and the 
 grazier, and holding out the fairest promise to perse- 
 vering industry. 
 
 " The country to the westward of the coast range is 
 called by the natives Maneira, or Monaroo : it is not 
 exactly a plain or plains, as it is generally denominated, 
 but is rather a series of gentle undulations ; the soil rich 
 and fertile, and the land gently diversified with hill and 
 dale, lightly timbered and remarkably well watered. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 207 
 
 From Twofold Bay the country rises gradually till we 
 reach the level of the plains, which are an elevated table 
 land or terrace parallel to the coast, and affording a 
 firm basis for the Snowy Mountains or Great Warra- 
 gong Chain to spring from, to the westward. A gentle- 
 man of great agricultural experience, who has recently 
 traversed the Maneira country in various directions, 
 informs us that the plains form a square of about a 
 hundred miles in extent, and present a country well 
 fitted in every respect for the residence and sustenance 
 of civilized men. Whether the distance of the good 
 land from Twofold Bay might not render it imprac- 
 ticable for the future settlers in that district to compete 
 with those of Port Phillip in the production of grain for 
 exportation to Sydney, we are not sufficiently acquainted 
 with the nature of the intervening ground — iniquitas 
 loci — to determine ; but there is no doubt whatever as 
 to the fitness of the plains themselves to sustain a 
 numerous population, especially towards their southern 
 extremity. Timber for building purposes, for fencing, 
 and for fuel, will probably be scarce enough in some 
 parts of the plains ; and on so elevated a region as 
 Maneira, with the snowy mountains rearing their bleak 
 rocky summits along their whole extent, and chilling 
 the beholder with the very sight of them, a sufficiency 
 of timber for fuel will be a consideration of first-rate 
 importance. At all events, it is undeniable, that in the 
 district of Maneira, extending from the present limits 
 of the colony to Twofold Bay and Cape Howe, there is 
 a larger extent of available land, whether for pasture or 
 for agriculture, than in the whole island of Van Die- 
 
208 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 man's Land. It is at present parcelled out into large 
 portions, some of them as extensive as German princi- 
 palities, among* a noble army of squatters, who, by 
 grazing numerous flocks and herds on its native pasture, 
 are not only giving value to the land, but enabling 
 themselves to become its purchasers whenever it is 
 destined to pass under the hammer of the auctioneer. 
 Indeed, so far from its being sound policy on the part of 
 the Government of this colony to discourage the practice 
 of squatting, (we mean, of course, in the case of persons 
 of acknowledged respectability) that very practice goes 
 directly to form one of the most important sources of 
 revenue in the colony, as in due time every squatter 
 will become a purchaser and proprietor of land ; 
 whereas, if the practice were discouraged, many, who are 
 enabled to become purchasers of land under the present 
 system, by rearing their flocks and herds on the waste 
 land beyond the limits, would in all likelihood never be 
 able to purchase a single acre of land. 
 
 " Port Phillip is an inlet of the sea in Bass's Straits, 
 stretching about thirty- five miles into the continent of 
 New Holland.* It was taken possession of and occu- 
 
 * The following account of this inlet is extracted from a nautical Di- 
 rectory for the coasts of New Holland. Port Phillip is situated in Bass's 
 Straits on the southern coast of the continent of New Holland, in lat. 38° 18' 
 South, and in long. 144° 38' East, nearly opposite the entrance of the Samar 
 River in Van Dieman's Land, from which it is distant only ahout twenty- 
 four hours' sail. " It is capahle," says Captain Flinders, " of receiving 
 and sheltering a larger fleet of ships than ever yet went to sea ; but the 
 entrance, in its whole width, is scarcely two miles, and nearly half of it 
 is occupied *by rocks lying off" Point Nepean on its eastern side." It 
 extends about thirty miles into the land in a northerly direction, and is 
 from fifteen to eighteen miles wide ; throwing off a branch in a west 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 209 
 
 pied for some time as a dependency of this colony in 
 the year 1803 or 1804 ; and the history of its settlement 
 and abandonment, at that early period in our colonial 
 history, forms one of the most instructive episodes in 
 the history of British colonization. One would have 
 supposed, that in forming a settlement in such a locality 
 as Port Phillip, the shores of the extensive inlet would 
 have been examined, and the nature and capabilities of 
 the adjacent country ascertained in some measure, before 
 a spot was fixed on as a site for the settlement. It is 
 evident that all this was done, to some purpose too, at 
 Port Phillip ; for, as if to impress the black natives 
 with a high idea of British discernment and perseve- 
 rance, the royal standard was hoisted and the settle- 
 ment formed on the only piece of sterile land within the 
 heads. It followed, as a matter of course, that a settle- 
 ment, which had been so judiciously formed, should be as 
 hastily abandoned ; and it was only after exterminating 
 a whole race of men in a neighbouring island, and con- 
 verting their country into sheep walks and cattle runs, 
 that the people of Van Dieman's Land accidentally 
 discovered the very superior eligibility of the station 
 which had been so wisely abandoned thirty years be- 
 fore. In short, the goddess that appears to have been 
 the most frequently consulted in the formation of Bri- 
 tish colonies is the Goddess Chance, and no wonder 
 
 south-westerly direction, which extends into the land about fifteen miles, 
 having an entrance of six or seven miles wide, and a small inner basin at 
 its upper end, communicating with the larger one by a narrow navigable 
 channel. Port Phillip is separated from Western Port by a narrow 
 promontory forming the eastern side of the latter. 
 
210 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 therefore that her eldest daughter Mis-chance should 
 so frequently have lent her aid on the interesting oc- 
 casion. 
 
 " Port Phillip has been taken possession of within the 
 last eighteen months by a whole company of squatters 
 from Van Dieman's Land, some of whom, it appears, 
 have formed themselves into a company, and pretend to 
 have purchased a large extent of land — for a mere 
 trifle of course — from the black natives. It is scarcely 
 credible, that men of understanding and experience in 
 the world could imagine that the British Government 
 would ever be so far lost to all sense of propriety and 
 justice, as to sanction any transaction of this kind, now 
 especially when so large a revenue is derivable from the 
 sale of waste land, and when the funds arising from 
 such sales are to be appropriated towards the encou- 
 ragement and promotion of emigration. Why, it has 
 already been ascertained, that there are at least upwards 
 of three millions of acres of available land, generally 
 equal to the best in Van Dieman's Land, at Port 
 Phillip. Now, supposing that the whole of this land 
 were to be sold at the Government minimum price of five 
 shillings an acre, (and the probability is that a large 
 portion of it would bring much more) this sale would 
 produce £750,000, and enable the Government to land 
 at Port Phillip no fewer than twenty-five thousand 
 families of virtuous and industrious emigrants. And is 
 the British Government, after the thousand and tens 
 of thousands of British money that have been expended 
 in establishing this colony, to forego the opportunity of 
 raising so large a revenue, and doing such a world of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 211 
 
 good, both at home and abroad, merely because a few 
 simple colonists of Van Dieman's Land, with Mr. 
 Gellibrand at their head, after having killed or banished 
 all the aborigines of that island, have come over to 
 enact the solemn farce of purchasing whole earldoms 
 in this island from its poor deluded black natives for a 
 ha'p'orth o' toy and a farthing's worth o' tobacco ? 
 
 "The European population of Port Phillip already 
 exceeds two hundred souls : upwards of thirty thou- 
 sand sheep, all imported from Van Dieman's Land, are 
 now cropping the luxuriant vegetation of its natural 
 pastures ; and eight or ten vessels have been regularly 
 employed for some time past in trading to and from 
 Port Phillip to Van Dieman's Land, chiefly in carrying 
 sheep and cattle to the new settlements. Indeed, the 
 colonization of Port Phillip has supplied a wonderful 
 stimulus to our Tasmanian brethren, and will be quite 
 the making of the town of Launceston, from the entrance, 
 to which it is distant only about twenty-four hours' sail. 
 In such a state of things, it would be impolitic in the 
 extreme for the British Government to defer extending 
 the boundaries of the colony to Bass's Straits. The 
 people at Port Phillip want protection ; they want a 
 government of some kind ; they want land which they 
 can call their own ; and it behoves the British Govern- 
 ment to grant them all the three as soon as possible. 
 The vanguard of our colonial settlers in that direction 
 have already advanced a hundred and ninety miles 
 towards Port Phillip beyond the settlement of Yass, 
 and the remaining distance to that port is not more 
 than about two hundred and ninety miles. There are 
 
212 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 herds of cattle collecting in the interior, with a view to 
 being driven over-land to Port Phillip, as soon as the 
 weather gets a little milder ; and we hope ere long to 
 hear of a good road and a steam-coach all the way." 
 
 Since the publication of this paper, the colonial 
 boundary has been extended in the direction of Port 
 Phillip to Bass's Straits ; a commandant and police 
 magistrate, an officer of customs, and three surveyors 
 having been sent by His Excellency the present Go- 
 vernor, to take possession of the country in that vicinity, 
 and to form a regular settlement on the part of Govern- 
 ment. That settlement will very soon be one of the most 
 important in the colony ; and if the Government should 
 allow the extensive tract of highly eligible land in its 
 immediate neighbourhood to be sold for five shillings 
 an acre, as is the case at present, it will infallibly prove 
 a very awkward centre of attraction for the colonists of 
 Southern Australia, whose extensive territory it closely 
 adjoins ; land in that colony being procurable only at 
 a pound an acre. 
 
 I shall conclude this chapter with a brief sketch of 
 the progress of geographical discovery in the interior of 
 the Australian continent during the last three years, 
 premising, however, this one observation ; — that in the 
 various localities I have already enumerated and par- 
 tially described, there is abundant room for the settle- 
 ment of the whole of the superabundant portion of the 
 population of Great Britain and Ireland for a century 
 to come. 
 
 Major Mitchell, the Surveyor- General of New South 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 213 
 
 Wales, was directed by His Excellency Sir Richard 
 Bourke, to proceed on an expedition of discovery into 
 the interior of the Australian continent, in the early part 
 of the year 1835, to trace the Darling river, which had 
 been discovered by Captain Sturt, and traced by that 
 officer for about ninety miles in a southerly direction to 
 its unknown outlet. Captain Sturt, it will be recol- 
 lected, had subsequently discovered the outlet of 
 another river on nearly the same meridian, when sailing 
 down the Morumbidgee and the Murray to the lake 
 Alexandrina, very far to the southward ; and the pro- 
 blem to be solved by Major Mitchell's expedition was 
 whether this river was the Darling. 
 
 Major Mitchell proceeded in a westerly direction, 
 from Boree, a grazing station to the westward of the 
 settlement of Bathurst, along the Bogan river, or New 
 Year's Creek of Captain Sturt, till it emptied itself into 
 the Darling. That river, he ascertained moreover, was 
 the real receptacle and conduit of the waters of the 
 Macquarie, which had been erroneously supposed by 
 Captain Sturt to find their way into the Darling by a dif- 
 ferent channel ; and along its banks, till it emptied 
 itself into that river, he found moderately good land, 
 with abundance of pasture for cattle, as well as of useful 
 forest timber. The Darling he found impracticable for 
 navigation in that part of its course, but he succeeded 
 in tracing it for three hundred miles to the southward, 
 from the point where it receives the waters of the 
 Bogan ; leaving only a hundred and thirty miles of its 
 farther course, to the point where it is supposed to 
 empty itself into the Murray, or Morumbidgee, unex- 
 
214 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 plored. The valley of the Darling is evidently subject 
 to inundations, which, from the long course it pursues 
 to the southward, and from its being the general re- 
 ceptacle of the western waters, must be frequent and 
 extensive. In general it is unpromising enough in its 
 appearance ; but as Major Mitchell discovered no fewer 
 than thirty new varieties of grass in the course of his 
 expedition, and entirely in the valley of the Darling, it 
 must afford considerable facilities for the settlement and 
 subsistence of a pastoral population. Major Mitchell's 
 despatch, giving an account of this expedition, will be 
 found in the Appendix, No. 1. 
 
 In the year 1836, Major Mitchell was again directed 
 by Sir Richard Bourke to proceed to the interior, to 
 follow up the discoveries of his former journey, by 
 tracing the Darling for the remainder of its course. 
 He had not returned to the colony when I embarked 
 for England on the 29th of July last ; but it seems he 
 has not only effected his object, but discovered a tract 
 of country of first-rate character, both in point of 
 soil and of scenery, larger than the whole island of 
 Great Britain, and ready in great measure for the 
 plough. Whether this tract of country, which Major 
 Mitchell has named Australia Felix, lies within 
 the territory of New South Wales, or forms a part of 
 the colony of Southern Australia, does not clearly ap- 
 pear ; for the only notice of this important discovery 
 which has yet reached England is contained in a very 
 short quotation from Major Mitchell's despatch in a 
 newspaper advertisement. The vessel that brought the 
 newspapers containing that advertisement left the co- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 215 
 
 lony about the middle of December last, but the 
 journals containing copies of the despatch itself have 
 not yet reached England, although the vessel in which 
 they had been forwarded, and which appears to have 
 been a dull sailer, had sailed some time before. A 
 discovery, however, which would justify the designation 
 of Australia Felix, and the glowing language in which 
 Major Mitchell describes it in the quotation referred 
 to, must be of transcendent importance to the mother 
 country, as well as to the Australian colonies gene- 
 rally. 
 
 Should Major Mitchell's despatch arrive in England 
 before the publication of this work, it will be inserted in 
 the Appendix. 
 
216 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ESTIMATE OF THE STATE OF MORALS AND RELIGION 
 IN THE COLONY, WITH A VIEW OF THE EXISTING 
 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS AND DENOMINA- 
 TIONS IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 " Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away 
 into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there: but 
 prophesy not again auy more at Bethel ; for it is the King's chapel, and it 
 is the King's court." — Amos vii. 12, 13. 
 
 The state of morals in New South Wales was suffi- 
 ciently low, previous to the era of free emigration in 
 the year 1821. It is almost unnecessary to speak of 
 the state of religion in such a condition of society as 
 was then prevalent in the colony. There were " a 
 few names," however, " even in Sardis," who had 
 uniformly maintained a higher character ; but they 
 were 
 
 rari nantes in gurgite vasto ; 
 
 " a few individuals struggling above water in the midst 
 of a vast whirlpool of iniquity and pollution." 
 
 From the period above mentioned, however, the 
 colony began to assume a more favourable aspect. Con- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 217 
 
 cubinage was gradually discountenanced in the higher 
 circles of the colony, and of course gradually disap- 
 peared from the face of society ; for although still 
 practised by a few old offenders, the daily increasing 
 array of well-ordered families, both among the free 
 emigrant and the more reputable portion of the 
 emancipist population, has in great measure driven that 
 particular form of colonial profligacy into the shade. 
 
 It is scarcely, however, from the higher classes of 
 colonial society — whether Government-officers, lawyers, 
 landholders of the higher class, or merchants — that a 
 healing influence can be expected to emanate, to cleanse 
 and to purify the land. The men who are " clothed in 
 purple and fine linen, and who fare sumptuously every 
 day" may be powerful to do good from their wealth 
 and their station in society ; but that good is but rarely 
 done, and the influence they exert on society is of conse- 
 quence far more frequently evil. Even their profession 
 of Christianity — a sort of fashionable accompaniment of 
 gentility wherever there is a dominant state church — is 
 unquestionably far more hurtful than beneficial to the 
 cause of pure and undented religion ; for the vessels of 
 the House of God are for the most part polluted by 
 their desecrating touch, and the day of God profaned 
 by their unholy example. Despicable avarice, pitiful 
 meanness, and the practice of downright injustice are 
 by no means completely banished even yet from the 
 genteelest circles in New South Wales ; and I have 
 sometimes been surprised to find how small a portion of 
 honourable principle had gone to furnish out a stock in 
 trade in the colony for honourable men. In short, the 
 
 VOL. II. K 
 
218 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 influence of the higher classes in New South Wales has 
 been for the most part decidedly unfavourable to the 
 morals and religion of the country. 
 
 The moralist will ask, therefore, how it fares with 
 inferior classes in the colonial community ; and in re- 
 ference to such a question, it must be acknowledged, 
 that in directing the eye towards those who occupy the 
 lower steps of the colonial ladder, especially in the 
 towns of the colony, the prospect is sufficiently dis- 
 couraging. The first ambition of a newly emancipated 
 convict is to be employed as a constable — a situation 
 which ensures him sufficient pay for his maintenance, 
 and enables him to lead a life of comparative inaction. 
 The next object of his ambition is to obtain a license 
 to keep a public-house ; which, however, is easily ob- 
 tainable for £25 per annum, provided his house and 
 character are sufficient to satisfy the visiting magis- 
 trates. The number of these nuisances has increased 
 prodigiously in the colony during the last few years, 
 and the consumption of ardent spirits has increased 
 proportionably. In the year 1823 the free population 
 of Sydney amounted to from eight to nine thousand 
 persons, and the number of licensed public-houses was 
 eighty-three, that is, one for each hundred persons. 
 There were various other houses, however, that sold on 
 the s/y, as it is called, or without a license ; and most 
 of the respectable families of the town were supplied by 
 the wholesale dealers or merchants, who are empowered 
 by an Act of Council to sell spirits or wine in quantities 
 of not less than two o-allons without a license. During 
 the ten succeeding years, the population of Sydney 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 219 
 
 more than doubled itself; but the number of public- 
 houses increased in a much higher proportion. There 
 is reason to believe, however, that the number of un 
 licensed grog-shops is at present comparatively smaller 
 than it was in 1823, from the greater efficiency of the 
 Sydney police. The number of licensed public-houses 
 in Sydney is now upwards of two hundred : the 
 licenses alone produce an annual revenue to the Go- 
 vernment of more than £5000, exclusive of the direct 
 duties on spirits, which amount for the whole colony to 
 £117,000 per annum. 
 
 The supposed profitableness of the business is doubt- 
 less the chief source of attraction on the part of the 
 noble army of colonial publicans. Indeed, I have been 
 repeatedly vexed and mortified exceedingly at finding 
 free emigrants, or the sons of free emigrants, of re- 
 putable standing in the colony, who I knew were in- 
 fluenced by this consideration alone, degrading them- 
 selves and ruining their families by becoming retailers of 
 ardent spirits to the vilest of the vile. In one case of 
 this kind, in which I was apprised beforehand of the 
 intention of the family, I employed every argument I 
 could think of to induce them to forego that intention, 
 but unfortunately without effect. I foresaw and fore- 
 told them the result : accordingly I was called to visit 
 the family a few months afterwards in a clerical capa- 
 city ; and, on ferreting my way through clouds of 
 tobacco-smoke and the sickening fumes of rum, I found 
 the wretched husband struck with delirium tremens, and 
 lying apparently in the jaws of death ; while his dis- 
 tracted wife was wringing her hands at his bedside, and 
 
220 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 his children bathed in tears. A depraved taste, how- 
 ever, and the love of a lazy indolent life, are additional 
 sources of attraction in many instances ; and I am 
 sorry to add, that certain even of the native youth of the 
 colony have exhibited these grovelling dispositions, and 
 enrolled themselves in the despicable list of publicans 
 of the lower class, instead of endeavouring to earn an 
 honest livelihood like reputable men. 
 
 Whether the number of public-houses in Sydney 
 ought to be limited by authority, is a a question I have 
 been asked in the colony,, but which I professed myself 
 unable to answer. I am inclined to believe^ however* 
 that the influence to be employed successfully in coun- 
 teracting so enormous an evil must be of a totally dif- 
 ferent kind — and that the cruse of purifying salt, which 
 alone can be expected to heal the bitter waters, must be 
 cast in at the fountain-head, or at least much higher up 
 the stream. # 
 
 I had found on inquiry several years before, that a 
 
 * There has been a Temperance Society in Sydney for some time past, 
 with auxiliaries in other parts of the colony ; but it has not as yet made 
 much progress, notwithstanding the zeal and activity of certain of its 
 members. The grand mistake consisted in allowing the importation and 
 consumption of ardent spirits from the first in a convict colony ; and the 
 best means of remedying the enormous evil that has resulted from a state 
 of things so thoroughly monstrous, would be the absolute prohibition 
 both of the importation and the manufacture of ardent spirits in the 
 colonial territory. The respectable colonists begin to perceive that a 
 measure of this kind would tend greatly to the advancement of their 
 pecuniary interests as well as to the general advancement of the colony ; 
 and there is no doubt whatever but that the attempt to carry such a 
 measure would be made and well supported, if the colony had only a 
 respectable legislature. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 221 
 
 great proportion of the money expended in the public- 
 houses of Sydney was expended by mechanics — chiefly 
 of the class of emancipated convicts — whose wages, I as- 
 certained also, were sufficiently high to enable them to 
 spend several days every week in low dissipation, to the 
 great annoyance and the serious loss of their employers. 
 It appeared to me, therefore, that the only effectual -re- 
 eled y for so great an evil would be to introduce into the 
 •colony a number of reputable and industrious free emi- 
 grant mechanics from the mother country, who by 
 working at their several handicrafts six days every 
 week, and expending their earnings in a proper manner, 
 would in due time render the means of dissipation less 
 easily attainable by the emancipated convict-mechanics, 
 and withdraw the means of support, to a certain degree 
 at least, from the colonial publicans. Attempts had 
 doubtless been repeatedly made by individual colonists 
 to carry out mechanics to New South Wales, under en- 
 gagements to serve for a sufficient length of time in the 
 colony to repay the expense of their passage out ; but 
 these attempts had always been unsuccessful, the me- 
 chanics uniformly breaking through their engagements 
 as soon as possible.* It appeared to me, however, that 
 if mechanics only of proper character were selected, 
 they would faithfully fulfil their engagement, provided 
 that engagement were an equitable one; for it often 
 
 * The testimony of John Macarthur, Esq. on this subject is very 
 explicit: " There is no instance on record," says that gentleman, " wher,e 
 settlers have been able to prevent their indented servants, hired in Eng- 
 land, from becoming dissatisfied, and then leaving them after their 
 arrival." 
 
222 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 happened, in the instances I refer to, that a breach of en- 
 gagement on the part of the servant or mechanic had 
 been occasioned by a previous attempt to overreach him 
 on the part of the master or employer — the mechanic 
 being generally hired in the mother country to labour 
 for a term of years in the colony at English, instead of 
 colonial wages. 
 
 On my arrival, therefore, in England for the second 
 time, in December, 1830, Lord Viscount Goderich, His 
 Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
 having been pleased to grant a loan of £3500 from the 
 Colonial Treasury, to assist in establishing a college for 
 the education of youth in the town of Sydney, it ap- 
 peared to me, that if part of that amount were to be ad- 
 vanced, in the first instance, in providing a passage to 
 New South Wales for a number of free emigrant me- 
 chanics with their wives and children — these mechanics 
 to be under engagement to erect the college-buildings, 
 receiving the current wages of the colony, and leaving 
 a certain proportion of these wages to repay the ex- 
 pense of their passage out — the proposed experiment, 
 so highly important in its possible bearings on the 
 moral welfare of the colony, would receive a fair trial, 
 while the interests of the Institution would not be pre- 
 judiced. Lord Goderich was pleased to approve of the 
 measure, and I accordingly chartered the Stirling Castle 
 ■ — a vessel of three hundred and fifty tons; and carried 
 out to the colony in the year 1831 a number of free 
 emigrant mechanics with their wives and children on 
 the conditions above mentioned ; the whole party 
 amounting to one hundred and forty persons. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 223 
 
 These mechanics consisted chiefly of house-carpenters 
 and stone-masons, with a few plasterers, blacksmiths, 
 cabinet-makers, rope-spinners, and coopers : I had se- 
 lected them all myself chiefly in Edinburgh, Glasgow, 
 Greenock, and Ayrshire. They were from all parts of 
 Scotland ; for as I had reason to believe they would all 
 do well in the colony, it seemed likely that a much 
 more extensive emigration of their friends and con- 
 nexions would afterwards ensue, if the intelligence of 
 their success could be spread over a wide extent of 
 country, than if the original emigration had taken place 
 from any particular locality. The mechanics were under 
 engagement to pay at the rate of £25 for the passage of 
 each adult person in their respective families by weekly 
 instalments from their wages after their arrival; those 
 of them whose services were available in house-building 
 to be employed in the erection of the college-buildings. 
 
 We arrived in the colony in October, 1831, and 
 in seven days after the college-buildings were com- 
 menced ; the average rate of wages for good mechanics 
 being then £2 sterling a week. In six or eight 
 months, all the unmarried men had paid the whole of 
 their passage-money by weekly instalments from their 
 wages ; and when the buildings were at length neces- 
 sarily discontinued for a time, the greater number of 
 the married mechanics had paid about two- thirds of 
 theirs. In short, the experiment proved completely 
 successful. 
 
 The Scotch mechanics, as they were called in the 
 colony, were men of superior ability in their respective 
 handicrafts ; for I had required them, previous to their 
 
224 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 being engaged, to produce certificates of their me- 
 chanical skill, as well as of their moral character, and 
 their connexion with some Christian congregation. In 
 addition, therefore, to the other consequences of their 
 importation, they greatly improved the style of archi- 
 tecture throughout the colony; and, by becoming con- 
 tractors for public buildings, they have already enabled 
 the Government to erect superior buildings at a much 
 cheaper rate than had previously been current in the 
 colony. 
 
 But it was the moral influence of their example, as 
 sober and industrious men, that was of greatest im- 
 portance to the community. A few months after their 
 arrival, no fewer than sixteen of them joined together in 
 the purchase of an allotment of ground in the town of 
 Sydney, which was afterwards surrendered to eight of 
 the number : seven of them subsequently entered into 
 partnership, as contractors for the erection of the stone- 
 work of various public and private buildings both in 
 Sydney and in the interior : several others had pur- 
 chased allotments on their own private account, after 
 paying for their passage out, and erected good houses 
 of stone for their own residence in the colony; and 
 individuals of their number had even sent home money 
 to their poorer relatives in Scotland. Nay, before fifteen 
 months had elapsed from the period of their arrival, 
 several other families and individuals of a similar class 
 in society had arrived in the colony from various parts 
 of Scotland ; having emigrated to New South Wales 
 solely in consequence of the favourable intelligence they 
 had received from their relatives of the state of the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 225 
 
 country, and of the prospect which it held forth to 
 persons of a similar station in life. 
 
 There was some difference of opinion in regard to the 
 average rate of wages in the colony immediately after 
 our arrival ; and some of the mechanics, who had been 
 deputed by the rest to make inquiries on the subject, 
 being naturally desirous that they should be fixed at as 
 high a rate as possible — viz. at £2. 2s. a week — I ob- 
 served to them, with a view to have the rate fixed some- 
 what lower on behalf of the Institution, that as soon as 
 it should be known in Scotland that they were actually 
 receiving such wages as they required, a whole host of 
 additional mechanics would forthwith be poured into 
 the colony ; leaving them to infer that the wages of 
 mechanical labour would eventually be reduced to a 
 much lower rate. " So much the better, Sir," said one 
 of their number, who had been studying Adam Smith ; 
 " the demand will increase with the supply." I con- 
 fess I was of a different opinion at the time, but the 
 result has fully justified the mechanic's anticipation; 
 for although a very great number of reputable me- 
 chanics arrived in the colony subsequently to the period 
 I refer to, and established themselves in various de- 
 partments of business in the town of Sydney ; the de- 
 mand for mechanical labour kept pace so regularly with 
 the supply, that the average rate of wages for such me- 
 chanical labour as is required in house-building was 
 still £2 a week and upwards, up to the time of my 
 leaving the colony for England in July last. 
 
 But the emigration of reputable and industrious per- 
 sons of various other classes of society has kept pace 
 
226 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 with the emigration of mechanics from Great Britain to 
 New South Wales during the last few years ; and their 
 influence in the colony generally has been salutary in 
 the highest degree. I shall have occasion to speak 
 particularly of the influence and effects of female emi- 
 gration in the sequel. In short, from the period of the 
 arrival of the Scotch mechanics, a visible and striking 
 change for the better has gradually been effected in 
 that important and highly influential portion of the 
 population of the colonial capital to which they belong; 
 and men of intelligence and reputation all over the 
 territory have consequently seen with their eyes, and are 
 now convinced, that the most effectual and the best 
 means of elevating the moral tone of the colony, and of 
 promoting its general advancement, would be to import 
 at the public expense, and to settle all over the terri- 
 tory, a numerous, industrious, and virtuous free-emigrant 
 population. 
 
 In forming an estimate of the state of morals in the 
 Australian colonies, it must not be forgotten, that al- 
 though many of the free emigrants, who have settled in 
 these colonies during the last forty-five years, have uni- 
 formly been men of reputable character and respectable 
 standing in the world, others have been driven to emi- 
 grate as a sort of der nitre r essoinee, after every expedient 
 for gaining a livelihood in the mother country had com- 
 pletely failed ; and it sometimes unfortunately hap- 
 pens that such persons are just as bankrupt in cha- 
 racter as in purse. In the heavy sea of adversity they 
 have had to encounter, in their unsuccessful attempt to 
 reach the port of Fortune, they have not only had to 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 227 
 
 cast their lading overboard, but have also had the bul- 
 warks of their virtue swept away. 
 
 The very length of the voyage from England has 
 exerted a demoralizing influence on the free- emigrant 
 population of the Australian colonies ; inasmuch as it 
 sometimes induces habits of indolence, which are after- 
 wards not easily overpowered ; while the more frequent 
 and sometimes unlimited use of wine and ardent spirits 
 on ship-board, insensibly produces a taste for that spe- 
 cies of dissipation. I have known young men of the 
 fairest promise at their outset in the world, who had 
 acquired habits of this kind on their passage to the 
 colony, and whose subsequent lives were a mere alter- 
 nation of listless inaction and low dissipation. To per- 
 sons who are indisposed to literary avocations, life is 
 often a complete blank at sea ; and it is sometimes so 
 much worse, that I have often thought it would sub- 
 serve the interests of morality in New South Wales, if 
 the Faculty could administer to many hopeful adven- 
 turers, on their embarking for that colony, some opiate 
 which would lay them sound asleep till they got within 
 the Heads of Port Jackson : for, in opposition to the 
 poet's maxim, 
 
 Non mutant animos qui trans mare currunt ; 
 
 " Men do not change their dispositions by merely 
 crossing the sea," — I can testify, from my own ob- 
 servation, that many persons, and especially young men, 
 really become worse members of society than they were 
 before, in the course of a long voyage. 
 
 Nay, I am confident that the ruin of many a 
 
228 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 young man in the colonies, of the class of clerks and 
 adventurers in general, may be dated from the hour 
 when he first planted his foot on a ship's deck. A 
 young man of this class, arriving in the colony from 
 Scotland, naturally attends the Scol& Church in Syd- 
 ney for a few Sabbaths after his arrival ; and when 
 he hears the Psalms of David sung to the ancient 
 melodies of his father-land, by a congregation of his 
 countrymen at the extremity of the globe, the hallowed 
 scenes of his boyhood recur to his recollection with 
 overpowering influence ; and he almost exclaims, with 
 the patriot king of Israel, f? If I forget thee, Jerusalem, 
 let my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue 
 cleave to the roof of my mouth" By and by, however, 
 he is invited to spend a Sunday with Mr. Whalebone 
 the merchant, who prefers a drive to Parramatta or 
 a water-excursion in the harbour to all the prayers and 
 sermons in the colony, and who, perhaps, generously 
 furnishes the young Scotchman with a list of cogent 
 reasons, why he — Mr. Whalebone, to wit — does not 
 attend divine service in the colony, and why his 
 young friend from Scotland should discontinue his at- 
 tendance also : indeed, brandy and water and Manilla 
 cigars over-night are a bad preparation for the hallowed 
 exercises of the sanctuary of God ; and the visits of 
 the hopeful youth, who has had a seasoning perhaps 
 on shipboard, and who is now almost completely cli- 
 matized, are consequently few and far between. The 
 progress to downright infidelity on the one hand, and 
 to downright dissipation on the other, is short and 
 rapid ; but in all probability it is neither so short nor 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 229 
 
 so rapid, but that the young man's relatives in the 
 mother country may have heard betimes of the state of 
 matters in regard to " the hope of their family " beyond 
 seas, and may write him by every opportunity, in the 
 bitterness of their heart, to endeavour if possible to save 
 him from utter ruin. The letters are read as a matter 
 of course, and perhaps their contents awaken a sudden 
 pang of remorse in the first instance ; but the emotion 
 is merely momentary, and it probably gives way to a 
 feeling of anger at the ungenerous and unjust suspicions, 
 forsooth, that are entertained respecting him ; and this 
 feeling in all likelihood issues in a fixed determination 
 to write no reply. The letters that are thenceforward 
 received from the same quarter by every opportunity, 
 are perhaps coolly deposited by the tender-hearted 
 youth with their seals unbroken in the bottom of his 
 trunk, because, forsooth, they are all about the old story ; 
 and the circumstance is perhaps brought to light by an 
 utter stranger to his family after his death ; which in 
 some cases of the kind is alarmingly sudden and un- 
 expected, in others slow and sure. I have followed the 
 remains of such individuals to the grave ; and as I read 
 their age, or, to speak more properly, their youth, on 
 the black tin-plate on their coffin-lid, while the corpse 
 was lowered slowly into its narrow house, I have 
 fancied I saw the aged mother sitting at the door of 
 her cottage in some solitary Scottish glen, and weeping 
 bitterly as she reminded her still more sorrowful but 
 all-silent husband, how many months had elapsed 
 since they had last heard from their son ; and I have 
 thought how the tidings of the scene I had just wit- 
 
230 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 nessed, when they reached the distant Scottish glen, 
 would break the heart of that mother, and bring 
 down the gray hairs of the father with sorrow to the 
 grave ! 
 
 There are three other sources of colonial demoraliza- 
 tion, besides those I have already enumerated, to which 
 I shall shortly allude. The first of these is the colonial 
 press, which in time past, as I have already hinted, 
 has with only few exceptions been an instrument of evil 
 instead of good, while in many instances it has been a 
 mere receptacle and propagator of downright black- 
 guardism. The filth and abomination of the British 
 metropolis are very properly allowed to find their way 
 to the river in large common sewers underground j but 
 the conductors of the colonial press have hitherto, with 
 only one exception, made it a regular practice to spread 
 the filth and abomination of Sydney on the public 
 tables of the colony, in the form of lengthy police- 
 reports; of technical descriptions of those interesting 
 scenes in which one brute breaks the jaws of another 
 with his clenched fists used as a hammer; or of glowing 
 accounts of those more fashionable arenas, where that 
 wealthy colonist, Mr. Woolpack, degrades himself be- 
 neath the level of a gentleman, by betting lustily on the 
 abilities of his thorough-bred Australian racers with 
 persons who were only yesterday transported felons. 
 
 The spirit of litigation, which prevails in New South 
 Wales to a prodigious extent, and which is naturally fos- 
 tered by the legal profession, whose name in the colony 
 is Legion, is also a copious source of colonial demorali- 
 zation. It is not surprising, indeed, that such a spirit 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 231 
 
 should prevail among the class of emancipists ; for those 
 who have themselves been brought up to the bar, may 
 be supposed likely to patronize the legal profession. It 
 is by no means confined, however, to persons of that 
 class; and the scenes of downright malice and down- 
 right villany that are too frequently exhibited in the 
 Supreme Court of the Colony, in the case of vexatious 
 law-suits instituted by one free emigrant against another, 
 can only be accounted for on the supposition, that such 
 individuals belong to that class of emigrants, who have 
 arrived in the country as destitute of right principle as 
 of ready money. 
 
 The general prevalence of a spirit of grasping avarice 
 among the buying and selling portion of the community 
 has also had a most unfavourable influence on the 
 morals of the colony. The idea of asking a fair price 
 for an article was seldom thought of in the colony, till 
 within the last few years : the grand question was, how 
 much could be got for it by any means ; and I am sorry 
 to add, it was not always considered, even in quarters 
 where one should have expected better things, whether 
 the means were fair or otherwise. I am happy to state, 
 however, that the mercantile transactions of the colony, 
 both in the wholesale and retail departments, are now 
 conducted on a much better system. The profits on 
 particular speculations have gradually become more 
 and more reasonable, in proportion as the field of mer- 
 cantile enterprise has widened, and competition in- 
 creased ; while the numerous reputable free emigrants, 
 who have recently arrived in the colony, and established 
 themselves as dealers in general, or as manufacturers of 
 
232 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 articles for sale in various branches of business, have 
 already made sad inroads on the province of the old 
 colonial extortioner, by asking only a reasonable profit 
 on their articles of merchandise, or a reasonable price 
 for their labour. In short, the mercantile pulse of the 
 colony does not beat quite so high at present as it did 
 formerly ; but it indicates a much higher state of health 
 in the body politic of the country. 
 
 Colonial religion is a subject which an honest man 
 can scarcely approach, without giving prodigious offence. 
 God forbid, however, that I should be deterred for one 
 moment by any such consideration, or even by the 
 personal inconvenience or hardship it may occasion 
 myself, from opening the eyes of the reader to the true 
 state of the colony in that most important particular ! 
 I trust the following remarks on colonial religion will 
 exhibit the same impartiality which, I am confident, I 
 have already evinced in treating of the less weighty 
 concerns of colonial policy and colonial agriculture. 
 
 For many years after the settlement of the colony, 
 the only ministers of religion who were permanently 
 stationed in the territory were colonial chaplains of the 
 Church of England. One would have thought, that in 
 a penal colony, ruled by the lash and awed by the 
 bayonet, it would have been the policy of the Govern- 
 ment and the dictate of common sense, to have kept this 
 spiritual machinery, scanty and inefficient as it was in 
 its best estate, unsuspected in its character and unen- 
 cumbered in its wheels : but it seems as if some spirit 
 of darkness had obtained the patent of Colonial Ad- 
 viser-General on the first settlement of the colony, and 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 233 
 
 had, in order to prevent, if possible, the reformation of 
 its depraved inhabitants, cast poison into every spring ; 
 for, in order completely to neutralize the moral and re- 
 ligious influence of the colonial chaplain, he was gene- 
 rally made a magistrate of the territory or a justice 
 of the peace. It was natural for the colonial chaplain, 
 whose ordination was perhaps conferred exclusively for 
 foreign parts, to regard such an appointment as a de- 
 sirable accession to his colonial respectability, and to 
 be altogether insensible to the clerical degradation to 
 which it really consigned him : but in what light will 
 the man of proper feeling, the man of Christian edu- 
 cation, regard such an appointment, in a state of so- 
 ciety, in which the most frequent duty of a magistrate 
 has hitherto been to sentence the prisoner at the bar to 
 twenty-five or fifty lashes ? Was this befitting employ- 
 ment for a minister of the Gospel of peace ? Was it 
 likely to recommend either his message or his Master, 
 or to conciliate kindly affection towards himself? In 
 other countries the clergy have often been accused of 
 taking the fleece ; but New South Wales is the only 
 country I have ever heard of, in which they were openly 
 authorized, under His Majesty's commission, to take 
 the hide also, or to flay the flock alive. Under so pre- 
 posterous and so enormous a system, well might the 
 miserable wretch, whose back was still smarting under 
 the Saturday's infliction, join in the oft-repeated prayer 
 of the Litany on the Sunday morning, " Lord, have 
 mercy upon us ! " and well might he add, from the 
 bottom of his heart, " for his Reverence has none ! " I 
 should be sorry to insinuate that clerical magistrates 
 were in any instance more severe in their penal in- 
 
234 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 flictions than laymen : on the contrary, I should imagine 
 they were generally the reverse. All I mean to assert 
 is, that, in such a state of society as has hitherto pre- 
 vailed in the Australian colonies, the union of the 
 clerical and the magisterial authority was a monstrous 
 conjunction, and was directly calculated to neutralize 
 the moral and spiritual influence of the clergyman, and 
 in so far to prevent the Christian religion from taking 
 root in the land. I am happy to state, however, that 
 the system of appointing clerical magistrates was at 
 length discontinued by Order of the Right Honourable 
 Earl Bathurst, during the government of His Excellency 
 General Darling, in consequence, I believe, of certain 
 representations on the subject which had found their 
 way into the House of Commons. 
 
 In the earlier times of the colony, the emoluments of 
 a clergyman were comparatively small ; and in those 
 seasons of scarcity, which at that period so frequently 
 occurred, they were insufficient for the maintenance of 
 his family. Grants of land were accordingly given 
 to clergymen, as well as to military and civil officers in 
 the service of the Government, and to private indi- 
 viduals ; and the colonial chaplain was consequently 
 tempted to engage extensively in the pursuits of grazing 
 and agriculture. But the practice once admitted con- 
 tinued to subsist long after its necessity had ceased ; 
 and the genuine representatives of the sons of Aaron in 
 the colony stood forth at length before the Australian 
 community, as illustrious in the list of colonial graziers, 
 as their brethren of the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and 
 of the half tribe of Manasseh. Nay, as there was a 
 period in the history of the colony, when free emigrants 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 235 
 
 were entitled to an extent of land proportioned to the 
 actual amount of their real property, lists of clerical 
 heifers and clerical sheep were exhibited to the Govern- 
 ment to so patriarchal an amount, that the question, as 
 to what quantity of land the reverend applicant should 
 in such cases be held entitled to, had actually to be 
 referred by the Colonial Executive to Earl Bathurst, 
 who accordingly gave orders that no clergyman's grant 
 should in future exceed twelve hundred and eighty 
 acres. 
 
 So precious an example in the high places of the 
 colony was likely to exert a most pernicious influence 
 on the whole clerical and missionary order throughout 
 the territory. Even the followers of Wesley were not 
 exempt from the foul contagion ; and missionaries, for- 
 sooth, who had been sent forth with the prayers of the 
 British public and the benedictions of the London Mis- 
 sionary Society, to convert the heathen in the numerous 
 isles of the Pacific, were at length found converted 
 themselves into stars of the fourth or fifth magnitude in 
 the constellations Aries and Taurus, or, in other words, 
 in the sheep and cattle market of New South Wales. 
 
 The influence exerted meanwhile on the laity of the 
 colony was prejudicial in the extreme to the interests 
 of genuine religion. The example daily before their 
 eyes necessarily produced a universal lowering of the 
 high standard of Christianity throughout the colony : 
 it encouraged individuals to conjoin the desperate pur- 
 suit of gain with the profession of godliness, and 
 enabled them notwithstanding to purchase to themselves 
 a high degree in Christian congregations : it identified 
 
koD HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the worship of God, in the estimation of the infidel and 
 the scoffer, with the most servile idolatry of Mammon — 
 the show of piety with the practice of extortion. 
 
 It is doubtless in consequence of the sort of influence 
 I have just mentioned, that so much anxiety is uni- 
 formly evinced in the Word of God, that the ministers 
 of religion should approve themselves disinterested men, 
 and should covet no man's silver, or gold, or apparel ; 
 and the lower the standard of morals and religion has 
 sunk in any country, I conceive there is just the more 
 imperious necessity for disinterestedness on the part of 
 the clergy. " Is it a time,'" said the prophet Elisha to 
 his servant Gehazi, when the greedy hireling had fol- 
 lowed the chariot of the Syrian lord, and obtained a 
 portion of his pelf, under pretence of receiving it for his 
 master — " Is it a time to receive money, and to receive 
 garments, and olive-yards, and vineyards, and sheep, and 
 oxen, and men-servants, and maid-servants ? The leprosy, 
 therefore, of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto 
 thy seed for ever." # The Church of God may be de- 
 serted for a season, and disesteemed, and trodden under 
 foot of men ; but, if her hands are undefiled with the 
 accursed thing t and if her heart is still right with her 
 Almighty Preserver, she will at length look forth as the 
 morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible 
 as an army with banners. On the other hand, if the 
 wedge of gold and the Babylonish garment are found 
 hidden in the tents of the clergy, as is too frequently the 
 case in all communions both at home and abroad, the 
 
 * 2 Kings, v. 26. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 237 
 
 armies of Israel will assuredly experience defeat and 
 disaster from the Canaanites of the land. 
 
 But the greatest calamity that has hitherto befallen 
 the Australian colonies, in regard to their moral and re- 
 ligious welfare, is the prevalence of a jealous, exclusive, 
 and intolerant system of Episcopal domination. Jn what 
 way the idea arose, I cannot tell ; but till very recently 
 it was uniformly taken for granted, as a thing which 
 admitted of no question, by the Episcopal clergy and 
 the military Governors of New South Wales and Van 
 Dieman's Land, that the Episcopal Church, or Church 
 of England, was the Established Church of these colo- 
 nies, or the only Church (for that was the meaning of 
 the phrase) which had a right to expect any thing from 
 the Government, or which the Government ought in 
 any way to patronize or encourage. So long as the 
 Australian colonies were a mere jail for the reception of 
 felons, it was doubtless just and right that the chaplains 
 of that jail should be Episcopal chaplains exclusively; 
 for upwards of nine-tenths of the convict-inhabitants of 
 the jail were natives either of England or of Ireland, 
 where Episcopacy reigns in all the pomp of her power, 
 and in much of the loneliness of moral desolation. But 
 when these colonies were at length thrown open to free 
 emigrants, and when numerous respectable families and 
 individuals settled in their fertile and extensive terri- 
 tories, it was speedily found that at least one half of 
 the free emigrant Australian colonists were Scotsmen 
 and Presbyterians. 
 
 So entire a change in the character and composition 
 of the Australian population argued a necessity for 
 
238 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 some corresponding change in the colonial ecclesiastical 
 system. The Scottish nation, it is well known, rejected 
 the yoke of Episcopacy, even after it had been violently 
 forced upon it by the military executions and the autos- 
 da-fe of Charles the Second ; and if the moral and 
 spiritual health of the Scottish people continued to im- 
 prove in succeeding generations, they are still persuaded 
 it was owing chiefly to that happy event. Was it just 
 or right, therefore, that Scotsmen and Presbyterians, 
 emigrating to recently established British colonies, in 
 which the natives of any one of the three united king- 
 doms had an equal right with the natives of either of 
 the other two to the same civil and religious immunities 
 as they respectively enjoyed at home, should be sub- 
 jected to a yoke which their forefathers had cast off and 
 broken? Was it just or right, after the Government 
 had held forth the same advantages to the Scottish 
 emigrant in these colonies as were enjoyed by the 
 English or the Irish, that the Scotsman alone should 
 find himself deceived, in a matter which most intimately 
 concerned his real welfare, after having traversed half 
 the circumference of the globe ? — that he alone (unfor- 
 tunate, unconsecrated heretic !) should be held to be- 
 long to a proscribed church and a proscribed religion ? 
 Was it just or right, that the Scotsman alone should 
 receive no benefit from the liberal provision which the 
 Government professed to make for the religious instruc- 
 tion of the colonists and for the education of their youth, 
 unless he renounced the faith of his forefathers, and 
 suffered his child to be delivered over into the hands 
 of proselytising Episcopalians ? 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 239 
 
 Such, however, till very recently was the hard mea- 
 sure uniformly dealt out to Scotsmen and Presbyterians 
 by the military governors, acting agreeably to the in- 
 stigation and advice of the Episcopal authorities of 
 New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land : for if 
 some provision was eventually obtained from the colo- 
 nial revenue for a few Presbyterian ministers of the 
 Scottish Church in these colonies, it was obtained solely 
 in consequence of express orders from home — after 
 many hardships and humiliations, much suffering and 
 sorrow. In almost every instance, it was won, as it 
 were, like the portion of Jacob from the Amorite, witli 
 the sword and with the bow. 
 
 There had been no minister of the Church of Scot- 
 land in New South Wales previous to my arrival in the 
 colony in the month of May, 1823. My own deter- 
 mination to proceed thither in that capacity — a deter- 
 mination which had arisen from a train of circumstances 
 and events which it is unnecessary to enumerate — had 
 been regarded by the Church to which I belong, and 
 to which I trust I still cherish the fond affection of a 
 dutiful son, with all that cold-blooded and unnatural 
 indifference, which, I am truly sorry to acknowledge, 
 the Church of Scotland long evinced in regard to the 
 moral and religious welfare of the children of her people 
 in the colonies. # Even my own personal friends among 
 the Scottish clergy regarded the step I was about to 
 take as a hair-brained and desperate adventure ; and 
 as none of the many religious societies of Scotland 
 
 * I am happy to state that a very great improvement has taken place 
 in this respect within the last few years. 
 
240 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 were likely to patronize any such undertaking, I was 
 teft to bear my own charges, and to find my way as I 
 best could — a solitary, friendless wanderer— over the 
 dark blue sea. 
 
 On my arrival in the colony, a congregation of Scots 
 Presbyterians was speedily formed ; and shortly after 
 it was proposed to erect a Scots Church in Sydney, 
 upwards of £700, as a commencement, being subscribed 
 for the purpose in a few days. Contrary to my advice, 
 the laymen, who had been appointed a committee of 
 management to conduct the affair, determined to memo- 
 rialize the Government for assistance from the Colonial 
 Treasury previous to their commencing operations • as 
 such assistance had been previously extended to the 
 Roman Catholics of the colony. A respectful memorial 
 was accordingly presented to the Governor, stating the 
 progress which the Presbyterians had made, and solicit- 
 ing assistance from the Colonial Treasury ; His Excel- 
 lency being at the same time privately informed that 
 the Presbyterians wished to erect a plain, unassuming 
 building, to cost about £2000. Sir Thomas Brisbane, 
 who was then Governor of New South Wales, being 
 himself a Scotsman and a Presbyterian, and a sub- 
 scriber for the erection of the Scots Church, was of 
 course well disposed to the measure; but he unfortu- 
 nately suffered himself in that, as in many other in- 
 stances, to be governed by the Colonial Secretary, who 
 persuaded His Excellency, contrary to the uniform 
 tenor of his own experience and observation, that 
 Scots Presbyterians were a factious and dangerous 
 people, whom it was impolitic to encourage. Sir 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 241 
 
 Thomas Brisbane was therefore induced to read pub- 
 licly, subscribe, and publish in the colonial newspapers, 
 a Reply to the Presbyterian memorial which the Colo- 
 nial Secretary had concocted ; and in which the Pres- 
 byterians were told, that it would be time for them to 
 ask assistance from the Government when they showed 
 they could conduct themselves as well as the Roman 
 Catholics of the colony, who at that time were almost 
 without exception either convicts or emancipated con- 
 victs. Nothing can more strongly indicate the state of 
 vassalage to which Sir Thomas had allowed himself to 
 be reduced at the period I refer to, than his signing a 
 document conveying so offensive and so unmerited a 
 censure on a number of his own countrymen. But the 
 reasoning employed to induce him to put forth such a 
 document was not less singular than the document 
 itself. Certain of the civil and military officers of the 
 colony, of whom a considerable number were Scotsmen, 
 had been in the habit of attending divine service in the 
 temporary Scots Church ; and the circumstance was 
 deemed unseemly in itself, and unfavourable to the 
 maintenance of Episcopalian supremacy in His Majesty's 
 colony of New South Wales. 
 
 I expected that the gentlemen who had presented 
 the memorial, and who were all civil officers or mer- 
 chants of the highest respectability in the colony, 
 would address a firm but respectful remonstrance to 
 the Governor on the subject of the imputations he had 
 thrown on the Scottish Church and nation in his Reply; 
 but no such document being forthcoming, I felt myself 
 
 VOL. II. l 
 
242 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 called on to write to him myself, as a minister of the 
 Scottish Church, and an individual of the Scottish 
 nation. In the course of His Excellency's Reply to 
 the Presbyterian Memorial, it had been stated that 
 M Toleration was the glory of the Church of England ; 
 and, therefore, if Presbyterians did not approve of her 
 ritual, she did not forbid them to worship in any other way 
 which they might think more likely to glorify religion." 
 In my letter to His Excellency, I observed, in reference 
 to this statement, that " Toleration was not the glory 
 of the Church of England, but of the British Consti- 
 tution : Scotsmen were not, therefore, reduced to the 
 necessity of receiving toleration as a boon from the 
 Church of England : their civil and religious liberties 
 were won for them by the swords of their forefathers ; 
 and they were a degenerate race, if in every situation 
 they did not vindicate their right to both." The other 
 parts of my letter were deemed sufficiently dutiful and 
 respectful; but the passage I have just quoted was 
 considered so offensive at Government- House, that Sir 
 Thomas immediately despatched his aide-de-camp to 
 the Bank of New South Wales, where the list of sub- 
 scribers for the erection of the Scots Church was de- 
 posited, to erase his name, and those of all his family 
 and suite from the list. 
 
 The Memorial and Reply, having been both published 
 by authority in the colonial newspaper, were carried to 
 England by a Scotch gentleman, who felt interested in 
 the affair, and handed to the Scotch editor of the 
 Morning Chronicle ; in consequence of whose remarks 
 on the whole transaction Earl Bathurst spontaneously 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 243 
 
 directed Sir Thomas Brisbane immediately to advance 
 one-third of the whole estimated cost of the Scots 
 Church from the colonial Treasury, and afterwards 
 directed that a salary of £300 per annum should be 
 paid to the minister; " regretting," at the same time, 
 " that His Excellency had put to their probation mem- 
 bers of the Church of Scotland in the colony — the 
 Established Church of one of the most enlightened and 
 virtuous portions of the empire." 
 
 In the mean time, however, Sir Thomas Brisbane had 
 perceived his error in the steps he had taken towards 
 the Presbyterians, and I am most happy to acknow- 
 ledge, that he did every thing in his power to repair 
 the injury it had occasioned : but it often happens, 
 that the man who is all-powerful to do evil, is utterly 
 powerless to do good, when that evil is once done. His 
 Excellency's procedure, in regard to the Presbyterian 
 Memorial, entailed a debt on the Scots Church, the 
 very interest of which has regularly cost myself indi- 
 vidually £100 a year. 
 
 The circumstances attending the settlement of the 
 Scots Church in Sydney, and the state of another body 
 of Presbyterians in the colony, in regard to the ordi- 
 nances of religion, rendered it expedient for me to pro- 
 ceed to England in the month of August, 1824. I 
 returned again to the colony in January, 1826. During 
 my absence, the Rev. Thomas Hobbes Scott, having 
 been appointed by His Majesty's Government arch- 
 deacon of New South Wales — an office which was then 
 instituted for the first time — with a salary of £2000 a 
 year, had arrived in the territory. Mr. Scott was by 
 
244 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 no means a young man, and he had passed through all 
 the previous scenes of his life as a layman. It was 
 commonly reported in the colony, that he had originally 
 been in business in the city of London, and that he 
 had afterwards been attached to the British Consulate 
 in one of the Italian ports of the Mediterranean : he had 
 made his debut, however, in the colony several years 
 before, in the subordinate and lay capacity of clerk or 
 secretary to Mr. Commissioner Bigge — a gentleman, who 
 had been deputed by the Home Government to inquire 
 into the circumstances of the colony during the govern- 
 ment of Major-General Macquarie; of which a Report 
 was subsequently presented to the House of Commons. 
 I presume it was in consequence of that Report that 
 the Government were induced to appoint an archdeacon 
 for the Australian colonies ; and, as Mr. Scott happened 
 very opportunely to enter into holy orders while the 
 matter was under consideration, he received the ap- 
 pointment. 
 
 Mr. Scott's private character and general education 
 were unexceptionable ; but his theological attainments 
 were necessarily extremely meagre ; and his previous 
 manner of life, and especially the circumstance of his 
 having already appeared in the colony in so different a 
 capacity, rendered his appointment injudicious in the 
 highest degree, and betrayed a lamentable want of con- 
 sideration for the real welfare of the country. Of the 
 doctrines and practice which constitute what is styled 
 by the Christian world evangelical religion, Mr. Scott 
 had evidently no clear idea. Viewing religion as a mat- 
 ter of state policy, and the colonial Episcopal clergy 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 245 
 
 as a chartered body possessing the exclusive mono- 
 poly of intermeddling with its concerns, his maxim evi- 
 dently was, " Let Episcopacy reign alone in the Au- 
 stralian colonies, and let no Presbyterian dog be per- 
 mitted to bark within her ample domain." 
 
 During my absence in England, an Act had been 
 passed by the Legislative Council of the colony, of 
 which the Archdeacon was an active and influential 
 member, for the due registration of all births, mar- 
 riages, and burials, within the territory. By this Act 
 it was enacted, that any minister of religion solemnizing 
 a baptism, marriage, or burial, in the colony, should 
 transmit a certificate thereof to the minister of the 
 parish in which the said service was performed, 
 within four days after, under pain of a fine of four 
 Spanish dollars ; the said fine to be appropriated agree- 
 ably to the provisions of an Act for the suppression of 
 rogues und vagabonds! It was impossible to mistake 
 the meaning of this precious morsel of colonial, or 
 rather of archidiaconal, legislation, or its particular 
 reference to my own case, and to that of all other 
 ministers of the Presbyterian Church, who might after- 
 wards be settled in either colony : but lest I should by 
 any means be able to plead ignorance on the subject, 
 the Episcopal minister of the parish, in which the 
 Scots Church in Sydney is situated, called at my house, 
 I presume by the Archdeacon's order, the instant he 
 heard I had returned to the colony, with a blank 
 register containing forms of certificates, and having the 
 four-dollar or rogues-and-vaga bonds' Act printed in 
 large characters on its first page. I confess it would 
 
246 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 have somewhat aggravated the humiliation to which it 
 was thus proposed to subject the ministers of the 
 Church of Scotland in both colonies, to have been 
 obliged to send our certificates (as would have been the 
 case in certain instances in both settlements, which it 
 is unnecessary to particularise) to men who had never 
 been within the walls of a college : for with all her 
 pretensions to exclusive learning and exclusive educa- 
 tion, Episcopacy, like an ancient king of Israel, not 
 ^infrequently makes her priests of t he high places in the 
 colonies, of those who are not sons of Levi in the aca- 
 demical sense of the phrase. I examined the Act care- 
 fully, however, and finding, to use a maritime expres- 
 sion, that it was by no means water-tight, although it 
 had been evidently tarred and pitched for the purpose 
 by a high colonial functionary, I resolved to send no 
 certificates, and to leave those whom it concerned to 
 sue for the four dollars, to be appropriated for the sup- 
 pression of rogues and vagabonds, whenever they 
 pleased. Nine months were suffered to elapse before 
 I was informed against to the colonial government ; 
 but, on representing to the latter that the Act had 
 neglected to specify the particular standing of a minis- 
 ter of the Church of Scotland in the colony, and had 
 not explicitly declared that he was not to be considered 
 one of the ministers of the parish in which he officiated, 
 it was arranged that the Scotch certificates should be 
 forwarded to the Colonial Secretary, and not to the 
 Colonial Episcopacy. 
 
 During my first residence in the colony, I had so- 
 lemnized a marriage agreeably to the forms of the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 247 
 
 Church of Scotland, in the case of a Scotch officer, of 
 the East India Company's service, who wished to be 
 married according to the customs of his nation. Some 
 obstacles had been thrown in the way in the first in- 
 stance ; but, on representing what I conceived to be the 
 state of the law on the subject to the Attorney-General, 
 and obtaining the written opinion of that officer, that 
 there was no law to prevent the solemnization of a mar- 
 riage in the manner proposed, the Governor's license 
 was given forthwith. After the Archdeacon's arrival, 
 however, the Attorney-General, who was by no means 
 a man of strong mind, retracted his opinion ; and the 
 Governor's license, in the case of another Scotch officer, 
 who also wished to be married agreeably to the Presby- 
 terian form, was accordingly refused. I did not consi- 
 der the right to solemnize marriage of any importance 
 in a religious point of view ; at the same time I felt my- 
 self called on, both as a Scotsman and as a minister of 
 the Scottish Church, not to sit silent under its invasion, 
 as the issue of my own case would doubtless establish a 
 precedent for both colonies : I accordingly inserted an 
 advertisement in the Sydney Gazette, intimating that I 
 would solemnize marriage by banns in any case in which 
 either of the parties was a native of Scotland, or a 
 Presbyterian, or a member of my own congregation, 
 and calling upon all persons whom it concerned, to pro- 
 duce any law or statute prohibiting such marriages, or 
 declaring them illegal. I accordingly solemnized va- 
 rious marriages by banns for a year or two after ; 
 and the privilege of marrying by the Governor's license 
 — a practice peculiar to the colonies, but now dis- 
 
248 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 continued in New South Wales — was in due time 
 voluntarily conceded. The circumstance, however, of 
 my having recourse to an advertisement in the news- 
 papers, to assert a right which had thus been unjustly 
 invaded, was regarded in certain quarters as a manifes- 
 tation of a bad spirit. Of course I was to regard the 
 spirit of intolerant usurpation, which had forced me to 
 adopt such an expedient, as the spirit of brotherly kind- 
 ness and Christian charity : truly it was that charity, 
 which seeketh not her own merely, but her neighbour's 
 also. 
 
 In the years 1823 and 1824 I performed divine ser- 
 vice repeatedly, and on one occasion dispensed the 
 sacrament of the eucharist, at the Presbyterian settle- 
 ment of Portland Head on the banks of the Hawkes- 
 bury. On leaving the colony for England, the people 
 of that settlement authorised me to procure them a 
 minister, pledging themselves to contribute to a certain 
 amount for his maintenance, and soliciting at the same 
 time, as they were neither numerous nor wealthy, 
 assistance from the Christian public in the mother 
 country. I obtained about £250 for the purpose in 
 the west of Scotland ; and the Rev. J. M'Garvie, A. M. 
 a Licentiate of the Church of Scotland, having been 
 ordained as the minister of Portland Head, there re- 
 mained about £200 after defraying the expense of his 
 passage out to the colony. This amount was appro- 
 priated in part payment of a small farm and cottage on 
 the Hawkesbury, which were purchased as a glebe and 
 residence for the minister. On Mr. M'Garvie's arrival 
 in the district, the Presbyterians of Portland Head 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 249 
 
 addressed a memorial to the Governor, requesting a 
 salary of not more than £ 100 per annum for his 
 maintenance, from the Colonial Treasury, and pledging 
 themselves to pay an equal amount by private sub- 
 scription. In a letter which I wrote along with the 
 memorial to His Excellency General Darling, I gave a 
 short account of the origin and history of the settle- 
 ment, stating that it had been formed by free emigrant 
 Presbyterians from the south of Scotland in the year 
 1802; that these settlers had built a church — the first 
 that had ever been built in the colony by private sub- 
 scription — at an expense of upwards of £400, in the 
 year 1809 ; and that the ordinances of religion had been 
 regularly dispensed among them, by one of their num- 
 ber acting as a voluntary catechist, from the time of 
 their arrival in the colony. I was greatly mortified, 
 however, to receive a letter from the Colonial Secretary 
 in reply, stating that His Excellency could not comply 
 with the prayer of the memorial ; expressing his satis- 
 faction, however, that the Presbyterians of Portland 
 Head were able to do so much for their minister, and 
 hoping they would soon be able to do whatever more was 
 requisite for his maintenance. In short, it was insult 
 added to injury. 
 
 I had reason to believe at the time that if Mr. 
 M'Garvie were made acquainted with the tenor of the 
 Governor's reply, he would leave the colony and return 
 to Scotland ; in which case all attempts to procure 
 other Presbyterian ministers for other Presbyterian 
 congregations in the territory would probably have 
 been vain : in fact, I have reason to believe that this 
 
250 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 consummation was both desired and anticipated. With- 
 out apprising Mr. M'G., therefore, of the tenor of 
 the Governor's answer, I wrote His Excellency, re- 
 questing that he would transmit the memorial, along 
 with my letter, to the Right Honourable the Secretary 
 of State for the Colonies : the memorial was accord- 
 ingly forwarded to England as a matter of course ; and 
 Lord Viscount Goderich, who was then Secretary of 
 State for the Colonies, was pleased to order that a salary 
 of £100 per annum should be paid to the minister of 
 Portland Head from the colonial revenue. 
 
 Mr. M'Garvie being a man of a benevolent disposi- 
 tion, as well as of superior literary acquirements, and 
 the district of the Hawkesbury, which is one of the 
 oldest settlements in the territory, abounding in re- 
 putable natives of the colony, many of whom possessed 
 small herds of cattle, and were naturally desirous of 
 obtaining small grants of land from the Government ; he 
 was frequently applied to by such young men to write 
 memorials to the Governor on their behalf, stating their 
 circumstances, and soliciting grants of land to enable 
 them to settle on their own account in the interior. In- 
 deed, although there were two Episcopal chaplains sta- 
 tioned in the immediate neighbourhood, by far the 
 greater part of this species of work for the whole dis- 
 trict of the Hawkesbury devolved upon Mr. M'Garvie. 
 This was observed by the Government ; and it could not 
 fail to be observed also, that the right action was done 
 by the wro?ig man. Mr. M'Garvie accordingly received 
 a letter from the Colonial Secretary, desiring to be in- 
 formed, by direction of the Governor, whether he re- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 251 
 
 ceived any thing for the numerous memorials he wrote. 
 Mr. M'Garvie was naturally somewhat indignant at the 
 injurious insinuation ; but he merely replied, that " he 
 had never received as much as the value of the paper 
 on which the memorials were written." His Excel- 
 lency, it seems, was mistaken, in supposing that my 
 friend and brother was like the mercenary hirelings that 
 abound in all professions in the colonies, who will 
 neither open their mouths nor touch their pens till their 
 pockets are crammed. 
 
 After my return to the colony in the year 1826, I 
 ascertained, on repeatedly visiting the settlements of 
 Hunter's River and Bathurst in the discharge of clerical 
 duty, that the Presbyterian settlers in these districts 
 were desirous of obtaining ministers of their own com- 
 munion, and were willing to contribute for their main- 
 tenance to the amount of £100 per annum. I ac- 
 cordingly addressed a memorial on the subject to 
 General Darling, soliciting that His Excellency would 
 recommend to the Secretary of State to allow salaries 
 of £100 per annum for ministers of the church of 
 Scotland for the districts of Bathurst and Hunter's 
 River respectively, provided the Presbyterian inha- 
 bitants of these districts should themselves contribute a 
 similar amount ; and representing, that as upwards of 
 one half of the land in both districts had been granted 
 to Scotsmen and Presbyterians, there was reason to 
 believe that the settlement of Presbyterian ministers, to 
 itinerate from farm to farm in these parts of the terri- 
 tory, would bring religious instruction into much more 
 general contact with their convict-population, as each 
 
252 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 of the Presbyterian families, who were desirous of 
 having ministers of their own communion settled among 
 them, had numerous convict-servants. His Excellency 
 replied, that he would order the resident officers to 
 furnish him with information on the subject ; and 
 orders were accordingly transmitted to the military 
 commandants of Bathurst and Hunter's River, to as- 
 certain the number of Presbyterians in these districts, 
 (without reference to the circumstance of their being 
 masters or servants,) in comparison with that of the 
 whole population. This delicate task was entrusted by 
 the military commandants to convict-constables, who 
 were accordingly sent round to make the requisite in- 
 quiries at each farm in the district ; but as every per- 
 son who answered the constable that he was a Pro- 
 testant was set down as an Episcopalian, (the words 
 Protestant and Episcopalian being held synonymous by 
 the lower English ;) and as there were Presbyterians 
 who actually disavowed their connexion with the Scot- 
 tish Church, from the fear of giving offence, or from an 
 indistinct persuasion that favours were more easily ob- 
 tainable from the colonial government by proselytes to 
 Episcopacy than by Presbyterians ; and as the circum- 
 stance to which I had especially requested His Excel- 
 lency's attention, viz. that more than one half of the 
 land was in the hands of Scotsmen and Presbyterians, — 
 who of course were the influential and the permanent 
 portion of the population, — was kept entirely out of 
 view ; it was found as a matter of course that the num- 
 ber of Presbyterians at Bathurst and Hunter's River 
 was insufficient to warrant His Excellency's compli- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 253 
 
 ance with the prayer of my memorial.* But the Arch- 
 deacon, who, I understood indirectly from the Governor 
 himself, had been consulted in the matter, was too 
 
 * It was stated some time ago in a semi-official paper published in 
 London, for the purpose of accounting for the large expenditure of pub- 
 lic money by the Episcopal Church in New South Wales during the 
 incumbency of Archdeacon Scott, that there were thirty thousand Epi- 
 scopalians in that colony, out of a population which the writer supposed 
 under forty thousand : the reader must be informed, however, that 
 this respectable but imaginary muster-roll included all persons who 
 went to no church, and were avowedly of no religion whatever. " Of 
 what religion are you 1 " said the zealous Episcopalian officer, who was 
 sent to muster a convict-ship on her arrival in New South Wales during 
 the government of General Darling. " I am of no religion," replied the 
 convict he addressed— an impudent fellow, doubtless, who was doubt- 
 less telling the truth. " Of what church are you 1 " rejoined the officer, 
 supposing perhaps that his question had been misunderstood, or perhaps 
 giving the convict to understand that it was not absolutely necessary 
 that he should be of any religion in order to his belonging to a particular 
 church. "I am of no church," responded the convict. " He goes to 
 church," said the officer, addressing himself to the clerk ; and the con- 
 vict was accordingly written down an Episcopalian : in short, it was 
 evident he was neither a Presbyterian nor a Roman Catholic, and the 
 inference deduced was therefore fair enough. If the Colonial Episcopal 
 Church had really felt a more special interest in such reprobates than 
 other communions in the colony, it would, doubtless, have been greatly 
 to her credit to have taken them so benevolently under her wing. But, 
 unfortunately, this is not the secret of the large addition they made to 
 her muster-roll ; for in the sequel of the paper I allude to, it was shown 
 that ,£20,000 a year — the sum which the Episcopal Church and schools 
 cost the colony during the incumbency of Archdeacon Scott — amounted 
 only to 15s. a head for the thirty thousand Episcopalians of the colony. 
 On such a principle of calculation, it was no wonder that the Pres- 
 byterians of the colony should have been represented, as they actually 
 were, as an insignificant handful ; for every person of that communion 
 who could by any means be ticketed as an Episcopalian, not only served 
 to strengthen the Archdeacon's argument against the necessity for Pres- 
 byterian ministers, but entitled him to ask other 15s. for the Episcopal 
 Church. 
 
254 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 tender-hearted a nursing-father of the Church to allow 
 the Scots Presbyterian settlers of so extensive a dis- 
 trict as Hunter's River to remain destitute of the ordi- 
 nances of religion ; and he accordingly sent them a 
 half-pay lieutenant in the navy — a very good sort of 
 man, doubtless, on the quarter-deck of a gun-brig or 
 sloop-of-war — to read prayers as an Episcopalian cate- 
 chist in the district, and to receive for so doing more 
 than double the emolument that was asked for a 
 Regularly-ordained minister of the Church of Scotland. 
 In the year 1830, I felt myself called on, with a view to 
 advance the interests of religion and education through- 
 out the colonial territory, to proceed a second time 
 to England; and on laying the case of Bathurst and 
 Hunter's River before the Right Honourable Lord 
 Viscount Goderich, with a simple recommendation from 
 certain magistrates of the territory, his Lordship was 
 pleased to order a salary of £100 per annum to a 
 minister of the Church of Scotland for each of these 
 districts. Two ministers were accordingly appointed, 
 and arrived in the colony on board the vessel I had 
 engaged to carry out the Scotch mechanics in the year 
 1831. 
 
 A state of things exactly similar to the one I have 
 thus described has also prevailed till very recently in the 
 colony of Van Dieman's Land : indeed, the thoroughly 
 exclusive, intolerant, and tyrannical spirit of Episcopal 
 domination has exhibited itself in a greater or less 
 degree, according to the circumstances of each par- 
 ticular case, in all the British colonies. Witness 
 the case of the Scots Presbyterians of New York, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 255 
 
 when that province was a British colony, a century 
 ago:— 
 
 **. The Presbyterians increasing after Lord Cornbury's return to Eng- 
 land," (I quote from Smith's History of New York, page 191,) "called 
 Mr. Anderson, a Scotch minister, to the pastoral charge of their congre- 
 gation ; and Dr, John Nicol, Patrick M'Knight, Gilbert Livingston, and 
 Thomas Smith, purchased a piece of ground, and founded a church iu 
 1719. Two years afterwards, they petitioned Colonel Schuyler, who had 
 then the chief command, for a charter of incorporation, to secure their 
 estate for religious worship, upon the plan of the Church in North Bri- 
 tain ; but were disappointed in their expectations through the opposition 
 of the Episcopal party . They shortly after renewed their request to Go* 
 vernor Burnet, who referred the petition to his Council. The Episcopa- 
 lians again violently opposed the grant, and the Governor in 1724 wrote 
 upon the subject to the Lords of Trade for their direction. Counsellor 
 West, who was then consulted, gave his opinion in these words :—' Upon 
 consideration of the several acts of Uniformity that have passed in Great 
 Britain, I am of opinion that they do not extend to New York, and con- 
 sequently an act of toleration is of no use in that province ; and therefore, 
 as there is no provincial act for uniformity, according to the Church of 
 England, I am of opinion, that by law such patent of incorporation may 
 be granted as by the petition is desired. — Richard West, '20th August, 
 1724.' After several years' solicitation for a charter in vain, and fearful 
 that those who obstructed such a reasonable request would watch an 
 opportunity to give them a more effectual wound ; those among the 
 Presbyterians who were invested with the fee-simple of the church and 
 ground, conveyed it, on the 16th March, 1730, to the General Assembly 
 of the Church of Scotland," as the only means of preserving the property 
 in the hands and for the use of the members of that communion iu the 
 city of New York. 
 
 It was, doubtless, the repetition of such acts of in- 
 tolerance and oppression as the one that gave rise to so 
 singular a proceeding — it was doubtless the repetition 
 of such acts of intolerance and oppression on the part 
 of a domineering faction in the colonies, supported and 
 abetted by the Government at home — that served gra- 
 
256 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 dually to wean the affections of the American people 
 from their allegiance to their rightful sovereign, and 
 that subsequently gave the American revolution that 
 moral and resistless force, that enabled it to wrest 
 the fairest provinces from the British empire, and to 
 pluck the brighest jewel from the British Crown. The 
 Presbyterians of America are now happily delivered 
 from Episcopal domination ; and their two thousand 
 flourishing congregations, whose ministers are all sup- 
 ported by the voluntary contributions of a Christian 
 people, present an argument that cannot easily be got 
 over by those who are perpetually telling us, that Chris- 
 tianity, in this the age of her decrepitude, forsooth, 
 can no longer stand erect in the world, and must there- 
 fore be permitted to lean the whole weight of her 
 rickety and consumptive frame on the crutch of the 
 civil power ! 
 
 The prevalence of Episcopal domination in the British 
 colonies has had this unfortunate and evil effect ; it 
 has, in great measure, weaned the higher classes of 
 Scotsmen in the colonies, and especially Scotsmen 
 holding appointments under the Government, from the 
 hallowed institutions of their mother Church and their 
 father-land. If the question, which this state of things 
 suggests, were merely a question as to whether men 
 ought to use forms of prayer or to pray extempore, or 
 whether there ought to be any other species of pre- 
 cedence among the ministers of religion, than what is 
 uniformly and willingly conceded, even by Presby- 
 terians, to eminent services and eminent talents, I 
 should esteem it a matter of comparatively little 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 257 
 
 moment which side of the question individuals of my 
 own countrymen were pleased to take ; for though a 
 Presbyterian, I trust, in the highest sense of the word, 
 I am not so in that sense of it which holds either mode- 
 rate Episcopacy or Independency sinful or unlawful. 
 But the question is one of a far different description. 
 It is, whether it is the part of a Christian man at all to 
 renounce the faith of his forefathers, (I use the phrase 
 in its wider acceptation,) without being able to assign a 
 better reason for such renunciation, than that the thing 
 called religion, which is taken up instead of it, is the 
 religion of the dominant and influential party, the reli- 
 gion of all whose incomes are upwards of five hundred 
 a year? Is this, I ask, to be esteemed a valid or suffi- 
 cient reason for renouncing a faith which a thousand 
 martyrs died to defend and to perpetuate, and the 
 devoted attachment of whose children to which has 
 raised their nation to a higher pitch of intellectual and 
 moral and religious eminence, than, perhaps, any other 
 European nation has ever attained ? Are the men, who 
 thus sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, to be 
 esteemed the worthy descendants of those patriotic 
 men who purchased the civil and religious liberties of 
 Scotland with the best blood in their veins ? The 
 Presbyterian who becomes an Episcopalian from con- 
 scientious motives, and who lives and dies a worthy 
 and pious Episcopalian, I honour, because I see he 
 possesses a conscience, though, it may be, an ill- 
 informed one ; but can Charity herself suppose that 
 such men as I allude to have a conscience at all ? 
 What indeed can be expected, either worthy or honour- 
 
258 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 able, of the men, who, when their mother Church— 
 with whose milk they were nursed as babes, and with 
 whose strong meat they were fed till they reached the 
 vigour of manhood — follows them in the warmth of her 
 maternal affection to the distant land of their sojourn- 
 ing, cast upon her a cold and withering look, saying, 
 " Begone, you old, poverty-struck beldam ; don't you 
 see we have taken to live with this strange woman from 
 Babylon ? V What, I say, can be expected of such 
 men, but that they will approve themselves unworthy 
 sons of their mother — degenerate scions of a noble 
 vine? It has accordingly been observed again and 
 again, that of all the possible personifications of abso- 
 lute servility, the Episcopalianized Scots Presbyterian 
 is, in general, the most complete in all his members. 
 Indeed, I have reason to believe, that if His Majesty 
 were to haul down the cross, and to hoist the crescent, 
 provided the absolute disgrace of the thing could only 
 be got over in the eyes of the public, the majority of 
 Episcopalianized Scots Presbyterians, holding appoint- 
 ments under the Government in the colonies, would be the 
 first to shout with the Grand Mufti of St. James's, " There 
 is no God bat Allah, and Mahomet is his Prophet !" 
 
 It has often appeared to me, that the moral and 
 religious standing of the Scottish nation in reference to 
 the colonial territories of the British empire, very much 
 resembles that of the Jewish people in reference to the 
 heathen nations of the ancient world. Subjected in 
 their native land to a species of intellectual, and 
 moral, and religious training, which perhaps scarcely 
 any other European nation has so long enjoyed, the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 259 
 
 people of Scotland have long been extensively imbued 
 with a spirit of emigration, which has scattered them in 
 thousands over the whole face of the habitable globe, 
 and filled the British colonies in particular with a Scot- 
 tish population. This wide dispersion of the Scottish 
 people, we may rest assured, is no accident in the grand 
 scheme of Providence, any more than the wide disper- 
 sion of the ancient Jews, after having been subjected 
 to a similar training in their own country, was either 
 unforeseen or accidental. It was doubtless part and 
 portion of a high and benevolent design for advancing 
 the intellectual, the moral, and the religious welfare of 
 the British colonies, of the British empire, of the world 
 at large ; and there was thus placed in the hands of 
 the Scottish clergy a lever which the sage of Syracuse 
 could only wish for — a lever of mightier power to elevate 
 a large portion of the world, than any equal number of 
 ministers were ever called to wield since the apostolic 
 age. Will it be believed, however, that the Scottish 
 clergy have hitherto remained insensible to the moral 
 and religious advantages of this high position, which 
 the Governor among the nations had assigned them on 
 the grand arena of the world ? Will it be believed, that 
 although Scotsmen without number have annually gone 
 forth to the British colonies for a century past, there 
 has never been a single effort made on behalf of these 
 colonies by the General Assembly of the Church of 
 Scotland, during that long period, worth recording in a 
 stray paragraph of a country newspaper 1 
 
 Had the Scottish clergy plied that moral machinery, 
 which the Presbyterian Church is so admirably adapted 
 
260 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 for bringing into play, on the great field of the world — 
 had they followed the numerous children of their people, 
 who have gone forth to the colonies, with some regular 
 and systematic provision for their spiritual welfare — 
 how many a. Scotsman, whose whole life has been spent 
 in diffusing around him an atmosphere of death in the 
 land of his sojourning, might not have proved a spirit of 
 health to society, instead of being a very incarnation of 
 some goblin damned ! How many a Scottish family in 
 the colonies might not have been preserved from irre- 
 ligion, from infidelity, from immorality, from ruin ! 
 
 But where were the means? it may be asked. I ask 
 in reply, how have thousands and tens of thousands 
 been raised in Scotland, for the last forty years, to fit 
 out and to maintain beyond seas whomsoever the Dissent- 
 ing Ministers of London chose to ordain as missionaries 
 to the heathen ? God forbid that I should ever whisper 
 a syllable against missions to the heathen ! But I have 
 seen too many missionaries, not to have seen more than 
 I choose to mention, whom men possessed of the least 
 discernment would never have presumed to send forth 
 on such an errand ! The colonies, however, were the 
 first field to be occupied ; and if that field had been 
 properly occupied, it would have afforded much assist- 
 ance to missions to the heathen, instead of proving a 
 fruitful source of disappointment and counteraction to 
 Christian missionaries. 
 
 Had there been a standing committee of the Church 
 of Scotland (as there ought uniformly to have been) to 
 watch over the spiritual welfare of Scotsmen in the 
 colonies, and had that committee sent out two ministers 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 261 
 
 of the requisite qualifications to each of the Australian 
 colonies about fifteen years ago # — ensuring them, from 
 funds collected in the way I have suggested, a mode- 
 rate provision till they could establish themselves in the 
 colonies, endeavouring in the mean time to interest the 
 Government on their behalf, and following up every im- 
 portant suggestion they might see fit to make for the 
 advancement of the spiritual welfare of their country- 
 men in these colonies — colonial Episcopacy would all 
 along have been kept in proper and salutary check ; an 
 efficient system of religious instruction would have been 
 provided for all the Scotch inhabitants of both colonies 
 with the utmost facility, and an incalculable amount of 
 good would have been effected for that highly influential 
 portion of the colonial population, at a comparatively 
 insignificant expense. 
 
 From the entire want of any such machinery in the 
 Church of Scotland, and from the burden of providing 
 for the spiritual welfare of Scotsmen in the Australian 
 colonies being consequently made to rest on the chance 
 efforts of individuals — of individuals struggling on the 
 one hand with an overwhelming Episcopacy, and un- 
 supported on the other by those whose bounden duty it 
 was to have upheld them — I have been reduced to the 
 necessity of making no fewer than four voyages round 
 the world during the last fourteen years — living in all 
 
 * The divine author of Christianity always sent out his disciples by 
 twos, and the apostles seem to have generally followed his example. 
 We always hear of two of the apostolic Presbytery travelling together ; 
 as for instance, Peter and John, Paul and Barnabas, Paul and Silas, 
 Barnabas and Mark. The propriety and the wisdom of such an arrange- 
 ment are sufficiently obvious. 
 
262 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT of 
 
 for three years and a half of that period out of sight of 
 land, at one time in intense cold among the icebergs to 
 the southward and westward of Cape Horn, at another 
 in intense heat beneath a vertical sun ; traversing on an 
 average about a thousand miles of ocean every month 
 for ten successive years, and paying about £600 of 
 passage-money for sea-voyages from my own private 
 resources, besides heavy and almost ruinous expenses 
 on land. 
 
 But the long-continued indifference of the General 
 Assembly of the Church of Scotland to the spiritual 
 welfare of Scotsmen in the colonies has been product- 
 ive of a still worse effect than the one I have just men- 
 tioned. It has induced such a state of feeling, in re- 
 gard to the colonies, on the part of the Scottish clergy 
 in general, that it is almost held tantamount to a com- 
 plete renunciation of caste for a licentiate of the Scottish 
 Church to go to the colonies at all ; insomuch that his 
 doing the very thing which his Lord and Master espe- 
 cially commands — his going forth on the forlorn hope 
 of the Christian army, with the everlasting Gospel on 
 his lips, and the sword of the Spirit in his hands — is 
 tacitly interpreted as a public confession of his being a 
 weak brother who has no prospects at home. For my 
 own part, I confess I had much more difficulty in getting 
 over this feeling — so humiliating to the native intel- 
 lectual pride of the Scottish character — than I had in 
 resolving to bid adieu, in all likelihood for ever, to my 
 native land. 
 
 It is necessary, however, to apprise the reader, that 
 this lamentable indifference of the Scottish Church 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 263 
 
 towards Scotsmen in the colonies, is altogether foreign 
 to the native genius and character of the Presbyterian 
 Church. In the reign of William and Mary, when a 
 number of Scottish emigrants left their native country 
 to settle at the Isthmus of Darien, the General Assem- 
 bly of the Church of Scotland — which at that period 
 consisted entirely of ministers who had been chosen 
 by the people — took so warm an interest in the spiritual 
 welfare of these emigrants, that they actually removed 
 two ordained ministers from their parishes in Scotland, 
 and sent them along with them. But the General 
 Assembly of a century past, consisting in great measure 
 of ministers who have been thrust upon the people by 
 the system of patronage — have seen hundreds of thou- 
 sands of Scotsmen leave their native country for the 
 colonies, without ever inquiring whither they went, or 
 what was likely to become of them in the distant lands 
 of their adoption. 
 
 This remarkable change in the character and conduct 
 of the Scottish Church has arisen entirely out of the 
 law of patronage — that flagitious enactment of the Tory 
 Government of Queen Anne, by which the Scottish 
 people were robbed of their right to elect their own 
 pastors, and the appointment of the Scottish clergy 
 transferred in great measure to the Scottish aristocracy. 
 Under the operation of so iniquitous a system, the 
 Presbyterians of the Covenant — those patriots indeed 
 who held not their lives dear that they might promote 
 the best interests of their country — gradually dis- 
 appeared ; and a race of gentlemen's gentlemen — the 
 mere sycophants and dependents of the great — occu- 
 
264 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 pied a great majority of the parishes of Scotland, and 
 reigned in their stead. And was it wonderful, that 
 velvet-tongued theologians like these should forget the 
 art of speaking for their countrymen in the colonies ? 
 Was it wonderful, that the herd of lean cattle, that were 
 thus driven in by the Scottish nobility to fatten on the 
 green pastures of their national Church, should have no 
 sympathy for those who were dwelling in the dry and 
 parched lands where there was no water ? Educated in 
 the Tory College of Subserviency, many of their num- 
 ber had taken the degree of Destitute of Natural 
 Affection ; and their reckless indifference to the best 
 interests of their countrymen abroad was in perfect 
 keeping with the recklessness with which they some- 
 times trampled on the best feelings of their countrymen 
 at home.* 
 
 The period of reaction, however, has at length ar- 
 rived ; and that reaction we may rest assured will be 
 powerful and resistless, just in proportion to the length, 
 and breadth, and depth of the injury that has hitherto 
 been so patiently sustained by a long-abused nation 
 both at home and abroad : for it is not the mere repeal 
 of the law of patronage in Scotland, or the reform of a 
 few flagrant abuses in the Church of England, that will 
 now stem the flood-tide of popular opinion that is evi- 
 
 * It is gratifying to observe, that the Church of Scotland has been 
 reforming itself during the last three or four years. The first step in this 
 salutary process was taken by giving the Christian people a veto on the 
 appointment of all ministers of that Church. The effect of this reform 
 has been already apparent in various respects, especially in the reviving 
 of the ancient discipline on the one hand, and of the ancient sympathy for 
 Scotsmen in the colonies on the other. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 265 
 
 dently setting so strongly and so resistlessly against the 
 religious establishments of both divisions of the island. 
 In that prominent sign of the times men of understand- 
 ing cannot fail to discern a judicial infliction — the 
 prelude of some overflowing scourge, that will ere long 
 pass through the land, and leave not one stone of these 
 goodly fabrics upon another. There are men, it is true, 
 who think they can still arrest the progress of public 
 opinion on this and on other kindred subjects : as well 
 might the Swiss peasant think of chaining the enor- 
 mous avalanche, that has just broken adrift from its 
 moorings on the summit of some lofty Alp, and is 
 rolling down from precipice to precipice, and from rock 
 to rock, to spread dreariness and desolation over his 
 happy valley. The revolutionary clock has struck one, 
 to indicate that the day of overturning has already com- 
 menced ; and well may the mitred Episcopalian priest 
 and the Presbyterian Levite feel alarmed together at its 
 fearfully ominous and volcanic sound ! 
 
 As there was nothing to counteract the efforts of Epi- 
 scopacy to establish for itself an exclusive predominance 
 in the Australian colonies, ways and means were at 
 length devised by certain zealots for that system, to ex- 
 hibit it to the colonists in an attitude of power and glory 
 not unworthy of the era of Pope Hildebrand. For this 
 purpose, a Church and School Corporation was esta- 
 blished by royal charter in the year 1825, by which 
 the whole care of religion and education in the colony 
 of New South Wales was assigned to the Episcopalian 
 clergy, to whom a seventh of the whole continent, or a 
 piece of land as large as the island of Great Britain, 
 
 VOL. II. M 
 
266 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 was liberally allotted as a suitable reward for their 
 trouble ; and as it was wisely considered that the land 
 was of little value so long as it remained in a waste 
 state, the privileged clergy were very properly allowed 
 in the mean time to extract whatever they might think 
 necessary from the public purse, till the increase of 
 population should render their estate valuable in pro- 
 portion to their deserts. The charter provided for the 
 future erection of a bishopric in the colony, and de- 
 clared expressly that the bishop was to be paid first ; 
 no archdeacon to receive any thing till his lordship was 
 satisfied. The archdeacons were to follow next, and 
 whatever they left was to be divided among the rectors ; 
 the working clergy or curates to receive nothing till the 
 latter had got enough. 
 
 The Episcopal Church Establishment of the colony 
 consists at present of a bishop, eighteen chaplains, and 
 three catechists ; the Episcopal School Establishment 
 embracing a male and a female orphan school — each 
 under the superintendence of a half-pay lieutenant in 
 the navy — and about thirty primary schools of a cha- 
 racter exceedingly inferior to that of the parish schools 
 of Scotland. Will it be believed, however, that so long 
 ago as the year 1828, when there were neither so many 
 chaplains nor so many schools as there are at present by 
 a very considerable number, the cost of these petty esta- 
 blishments should have amounted in a single year to up- 
 wards of £22,000 ? The salaries of the chaplains varied, 
 at the period I allude to, from £250 to £400 per annum ; 
 but the amount of these salaries was no cue to the real 
 emoluments of the incumbent, or to the total charge for 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 267 
 
 his maintenance on the revenue of the colony. Every 
 expedient was adopted to raise the wind, or, in other 
 words, to increase the income ; and, as the Corporation 
 consisted chiefly of clergymen, one voted for another, 
 and the demands on the treasury were consequently 
 exorbitant enough. For instance, the two Episcopal 
 chaplains of Sydney, both of whom had only received 
 that species of ordination which is given for foreign 
 parts, had each a fixed salary, of the amount specified, 
 (viz. about £300 or £350 per ann.) together with a free 
 house, which in Sydney is worth about £100 a year; 
 but as the one performed divine service at the jail, and 
 the other in the hulk, and as there are no free-will 
 offerings at the door of the Colonial Episcopal Tabernacle, 
 it was doubtless quite reasonable to allow £50 ad- 
 ditional to each of them for these extra duties.* They 
 had each grants of land, or farms of their own, which 
 were not suffered to lie waste, in the interior. It was 
 not likely, therefore, that the few acres of sterile land, 
 which they held as glebes near the town of Sydney, 
 could be of much use to them as cattle-runs : they 
 were therefore the more easily induced to surrender 
 their glebes to the Corporation, and they accordingly 
 received a compensation of £100 a year each in lieu of 
 them. In the mean time, every marriage, every burial 
 had to be paid for, with a regular and accustomed fee. 
 But Episcopal covetousness (I must use the right word, 
 
 * There used also to be something got for performing divine service to 
 the military in Sydney ; but as that item is charged to the account of the 
 mother country ,'it is not included in the annual returns of the appro- 
 priation of the colonial revenue. 
 
268 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 however offensive) was not yet satisfied ; and the one 
 chaplain accordingly presented to the Corporation, 
 during one of the years of drought, an account of nearly 
 £700 for additional perquisites,, to which it appears he 
 was fairly entitled, but which it seems the good man 
 had never got ; and the other a similar account of about 
 £500 ; and the Corporation, of course, voting both ac- 
 counts correct, they were duly paid. Yes, these accounts 
 were both presented and paid, at a time when many re- 
 spectable families in the colony were reduced to absolute 
 poverty through the visitation of God and their own 
 unfortunate speculations in sheep and cattle, and when 
 whole districts of inhabited country within the territory 
 were left without the shadow of provision for the dis- 
 pensation of the ordinances of religion ! 
 
 But, even at the very time, when this lavish and un- 
 seemly expenditure of the public money was going on, 
 so jealous was colonial Episcopacy of her power, or 
 rather so unwilling that men who were not entirely of 
 her own making should come within her borders to spy 
 out the nakedness of the land, that before I could obtain 
 a single hundred a year for a regularly educated and 
 ordained Scotch clergyman, to dispense the ordinances 
 of religion among his own countrymen in an extensive 
 district of country in the territory, I had to leave my 
 own congregation for a twelvemonth, to double Cape 
 Horn, to circumnavigate the globe ! I ask, therefore, 
 is there any man of common candour who will not ac- 
 knowledge, that, in such circumstances, a colonial church 
 establishment is a positive, an enormous, an intolerable 
 evil ? 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 269 
 
 The mere management of the Church and School 
 Corporation, independently altogether of the salaries of 
 clergymen and schoolmasters, cost, for some time after 
 the institution of that body, upwards of £2000 a year. 
 I confess, I am utterly unable to account for the disap- 
 pearance of so much public money, by any process of 
 compound addition exemplified in the common systems 
 of Scotch ecclesiastical arithmetic ; but I admit that 
 there is an essential vulgarity in Presbyterianism on the 
 important subject of expense, which perhaps unfits a 
 man for seeing how easily the public money can be 
 spent unprofitably by those who have the exclusive 
 right and privilege of doing so. Compared with this 
 expenditure, the corresponding expenditure of the whole 
 Church of Scotland appears paltry and insignificant. 
 The clerkship of the General Assembly of the Scottish 
 Church, for example — a body having the superintend- 
 ence of more than a thousand ministers, with all their 
 churches and chapels, four universities, and upwards of 
 a thousand parochial schoolmasters and schools — costs 
 only £200 per annum : but the clerkship of the Church 
 and School Corporation of New South Wales — a body 
 having the superintendence of only twelve or fifteen 
 ministers, and about double the number of school- 
 masters — required an establishment of no fewer than 
 four lay-clerks ; of whom the first — who of course was 
 the son of a member of the Corporation, who had, 
 previously to the institution of that body, had merely 
 half-a-crown a day as a supernumerary clerk in the 
 Commissariat Office — had a salary allowed him of £400 
 
270 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 a year, which, if I have not been greatly misinformed, 
 was to have been raised gradually to £700. # 
 
 The necessary and direct tendency of the system and 
 practice, of which I have thus given the reader a slight 
 sketch, was to lower the standard of religion through- 
 out the colony, by identifying the ministers of religion, 
 in the estimation of the colonial public, with a regularly- 
 organized system of grasping covetousness. 
 
 In fact, the prevalence of the system and practice I 
 have been describing, gave extensive currency and credit 
 in the Australian colonies to the scandalous and de- 
 lusive idea, that religion is mere priestcraft, and that 
 the ministers of religion are mere mercenary hirelings, 
 
 * All that the Presbyterians of New South Wales had got for their 
 ministers from the Government, at the time when they had the honour 
 of receiving an intimation from the Right Honourable Sir George Mur- 
 ray that they had got enough, was ,£400 per annum. The colonial 
 Episcopacy was receiving at that very time ^18,000 per annum. The 
 amount allotted to the Presbyterian clergy, in the year 1834, was £600 
 per annum: the grant to the Episcopal clergy, for that year, was 
 ,£18,129. 10s. viz. £;il,542. 10s. for the clergy exclusively, and £6587 
 for Episcopal schools. The very musicians, door-keepers, and other 
 menials of the Episcopal churches of the colony had actually ,£190 more 
 of the public money divided among them every year, than the whole sum 
 allotted to all the Presbyterian clergy of the territory. The whole cost 
 of the Episcopal establishment of the colony during the first five years of 
 General Darling's government, amounted, independently of the revenue 
 accruing to the Corporation from the sale and rent of church lands, as 
 well as of certain items paid from the Parliamentary grant for the sup- 
 port of the colonial Episcopacy during the year 1826, to the sum of 
 £91,569. 17s. 4d. The Presbyterian clergy of the colony cost the Go- 
 vernment during the same period £1966. 6s. 8d., or, including the items 
 above mentioned, less than one-fiftieth part of the cost of the Colonial Epi- 
 scopal Church and School Establishment, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 271 
 
 whose whole and sole object is gain. I have heard this 
 idea broached too frequently myself, and in too great a 
 variety of forms, by men of some consequence in the 
 colony, not to know that it is perfectly consistent with 
 a decent conformity to the established observances of a 
 Government church. In short, a great proportion of 
 the upper and influential classes of society in both 
 colonies have undoubtedly reached that point in theo- 
 logy, which adaiits that religion is a very good thing 
 after all for the lower classes of society : to assert any 
 thing farther, however, would be somewhat hazardous. 
 Monopolies in religion, as well as in any thing else, 
 are uniformly productive of intolerance and oppression 
 on the one hand, and of heartburnings and jealousies 
 on the other. But the greatest evil that has hitherto 
 resulted from the prevalence of Episcopal domination 
 in New South Wales, is, that, in accordance with that 
 principle of action and reaction which is so frequently 
 exemplified in the present age, it has roused a spirit in 
 the colony which it will never be able to lay, and has 
 been the means of saddling the country, for all time 
 coming, with a powerful Roman Catholic establishment : 
 for, regarding the formation and consolidation of such 
 an establishment in the Australian territory as a great 
 evil most deeply to be deplored, I have nevertheless no 
 hesitation in expressing it as my fixed opinion, that the 
 existence of that establishment, in its present promi- 
 nence and strength, has been owing in great measure to 
 the jealousy and the envy which were naturally, and I 
 will add justly, excited among the Roman Catholics of 
 the colony, at the overgrown dimensions and the lordly 
 
272 
 
 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 demeanour of colonial Episcopacy, during the govern- 
 ment of General Darling. 
 
 It was when things were in such a state as I have de- 
 scribed, at the close of General Darling's administration, 
 that Major-General Sir Richard Bourke arrived in the 
 colony in December, 1831, as the King's representative. 
 Casting his eye, as a philosopher and a statesman, over 
 the colony, it was not difficult for His Excellency to 
 discover the extremely mischievous and ruinous tend- 
 ency of the existing system, and the necessity for a 
 change. He did not venture, however, to express his 
 opinion, in reference to such a change as it was ne- 
 cessary for the Government to effect, till he had 
 maturely considered the subject in all its bearings on the 
 best interests of the colony ; for it was not until he had 
 been nearly two years in the colony, that he addressed 
 his famous dispatch on Churches and Schools to the 
 Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the Co- 
 lonies. That dispatch, which the reader will find in 
 the Appendix, No. 2, I have already characterized as 
 one of the ablest, as it is doubtless, in reference to the 
 best interests of the community to which it relates, one 
 of the most important state papers I have ever seen ; 
 and it was peculiarly fortunate for the colony of New 
 South Wales, that, in the rapid changes that have 
 taken place in the Colonial Office during the last few 
 years, it fell into the hands of so liberal, so en- 
 lightened, so Christian a statesman as the Right Ho- 
 nourable Lord Glenelg. His Lordship's reply will be 
 found along with the Governor's dispatch in the Ap- 
 pendix, and I confess I know not which to admire the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 273 
 
 most. In consequence of the series of changes to 
 which I have alluded, that reply was not written till 
 the close of the year 1835, and did not arrive in New 
 South Wales till the month of April or May, 1836. It 
 was published in the colony in the month of June of that 
 year ; and the following are the terms in which its pub- 
 lication was announced in a colonial weekly journal, 
 which I had been the means of establishing, and to which 
 I was in the habit of making occasional contributions : 
 
 " We were just going to press with our last number, 
 when we received a copy of His Excellency the Governor's 
 Dispatch to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, on 
 the Churches and Schools of New South Wales, ac- 
 companied with a copy of the Right Honourable Lord 
 Glenelg's reply ; and we had only time to glance over 
 the important documents, and to notify our inten- 
 tion to insert them at length in our next number before 
 going to press. We now hasten to redeem our pledge, 
 after making a few preliminary observations. 
 
 " It is, therefore, with sincere pleasure that we inform 
 our numerous and respectable readers, both in New 
 South Wales and beyond seas, that we have never 
 perused any state papers connected with the adminis- 
 tration of public affairs in this colony, the perusal of 
 which has afforded us more unmingled satisfaction than 
 that of the documents we refer to. His Excellency the 
 Governor has already received the highest commend- 
 ation from the Right Honourable the Secretary of 
 State for the Celonies, for the luminous exhibition he 
 has given, in his dispatch, of the Ecclesiastical and 
 Educational Statistics of New South Wales, as well as 
 
274 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 for the liberal and enlightened policy he has recommended 
 to the Home Government for the future administration 
 of these branches of our colonial polity ; and he will, 
 consequently, stand in no need of our humbler meed of 
 approbation. But we should be utterly deficient in 
 those feelings of respect which we owe to ourselves as 
 British subjects, as well as in those sentiments of lively 
 gratitude which we owe to our political benefactors, if 
 we suffered a document of such vast importance to the 
 future welfare of all classes in this remote dependency 
 of the empire, as His Excellency's dispatch, to be 
 passed over in silent indifference, or with faint ?nd 
 feeble praise. In fact, we are honestly and candidly of 
 opinion, that the measure which His Excellency the 
 Governor has recommended in his dispatch, and which 
 the Right Honourable the Secretary for the Colonies 
 has approved in his reply, will constitute and be re- 
 garded in all future times as the Magna Charta of the 
 religious liberty of this infant empire. 
 
 " The documents we refer to enable us virtually to 
 realize a consummation for which we have looked and 
 longed for the last ten years and upwards, with all the 
 anxiety with which the shipwrecked mariner, in a dark 
 night and a stormy sea, looks and longs for the day. 
 Sir Richard Bourke had already attained the high honour 
 and satisfaction of having given emancipation to the 
 native tribes of Southern Africa, and of having elevated 
 the oppressed and enslaved Hottentot to the dignity of 
 a freeman.* He has now earned a fresh laurel on a 
 
 * " Most of our readers are doubtless aware, that His Excellency Sir 
 Richard Bourke was for some time Acting Governor at the Cape of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 275 
 
 different field, and acquired a lasting and imperishable 
 fame, by giving religious liberty to the freemen of Au- 
 stralia, and by thereby affording a stimulus to the exer- 
 tions of all honest and Christian men, for the future 
 advancement and Christianization of this infant empire 
 — such as had never previously been afforded : in- 
 somuch that whenever the policy he has recommended, 
 and the Home Government approved, takes the form 
 of an Act of our Colonial Legislature, as we are confi- 
 dent it will very shortly, he may say with the poet : — 
 
 Exegi monumentum »re peremrius, 
 ilegalique situ pyramidum altius, 
 Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens 
 Possit diruere, aut innumerabilis 
 Annorum series, et fuga temporum. 
 
 * I have reared a monument more enduring than a 
 statue of bronze, loftier and more honourable far than 
 
 Good Hope, and that, during his administration of the government of 
 that colony, he promulgated an ordinance, commonly designated the 50th 
 ordinance, which was much opposed by the Dutch colonists at the time, 
 but was highly approved and ratified forthwith by the Duke of Wel- 
 lington's government, and the object of which was the total enfran- 
 chisement of the native population. During the sessions of the Select 
 Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to ascertain the con- 
 dition of the aboriginal inhabitants of the British Colonies, Thomas 
 Fowell Buxton, Esq., M. P., in the chair, Major William Bolden 
 Dundas, of the Royal Artillery, was examined relative to this ordinance 
 on the 6th of August last. The following is the question proposed to 
 him, with the reply it elicited : — 
 
 " Ts it correct to suppose that Lord Caledon was the first Governor who 
 passed an ordinance in favour of the Hottentots, and that that ordinance 
 was afterwards confirmed by General Bourke, for removing their dis- 
 abilities 1 " — " Lord Caledon's proclamation or act certainly altered very 
 materially the condition of the Hottentots, but General Bouvke's ordi- 
 nance emancipated (I think you may so say) the Hottentots altogether." 
 
276 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the royal pyramids of Egypt; — a monument, which the 
 impotence of the Tories cannot subvert, nor the rushing 
 torrent of the Radicals sweep away; — a monument, 
 which is destined to outlive the lapse of countless years, 
 the flight of innumerable ages. ,# 
 
 " The Presbyterians of New South Wales, in par- 
 ticular, may well respect and venerate Sir Richard 
 
 * " Speaking of monuments, we have been informed that that respectable 
 colonist, Mr. Busby, has been going about for some time past collecting 
 signatures for an address to General Darling, and subscriptions for a 
 monument to his honour. Now, as we know of no act or series of acts 
 of General Darling's government, deserving a monument from the public, 
 we can only resolve the affair into a becoming and praiseworthy ex- 
 pression of private gratitude for favours received, — at whose expense we 
 shall not insinuate. It sits peculiarly well on Mr. Busby to take a pro- 
 minent part in an affair of this kind ; for, during the late administration, 
 Mr. B.'s family, besides enjoying the various indulgences granted to other 
 free emigrants, in the shape of grants of land, town allotments, convict- 
 labourers and mechanics, engrossed at one time not less than about 
 ,£1500 a-year of the public revenue. So gross a perversion of public 
 patronage, on the part of his late Excellency, well deserved some ex- 
 pression of private gratitude on the part of the recipient ; and Mr. Busby, 
 to his credit, is evidently a grateful man. If. Mr. B. should not have 
 thought of an inscription for the Darling Monument, we can help him to 
 the following, which we think by no means inappropriate : — 
 
 IN HONOUR OF 
 
 LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR RALPH DARLING, K. C. B., 
 
 FOR SIX YEARS GOVERNOR OF THIS COLONY. 
 
 ERECTED 
 
 BY THOSE CIVIL AND MILITARY OFFICERS, 
 
 AND 
 
 BY THOSE OTHER INHABITANTS OF THE COLONY, 
 
 WHOSE PRIVATE INTERESTS 
 
 HE WAS EVER READY TO PROMOTE 
 
 AT THE EXPENSE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE PUBLIC." 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 277 
 
 Bourke. When they modestly asserted their right to 
 the countenance and support of Government, in the 
 year 1823, they were treated with insult by a Scotch- 
 man, Sir Thomas Brisbane ! # When they modestly 
 asserted that right a second time, during the late 
 administration, they were treated with cold, and studied, 
 and contumelious neglect, by an Englishman, Sir 
 Ralph Darling ! But they have had ample justice 
 done them at length, and spontaneously too, which 
 renders it the more estimable, by an Irishman, Sir 
 Richard Bourke ! Yes : and we are happy to inform 
 His Excellency, that as Scots Presbyterians, in what- 
 ever country they are settled, are uniformly a grateful 
 as well as an intelligent and an active people, they are 
 not likely to undervalue or to forget the boon ! As 
 public journalists, we have not been blind to the errors 
 of Sir Richard's government ; neither have we ever 
 attempted to conceal them : but a measure like the 
 one which His Excellency has recommended, and the 
 Home Government approved— so liberal, so compre- 
 hensive, so strongly indicative of an enlightened under- 
 standing and a benevolent heart — were sufficient, in our 
 opinion, to cover even a multitude of political sins. In 
 fact, the measure we allude to is the first honest, 
 straightforward, rational, and judicious attempt, which 
 has every yet been made by the British Government, 
 for the intellectual, the moral, and the spiritual reno- 
 vation of the Australian Colonies ; and anticipating, as 
 we do, the most important and beneficial effects from 
 
 * " It was doubtless at the instance of the high Tory Colonial Secre- 
 tary, Major Goulburn ; but Sir Thomas was greatly to blame." 
 
278 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 its future working, we hail with unmingled satisfaction 
 the dawn of a brighter day for Australia ! 
 
 " Although the principles developed in His Excel- 
 lency's dispatch are not arranged categorically, we shall 
 state them in order, for the benefit of our readers. They 
 are as follows : — 
 
 " 1. That in the present state of this colony, it is ex- 
 pedient and necessary, for the furtherance and promo- 
 tion of religion and good government, that the Govern- 
 ment should extend its countenance and support to the 
 dispensation of the ordinances of religion. 
 
 " 2. That it is equally expedient and necessary that 
 this countenance and support should be extended in 
 such a way, as not to render the ministers of religion 
 independent of the Christian liberality and respect of 
 their people. 
 
 "3. That the exclusive establishment and endow- 
 ment of any one Church, or body of professing Chris- 
 tians, in this colony, is equally inexpedient and imprac- 
 ticable. 
 
 " 4. That as there are at present three religious 
 bodies or Churches already recognized and supported by 
 the state in this colony, viz. the Episcopalians, the 
 Roman Catholics, and the Presbyterians, who consti- 
 tute the three most numerous and leading denomina- 
 tions in the colony, it is expedient and necessary for 
 the future, with a view to the promotion of religion and 
 good government, and the establishment of peace and 
 concord, to extend the countenance and support of 
 government to these Churches or religious bodies in- 
 discriminately ; leaving it in the power of the Local 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 279 
 
 Government to extend that countenance and support to 
 other Churches or religious denominations, as they 
 shall see proper. 
 
 " 5. That it is expedient that the countenance and 
 support of Government should henceforth be extended 
 to these Churches or religious bodies in the following 
 manner; viz. — that in whatever place or district in 
 the colony not less than £300 shall be contributed by 
 the people for the erection of a Church and manse for 
 any one of these denominations, an equal amount shall 
 be paid from the Colonial Treasury ; and that if one 
 hundred adult persons shall subscribe a declaration of 
 their desire and intention to attend divine worship in 
 the said Church, a salary of £100 shall be paid by the 
 Government to the minister; that if two hundred adult 
 persons shall subscribe such a declaration, a salary of 
 £150 shall be paid by the Government; and that if 
 five hundred adults shall subscribe such a declaration, a 
 salary of £200 (which shall henceforth be the maximum 
 in all cases) shall be contributed from the Treasury. 
 
 " In regard to these principles, we have only to ob- 
 serve, that the system recommended by His Excellency 
 the Governor, and approved by the Home Government, 
 proposes to combine the permanence and security of a 
 religious establishment with the life and vigour of the 
 voluntary system ; and we have no hesitation in ex- 
 pressing our opinion, that, although the latter system 
 will eventually be found the ' more excellent way/ 
 in a country in which the population is broken up into 
 various denominations, as is the case in this colony ; the 
 system proposed by His Excellency is unquestionably 
 
280 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the most favourable for the planting of Churches in the 
 present state of the colony, and for the rapid diffusion of 
 Christian knowledge among its widely scattered popula- 
 tion. Indeed, the system proposed by His Excellency 
 appears to have been devised with consummate wisdom, 
 as a means of extending the blessings of religious in- 
 struction in a pastoral country ; for whenever a hundred 
 adults shall attach themselves to the ministrations of 
 any pastor duly recognized and sent forth by one or 
 other of the Colonial Churches, and shall contribute 
 a comparatively small amount for the erection of a 
 Church and manse, the Government guarantee a salary 
 of £100 per annum for such pastor, and advance at 
 least £300 from the public Treasury, to assist in erect- 
 ing his Church and manse : and to stimulate the 
 exertions of the pastor, his Government salary is to be 
 augmented to £150, or even to £200 per annum, as 
 soon as he rallies around him a congregation of two 
 hundred or five hundred adults. We presume His 
 Excellency intends that the adults in these cases shall 
 be free persons and of good repute, and that they shall 
 either be householders, or persons having a permanent 
 residence, in their respective districts. It would be 
 easy to get names enough, and consequently to impose 
 upon the Government, if these points were not at- 
 tended to. 
 
 " The prospect which the proposed system holds out to 
 the well-disposed portion of our colonial youth is in the 
 highest degree favourable. The Christian religion can 
 never make much progress in any country, until that 
 country has learned to produce native ministers ; and it 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 281 
 
 ought, therefore, to be the first duty of the ministers of 
 any Church in a newly settled country to make pro- 
 vision for training up to the sacred office the sons of 
 the soil. The colonial youth of piety and zeal, who 
 devotes himself to the ministry in the Australian colo- 
 nies, may not indeed realize his thousands per annum, 
 like the man of sheep and wool ; but he can never fail, 
 under the proposed system, of obtaining a Church, a 
 congregation, and a moderate income. This highly 
 favourable prospect, conjoined with the acknowledged 
 difficulty of procuring an adequate supply of ministers 
 of religion from the mother country, will, we conceive, 
 demonstrate the necessity of establishing and endowing 
 institutions for the education of youth of a much higher 
 caste than mere primary or elementary schools. We 
 are sorry, indeed, to observe, that His Excellency the 
 Governor, and the Right Honourable Lord Glenelg, 
 have given some degree of countenance to the Gothic, 
 or rather Hunnish heresy, which, we find, obtains in 
 certain quarters in this colony, viz., that in such a 
 colony as this the Government ought not to extend 
 support to any other than elementary schools. Now 
 we admit, that if our Colonial Treasury were low and 
 impoverished, it would be fair enough to question the 
 propriety of endowing High Schools and Colleges, for 
 the education of youth in the higher branches of useful 
 knowledge : but when that Treasury can bear salaries 
 of two thousand a year, for services that might well be 
 rendered for one-half the amount, it is an insult to the 
 common sense of the colony to talk of the wretched 
 economy of saving a few hundreds a year by the non- 
 
282 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 endowment of High Schools and Colleges. Institutions 
 of this kind must be founded, and that forthwith, for 
 the education of ministers of religion, if for no other 
 purpose ; otherwise we shall ere long have its territory 
 over-run with an uneducated and unqualified ministry, 
 — one of the greatest calamities that could possibly 
 befal our adopted country. Besides, in a country, in 
 which the lowest possible amount of intellectual ac- 
 quirement is sufficient to enable a man to realize a 
 moderate independence, the temptation to acquire know- 
 ledge for its own sake is at best feeble and inactive ; 
 and the probability is, that in such circumstances — and 
 these are exactly the circumstances of this colony — the 
 march of society will be retrogressive, and that men 
 will eventually be sent to represent the people in their 
 future Colonial Legislature, who, in point of intellect, 
 might themselves be represented by as many bales of 
 Australian wool. To counteract this downward tend- 
 ency of colonial mankind ; to form a class of men, who 
 shall lead the van of society, and leave the impress of 
 their own master-minds on its otherwise rude and 
 shapeless mass ; — it is alike the interest and the duty of 
 Colonial Governments to have hot-houses, so to speak, 
 for nursing the rarer and exotic plants of knowledge, 
 as well as kitchen-gardens for rearing those of hardier 
 growth and more general utility ; or, in other words, to 
 infuse a taste for knowledge of a superior character, by 
 making the commodity more easily accessible to those 
 who desire it ; and not merely to supply the existing de- 
 mand, but to create such a demand, where it does not 
 already exist, through a liberal supply. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 283 
 
 " But to return to our immediate subject. We are 
 well aware that the liberal and enlightened policy which 
 the Home Government have approved and sanctioned, 
 on His Excellency the Governor's recommendation, 
 will be represented in certain quarters as ' a blow at 
 the root' of Protestant Christianity — as a wicked 
 attempt to subvert and ruin the Colonial Episcopal 
 Church. His Excellency the Governor can well afford 
 to bear such interested and factious misrepresentations ; 
 in which individuals in this colony are accustomed to 
 embody and to Herald forth their disappointed ambition 
 or their pitiful malignity. We admit that the policy 
 which His Excellency proposes to enforce for the 
 future, in regard to ecclesiastical affairs, will operate as 
 a death-blow to that system of Exclusive Episcopal 
 domination, under which Christianity itself has suffered, 
 and bled, and well nigh expired, in this colony — that 
 system which has thwarted and paralyzed the exertions 
 of honest and Christian men ; which has set the 
 ministers of the gospel of peace at variance with each 
 other ; which has planted jealousies and dissensions 
 over the whole surface of society, and tended to 
 alienate from His Majesty the King the affections of 
 the most enlightened and loyal of his colonial subjects. 
 But we deny that the policy to be enforced in future by 
 our Colonial Government will in the least degree affect 
 the Colonial Episcopal Church as a Christian, a Pro- 
 testant, a useful Establishment : on the contrary, it 
 will improve and elevate its character ; it will infuse the 
 breath of spiritual life into its withered and sickly 
 frame ; it will extend and augment and perpetuate both 
 
284 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 its usefulness and its resources ; it will rally around it 
 the affections and the energies of many of the Christian 
 people; it will transform it from a mill-stone hung 
 around the neck of the colony into a precious jewel 
 suspended by a chain of wrought gold. Let the Bishop 
 only ' do what his hand findeth to do' for the welfare 
 and advancement of his Church ' with all his might ; ' 
 let him only ' go where glory waits him ; ' and Epi- 
 scopacy will ere long be rooted, not indeed in the Trea- 
 sury Chest, but in the hearts of a goodly number of the 
 Protestants of Australia.* 
 
 * " If we could presume to offer advice to Bishop Broughton, in regard 
 to the best means of promoting the interests of Protestant Christianity, 
 in connexion with that portion of the Christian Church in the four 
 Australian colonies of which he has the charge and oversight, we would 
 advise him by all means to follow the example of Bishop Chase, and to 
 strain every nerve for the establishment and endowment of a college, to 
 be designated by some such name as the Bishops' College, for the 
 education of ministers of the Episcopal Church in these colonies. One 
 respectable theological institution, to be situated perhaps near Par- 
 ramatta, would at present be amply sufficient, as a nursery for the 
 Episcopal Church in New South Wales, Van Dieman's Land, Southern 
 Australia, and Swan River ; and we are confident that such an in- 
 stitution would meet with general support among the respectable Epi- 
 scopalians of the two older colonies. Into an institution of this kind, the 
 want of which is peculiarly evident at the present moment, young men 
 should not be admissible under fifteen or sixteen years of age, nor until 
 they could read the Greek Testament, and the common Latin classics, 
 with fluency. Their preliminary, we mean their general and classical 
 education, could be obtained at the King's School, the Australian College, 
 the Sydney College, or in any private school or academy in the colony. 
 Van Dieman's Land would in all likelihood supply a larger number of 
 students in the first instance than this colony ; and the Episcopalian 
 Clergy in both colonies could easily be got to act powerfully as caterers 
 for the institution, both in raising funds and in procuring suitable stu- 
 dents from their respective flocks. Pour professorships at least should 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 285 
 
 " We acknowledge indeed, and we do so with sincere 
 pleasure, that the measure to be acted on in future by 
 
 be founded, as the basis or groundwork of the institution ; all of which 
 we conceive the Government ought to endow with salaries of at least 
 of^OO per annum each : the benevolence of individuals would have a 
 sufficient field for the endowment of others. The four foundation pro- 
 fessorships should be as follows : — 
 
 " 1. Intellectual and Moral Philosophy — embracing courses of lectures 
 on the Philosophy of Mind, and on Christian Ethics ; the students to be 
 regularly examined, and drilled in composition, by writing essays, &c. 
 
 "2. Sacred Literature— embracing prelections on the language and 
 literature of the Hebrews, on their manners and customs, and on difficult 
 passages in the Sacred Scriptures ; the students to read the Hebrew and 
 Greek Scriptures daily and largely, and to write analytical and exegetical 
 essays on particular texts. 
 
 " 3. Church History and Polemical Theology — embracing courses of 
 lectures on the History of the Church, and the controversies that have 
 agitated it down to the present day ; the students to write theses, and 
 to conduct public disputations on controverted points. 
 
 " 4. Theology — embracing a complete course of lectures on the doc- 
 trines and duties of Natural and Revealed Religion ; the students to 
 undergo regular examinations, and to prepare and deliver homilies, 
 lectures, sermons, &c. 
 
 " A moderately good classical scholar, entering an institution of the 
 kind suggested, and of suitable age, dispositions, and abilities, might in 
 four years receive a much better theological education, under four such 
 professors, than three-fourths of the clergy of the Church of England 
 receive at Oxford and Cambridge ; where young men, intended for the 
 Church, for the most part misspend their time over the classics and the 
 mathematics. With the present prospects of the Episcopal Church in 
 the Australian Colonies, a college of the kind suggested should have as 
 many students from the first, as to enable the Bishop to ordain from ten 
 to fifteen ministers every year, as soon as the first class of students 
 should have finished their theological course. 
 
 " The Presbyterians of New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land are 
 not likely to be behind other communions, in the establishment of a 
 theological institution for the training up of ministers of" religion ; but 
 as the course of clerical education, prescribed by that body, is con- 
 siderably more protracted than the one required for the Church of 
 
286 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 this Government constitutes the Great Charter of the 
 Presbyterian Church : but if any man supposes that 
 the extension and advancement of that communion is 
 incompatible with the increasing prosperity of the 
 Colonial Episcopal Church, and that Presbyterians will, 
 consequently, look with an evil eye on their Episco- 
 palian brethren, he is grossly ignorant of the nature of 
 mah and of the genius of Christianity. If any of the 
 larger members of the Christian body fall into a state of 
 lifelessness and inactivity, of disease and spiritual death, 
 the calamity will be felt by all the other members, and 
 they will all suffer along with it. It is only when the 
 blood flows briskly through every vein of the spiritual 
 body, that that body can attain the full vigour and 
 the health of manhood ; each member growing with 
 the growth, and strengthening with the strength, of 
 every other. 
 
 " As to the mode in which the new system will operate 
 for the future; supposing that a third Episcopalian 
 Church (for which, we acknowledge, there is already 
 room enough in the southern quarter of the town) 
 should be erected in Sydney, will any person suppose 
 that the congregations of these three churches would 
 experience the least difficulty in raising, from pew- 
 rents, a sufficient amount to afford their ministers a 
 salary of £400 per annum each, including the Govern- 
 ment maximum of £200? And as the Government pro- 
 pose to contribute half the requisite amount for erecting 
 
 England, they will require a larger importation in the first instance from 
 the mother country, as they will necessarily be longer in having colonial- 
 made ministers on the field." 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 287 
 
 a permanent dwelling-house for the minister, will any 
 person allege, that such a salary, together with a free 
 house, is not amply sufficient for a minister of any 
 communion in our colonial capital 1 It appears indeed, 
 from the Abstract of the Colonial Revenue for the past 
 year, that not more than £157. 6s. 7%d. was realized, in 
 the shape of pew-rents, for that year, from all the 
 Episcopal Churches in the colony; but this only de- 
 monstrates the wretched system of management that 
 has hitherto obtained in that department, and the bad 
 policy, as far as the Government and the Public 
 Revenue are concerned, of supporting the clergy ex- 
 clusively from the Treasury Chest. The past year was 
 the first in which any thing like an attempt had ever 
 been made to realize a revenue (to be devoted to eccle- 
 siastical purposes) from the Scots Church in Sydney ; 
 and under all the disadvantages of that attempt — a 
 congregation dispersed, through the repeated absence 
 of the minister in England, and that minister over- 
 burdened with extra-official duties, interfering in no 
 small degree with the duties of the ministry — a revenue 
 of £111 was raised with the utmost facility, and the 
 practicability of raising a revenue of several hundreds a 
 year, in more favourable circumstances, sufficiently de- 
 monstrated. The practicability therefore of raising- 
 sufficient incomes for the town ministers of the Epi- 
 scopal Church, on the system about to be introduced in 
 the colony, may therefore be considered as unquestion- 
 able. In most of the towns and settlements in the in- 
 terior, the maximum salary, contributed by the Govern- 
 ment, will also be procurable for ministers of the 
 
288 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Church of England ; and if the Bishop only adopts the 
 right means for training up suitable ministers in the 
 colony, and allows the people their choice of these 
 ministers, their incomes will undoubtedly be made 
 ample enough. As for the Presbyterians, who are con- 
 siderably less numerous in the older districts of the 
 colony, they would seldomer be able to realize the maxi- 
 mum salary for their ministers ; but being already drilled 
 in some measure into the Governor's semi-voluntary 
 system, they will doubtless receive its provisions as a 
 most valuable political boon, and go to work upon them 
 in right earnest, and forthwith. 
 
 " We shall doubtless be told, that the grand objection 
 to the new system is the admission of Roman Catholics 
 to equal rights and privileges with the Protestant com- 
 munions. For our own part, as zealous Protestants, 
 we are sorry to find the Government of a Protestant 
 country reduced, as this Government evidently is, to 
 the necessity of supporting and extending what we 
 conceive to be a system of error and delusion — a gross 
 corruption of the religion of Christ. But the fact of 
 the matter is, we cannot help ourselves : the people, to 
 whom Governments are now amenable, will no longer 
 tolerate an Exclusive Colonial Establishment ; and we 
 must therefore just make the best bargain possible, by 
 agreeing to share all alike. But if those Protestants, 
 who object to the Roman Catholics receiving their fair 
 proportion of the public funds for the maintenance of 
 their religious worship, would only agree with the 
 American republicans to recommend to the Govern- 
 ment to leave every religious denomination to support 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 289 
 
 its own ministers, we would reply, ' With all our 
 heart.' At present, however, having fairly, and we 
 confess somewhat unexpectedly, reached the Half- 
 Way-House, on the high road to the Voluntary Prin- 
 ciple, we must just ' rest and be thankful.' " 
 
 The important measure recommended by Sir Richard 
 Bourke and approved by Lord Glenelg was at length 
 embodied in a bill which has since passed the Legis- 
 lative Council of the colony, and is now the law of the 
 land. I have not received a copy of that bill, since my 
 return to England ; but the following announcement of 
 its general objects, which was published by authority 
 before I left the colony, will afford the reader a general 
 idea of the new ecclesiastical system which now ob- 
 tains in the colonies of New South Wales and Van 
 Dieman's Land. 
 
 Extracted from the ' New South Wales Government 
 Gazette,' 20th July, 1836. 
 
 " A Bill to promote the Building of Churches and 
 Chapels, and to provide for the Maintenance of Mi- 
 nisters of Religion in New South Wales. 
 
 " In conformity to the principles upon which His 
 Majesty's Government have been pleased to sanction 
 contributions from the Colonial Revenue towards the 
 support of public religion in this Colony, it is proposed 
 to enact as follows : — 
 
 " 1 . That whenever a sum not less than £300 shall 
 have been raised by private contributions to- 
 wards the building of a Church or Chapel, and 
 Minister's dwelling, the Governor, with the ad- 
 
 VOL. II. N 
 
290 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 vice of the Executive Council, to be authorised 
 to issue from the Colonial Treasury any sum 
 not exceeding the amount of such private contri- 
 butions, to the extent of £1000, in aid of the 
 undertaking. 
 " 2. The Governor, with the advice of the Executive 
 Council, to issue stipends to officiating Ministers 
 at the following rates ; namely : — 
 
 " If there be a resident population of 100 adults, 
 subscribing a declaration of their desire to attend 
 the Church or Chapel of such Minister, £100 
 per annum. 
 
 M If 200 adults, £150 per annum. 
 
 " If 500 adults, £200 per annum. 
 " 3. If notwithstanding there be less than 100 adults, 
 the Governor and Executive Council to be au- 
 thorised to issue, under special circumstances, a 
 stipend of £100 per annum. 
 " 4. In places where there is no Church or Chapel, 
 and there is a reasonable ground for delaying the 
 erection of the same, the Governor, with the 
 advice of the Executive Council, to be authorised 
 to issue any sum not exceeding £100 towards 
 the stipend of a Minister, in aid of private con- 
 tributions to the same amount, such contribu- 
 tions not being less than £50. 
 " 5. Trustees, not less than three in number, to be 
 appointed for every Church or Chapel by the 
 private contributors towards the same ; to which 
 Trustees the real estate therein shall be con- 
 veyed, and who shall receive and account for 
 sums issued in pursuance of this Act. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 291 
 
 €< 6. Free sittings to be reserved in every Church or 
 Chapel, to the extent of one-fourth of the whole, 
 for the use of poor persons. 
 " 7. Trustees to be appointed for Churches or 
 
 Chapels already erected. " 
 In regard to the principle of this important measure, 
 it is but justice to the Government to state, that it was 
 a measure of necessity. The maintenance of an exclu- 
 sive Episcopal establishment in the Australian colonies 
 was utterly impracticable ; and the maintenance of two 
 contemporaneous establishments, exclusively Protestant, 
 was not less so ; as a measure of that kind would only 
 have opened a wide field for future agitation, and pro- 
 vided an ample theatre for some colonial O'Connell. 
 If "justice to Ireland," the professed object of that 
 great agitator, has not yet been attained, His Majesty's 
 Government have at all events done justice, in the great 
 matter of religious establishments, to the Australian 
 colonies. In these colonies, constituted as they are of a 
 population composed of three converging streams flowing 
 contemporaneously from three kingdoms, the only alter- 
 native which a Government endued with common sense 
 could possibly have adopted, was that of establishing 
 either the system of the Netherlands and of France, 
 where the clergy of all denominations are supported 
 equally by the Government ; or the system of America, 
 where all are indiscriminately left to the free-will offer- 
 ings of the people. For my own part, though a mem- 
 ber of an established church, and though receiving a 
 liberal salary from the Crown as a minister of that 
 church in a British colony, I confess I should greatly 
 
292 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 prefer the latter of these systems — I mean the system 
 of America — for the colony of New South Wales, to the 
 system of three or more contemporaneous establish- 
 ments, as well Popish as Protestant, which the Go- 
 vernment have sanctioned : and were the Govern- 
 ment salaries of the clergy of all denominations in 
 that colony to be forthwith and for ever withdrawn, 
 so far from despairing of the cause of God in the 
 country, or from being less loyal as a British subject 
 than I have hitherto been, I should rather be inclined 
 to say, Advance Australia ! God save the King! 
 
 In fact, I have long been convinced that the interests 
 of the Christian religion would by this time have been 
 in a much more advanced and prosperous state than 
 they actually are, even in the convict colony of New 
 South Wales, if not one sixpence had ever been paid 
 from the colonial treasury to a single minister of religion 
 in the territory, and if the planting of churches in the 
 colony had been left entirely to Christian philanthropy 
 and British benevolence. Religion is a sensitive plant, 
 which, when delicately handled, refuses not to grow 
 under the shadow of the royal oak ; but it is so apt in 
 that situation, and especially in the colonies, to be trod- 
 den down by the sycophant, the formalist, and the world- 
 ling ; while other plants, which the Great Husbandman 
 has not planted, are so apt to be cultivated in its stead, 
 that it is far likelier to flourish in the open field of the 
 world, where those who are unacquainted with the habits 
 of the plant are apt to imagine it can find no depth of 
 soil to strike its roots downward, and no shelter from the 
 pitiless storm. So long as the Ark remains the symbol of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. " 293 
 
 the God of Israel, the Strength of Israel is pledged for 
 its defence : when it ceases to maintain that high cha- 
 racter, it is worth defending no longer. A short-sighted 
 priesthood — a priesthood of little faith — may be ready 
 to exclaim in the bitterness of their heart, at the first 
 murmurings of the storm that seems ready to burst over 
 the religious establishments of the mother country, The 
 glory is departed, for the Ark of God is taken ! But 
 the mighty and mysterious symbol will still be safe even 
 in the cities of its enemies ; and the gods of the Phi- 
 listines and the might of their people will at length fall 
 prostrate before it. 
 
 The evil spirit of liberalism and infidelity has doubt- 
 less planted itself, like Samson, between what it con- 
 siders the two main pillars of Christianity — I mean the 
 two Protestant Established Churches of Great Britain 
 and Ireland ; in the hope, that by wrenching these 
 pillars from their pedestals, the whole fabric of Chris- 
 tianity will fall to the ground, and the restraints of 
 religion be altogether removed. But, in cherishing 
 such an idea, Infidelity is still as blind as was the son 
 of Manoah. It is only the house of Dagon she can 
 .bring down with all her efforts : it is only the 
 lords of the Philistines she can overwhelm under its 
 ruins. The Church of the living God is founded on a 
 rock : Infidelity can neither shake nor subvert it. The 
 earth may be removed, and the mountains be carried 
 into the midst of the sea ; but the ensign for the people 
 will still wave as conspicuously as ever on the hill of 
 Zion, and the pure river of the water of life will still 
 gladden the inhabitants of that city of God. 
 
294 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 In regard to the practical operation of the new eccle- 
 siastical system to which the colonists of New South 
 Wales and Van Dieman's Land are now subjected, I 
 am happy to state that it promises to be attended with 
 the happiest results. It has already infused something- 
 like life and vigour into the withered and shrivelled 
 arm of colonial Episcopacy ; it has proved as life from 
 the dead to the Presbyterian communion. By the 
 Episcopalian laity of all classes it has not only been 
 acquiesced in as a measure of urgent necessity, on the 
 score of justice to others, but received as a measure of 
 real benefit to themselves. Local committees for the 
 raising of the funds requisite for the erection and en- 
 dowment of additional churches of that communion in 
 all parts of the colony, were formed immediately after 
 the announcement of the new system, under the auspices 
 of Bishop (formerly Archdeacon) Broughton, who had 
 then recently arrived from England ; and corresponding 
 committees have since been appointed in England and 
 Ireland to select and to send out to the colony suitable 
 ministers. Such efforts deserve unqualified praise, 
 and I hope and trust they will be abundantly blessed 
 for the spiritual welfare of the colonists of Australia. 
 When I hear, however, of a subscription being also set 
 on foot for the same purpose in the mother country,— 
 when I observe a touching appeal to the Protestants of 
 England in behalf of the colonists of New South 
 Wales, and a contribution of not less than three thou- 
 sand pounds announced in the public prints as ob- 
 tained for the purpose of building them Episcopalian 
 churches — I cannot but acknowledge that there is 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 295 
 
 somewhat of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the leaven 
 of Herod mixed up with this religious excitement. The 
 Episcopalians are undoubtedly the wealthiest of all the 
 three leading communions of New South Wales, and I 
 have no hesitation in expressing my belief and conviction, 
 that they are quite willing to provide themselves with 
 the regular dispensation of the ordinances of religion, 
 under the new system, in all parts of the colonial ter- 
 ritory. In such circumstances, it is not only mean and 
 unworthy in the extreme, it is absolutely dishonest to 
 practise on the honest gullibility of the Episcopalians 
 of England, by inducing them to believe that it is 
 either necessary or a duty incumbent on them, to assist 
 their poorer brethren to build churches in New South 
 Wales. I say, absolutely dishonest ; for whereas the 
 appeal to the Protestants of England is founded on the 
 assumption that these churches are required for the 
 convicts, who have no means of building them them- 
 selves ; the fact is, that of the twenty-five thousand con- 
 victs at present in the colony, upwards of twenty-one 
 thousand are in the employment of wealthy colonial 
 proprietors, who are both able and willing enough to 
 build churches for them wherever they are required. 
 I repeat it, it is absolutely disreputable to the colonial 
 Episcopalians, as it is also somewhat discreditable to 
 the colony itself, to allow any man or class of men to 
 solicit charity for them in England, or to chant, on their 
 behalf, " A begging we will go." For my own part, 
 although belonging to a communion which has con- 
 siderably less wealth at its command than the colonial 
 Episcopacy, I have uniformly disclaimed the desire to 
 
296 
 
 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 obtain any thing whatever, in the shape of subscriptions 
 in the mother country, for the erection of churches for that 
 communion in New South Wales ; employing such lan- 
 guage as the following : — " Give us only right-hearted 
 men to do the work of itinerant ministers and evan- 
 gelists throughout our territory, and, like the ancient 
 Jews, we will build ourselves unto the Lord God of 
 Israel." 
 
 The Episcopal Church establishment in New South 
 Wales comprises a bishop and eighteen chaplains ; but 
 there is room enough, at present, for at least ten or 
 twelve additional Episcopalian ministers in the colony. 
 Of the Presbyterian communion in connexion with .the 
 Church of Scotland there are only five ministers in 
 New South Wales, and four in Van Dieman's Land ; 
 the energies of that communion having hitherto been in 
 great measure repressed through the obstacles that 
 were uniformly thrown in the way of the establishment 
 of additional churches, under the old system, by the local 
 government : but the number of the Presbyterian in- 
 habitants of both colonies, the^ extent of land they 
 Occupy in all parts of the colonial territories, and their 
 general resources, will enable them to settle not fewer 
 than twenty additional ministers in New South Wales, 
 and ten in Van Dieman's Land, as soon as the ne- 
 cessary arrangements can be effected, and suitable 
 ministers procured from the mother country. 
 
 As the Roman Catholic population of New South 
 Wales, which comprises about a fourth of the entire 
 population, consists almost exclusively of convicts, and 
 emancipated convicts and their families, while the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 297 
 
 Episcopalian and Presbyterian communions comprise, 
 a very large majority of the free emigrant inhabitants, 
 together with a large proportion of the convicts and 
 freed persons ; the greatly superior advantage which 
 the friends and members of these communions will 
 have in rendering the new arrangement available for 
 the planting of additional Protestant churches, and the 
 settlement of additional Protestant ministers, is evident 
 and unquestionable. At the same time, the strenuous 
 and well-directed efforts of the Roman Catholics, who 
 have now a Bishop in New South Wales,* and a Vicar 
 in Van Dieman's Land — of whom the latter is at present 
 in England, procuring a supply of Romish priests 
 for the two colonies, while the former is endeavouring 
 to found a college for the education of priests in New 
 South Wales, doubtless not merely to rivet the chains 
 of popery on its present adherents in the Australian 
 colonies, but to extend the reign of superstition over 
 the neighbouring and highly interesting isles of the 
 
 * It is not the fact, although it is still commonly asserted by the Tory 
 party in England, that the infidel Whigs sent out a Romish bishop to 
 New South Wales, with a salary of a thousand a year. Dr. Poulding, 
 the bishop alluded to, had no salary when he went out to that colony ; but 
 he obtained one of five hundred per annum from the Legislative Council 
 of the colony shortly after his arrival, on the memorial and petition of the 
 Roman Catholic population. The ecclesiastical Tories of the mother 
 country, who are fond of dwelling on such cases as the one I have men- 
 tioned, as proofs positive of the popish and infidel tendencies of the 
 Whigs, should recollect that it was the Tories (Earl Bathurst being 
 Colonial Secretary at the time) who first sent Roman Catholic priests 
 with salaries from the state to the Australian colonies. With the policy 
 or propriety of such a measure, T am not concerned at present. All I 
 intended was to show that it was originally a Tory measure, for the 
 principle of which that party are consequently responsible. 
 
298 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Pacific, — should doubtless animate the zeal of all 
 the Protestant communions of the colonies, and stir 
 them up to every needful exertion, to maintain the 
 moral ascendency and to secure the general reception 
 of the great doctrines of the Protestant Reformation 
 in those vast territories, of which Great Britain has, 
 most fortunately for the best interests of humanity, 
 been enabled by Divine Providence to obtain pos- 
 session in the Southern Hemisphere : for, as the 
 Man of Sin, feeling his throne tottering on the Old 
 Continent, is now in anxious and diligent search for 
 new continents to subject to his unhallowed domination, 
 it surely becomes the bounden duty of the friends of 
 the Protestant Reformation generally, whether they 
 march under the standard of Reuben or under the 
 standard of Judah, to unite all their moral and 
 spiritual energies to secure the attainment of their 
 common object, and thereby to rescue the fair pro- 
 vinces of the Australian continent, with the multitude 
 of the isles adjacent, from that moral incubus, to which 
 they will otherwise be subjected, and which has evi- 
 dently paralysed all the energies of Southern America. 
 In short, on the character and conduct of the Pro- 
 testant ministers of all communions who may be sent 
 forth to supply the present demand for such ministers 
 in the Australian colonies, and thereby to form the 
 nucleus of a Christian Church in one of the most im- 
 portant centres of moral and religious influence which 
 the round globe presents at this moment to the eye of 
 Christian philanthropy, will depend, in a far greater 
 degree than can possibly be conceived in England, the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 299 
 
 welfare of a large portion of the future inhabitants of 
 the Southern and Eastern Hemispheres. From its vast 
 extent and boundless resources, from its rapidly in- 
 creasing wealth and population, and especially from its 
 geographical position, the colony of New South Wales 
 will not only take the lead among the Australian settle- 
 ments, and ensure general predominance in that con- 
 tinent to whatever communion, whether Protestant or 
 Roman Catholic, shall eventually occupy the fore- 
 ground in its territory, but prove a source of moral in- 
 fluence, besides, either for good or for evil, to millions 
 and millions more of the human race : for, in addition 
 to a continent nearly equal in extent to all Europe, 
 and presenting, moreover, eight thousand miles of sea- 
 coast, numerous harbours of first-rate character and im- 
 portance, and an unknown extent of available land, the 
 moral influence of the Christian Church of New South 
 Wales will extend, eventually, to the neighbouring 
 islands of New Zealand, containing a native population 
 of half a million of souls, and comprising an extent of 
 territory almost equal to that of the British islands j to 
 the western islands of the Pacific, numberless and 
 teeming with inhabitants ; to the Indian Archipelago, 
 that great storehouse of nations ; to China itself. That 
 the Romish Propaganda has already directed her vul- 
 ture eye to this vast field of moral influence, and strewn 
 it in imagination with the carcases of the slain, is un- 
 questionable. Spanish monks and friars have within 
 the last few years been sent from the recently formed 
 republics of South America to the eastern islands of 
 the Pacific: other groups, still more distant from the 
 
300 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 American continent, have also been surveyed and 
 taken possession of by Romish missionaries, direct from 
 France ; and the Roman Catholic Bishop of New South 
 Wales is already taking his measures for co-operating 
 with these missionaries, from the westward, by trans- 
 forming the sons of Irish convicts in New South Wales 
 and Van Dieman's Land into missionary priests, and 
 dispersing them over the length and breadth of the vast 
 Pacific. In such circumstances, any thing like listlessness 
 or inactivity, on the part of the Protestant communions 
 of New South Wales, would be nothing less than high 
 treason to the cause of the Protestant Reformation. 
 
 In making the requisite preliminary arrangements for 
 the organization and establishment of the Presbyterian 
 Church, under the new ecclesiastical system, in the Au- 
 stralian colonies, I was expressly authorized by many and 
 influential Presbyterians, both in New South Wales and 
 in Van Dieman's Land, to apply for ministers for these 
 colonies to all the three great divisions of that commur 
 nion — first to the Church of Scotland and the Synod of 
 Ulster; but, if unsuccessful in these quarters, to the 
 Presbyterians of America. The Australian colonies are 
 at present peculiarly a missionary station, and the mi- 
 nister who is likely to be of any service to the com- 
 munity in such a station must consequently be prepared 
 to go forth to his future field of duty with a missionary 
 spirit and in a missionary character: but such, I am 
 sorry to say, is by no means either the character or the 
 spirit of a large majority of the present ministers and li- 
 centiates of the Scottish Church ; and it is therefore 
 expedient, if not absolutely necessary, in looking for the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 301 
 
 moral and spiritual renovation of the Australian colonies, 
 to look also to other portions of the Presbyterian com- 
 munion, in which there may be still more remaining than 
 in that body, of the life and vigour of other days. Be- 
 sides, the Scottish clergy have for some time past been 
 putting forth such anti-confession-of-faith doctrines, and 
 following such divisive and irrational courses ; — lauding 
 the system of Episcopacy, merely because it happens to 
 be the system established in England and Ireland ; de- 
 fending the grievous abuse of church-rates, and thereby 
 doing their utmost to prevent the civil magistrate from 
 reforming the Church of England ; and endeavouring 
 with all their might, like wise master-builders, forsooth, 
 to rest the main beam of the Scottish establishment on 
 the gable-end of the Irish Church; — that it would 
 scarcely be safe to entrust them with the exclusive or- 
 ganization of a church to be established on the old Pres- 
 byterian model in the Australian colonies. I am happy, 
 therefore, to have it in my power to state, that in conse- 
 quence of an application to the Synod of Ulster, ema- 
 nating from the colonies and sanctioned by the Govern- 
 ment, not fewer than six Presbyterian ministers of 
 approved character and established reputation are about 
 to proceed from that Synod to New South Wales and 
 Van Dieman's Land, for the express purpose of assist- 
 ing in laying the foundations of the Presbyterian 
 Church in these colonies. An application has also 
 been made very recently to the American Board of 
 Missions, for several regularly educated and ordained 
 Presbyterian ministers from the United States, to be 
 employed as itinerant ministers in various parts of 
 
302 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 the colonial territories, under the direction of the 
 colonial Presbytery. Both of these communions — 
 the Synod of Ulster and the American Presbyterian 
 Church — were originally emanations from the Church 
 of Scotland ; and they seem at present to be in a some- 
 what healthier state than their venerable parent, and 
 consequently in a fitter condition for evangelizing 
 countries of so peculiar a character as the penal colo- 
 nies of Great Britain and Ireland. Their ministers, 
 moreover, have been much less affected by the agitation 
 of the voluntary question than the great majority of the 
 Scottish clergy, and have consequently not been trans- 
 formed (as I am sorry to say has been the case with not 
 a few of the more influential of the latter) into mere 
 political crusaders, as little animated with genuine 
 Christian principle, in their pitched battles with the 
 Whig Government and the voluntaries, as their famous 
 prototypes of old in their wars with the Infidel for the 
 Holy Land.* Indeed, as His Majesty's Infidel Go- 
 
 * The doctrine of the Confession of Faith, on the subject of eccle- 
 siastical establishments, is simply that the civil magistrate is bound to 
 establish and to support the Christian Church, wherever and whenever he 
 can do so, on the Presbyterian model. In regard to the obligation on the 
 part of the civil magistrate to establish and to support the system of 
 prelacy or episcopacy, it cannot even be alleged that the authors and 
 original supporters of that famous standard are silent on the subject ; 
 for one of the main objects of their Solemn League and Covenant was to 
 extirpate prelacy, as a monstrous usurpation of the rights and pre- 
 rogative of the divine King and Head of the Church, as well as an in- 
 tolerable grievance to the Christian people. But the Scots wortliies of 
 the present age have altogether renounced these avowed principles of 
 their forefathers, whose sepulchres, however, they certainly do still whiten 
 after the approved example of certain respectable religionists of the 
 olden time ; for the main object of the new Solemn League, and Covenant is 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 303 
 
 vernment, to use the singularly appropriate phraseology 
 of the day, have most judiciously sanctioned the em- 
 ployment of itinerant ministers of various communions 
 in the Australian colonies, and as such ministers cannot 
 possibly be obtained in sufficient number for the Pres- 
 byterian communion from Scotland, it has become a mat- 
 ter of necessity to invite such ministers into the colonial 
 field from other sections of the Presbyterian Church. 
 In fact, the demand for ministers of all the leading 
 communions in these colonies will very shortly far exceed 
 all possibility of supply from the mother country, and 
 the colonists must therefore look for a future and per- 
 manent supply to a native ministry. In truth, there 
 seems little probability of making either a powerful or 
 a lasting moral impression on the colony generally, till 
 native ministers of religion are trained up within the 
 colonial territory, and sent forth in all directions over 
 the length and breadth of the land. 
 
 Besides the three leading communions I have enu- 
 merated, there are several congregations of Wesleyan 
 Methodists in New South Wales, with a congregation 
 of Independents, and another of Baptists, in the town of 
 Sydney. The Baptists and Independents are not nu- 
 merous, but are increasing. The Wesleyan Methodists, 
 of whom the number is considerably greater than that 
 of either of these denominations, have by no means 
 made so strong an impression on the colony as might 
 have been anticipated. In Sydney, the number of 
 
 not only to uphold the system of prelacy, but to perpetuate its worst 
 abuses, whether in the form of English church-rates or of Irish epi- 
 scopacy. 
 
304 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 their body is not large, considering the time they have 
 been settled in the country, and the strength they have 
 at different periods been able to bring into the colonial 
 field. Out of Sydney, their numbers are incon- 
 siderable. This is certainly to be regretted in a convict 
 colony ; for, although I am no admirer of the theological 
 system of that body, I cannot but acknowledge, that 
 many of their number exhibit a warmth of piety and a 
 fervency of zeal, which, although occasionally mingled 
 with extravagance, are relics of the best ages of the 
 Christian Church, and are not always to be met with 
 in other communions. There are evidences, however, 
 of recent improvement in this denomination in the 
 colony. Indeed, the state of torpor into which it had 
 previously sunk, was owing, in great measure, to the 
 prevalence of blighting winds from a quarter I have 
 already indicated ; but a fresh infusion of warm blood 
 from the mother country has again begun to warm and 
 to invigorate the system. 
 
 A baneful influence has undoubtedly been exerted 
 on the colony from a circumstance to which I have 
 already alluded, — I mean the recklessness with which 
 individuals, who had been sent out to the Australian 
 colonies or to the South Sea Islands as missionaries, 
 and had acted for a time in that capacity with various 
 success, have subsequently quitted the missionary field, 
 and divested themselves of the missionary character 
 altogether; becoming thenceforth mere laymen, and de- 
 voting themselves exclusively to secular pursuits. I am 
 no advocate for the Popish doctrine relative to " Holy 
 Orders/' which, it is preposterously conceived by the 
 members of the Romish Church, communicate a new, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 305 
 
 a sacred, and an indelible character to the individual, 
 independently of his own moral and religious standing 
 in the sight of God and man ; but I can easily conceive 
 how that doctrine has been distilled, in the Babylonish 
 alembic, from the right feelings of primitive Chris- 
 tianity, in relation to the ministerial character and 
 office. The doctrine of primitive Christianity was 
 doubtless, that the man, who had once borne a com- 
 mission in the grand army of the Faith, was never 
 afterwards at liberty to quit the service, or to throw 
 down his arms in disappointment or despair. The 
 tenor of the " Sacramentum,"* or oath he was sup- 
 posed to take to his Commander-in-Chief, the Captain 
 of his Salvation, was " that he should yield true and 
 faithful allegiance as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, 
 even unto death ; and that he should be ready to 
 march wherever he was ordered, and to bear arms amid 
 hardships, dangers, and deaths, wherever the Christian 
 banner was uplifted and unfurled ; that he should re- 
 ceive without murmuring whatever allowances, either 
 of food or raiment, should be assigned him ; that his 
 period of engagement should be for life, and his full 
 pay be receivable only after he had fallen in the field." 
 While such an oath was faithfully kept, as it doubtless 
 generally was in the first ages of the Church, the minis- 
 terial character and office were necessarily regarded 
 with a feeling of reverence, which no church dignitary 
 
 . * The use of this military phrase, which was quite intelligible to an 
 old Roman, but which was afterwards mystified for obvious purposes, 
 doubtless gave occasion to the grand absurdity of the Romish " Sacrament 
 of Orders." 
 
306 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 created by a royal conge d'elire can ever inspire. In 
 comparison with such a feeling, however, how con- 
 temptible is the estimate which the world must natu- 
 rally form of the individual, who, after having once 
 taken the sacr amentum, or oath of a Christian 
 minister or missionary, nevertheless feels himself at 
 liberty to throw up his commission whenever it suits 
 his convenience, or to abandon his proper field of 
 labour whenever he finds difficulties in the way ! New 
 South Wales teems with cases of this kind, furnished 
 indiscriminately by all the three societies that have 
 hitherto sent missionaries to the South Seas or the 
 Australian colonies, viz. the Church of England Mis- 
 sionary Society, the Wesleyans, and the Independents 
 or London Missionary Society ; insomuch, that one 
 can scarcely step abroad in the colony without treading 
 on the toes of an ex-minister or missionary. I have 
 already alluded to our ex-missionary graziers, cattle- 
 dealers, and constables ; we have also had ex-missionary 
 grocers and bakers, haberdashers and timber-mer- 
 chants;* and the transformation that has thus been 
 effected in so many instances has not only had a 
 
 * When a missionary becomes an instructor of youth, especially after 
 long service in the missionary field, I conceive he is still in his proper 
 sphere, and in no way amenable to censure : but the man who trifles 
 with the sucramentum, or oath, which a Christian minister or missionary 
 ,is still conceived to take, to whatever division of the church militant he 
 belongs, and throws up his commission and becomes a layman again 
 from mere motives of convenience, or from the apprehension of diffi- 
 culties and danger, is a deserter, and deserves to be branded as such by 
 all Christian communities. Much of the evil, doubtless, arises from the 
 facility with which people get themselves transformed into ministers OT 
 missionaries in certain quarters. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 307 
 
 powerful influence in bringing the ministerial character 
 and office into suspicion and contempt, but has given 
 currency to the scandalous idea, that the profession 
 of a minister of religion, or of a missionary to the 
 heathen, is merely one of the numerous means of gain- 
 ing a livelihood, which a man may abandon for some 
 other more profitable mode whenever he finds it has 
 not completely answered his views, with as little im- 
 propriety as when an unsuccessful medical practitioner 
 becomes a merchant or settler. 
 
 There is a Temperance Society in the town of Syd- 
 ney, with ramifications in other parts of the colony ; but 
 the obstacles with which the cause of temperance has 
 necessarily to struggle in a convict colony — a colony 
 necessarily abounding with the victims of intemperance 
 and of its frequent consequence criminality, and so fa- 
 vourable withal for the acquisition of the means of un- 
 hallowed indulgence — are too formidable to warrant the 
 anticipation of general or even of considerable success. 
 To have not merely permitted, but encouraged and pro- 
 moted, the unlimited importation and the general con- 
 sumption of ardent spirits in a colony established for 
 the punishment and reformation of transported crimi- 
 nals, many of whom had to date their criminality from 
 their first addiction to the vice of drunkenness, was an 
 instance of misgovernment equally gross and inexcu- 
 sable on the part of the colonial authorities from the first 
 settlement of the colony ; and I am doubtful whether 
 the colony can ever recover from its baneful effects, 
 until transportation to its territory ceases and deter- 
 mines. In a new penal colony, to be established to the 
 
3C8 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 northward of the present settlements of New South 
 Wales, the absolute prohibition of the importation and 
 manufacture of ardent spirits, which I consider a mea- 
 sure of indispensable necessity for the good government 
 of such a colony, 'could be enforced with entire facility. 
 It would be extremely difficult, however, if not abso- 
 lutely impracticable, to enforce such a measure within 
 the present colonial boundary. 
 
 In connexion with the means of religious instruction 
 enjoyed by the colonists of New South Wales, the 
 Bible, Missionary and Tract Societies of the colony de- 
 serve to be noticed. I cannot say, however, that any 
 one of these societies has prospered greatly — I mean in 
 elevating the religious tone and feeling of the colony ; 
 for, as to the amount of money contributed and for- 
 warded to England, I am by no means disposed to 
 regard achievements of that kind, notwithstanding the 
 self-gratulation and the interchange of votes of thanks 
 to which they annually give occasion among the 
 guinea-a-year subscribers of the colony, as a certain 
 indication of the religious state of the community. In- 
 deed, religious societies are now so much the order of 
 the day, that they have become rather an equivocal test 
 of the real standing of the church in general in any 
 Protestant country, but especially in New South 
 Wales. 
 
 It would be unpardonable to conclude this chapter 
 without alluding to the efforts that have hitherto been 
 made, whether on the part of the colonial Government 
 or of the religious public in the mother country, for the 
 christianization and civilization of the aboriginal inha- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 309 
 
 bitants of New South Wales. Dispersed over the 
 whole extent of the vast continental island of New 
 Holland, and broken up into innumerable tribes, each 
 inhabiting its own distinct territory and speaking its 
 own barbarous tongue, but all equally ignorant of the 
 very humblest of the arts of civilization — without fixed 
 habitations, without the slightest knowledge of agricul- 
 ture, without clothing, t and almost without mythology 
 or religion — the aborigines of New Holland unquestion- 
 ably present one of the most striking and at the same 
 time unaccountable phenomena in the history or con- 
 dition of man. Like a diseased limb amputated from 
 the healthful body of humanity, and thenceforth deriving 
 no well-directed activity from its intelligent head, no 
 warmth and vigour from its beating heart, their exist- 
 ence may be designated a living death, and their con- 
 tinued preservation, perhaps for thirty centuries, in that 
 anomalous state of existence, as almost miraculous. 
 
 I should be sorry to countenance the prevalent idea, 
 that the aborigines of New Holland are deficient either 
 in intellectual capacity, or in those feelings and affec- 
 tions that proclaim the relationship of their possessor 
 to the white-skinned and highly-favoured aristocracy of 
 man. On the contrary, the facility with which their 
 children acquire the arts of reading and writing, the 
 shrewd observations they are frequently observed to make 
 in the most artless language on men and manners, and 
 the strong parental and conjugal affection they some- 
 times exhibit, sufficiently demonstrate, that their intel- 
 lect, however clouded at present, is nevertheless a latent 
 spark of the same ethereal fire that lights up the un- 
 
310 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 derstanding of a European philosopher, and that it is 
 still the warm blood of humanity that is circling in 
 their veins. 
 
 The aborigines of New South Wales have suffered 
 deeply from the transportation system, or rather from its 
 past mismanagement, and from the scenes of dissipation 
 and brutality on the part of the convict population of the 
 colony, to which that mismanagement has so frequently 
 given rise. To ask, therefore, why the aborigines have 
 not yet been civilized under the process of civilization, 
 forsooth, to which they have thus been subjected for the 
 last forty-nine years, and to condemn them to hope- 
 less degradation because they have hitherto remained 
 obstinately attached to their native habits, is surely most 
 unphilosophical ; especially when the civilized man, 
 with whom they have come the most frequently in con- 
 tact, has been tenfold more a brute or a savage than 
 themselves. To the man, whose truly romantic love of 
 liberty disdains the confinement of a house and the en- 
 cumbrance of clothing, the condition of civilization can- 
 not surely appear by any means attractive, when it sub- 
 jects so large a proportion of those who belong to it to 
 bondage and punishment, and consigns them often to 
 the lowest depths of moral degradation : for even sup- 
 posing that the black native could sufficiently compre- 
 hend the ground and origin of the palpable distinction 
 which must necessarily subsist in a penal colony be- 
 tween the free and the bond, how is he to understand 
 the rationale of such a case as that of a convict sen- 
 tenced to receive fifty lashes, whether for laziness, for 
 disobedience, or for insolence to his master, when the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 311 
 
 probability is that there are not even words for such 
 ideas in his barbarous tongue ? 
 
 Again, it it should be asked why the aborigines have 
 not yet been christianized, I would ask the previous 
 question, What efforts have ever been made for the ac- 
 complishment of that great object, from which success 
 could possibly have been expected by any rational, any 
 Christian man ? Towards the close of the year 1835, I 
 drew up a series of papers, under the title of ' Mis- 
 sions to the Aborigines/ for the colonial journal to 
 which I have already alluded, partly to furnish an his- 
 torical account of the various efforts that had been 
 successively made on behalf of the aborigines from the 
 first settlement of the colony, and partly to point out 
 the causes of the uniform failure of such efforts, and the 
 principles on which missions to the aborigines should 
 be established and conducted. Certain remarks in one 
 of these papers, containing an account of the formation 
 and ruin of a mission established in the year 1825, 
 under the auspices of the London Missionary Society, 
 gave rise to an action for libel at the instance of the 
 individual to whom they referred ; and, as I acknow- 
 ledged the authorship of the obnoxious remarks, the pro- 
 secution was transferred from the editor of the Journal 
 to myself individually ; and for various reasons, which 
 it is unnecessary to enumerate, I defended the case in 
 person. The trial, of which the reader will find a 
 detailed account, copied from one of the colonial 
 journals, and embodying a retrospective view of the 
 history and fate of the earlier missions to the abori- 
 
312 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 gines, in the Appendix, No. 3, lasted for two whole 
 days, and excited intense interest in the colony ; the 
 damages being laid at a thousand pounds. At the close 
 of the proceedings, the jury, after having retired for some 
 time, requested to be informed by the judge, whether 
 they could return such a verdict as would leave each 
 party to pay his own expenses ; thereby intimating in 
 a sufficiently intelligible manner their general estimate 
 of the character of the prosecution. On being told, 
 however, that no such verdict could be received, they 
 retired a second time, and brought in a verdict of one 
 farthing damages for the plaintiff. By that verdict, the 
 expenses of the suit, which were considerably upwards 
 of a hundred pounds, were charged to my account ; 
 but the whole amount was immediately paid by the co- 
 lonial public. 
 
 The only missions to the aborigines at present in 
 existence are those of Wellington Valley in the interior, 
 and of Lake Macquarie on the coast. The account of 
 the trial already alluded to will afford sufficient in- 
 formation relative to the origin and history of the latter 
 of these establishments, both of which are under the 
 auspices and direction of the Episcopal Church : the 
 former, I am sorry to add, is by no means in a flourish- 
 ing condition ; but what else can reasonably be ex- 
 pected, when sheep and cattle speculations are suffered 
 to be combined, under whatever pretences, with the 
 proper duties of a missionary to the heathen ? How 
 very different (to suppose a case in point) should our 
 estimate of the Great Apostle of the Gentiles be, from 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 313 
 
 what it actually is, were we to find him commencing 
 his Epistles not merely as Paul the Apostle, but as 
 Paul the Apostle and Grazier ! 
 
 His Majesty's infidel Government (for it is quite re- 
 freshing to be called on to enumerate such singular 
 evidences of modern infidelity, so strongly contrasted 
 as they are with the ancient and approved colonial 
 evidences of Tory religion) have recently authorized, 
 and pledged themselves to promote, the establishment 
 of a mission to the aborigines at the settlement of 
 Moreton Bay, to the northward of Sydney, in latitude 
 27i° south, to be under the management and control 
 of the colonial Presbyterian Church. As missionaries, 
 however, for that very important station could not be 
 obtained from Scotland ; and as licentiates of the 
 Scottish Church, even supposing that such licentiates 
 were emigrating with that view, would in all likelihood 
 be invited to undertake the charge of congregations of 
 European origin on their arrival in the colony, and would 
 thus be led to leave the aborigines to their fate, I was 
 induced, in the course of a rapid tour on the continent, 
 — in France, Germany, and Holland, — since my arrival 
 in England in the month of November, 1836, to en- 
 deavour to connect the colonial Presbyterian Church, 
 in its future missionary efforts and operations, with the 
 reviving Christianity of Germany. In this endeavour I 
 am happy to state I have hitherto been successful ; a 
 licentiate of the Prussian Church, educated at the 
 Universities of Halle and Berlin, and two natives of 
 Wurtemberg, educated at the missionary college of 
 Basle in Switzerland, having already been engaged as 
 
 VOL. II. o 
 
314 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 missionaries to the aborigines of New South Wales, 
 for the proposed settlement at Moreton Bay. In 
 addition to these three clerical missionaries, other ten 
 of the class of schoolmasters, catechists, or general 
 assistants, have also been engaged to accompany them 
 to their destination, and to co-operate with them in 
 their labours. These assistant missionaries are all of 
 the class of artisans, but have all for some time past 
 been under training for missionary labour, under the 
 charge of the Rev. J. Gossner, formerly an Austrian 
 Roman Catholic priest, but now the devoted pastor of the 
 Bohemian Church in Berlin, and a zealous "preacher 
 of the faith which once he destroyed." The proposed 
 mission will be somewhat different in its constitution and 
 mode of management from any that have hitherto been 
 established on the Australian continent ; as the clerical 
 missionaries will in all likelihood be recognised as an 
 integral portion of the colonial Presbyterian Church, 
 deriving their support partly from the Government, and 
 partly from the Christian laity of the colony ; while the 
 missionaries generally will not be subjected to the 
 capricious management and domination of a Board of 
 Directors in England. Their number, moreover, will 
 afford a stimulus and a salutary check to their whole 
 body ; while there is reason to hope that it will serve, 
 under the Divine blessing, to preserve it from that 
 spirit of secularization, which has hitherto proved the 
 ruin of missions to the aborigines of New South Wales. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 315 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 VIEW OF THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN THE 
 COLONY, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE ESTABLISH- 
 MENT OF THE AUSTRALIAN COLLEGE. 
 
 Magnum opus et arduum, sed Deus adjutor noster est. 
 
 Augustin. de Civit. Dei, lib. i, c. 1. 
 
 The consideration that induced me the more willingly 
 to follow the leadings of the good providence of God, 
 in embarking for New South Wales for the first time, 
 was the high idea I had formed of the geographical 
 position of that colony, as affording a fit station for 
 exerting a salutary influence on a numerous and by no 
 means uninteresting portion of the family of man. 
 From the Heads of Port Jackson, the British philan- 
 thropist can look to the northward, and westward, and 
 southward, over a vast and untraversed continent, 
 which he knows the all-wise and all-powerful Creator 
 has made to be inhabited; and whose hills and valleys, 
 he knows, therefore, will at length teem with a 
 numerous population. To the eastward, the vast Pacific 
 with its myriads of isles, lies outstretched before him ; 
 and though the multitudes of these isles are far remote 
 
316 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 and unseen in the distance, he feels that that distance 
 is almost annihilated, when his own singular position 
 on the habitable globe reminds him that he is a native 
 of the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the 
 rivers of Ethiopia — the land that sendeth ambassadors by 
 the sea, even in swift vessels upon the waters.* To the 
 north, the Indian Archipelago extends far and wide, 
 from the shores of New Holland to the sea of Japan ; 
 and on fixing his eye for a moment on its numerous 
 and populous isles, he almost fancies he already 
 beholds the half-naked and furious Malay sitting 
 clothed, and in his right mind, at the feet of Europeans. 
 Adown the vista of these islands, his eye reaches even to 
 the shores of China — that fruitful womb of the morning, 
 in which, perhaps, may yet be hidden the future kings of 
 the East ;f and as his mind fills with the glowing and 
 sublime ideas which the thought engenders, he almost 
 exclaims, " O, for the lever of Archimedes to elevate 
 the world ! " 
 
 Soon after my first arrival in New South Wales, it 
 appeared to me that there were three ways in which a 
 person in my own comparatively uninfluential situation 
 might nevertheless be useful in promoting the general 
 welfare and advancement of the colony, and in pre- 
 paring the way for the future accomplishment of the 
 higher objects to which I have alluded ; viz. 1st, By 
 securing for the Scotch and other Presbyterian inha- 
 bitants of the colony, the regular dispensation of the 
 
 * Isaiah xviii. 1, 2. 
 
 t " Behold, these shall come from far ; and, lo, these from the north and 
 from the west : and these from the land of Sinim." — Isaiah xlix. 12. 
 
NfcW SOUTH WALES. 317 
 
 ordinances of religion, agreeably to the customs and 
 institutions of the Scottish National Church ; 2ndly, By 
 devising ways and means of introducing into the colony 
 a numerous, industrious, and virtuous free-emigrant 
 population of the working classes of society ; and 3rdly, 
 By promoting the establishment of an academical in- 
 stitution for the education of youth in the colony, on 
 the liberal and economical principles of the schools and 
 colleges of Scotland. 
 
 I have already detailed the measures adopted for the 
 attainment of the first two of these objects, and the 
 degree in which they have hitherto been attained. On 
 embarking for Europe in the year 1824, I proposed 
 making some effort, during my stay in England, in 
 reference to the third — the establishment of some pro- 
 vision for the general education of youth in the colony ; 
 but from circumstances, of which it is unnecessary to 
 inform the reader, the attempt proved abortive. On re- 
 turning to New South Wales in January, 1826, I found 
 that an institution, designated The Free Grammar School, 
 had just been formed in Sydney, on the plan of various 
 institutions of a similar kind in the mother country ; 
 and a few months thereafter, I was utterly astounded, 
 in common with most of the colonists, at the promulga- 
 tion of a Royal Charter appointing a Church and 
 School Corporation for the religious instruction and for 
 the general education of the youth of the colony, on the 
 principles of the Church of England, exclusively, and 
 allotting a seventh of the whole territory, for that pur- 
 pose, to the Episcopalian clergy, with free access, in 
 the mean time, to the colonial treasury-chest. It 
 
318 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 will scarcely be believed, that so wanton an insult, as 
 this precious document implied, could have been offered 
 to the common sense of a whole community, even by the 
 late Tory administration ; or that men could have been 
 found in the nineteenth century to perpetrate so gross 
 an outrage on the best feelings of a numerous body of 
 reputable men. But so it was ; and the education of 
 the colony thus appeared to have passed completely 
 into other hands, and seemed likely to be little in- 
 debted to Presbyterian instrumentality. 
 
 The course of the Free Grammar School was short 
 and inglorious. The masters were speedily dismissed ; 
 and the patrons of the institution, who had been at 
 best but a rope of sand, speedily quarrelled with each 
 other, and broke up. By this means, the field of compe- 
 tition was left entirely unoccupied for no fewer than four 
 or five years together; and during the whole of that 
 period — the period of the high and palmy state of the 
 Church and School Corporation — it was completely in 
 the power of the Archdeacon and the Episcopalian 
 clergy of the colony to have formed a noble institution 
 for the general education of the youth of Australia, with 
 the very crumbs that fell from their Corporation table. 
 Nay, if they had only been possessed of the smallest 
 modicum of common sense, that can reasonably be sup- 
 posed to be allotted to any body of privileged and 
 chartered individuals; or if they had even been actuated 
 by those instinctive feelings of self-preservation, that 
 are commonly supposed to be strongly operative in all 
 such bodies of men ; the members of the Corporation 
 might have secured the exclusive predominance of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 319 
 
 Episcopacy in the management of the education of the 
 whole colony, for all time coming. But the Vene- 
 rable the Archdeacon, and the other members of the 
 Church and School Corporation, seem to have been 
 possessed with a spirit of absolute infatuation; which, 
 however, has at length issued in the deliverance of the 
 colony from a yoke which would otherwise have proved 
 intolerable in the end, and would sooner or later have 
 been violently broken asunder during some general 
 burst of public indignation. To think of twelve or 
 fifteen colonial ministers of religion managing for years 
 together to spend public money to the amount of up- 
 wards of £20,000 a year, under pretence of providing 
 for the religious instruction and the general education 
 of so small a colony as New South Wales, without pro- 
 viding the colony all the while with a single school in 
 which a boy could be taught the simplest elements of 
 mathematics or the merest rudiments of the Latin 
 tongue — why, the thing appears so monstrous in the 
 present age of light and of learning, that it would have 
 been absolutely incredible, if it had not actually oc- 
 curred ! By one of those strange anomalies, the fre- 
 quent occurrence of which in all the colonies of the 
 empire evinced the wisdom and beneficence of the late 
 Tory administration, a considerable proportion of the 
 gentlemen who were appointed by Royal Charter to 
 preside over the department of public instruction in New 
 South Wales, consisted of persons who had only re- 
 ceived the commonest education themselves, and who 
 could not have axed their way through a page of Virgil 
 or Homer to save them from the knout. It was accord- 
 
320 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 ingly whispered in the colony, that it was the object and 
 design of the gentlemen I allude to, to prevent the 
 youth of Australia from ever rising superior to their 
 own humble level ; and that they had wisely concluded 
 this maxim of a distant age to be in every respect suit- 
 able for a distant settlement ; — " Ignorance is the mother 
 of devotion " to colonial Episcopacy. 
 
 I have already stated, that for some time after 
 the institution of the Church and School Corpora- 
 tion, the mere management of that establishment cost 
 upwards of £2000 a year. The present Bishop of New 
 South Wales reduced that monstrous item of ex- 
 penditure, shortly after his arrival in the colony, to 
 £840 per annum. It should never have exceeded this 
 comparatively smaller amount ; it should never have 
 equalled one half of it. Was it expedient, I would 
 ask, to expend hundreds a year for the rent of one of 
 the largest houses in the colony for a Corporation 
 Office, at a time when hundreds of miles of inhabited 
 country in the territory were utterly unprovided with 
 the ordinances of religion in any form ? If the use of a 
 room could not have been obtained gratuitously from 
 the Government, why was there not some upper cham- 
 ber hired in Sydney for one-fourth of the actual rent of 
 the Corporation Office, till some decent provision had 
 been made for supplying the spiritual wants of the 
 colony ? Again, was it expedient for the Corporation to 
 maintain an expensive establishment of four clerks to 
 keep their petty accounts of a dozen churches and two 
 dozen schools, and to give the first of these clerks a 
 salary of £400 a year, and the rest in proportion, so 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 321 
 
 long as they were utterly unable to point to a single 
 school in their whole establishment, in which a boy 
 could be taught the Eton Grammar ? A single clerk 
 with a salary of £150 per annum, with an assistant 
 to write duplicates, ought to have been quite sufficient 
 to transact the whole business of the Corporation, 
 till the wants of the colony in these most important 
 respects had been properly supplied. In short, with 
 the annual amount which the Corporation ought to 
 have saved on the mere item of management, grammar- 
 schools of a most efficient character might have been 
 established and endowed all over the territory. 
 
 But the British public have been told, in a letter 
 published in the Times newspaper on the 22nd of 
 October, 1832, that it was not the fault of Archdeacon 
 Scott — the writer of that letter, and the " magnus Apollo" 
 of the Corporation — that schools of a higher character 
 were not established in New South Wales by the 
 Church and School Corporation of that colony. The 
 Archdeacon, it seems, had written repeatedly on the 
 subject to the Secretary of State, soliciting a fresh 
 grant for the purpose. In other words, after expending 
 £20,000 a year, or thereabouts, in the way and for the 
 purposes I have mentioned, the Archdeacon modestly 
 asks a fresh grant for Episcopal Grammar-Schools ! 
 The Right Honourable Secretary, it seems, had more 
 of the article of conscience than the Archdeacon sus- 
 pected ; for he paid no attention to the modest re- 
 quest. 
 
 Whether the state of things I have thus described 
 arose from incompetency, from covetousness, or from 
 
322 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 inconsiderate extravagance, on the part of those to 
 whom the department of public instruction was so long 
 exclusively entrusted in New South Wales, it is quite 
 unnecessary to inquire. The colonists have at all 
 events learned this important lesson from the past — and 
 it is a lesson which most assuredly will never be for- 
 gotten — that the interests of general education in that 
 colony can no longer be entrusted with safety to the 
 colonial Episcopacy. 
 
 Towards the close of the year 1829, I happened to 
 receive a letter from the Rev. Dr. Adamson, minister of 
 the Scots Church, Cape Town, South Africa, enclosing 
 a copy of the prospectus of an academical institution 
 then recently formed in that colony, and designated 
 The South African College ; in the formation of which, 
 it seems, my friend and brother had been somewhat 
 instrumental. With a view, therefore, to recall the 
 attention of the colony to the subject of education, on 
 which there had then for a long period been a deep 
 and general silence, I procured the republication of the 
 South African prospectus in one of the colonial news- 
 papers, in which there were also inserted, at the same 
 time, two anonymous papers I had prepared for the 
 purpose, comparing the circumstances of the colonies 
 of the Cape of Good Hope and New South Wales in a 
 variety of respects, and demonstrating the practicability 
 of establishing an academical institution, (comprising 
 a series of elementary and classical, as well as higher 
 schools) for the general education of youth in the 
 Australian colony, on a plan somewhat similar to that 
 of the South African College. These papers pro- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 323 
 
 duced their desired effect, and a strong and general 
 excitement on the subject of education was the im- 
 mediate result. 
 
 It was natural that in such circumstances I should 
 watch the progress of public feeling, and the procedure 
 of those who professed to consult the best interests 
 of the public with extreme anxiety. Observing an 
 advertisement, therefore, in the colonial newspapers, 
 calling an early meeting of the remaining friends of the 
 Free Grammar School, which it was now proposed to 
 resuscitate, I waited on the Venerable the Archdeacon, 
 (now Bishop Broughton) who had then but recently 
 arrived from England, to ascertain whether he intended 
 doing any thing in the way of forming an institution 
 for the general education of youth in the colony, and 
 to inform him, that, as a minister of the Church of 
 Scotland, I should much more willingly join with the 
 clergy of the Church of England in the formation of 
 such an institution, if established on fair and liberal 
 principles, than with the remaining friends of the Free 
 Grammar School, as I neither approved of their prin- 
 ciples, from all I knew of them, nor augured much from 
 their past procedure. The Archdeacon told me in 
 reply, that he did propose something of the kind, but 
 that his plans were not sufficiently matured : he gave 
 me to understand, however, that the public would not 
 be called on to support the institution which he meant 
 to establish, as the requisite funds would be sup- 
 plied by the Government ; and that he himself would, 
 in virtue of his office, be the authorized visitor, al- 
 though clergymen and laymen of other communions 
 
324 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT Of 
 
 would be admitted to a share in its general manage- 
 ment. 
 
 I was induced to augur very favourably of the Arch- 
 deacon's proposed institution in the first instance ; but, 
 on conferring on the subject afterwards with certain 
 Presbyterian friends in the colony, who also felt a deep 
 interest in the cause of education, it appeared to us, 
 that however plausible the scheme might appear at first 
 sight, there was no reason whatever to believe that the 
 institution which the Archdeacon proposed to establish 
 would be one in which Presbyterians would be allowed 
 to unite with Episcopalians on equal terms ; and that, on 
 the other hand, although a Presbyterian minister might 
 be allowed an ostensible share in the management, 
 there was every reason to fear that that privilege would 
 be of no practical utility as a counterpoise to the weight 
 of the colonial Episcopacy ; while it was evident, more- 
 over, that any concession which the Archdeacon might 
 be disposed to make on behalf of other communions, 
 could be revoked with the utmost facility by a less 
 liberal successor. 
 
 With these impressions, I waited, but without stating 
 my particular object, on the Colonial Secretary, to 
 ascertain, if possible, the sentiments and intentions of 
 the colonial government on the subject of education. 
 I was accordingly informed by that officer, that it was 
 proposed by the Home Government to break up the 
 Church and School Corporation, in so far as that the 
 management of the trust would in future be transferred 
 to the colonial government ; but that all the lands 
 and other revenues, of which the corporation had ob- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 325 
 
 tained a grant by royal charter, would still be appro- 
 priated for the exclusive maintenance of Episcopalian 
 churches and schools. 
 
 With this additional explanatory information, there 
 was no room for hesitation in regard to the course 
 which it was proper for Presbyterians to pursue, with 
 reference to the Archdeacon's scheme. In fact, colonial 
 Episcopacy had already done enough to curtail the 
 privileges and to excite the jealousy of the colonial 
 Presbyterians, to prevent the latter from falling in with 
 any scheme whose obvious tendency was to increase 
 and to perpetuate her exorbitant power, and to reduce 
 themselves to the character of mere puppets in her 
 train. The reader will judge, whether the suspicions, 
 which were thus awakened on the part of the Pres- 
 byterians, were not well founded, when I inform him, 
 that, on the publication of the Archdeacon's pro- 
 spectus some time after, it actually appeared that the 
 system of education in the schools he proposed to 
 establish was to be thoroughly and exclusively Epi- 
 scopalian. 
 
 In the mean time the Archdeacon had left Sydney 
 to visit a distant part of the interior : it was conse- 
 quently out of my power to have any farther communi- 
 cation with that gentleman on the subject of education 
 at that particular crisis, or to apprise him of the feelings 
 and intentions of my friends and myself; but as the 
 meeting of the friends of the Free Grammar School was 
 drawing on, it was necessary to do something in the 
 matter immediately, to prevent the whole management 
 of the education of the colony from falling into ineffi- 
 
326 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 cient or exceptionable hands. I accordingly addressed 
 a memorial to General Darling, who was then Governor 
 of New South Wales ; stating the circumstances in 
 which my friends and myself felt ourselves placed, in 
 regard to the subject of education ; informing him, 
 moreover, that it was our desire to form an Academical 
 Institution of our own on a limited scale, to be con- 
 ducted on the principles of the High Schools and 
 Colleges of Scotland ; soliciting an allotment of ground 
 for the erection of the requisite buildings ; and pledging 
 myself, that, in the event of His Excellency's granting 
 such an allotment, my own family would advance a 
 thousand pounds towards the erection of the buildings. 
 To this communication I received for answer, that no 
 such allotment as I solicited would be granted, and that 
 the Presbyterians had got enough from the Govern- 
 ment already. In short, His Excellency's reply was 
 cold as an iceberg ; but such was his uniform style 
 when Scots Presbyterians had any thing to ask from 
 the priest-ridden Government of their adopted country. 
 Finding it thus impracticable to form a separate 
 institution, I determined to make common cause with 
 the friends of the Free Grammar School, provided the 
 latter would extend and remodel their institution, agree- 
 ably to certain suggestions I took the liberty to propose. 
 The plan of the institution was accordingly remodelled 
 and extended, and I became a shareholder to the 
 amount of £50, the designation being in the mean time 
 changed into that of The Sydney College. The time of 
 excitement, the reader is doubtless aware, is always the 
 time for action : as soon therefore as I had become 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 327 
 
 connected with the new scheme, into which I entered 
 on the same principles on which various non-conformist 
 ministers of religion agreed to take a part in the Uni- 
 versity of London, I proposed and strongly recom- 
 mended to the Committee of Management, that the 
 plan adopted should be carried forthwith into effect — a 
 measure which was quite practicable at the time. It is 
 no part of the colonial system, however, to act, after 
 merely resolving to do so. To pass a resolution at a 
 public meeting, and to embody it in action, are two 
 things so entirely different, that they can rarely be ac- 
 complished in any business in which direct personal ad- 
 vantage is not to be expected, during the same year. 
 The iron must be allowed to cool before it is struck ; 
 and the time for striking, in by far the greater number 
 of instances, is consequently spent before the hammer 
 falls. The foundation-stone of the new institution — 
 whose very existence, as well as its continued prosperity, 
 depended on the keeping up of the strong excitement 
 which had been created in the public mind on the sub- 
 ject of education — was laid with all due solemnity im- 
 mediately after the meeting at which it was organized ; 
 but it was allowed to lie alone, like a solitary egg 
 in a deserted nest, for eighteen months after; and I 
 have every reason to believe, that if a decisive step, 
 which I was consequently induced to take in the mean 
 time, had not roused the dormant energies of its friends 
 into something like exertion, it would have continued 
 in the same lonely and inglorious state to the present 
 day. In short, notwithstanding the formation of the 
 new institution, there seemed just as little prospect as 
 
328 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 ever of effecting any thing for the education of the 
 colony ; and Episcopacy seemed likely to realize her 
 fond prediction, uttered in the dark days of Archdeacon 
 Scott and the Corporation, " I shall sit as a queen, and 
 see no sorrow." 
 
 Despairing, therefore, of the accomplishment of any 
 thing of importance in the cause of general education 
 through the new scheme, I could not help thinking it 
 high time that the education of the colony should be 
 rescued in some measure from the hands of exclusives 
 and incapables. With this view, and in the hope also 
 of obtaining a more extended provision for the dispen- 
 sation of the ordinances of religion among the Scots 
 Presbyterians of the territory, which it was in vain to 
 hope for through the government of General Darling, I 
 solicited and obtained leave of absence from His Ex- 
 cellency to proceed to England, and accordingly em- 
 barked at Sydney in August, 1830. 
 
 During my voyage to England, my attention was 
 strongly directed to the subject of emigration to New 
 South Wales, both as a means of alleviating the general 
 distress which was then most extensively prevalent 
 among the working classes in the mother country, and 
 as a means of effecting a great moral reformation in the 
 Australian colonies. On arriving in London, therefore, 
 in the month of December following — the time when 
 rick-burning and machine-breaking were at their height 
 in the agricultural districts of England — I did myself 
 the honour to submit the views I had formed on that 
 subject of national interest, as well as on the means of 
 establishing an academical institution for the education 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 329 
 
 of youth in the town of Sydney, to a Scotch Earl, to 
 whom I had previously been well known, and to three 
 influential members of the House of Commons, with 
 whose acquaintance I had also been honoured. By 
 these noblemen and gentlemen, I was strongly advised 
 to submit the proposals I had to make on both subjects 
 to the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the 
 Colonies — a step which I had not even contemplated 
 beforehand. 
 
 I accordingly prepared the requisite documents, and 
 called for certain letters of introduction to Lord Gode- 
 rich, who was then Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
 which I had been very kindly promised by the gentle- 
 men I allude to. By some mischance, however, one of 
 these gentlemen was seriously indisposed on the day I 
 called at his house ; another was engaged in parliament- 
 ary business of importance ; and some accident of a 
 similar kind prevented me from availing myself of the 
 proffered kindness of the third. My business in Eng- 
 land, however, required haste ; for General Darling had 
 allowed me only twelve months' leave of absence, and 
 had intimated, that unless I returned to the colony 
 within that period, my salary would be discontinued. 
 As I could not, therefore, afford to lose a day, even to 
 procure a letter of introduction to Lord Goderich, I went 
 direct to Downing Street to introduce myself. On my 
 way thither, the streets of London being at the time 
 deeply covered with snow, I met my countryman and 
 friend, the late Rev. Edward Irving, whose heart, I am 
 happy to say, I always found in the right place, what- 
 ever the world chose to say of his understanding. I 
 
330 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 briefly told him my destination and my errand, and 
 " The Lord be with you ! " was his brief and cordial 
 reply. I could not help thinking it a good substitute 
 for a letter of introduction, and I was not disappointed. 
 
 The tenor of my communication to Lord Goderich 
 was " that the settlement of reputable persons of the 
 class of mechanics in the colony of New South 
 Wales was (for various reasons, which it is unne- 
 cessary to allude to more particularly) highly de- 
 sirable ; and that it appeared to me, that if repu- 
 table married mechanics from Scotland were conveyed 
 to the colony on the condition of paying their pas- 
 sage-money by weekly instalments from their wages 
 after their arrival, (which I felt confident many reputa- 
 ble persons of that class would both be able and willing 
 to do,) the object might be accomplished without ulti- 
 mate expense to any person, and with equal benefit to 
 the mother country and the colony ; for, although the 
 frequent attempts of individuals to carry out persons of 
 that class in the capacity of indented servants had 
 almost uniformly failed, that result had arisen in great 
 measure from the masters having given themselves no 
 concern to ascertain the previous moral and religious 
 character of their intended servants, and from their 
 hiring them at a much lower rate of wages than they 
 could otherwise have obtained in the colony — thereby 
 creating a spirit of discontentment on the part of the 
 servants, and holding out to them a strong temptation 
 to break through their engagements." 
 
 To establish this point, which I conceived to be of 
 paramount importance to the colony, I proposed to his 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 331 
 
 Lordship to carry out to the colony a certain number of 
 families and individuals of the class and on the con- 
 ditions above mentioned ; provided his Lordship would 
 authorize the Governor of New South Wales to ad- 
 vance, on the arrival of the said families in the colony, 
 a loan from the public treasury for the establishment 
 of an academical institution or college in the town of 
 Sydney ; the mechanics so conveyed to the colony to 
 be employed in the erection of the buildings required 
 for the said institution, and to repay the cost of their 
 passage in the manner aforesaid. I did myself the 
 honour at the same time to submit to his Lordship a 
 plan of the proposed institution — the same as has since 
 been realized in the Australian College. 
 
 In reply to this communication, his Lordship agreed 
 to authorize the advance of £3500 for the establish- 
 ment of an academical institution in Sydney on the plan 
 proposed, provided the promoters of the undertaking 
 should expend a similar amount for the same purpose ; 
 the buildings to be erected on a piece of ground be- 
 longing to the Scots Church, and to be calculated for 
 carrying on the institution on a limited scale, but to be 
 capable of extension if it should be necessary. 
 
 In proposing this arrangement to His Majesty's 
 Government, I considered myself pledged, on the part 
 of the promoters of the undertaking, to meet the sum 
 agreed to be advanced by Government with a similar 
 amount on the part of the public. I conceived, indeed, 
 that the colonial public would gladly come forward for 
 the establishment of the proposed institution in the 
 manner required : but I had already had too much ex- 
 
332 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 perience in the colony to trust for the accomplishment 
 of so important an object to such a contingency. I 
 well knew that there were men of much influence 
 in our colonial community, who would never give me 
 credit for a disinterested concern for the public welfare ; 
 and who, probably conceiving that my humble exertions 
 might reflect discredit on their own comparative supine- 
 ness, would in all likelihood endeavour, by every means 
 in their power — by imputing unworthy motives on the 
 one hand, and by misrepresenting my procedure on the 
 other — to divert the stream of popular favour from the 
 infant institution, and thus to crush it in the bud. 
 Foreseeing the possibility of such a result, although I 
 did not by any means conceive it probable, I deter- 
 mined, in the event of its occurrence, to dispose of my 
 own property in the colony, which I knew would sell 
 for at least £3000, and to render every farthing of that 
 amount available for the establishment of the insti- 
 tution, rather than allow the liberality of His Majesty's 
 enlightened Government to be lost to the colony, 
 through the apathy of some and the malevolence of 
 others in our limited community. 
 
 After the arrangement above mentioned had been 
 made with His Majesty's Government, Lord Goderich 
 was also pleased to authorize the sum of £ 1500 of the 
 proposed loan to the institution to be advanced on my 
 arrival in New South Wales ; provided I should convey 
 to the colony a certain number of free-emigrant Scotch 
 mechanics, with their wives and families, to erect the 
 college-buildings, and to pay the stipulated amount 
 of their passage by weekly instalments from their 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 333 
 
 wages ; and provided, moreover, that no farther ad- 
 vance should be made by Government till an ex- 
 penditure of £1500 should be incurred by the promoters 
 of the vndertaking in the erection of the requisite 
 buildings ; the remainder of the loan to be advanced 
 afterwards, in proportion to the sums expended from 
 time to time on the part of the public. 
 
 The proposed academical institution was to be esta- 
 blished on the plan of the Belfast College — comprising 
 a series of elementary schools with a gradually extend- 
 ing provision for the higher branches of education. At 
 the outset, it was proposed that there should be a prin- 
 cipal and four masters or professors — one for English, 
 one for mercantile education, one for Latin and Greek, 
 and one for mathematics and natural philosophy — as- 
 sistant or under-masters to be appointed for the ele- 
 mentary classes, as soon as the funds of the institution 
 and the wants of the colony should warrant that ap- 
 pointment. The Rev. Henry Carmichael, A.M. was 
 accordingly engaged for the classical, the Rev. William 
 Pinkerton for the English, and the Rev. John Anderson 
 — all licentiates of the Church of Scotland # — for the 
 mercantile department ; it having been previously ar- 
 ranged that the mathematical and physical department 
 should be conducted by the Rev. John M'Garvie, A.M., 
 formerly minister of the Scots Church, Portland Head. 
 
 * It is no part of the constitution of the Australian College that the 
 masters or professors should belong exclusively to the Church of Scot- 
 land : but Presbyterians are generally found to do literary and other 
 clerical work at a cheaper rate than other people ; and this is a con- 
 sideration of importance in a young colony. 
 
334 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 During my stay in England, T also procured books, with 
 a view to the formation of a college-library, to the num- 
 ber of seventeen hundred volumes, together with a valu- 
 able and extensive philosophical apparatus, and nume- 
 rous specimens of minerals, &c. to illustrate lectures on 
 mineralogy and zoology. The gentlemen I have men- 
 tioned, together with two additional ministers of the 
 Church of Scotland, for whom Lord Goderich had al- 
 lowed salaries from the colonial revenue, for the districts 
 of Bathurst and Hunter's River, embarked on board 
 the Stirling Castle, at Greenock, along with the Scotch 
 mechanics who had been engaged to erect the college- 
 buildings, and their wives and children, on the first of 
 June, 1831, and arrived at Sydney on the 13th of 
 October following. 
 
 The college buildings were commenced on the 21st 
 of October, and classes were opened, in a building 
 hired for the purpose, on the 15th of November, 1831. 
 In the mean time, the various arrangements already 
 detailed, together with a plan of the institution, were 
 submitted to the public, and the countenance and sup- 
 port of the friends of education throughout the colony 
 respectfully solicited. In consequence of these publi- 
 cations, and of the private exertions of several friends 
 of the undertaking, about a hundred shares of £25 
 each were speedily taken in the institution by gentlemen 
 in Sydney and in other parts of the colony. It was 
 not, however, till the 23rd of December following, and 
 till an expenditure of upwards of £700 had been in- 
 curred for the erection of buildings, in addition to the 
 amount for books, apparatus, &c. previously incurred 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 335 
 
 in England, that a general meeting of the friends of 
 the undertaking was held, and a college-council ap- 
 pointed by the shareholders to undertake the manage- 
 ment of the institution, agreeably to the arrangements 
 I had made with His Majesty's Government, which 
 were embodied in the following series of resolutions 
 passed at the meeting : — 
 
 AUSTRALIAN COLLEGE. 
 
 A Meeting of the Shareholders of this Institution, 
 and of other friends of education in Sydney and its 
 vicinity, having been held this day, in Mr. Under- 
 wood's Buildings, Church Hill, pursuant to adver- 
 tisement, Campbell Drummond Riddell, Esq., M.C., 
 Colonial Treasurer, in the chair, the following Reso- 
 lutions were unanimously adopted as the basis of the 
 future constitution : — 
 
 I. — That an Academical Institution be formed in Sydney for the Edu- 
 cation of Youth, in the higher as well as the Elementary Branches of 
 Useful Knowledge. 
 
 TI. — That the said Institution be designated "The Australian Col- 
 lege," and be available for Pupils or Students of all religious denomina- 
 tions, on the most moderate terms. 
 
 III.— That a capital of at least £3500 be raised in shares of £ 25 each, 
 payable by instalments, for the establishment of the said College ; and 
 that as the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Goderich, His Majesty's 
 Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, has been graciously pleased 
 to grant a loan of ^3500 from the Colonial Treasury, to assist in ac- 
 complishing so desirable an object, on condition that a similar amount 
 shall previously be expended on the part of the public, the sum of 
 ^3500 shall accordingly be raised, and applied in erecting the requisite 
 buildings, and in meeting the other expenditure already incurred, pro- 
 vided such expenditure shall be found conducive to the general object of 
 the Institution. 
 
 IV. — That each shareholder be a proprietor of the College, and be 
 
336 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 entitled to vote at all General Meetings of Proprietors, in the proportion 
 of one vote for every share he may hold ; hut that no proprietor shall have 
 more than five such votes, whatever number of shares he may hold. 
 
 V. — That the government of the College shall be vested in a council of 
 thirteen, twelve of whom to be annually chosen by the whole body of 
 proprietors, and the thirteenth to be a member of such council in right of 
 office, as hereinafter to be stated ; any proprietor being eligible as a mem- 
 ber of council, and five members to constitute a quorum. 
 
 VI. — That the said council shall have the exclusive management and 
 disposal of the funds of the College, and the entire control of all 
 matters relative to the erection of buildings, the appointment of masters, 
 the amount of salaries, the regulation of fees, and the purchase of pro- 
 perty, books, or apparatus for the College ; and that the said College 
 Council shall submit a statement of their accounts, and a report of their 
 proceedings, previous to their laying down their office, at the annual 
 meeting of the proprietors. 
 
 VII. — That the College shall, in the first instance, comprise the four 
 following departments, viz. 
 
 1. An English Department, for English, and English Literature. 
 
 2. A Mercantile Department, for Writing, Arithmetic, Book-keep- 
 ing, &c. 
 
 3. A Classical Department, for the Latin and Greek Languages, — 
 and 
 
 4. A Mathematical and Physical Department, for Mathematics and 
 Natural Philosophy : the establishment of the College to be gradually 
 extended, according to the state of the funds and the wants of the colony ; 
 but to include, from the outset, under one or other of these departments, 
 provision for the instruction of pupils in the French, Italian, and German 
 Languages. 
 
 VIII. — That each of these departments shall be entrusted to a separate 
 master with the designation of Professor ; to each of whom a free house, 
 capable of accommodating a few boarders, and a salary of oflOO per 
 annum, shall be given on the part of the College. 
 
 IX.— That moderate fees shall be paid by each pupil or student in the 
 said College, varying in amount according to the classes he attends ; a 
 certain portion of which shall be appropriated to the respective masters, 
 independently of the salaries above mentioned ; the remainder to form a 
 College fund, for the payment of salaries, the extinction of debt, &c, and 
 for securing a dividend to the proprietors, under certain limitations to be 
 fixed hereafter by the council. 
 
 X.— That there shall be a Principal of the said College, who shall also be 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 337 
 
 a professor, having the management of one or other of the departments of 
 education comprised in the Institution, and heing elected by the College 
 Council ; and that the said principal shall have the general superintendence 
 of the internal affairs of the Institution, especially in regard to morals and 
 discipline, making provision for the due observance of the rules of the 
 College, and forming the medium of communication between the pro- 
 fessors and the council, of which he shall be a member in right of 
 office. 
 
 XI. — That the principal and professors shall constitute a senate for the 
 regulation and management of all matters relative to the business of edu- 
 cation, the enforcement of discipline, the division of labour, and the 
 superintendence of the library and museum ; and that the principal shall 
 have a casting vote at all meetings of the senate. 
 
 XII.— That the senate shall meet once a month, the council once a 
 quarter, and the general body of proprietors once a year ; but that extra- 
 ordinary meetings may be held on any occasion of emergency ; viz. of the 
 senate, on the requisition of the principal— of the council, on that of the 
 chairman, or of any three members — and of the general body of pro- 
 prietors, on that of ten proprietors. 
 
 XIII. — That the business of each day be commenced and closed with 
 an appropriate prayer — that the Holy Scriptures be read regularly in the 
 English classes— and that instruction in the general principles and duties 
 of the Christian religion be afforded at stated times ; as, for instance, 
 every Saturday, at the close of the ordinary business of the week : but 
 that no attempt be made, either directly or indirectly, to proselytize to 
 the tenets of any particular denomination of Christians ; and that those 
 pupils or students, whose parents or guardians may object to their 
 receiving religious instruction at all, be allowed at all such stated times 
 to withdraw. 
 
 XIV. — That the Rev. John Dunmore Lang, D.D., be the principal of 
 the said College, but without emolument, and without any active share 
 in the business of education, until the completion of the arrangements 
 into which he has entered with His Majesty's Government for the 
 establishment of the said College ; as also with certain Scotch mechanics, 
 for the erection of the requisite buildings ; and with certain parties in 
 England, for the payment of books, apparatus, &c. ; on the completion of 
 which arrangements he shall surrender the said office into the hands of 
 the council. 
 
 XV. — That the following Gentlemen be the Council of the Australian 
 College till the next General Meeting : — 
 Campbell Drummond Riddell, Esq., M. C, Colonial Treasurer. 
 VOL. II. P 
 
338 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Richard Jones, Esq., M. 0. 
 
 Alexander Berry, Esq., M. C. 
 
 Major Mitchell, Surveyor General. 
 
 Captain Perry, Deputy Surveyor General. 
 
 Thomas "Walker, Esq. 
 
 Thomas Barker, Esq. 
 
 Robert Campbell, Jun., Esq. (Bligh Street.) 
 
 James Chisholm, Esq. 
 
 David Ramsay, Esq. 
 
 T. Burdekin, Esq. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Lang, ex officio. 
 
 XVI. — That John Wallace, Esq., be the Treasurer of the Australian 
 College. 
 
 XVII.— That the thanks of the Meeting be given to C. D. Riddell, Esq. 
 for his able, zealous, and judicious conduct in the chair. 
 
 Sydney, December 23, 1831. 
 
 In the mean time, that which neither common sense 
 nor a sense of public duty had been able to accomplish, 
 was at length effected through the operation of other 
 feelings, which it is not difficult to divine ; for, as soon 
 as it w 7 as reported in the colony that I was about to re- 
 turn from England with an extensive literary, mecha- 
 nical, and physical apparatus, for the establishment of a 
 new institution, the foundations of the Sydney College 
 were laid. The successful issue, however, of my voy- 
 age to England, and the successful establishment of the 
 Australian College, were deemed by certain parties 
 connected with that institution, whose public spirit had 
 at length begun to revive after a second torpor of two 
 years' continuance, offences of so peculiar an enormity, as 
 to leave felony itself without benefit of clergy far in the 
 shade. An emancipist who had just been liberated from 
 the Sydney jail, where he had been confined for some 
 time on a charge of fraudulent bankruptcy, harangued 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 339 
 
 a meeting of the friends of the revived institution, 
 shortly after my return to the colony, and expressed 
 himself in the highest terms relative to the plan and 
 prospects of the Australian College ; but informed the 
 meeting, that I had completely forfeited the esteem of 
 the virtuous and respectable portion of society, in having 
 obtained assistance from the Home Government, as he 
 presumed I had done, by calumniating himself and his 
 friends to Lord Goderich. On this and a variety of 
 other charges equally frivolous and equally unfounded, 
 changes were rung at my particular expense, by various 
 orators of still higher respectability, from meeting to 
 meeting and from month to month ; and every foul and 
 slanderous invective that was uttered on these occasions 
 was carefully reported in the colonial newspapers. Nay, 
 private letters, which I had written to a countryman of 
 my own in the colony, relative to the settlement of the 
 Scots Church seven years before, were zealously placed 
 in the hands of a gentleman connected with the resus- 
 citated institution, that he might pick out of them and 
 publish in the newspapers any paragraph or expression, 
 which, he hoped, might create an unfavourable impres- 
 sion relative to myself on the public mind ; and the 
 contemptible suggestion was as contemptibly followed. 
 
 After having been subjected to this species of assault 
 and battery, which was kept up for the express purpose 
 of injuring the institution I had been instrumental in 
 establishing, for more than twelve months, it struck me 
 that it would not be improper to attend one of the meet- 
 ings of the parties connected with the revived institu- 
 tion ; to confront the persons who had so frequently 
 
340 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 accused me ; to offer an explanation of those parts of 
 my procedure in the matter of education which had re- 
 peatedly been held up to the public as extremely dis- 
 reputable, and to answer any question they might think 
 proper to ask ; as it did not appear to me that the 
 cause of general education in the colony was likely to 
 be advanced by the continuance of such procedure as I 
 had so long and so undeservedly experienced. I at- 
 tended accordingly, and I could not help perceiving 
 that my appearance was regarded much in the same 
 light as that of an apparition — so much easier is it to 
 slander and to tell lies of a man behind his back than 
 when he is present to answer for himself; — but a young 
 colonial lawyer, who was present, having very judi- 
 ciously observed that " the explanations I proposed to 
 offer Were not likely to benefit the institution whose 
 concerns they had met to consider," it was resolved 
 that I should not have an opportunity of answering for 
 myself. I was not troubled, however, with any farther 
 vituperation, either in the newspapers or at public meet- 
 ings ; but while I could not help feeling thankful 
 at the time to Almighty God for having delivered my 
 friends and myself from the people with whom we had 
 for a short period been connected in the matter of 
 education, I could not help feeling more strongly dis- 
 posed, as I felt the necessity more urgent than ever, 
 to make every sacrifice and every exertion that the 
 education of the colony might be placed in other 
 hands. 
 
 The procedure I have detailed could not fail to ope- 
 rate most unfavourably for the popularity of the insti- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 341 
 
 tution with which I had the honour to be connected, 
 and to increase the serious difficulties of the situation in 
 which I was individually placed. It is so much easier 
 to create an evil than a good impression respecting any 
 person or cause ; and there are so many people in the 
 world ready to believe without examination whatever 
 they hear, especially if it is of an unfavourable charac- 
 ter, that whoever in such circumstances has nothing to 
 lean upon but popular favour, will soon find that he 
 leans upon a broken reed, which will pierce his hand. 
 There was another fiery ordeal, however, of a much 
 more formidable character to pass through, before the 
 Australian College could be successfully established. 
 
 The cry of distress from the agricultural districts of 
 the mother country was so loud and piercing on my 
 arrival in England in December, 1830 — and the impres- 
 sion on my own mind relative to the prosperity and 
 abundance enjoyed by all classes in New South Wales 
 was so fresh and vivid — that, in consequence of some 
 remarks on the subject of emigration to the Au- 
 stralian colonies, which were made by my Lord Howick 
 in the course of a conversation which I had the honour 
 to hold with his Lordship in Downing Street, I took 
 the liberty to address a letter to Lord Viscount Gode- 
 rich, pointing out the means of conveying thousands of 
 the distressed agricultural population of Great Britain, 
 without expense to the mother country, to the colony of 
 New South Wales ; where, I was confident, their arrival 
 would be hailed by all classes, and where there was em- 
 ployment in abundance, and bread for all. The sources, 
 from which it was proposed to raise a revenue sufficient 
 
342 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 for the accomplishment of this important national ob- 
 ject were,' — 1st, the progressive sale of numerous allot- 
 ments of building-ground belonging to Government in 
 the town of Sydney ; of which, although worth much 
 more than double that amount now, I estimated the 
 probable value at the time at not less than £200,000 ; 
 and, 2nd, the resumption and sale of the lands granted 
 on certain unfulfilled conditions to the Church and 
 School Corporation of New South Wales. In descri- 
 bing the second of these sources of revenue, I had 
 used the following language: — 
 
 " Your Lordship is doubtless aware, that in the year 
 1825 a Corporation was established by Royal Charter 
 in the colony of New South Wales, to which a seventh 
 of the whole territory was granted for the support of 
 the Episcopal Church and Schools of the colony, on 
 the avowed understanding that the said grant would 
 immediately and for ever relieve the colonial govern- 
 ment of the burden of supporting these establishments. 
 Your Lordship is doubtless aware also, that that Insti- 
 tution has utterly failed of its intended object; the 
 Corporation having actually borrowed from the colonial 
 government at the rate of from £19,000 to £22,000 
 per annum for the support of the Episcopal Church 
 and Schools of the territory, while the mere cost of its 
 management, exclusive of the salaries of clergymen 
 and schoolmasters, has hitherto been from £1500 to 
 £2000 per annum — a sum considerably greater than 
 is annually expended for the management of all the 
 Church and School affairs of His Majesty's ancient 
 kingdom of Scotland. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 343 
 
 ?' But the Church and School Corporation of New 
 South Wales has been productive, my Lord, of still 
 greater evils to the community at large, than any arising 
 from the mere expense of its management. It has 
 tended to identify the Episcopal clergy, in the es- 
 timation of the whole colony, with secular pursuits : it 
 has given extreme dissatisfaction to many respectable 
 emigrants, who have had to go far into the colonial 
 wilderness with their families, in search of land to 
 settle on, while numerous tracts of land, of the first 
 quality, were lying utterly waste in the most accessible 
 and eligible situations, in the hands of the Corporation : 
 it has excited a spirit of disaffection towards His Ma- 
 jesty's Government among the native youth of the 
 colony ; and I will even add, my Lord, has sown the 
 seeds of future rebellion. In short, the Church and 
 School Corporation of New South Wales, instead of 
 proving a benefit either to the Government or to the 
 Episcopal Church, as its projectors unfortunately per- 
 suaded His Majesty's Government it certainly would, 
 has lain as a dead weight on the colony for the last 
 five years — repressing emigration, discouraging im- 
 provement, secularizing the Episcopal clergy, and 
 thereby lowering the standard of morals and religion 
 throughout the territory." 
 
 My letter to Lord Goderich was published on my 
 return to the colony in a pamphlet, containing an 
 " account of the steps taken in England with a view to 
 the establishment of an academical institution or college 
 in New South Wales, and to demonstrate the prac- 
 ticability of effecting an extensive emigration of the 
 
344 historical Account of 
 
 industrious classes from the mother country to that 
 colony j" for it never occurred to me, that any remarks 
 I had made in that letter, relative to the character 
 and tendency of the Church and School Corporation 
 scheme, were likely to be construed into a personal 
 attack on the individuals who were accidentally, and, 
 as I conceived, unfortunately connected with that 
 system of legalized folly, extravagance, and injustice. 
 
 My letter, however, gave prodigious offence to the 
 Venerable the Archdeacon,* who accordingly addressed 
 a long letter on the subject of its alleged misstatements 
 — containing a feeble defence of the Corporation, and 
 a series of intemperate charges against myself — to 
 Colonel (now Sir Patrick) Lindesay, who was then 
 Acting Governor of New South Wales, with a view to 
 its immediate transmission to Lord Goderich. This 
 letter was signed by the Archdeacon himself, and by 
 my countrymen Mr. M'Leay, the Colonial Secretary, 
 and Mr. Lithgow, the Auditor-General, as Commissioners 
 of the Corporation ; the management of that institution 
 having in the mean time been transferred to the Arch- 
 deacon and certain lay commissioners. It is the cus- 
 tomary and established etiquette of the colonies to send 
 a copy of any charges of this kind to the person against 
 whom they are exhibited, in sufficient time to enable 
 him to forward his explanation or reply to the Secretary 
 of State for the Colonies by the same opportunity by 
 which the letter of crimination is transmitted against 
 him ; and the violation of that etiquette by a certain 
 
 * Now Bishop Broughton. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 345 
 
 military officer in the colony, during the government of 
 General Darling, occasioned his being cashiered by the 
 Commander-in-Chief, pursuant to the sentence of a 
 court-martial. I was not favoured, however, with a 
 copy of the Archdeacon's letter till four days after the 
 vessel in which it was transmitted to the Secretary of 
 State for the Colonies had sailed for England; and it so 
 happened, that no other opportunity of writing home 
 presented itself for about two months after. But my 
 venerable brother was doubtless very angry, and per- 
 haps thought he might well disregard the ordinary 
 and established forms of justice, in his eagerness to 
 procure the condemnation of an obnoxious Presbyterian 
 minister. 
 
 In consequence of this proceeding, and agreeably to 
 my own anticipations, the first vessel from England 
 brought me a letter of censure from my Lord Goderich. 
 for the publication of my letter to His Lordship : but 
 whether I ought to consider the censure of the Right 
 Honourable Secretary, passed in such circumstances 
 and procured by such means, at all discreditable to my- 
 self as a minister of religion, or whether there was any 
 thing in the passage above cited from my letter to His 
 Lordship, to call forth such censure at all, — the reader 
 will doubtless determine for himself. 
 
 I wrote a reply to the Archdeacon's letter, which was 
 forwarded to the Secretary of State by Major-General 
 Sir Richard Bourke, to whom it was addressed, and 
 who had arrived in the colony before the next vessel 
 sailed for England. I shall take the liberty to subjoin 
 the concluding paragraphs of that reply, relative to the 
 
346 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 concluding paragraph of the Archdeacon's commu- 
 nication ; from which the reader will perhaps be able 
 to estimate the spirit in which they were severally 
 written : — 
 
 " In the conclusion of their letter the Commissioners 
 express themselves in the following manner relative to 
 myself: — 'Embarked in an undertaking in which he 
 felt it impossible to succeed, without degrading the 
 Established Church in his Lordship's estimation, he 
 has preferred charges against the Corporation, in that 
 loose style which bespeaks a man resolved at any rate 
 to injure the object of his envy and dislike ; with the 
 blind animosity of a political partisan, rather than with 
 the scrupulous attention to truth and candour, be- 
 coming one who claims to bear a reverend and sacred 
 character/ In reference to this statement, I beg to 
 inform Your Excellency, that the undertaking in which 
 I had embarked on leaving the colony in August, 
 1830, and in which I had hazarded a voyage to Eng- 
 land, and risked all the little property I possessed, was 
 embarked in to supply the want of an academical in- 
 stitution in Sydney, to afford the youth of this colony 
 a libera], efficient, and economical education — a want, 
 which had long been universally acknowledged through- 
 out the colony, but which the Church and School Cor- 
 poration, notwithstanding its vast resources and its 
 superior facilities for the accomplishment of the object, 
 had neglected to supply. Arriving in England with 
 this object, I had scarce touched British ground, when 
 my ears were stunned with the loud and heart-rending 
 cry of distress from an unemployed and starving po- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. J47 
 
 pulation, maddened by their necessities to acts of 
 violence and crime ; and on arriving in London, and 
 ascertaining that His Majesty's Ministers were em- 
 ployed in devising ways and means for conveying a 
 portion of that population to the waste lands of the 
 Colonies, it immediately occurred to me, that in the 
 colony of New South Wales there were sources of 
 revenue directly available for that purpose to a very 
 large amount in the Crown-allotments of Sydney, and 
 the lands granted to the Church and School Cor- 
 poration ; and that the raising of a revenue from these 
 sources for such a purpose would prove a blessing of 
 incalculably greater value to the colony, than was ever 
 likely to result from the continuance of the Church and 
 School Corporation. With these views was my letter 
 to my Lord Goderich written ; and, in attestation of the 
 fact, as well as of my own sincerity in the matter in 
 question, I have only to refer Your Excellency to the 
 circumstance of my having since conducted, at very 
 great personal inconvenience and expense, an expedition 
 of one hundred and forty free emigrants to this colony, 
 solely with a view to demonstrate the practicability of 
 effecting an extensive emigration of the industrious 
 classes from the mother country to New South Wales 
 without expense to either ; and from the successful 
 issue of that expedition, and the calculations into which 
 it necessarily led me, I am confident, that if the plan I 
 had the honour to submit to my Lord Goderich were 
 carried into effect, not fewer than twenty thousand and 
 upwards of the poor and unemployed, but virtuous 
 agricultural labourers of England, might, in the course 
 
348 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 of a very few years, be conveyed with their wives and 
 families to New South Wales, without expense either 
 to the mother country or to this colony. And when 
 Your Excellency considers of what materials the po- 
 pulation of this colony has in great measure been 
 formed for the last forty years, I can submit it to Your 
 Excellency with entire confidence, whether the intro- 
 duction of such a population, to amalgamate with the 
 present inhabitants of the colony, and to people and 
 improve the extensive tracts of highly eligible land 
 which the Church and School Corporation has hitherto 
 suffered to lie waste in all parts of the territory, 
 is not a consummation incomparably more desirable 
 than the existence and continuance of that institu- 
 tion. 
 
 " In the passage above quoted, as well as in the whole 
 course of their letter to the Acting Governor, the Com- 
 missioners have evidently fallen into the palpable error of 
 identifying the character and efficiency of the Episcopal 
 Church in this colony with the character and efficiency 
 of the Corporation, and have therefore gratuitously ac- 
 cused me of cherishing a spirit of hostility towards the 
 former, merely because I had recommended to the Right 
 Honourable the Secretary of State for the Colonies 
 the entire and immediate abolition of the latter. But 
 while I broadly disclaim every feeling of hostility to- 
 wards the Episcopal Church in this territory and to- 
 wards any of its ministers, and maintain that there is 
 no evidence of such a feeling in my letter to my Lord 
 Goderich, I have no hesitation in repeating, what I 
 asserted in that letter ; that the Corporation has evinced 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 349 
 
 itself inefficient in its character, expensive in its manage- 
 ment, and prejudicial in its tendency both to the Epi- 
 scopal Church and to the colony at large. 
 
 " In regard to the insinuation, that I l felt it impos- 
 sible to succeed in the accomplishment of my object, 
 without degrading the Established Church of the co- 
 lony in his Lordship's estimation,' I beg most ex- 
 plicitly to disavow every such feeling, every such inten- 
 tion. As I do not feel it requisite, however, to express 
 my own sentiments in regard to the spirit which that 
 insinuation itself evidently breathes, I beg leave to 
 subscribe myself, &c. &c." 
 
 In an ordinary affair of honour, I believe it is not al- 
 lowable for the man who has been beaten by his ad- 
 versary with the weapon of his own choice, to demand 
 a different sort of weapon that he may have a second 
 chance ; much less is it allowable to shoot his adver- 
 sary, when off his guard and unprovided with the 
 means of defence, from behind a hedge or stone wall i 
 but clerical affairs are not to be judged of by the laws 
 of honour. The end sanctifies the means, is a maxim as 
 old as the venerable Ignatius of Loyola. The benefit 
 to be derived by the Church justifies the grossest injus- 
 tice. Whether the Archdeacon deemed his written vin- 
 dication of the Church and School Corporation unsuc- 
 cessful in point of argument, I do not know; at all 
 events, he deemed it requisite to have me publicly sub- 
 jected to a different species of infliction, under which I 
 should be utterly unable to avail myself of the noble art 
 of defence. Accordingly, as a member of the Legisla- 
 tive Council of the colony, to whose deliberations no 
 
350 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 strangers are admitted, he proposed, in the absence of 
 the Governor and of certain other members, who, I 
 have reason to believe, would not have sanctioned so 
 anomalous a proceeding, that a vote of censure should 
 be passed upon me for the statements in my letter to 
 Lord Goderich relative to the Church and School Cor- 
 poration, and the Episcopal clergy of the colony ; and 
 the vote was accordingly passed on the 15th of March, 
 1 832, and published to the following effect in all the 
 newspapers of the colony : — 
 
 " Resolved, That His Excellency the Governor be re- 
 quested to communicate to the Right Honourable the 
 Secretary of State the opinion of this Council, that 
 the charges against the Protestant Episcopal clergy of 
 the colony, contained in the letter addressed by Dr. 
 Lang to Viscount Goderich, were unfounded and un- 
 warrantable ; and that the publication of the same was 
 a highly improper and censurable act." 
 
 It was doubtless unseemly in itself, as well as directly 
 repugnant to the principles of English law, for the Arch- 
 deacon and the Colonial Secretary (for I believe the 
 Auditor-General did not vote) to sit in judgment on 
 my letter, or to express any opinion respecting it, as 
 members of the Legislative Council, after having made 
 themselves parties in the case to which it referred, by 
 transmitting a formal complaint, on the subject of its 
 alleged misstatements, to the Secretary of State. Be- 
 sides, instead of specifying the particular statements in 
 my letter which they held " unfounded and unwarrant- 
 able," as it was incumbent upon them to have done, 
 especially when the public expression of their opinion 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 351 
 
 was calculated to affect my reputation as a minister of 
 religion, the Legislative Council merely passed a general 
 and sweeping sentence of condemnation, the injustice of 
 which was exactly proportioned to its vagueness and ge- 
 nerality. But if the Legislative Council had really been 
 
 desirous of ascertaining the truth in regard to the State- 
 ly O 
 
 ments of my letter, they would have called for an ex- 
 planation in the first instance, or for the production of 
 evidence on the subject of these statements ; but in con- 
 demning me unheard and without even the shadow of 
 investigation, they left it to be inferred that their object 
 was not the assertion of truth, but individual oppression. 
 In short, the proceeding was in every respect anoma- 
 lous and unjustifiable; and I cannot help expressing my 
 opinion, that even supposing that the members of the 
 Legislative Council had all been disinterested in the 
 case, that the charge they had preferred against me 
 had been direct and specific, and that they had been 
 able to substantiate that charge by unexceptionable evi- 
 dence, — it would still have been a gross violation of the 
 liberties of the subject, for a mere legislative body to 
 erect themselves into a Court of Inquisition, and to sit 
 in judgment on the moral character and veracity of a 
 private individual. If I had either been a robber of 
 churches or a blasphemer of their goddess — the Church 
 and School Corporation, whose image, I presume, fell 
 down from Jupiter, along with that of Diana of the 
 Ephesians — was the law not open ? were there not depu- 
 ties or judges, before zchom the matter might have been 
 inquired into and determined in a lawful assembly c l 
 For the members of the Legislative Council of New 
 
352 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 South Wales I entertain all that dutiful respect which 
 a Christian man is bound to cherish for the rulers of his 
 country, independently of their personal desert : but I 
 should be giving these gentlemen a great deal too much 
 credit, to suppose them at all capable of fixing a proper 
 standard of clerical propriety and of clerical disinterest- 
 edness in a convict colony. When the ideas of the 
 Archdeacon himself on that most important subject 
 were so exceedingly confused, that he could not even 
 perceive the impropriety of charging the public £30 for 
 travelling expenses* after receiving a salary of £2000 a 
 year; what could be expected of a few sheep-farmers, a 
 few Sydney merchants, and a few civil officers of the 
 colonial government, transformed into legislators, but 
 that they would argue in this style, " What is generally 
 practised cannot be wrong ? " The details I have already 
 given in a previous chapter, will perhaps convince the 
 reader that the statements in my letter to my Lord 
 Goderich were neither unfounded nor unwarrantable. 
 
 As to whether a passage incidentally introduced in a 
 letter, obviously written to promote the best interests of 
 my adopted country, and to point out the means of 
 relieving the mother country of a portion of her dis- 
 tressed population, was the only particular either in my 
 conduct or writings that deserved the notice of the Le- 
 gislative Council of New South Wales, I am not com- 
 petent to decide. I feel confident, however, that my 
 own humble efforts to promote the intellectual, the 
 moral, and the spiritual welfare of that colony, will be 
 
 * This item was actually inserted in the public accounts of the period. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 353 
 
 estimated in a very different manner, when the members 
 of its Legislative Council shall have ceased to vote, and 
 the individual who now appeals from their censure, to 
 be affected by their opinion. 
 
 The opinion of the Legislative Council, and the vote 
 of censure to which it led, were no dead letter to me. 
 At the time when the vote was passed, and published in 
 all the newspapers of the colony, there were from fifty to 
 a hundred reputable individuals, whom I had carried 
 out from Scotland to the extremity of the earth, looking 
 to me every Saturday evening for the wages of their 
 labour, earned in the erection of buildings for the 
 education of the long-neglected youth of the Australian 
 colonies ; while the weekly supply of funds for the 
 carrying on of so extensive an undertaking depended 
 entirely on my own personal credit and the favour of 
 the public, both of which the vote of the Legislative 
 Council tended almost completely to destroy. A friend 
 of my own in the colony # had endorsed bills of my 
 acceptance to the amount of £1000, for the carrying 
 on of the undertaking, till the funds of the institution 
 could be rendered available for the purpose. Imme- 
 diately after the passing of the vote of censure, I 
 received a pressing requisition from my friend for tan- 
 gible security, as my name alone was no longer deemed 
 sufficient : I accordingly gave him a security on my 
 dwelling-house, but caused the house to be advertised 
 for sale forthwith. It was sold accordingly in a few 
 weeks after, and realized, together with some build- 
 
 * Thomas Barker, Esq., of Sydney. 
 
354 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 ing-ground adjoining it, £'2250. I had thus the 
 satisfaction of very soon seeing my friend entirely out 
 of danger. The house was situated on the summit of 
 the ridge that separates the two beautiful coves or 
 inlets of the harbour of Port Jackson, around which 
 the town of Sydney is built : it commanded a view of 
 the harbour as far as its noble entrance in front, and 
 of the interesting lake-scenery in the upper part of it in 
 the rear. I had laid my account to live and die in it ; 
 but he who is called in the good providence of God 
 to struggle with principalities and powers, on behalf 
 of his fellow-men in the colonies, must learn to do 
 violence to his own feelings on occasions of emer- 
 gency, and even to take joyfully the spoiling of his 
 goods. 
 
 There was other property in the town of Sydney, 
 belonging partly to myself and partly to other members 
 of my own family, to the amount of upwards of £2000, 
 which was also brought to the hammer for a similar 
 purpose in the course of the same protracted struggle : 
 for as the number of mechanics necessarily employed 
 at the College Buildings rendered a large expenditure 
 absolutely necessary on the one hand, it was found on 
 the other that no part of the public funds allotted by 
 Lord Goderich for the carrying on of the undertaking 
 could be procured for a whole twelvemonth after its 
 commencement. The funds I allude to were to be ad- 
 vanced by instalments, provided that an equal amount 
 should have been previously expended by the pro- 
 moters of the undertaking ; security to be given to the 
 Government on the College buildings for the ultimate 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 355 
 
 repayment of the advance at the expiration of five 
 years. The buildings, however, were erected on ground 
 belonging to the trustees of the Scots Church, and it 
 was determined by the Crown lawyers of the colony 
 that the latter could not give a security till they were 
 empowered to do so by an Act of Council : but an 
 Act of Council was not easily procurable ; and, as it 
 was necessary in the mean time to obtain funds from 
 some quarter or other to carry on the work, the 
 trustees of the Scots Church offered personal security 
 for the due execution of the mortgage, as soon as its. 
 execution should be practicable. The Legislative 
 Council, however, being constituted judges in regard 
 to the sufficiency of the security, would not be satisfied 
 with any thing but the bond. The bond was at length 
 prepared by a private solicitor, and cost twelve guineas ; 
 but as His Majesty's Attorney-General, John Kinshela, 
 Esq. # refused to examine it on behalf of the Legislative 
 Council, of which he was a member, unless I sent him 
 a fee, I sent him five pounds. I regret exceedingly 
 that the sum was so small, (although it was more 
 than I could well afford at the time ;) for the honour- 
 able gentleman's salary, as a Crown lawyer, was only 
 £1200 a year. 
 
 It will not excite any surprise on the part of the 
 reader, that even the gentlemen chosen to manage 
 the Australian College, and the shareholders in general, 
 should have been somewhat influenced by the strange 
 and anomalous proceeding of the Legislative Council, 
 
 * Now one of the puisne judges of the colony. 
 
356 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 or rather by the state of feeling in certain influential 
 quarters, in which that proceeding had originated. To 
 be placed under the ban of the colony — to be publicly 
 stigmatized by the highest authority in the country as 
 a setter-forth of unfounded and unwarrantable state- 
 ments, or, in plain English, as a liar, was but a sorry 
 recommendation for any person so completely identified 
 with the establishment and progress of an Academical 
 Institution as I had then the honour to be. Accord- 
 ingly, certain of the gentlemen connected with the 
 management of the College became very cool on the 
 subject, and certain of the shareholders invented a 
 variety of excuses to obviate the payment of their 
 subscriptions. The College Council finding, therefore, 
 that they could not easily meet the full amount of the 
 sum to be advanced by the Government, resolved 
 to discontinue the buildings when only half the extent 
 originally agreed on had been erected, to get rid of the 
 mechanics before they had fulfilled their engagement, to 
 reduce the institution to one half the extent originally 
 proposed, and to accept only of such part of the amount 
 to be contributed by the Government as might equal the 
 exact amount of the subscriptions realized. This, how- 
 ever, was a state of things of which I had foreseen the 
 possible occurrence from the very first, and for which I 
 had accordingly provided a derniere ressource in the sale 
 of my own property : I therefore felt myself called on 
 to give the gentlemen I refer to distinctly to understand, 
 that unless the plan originally sanctioned by Lord 
 Goderich were strictly adhered to, and the buildings 
 carried on to the extent originally agreed on, and the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 357 
 
 mechanics retained for the erection of these buildings 
 in pursuance of their original agreement, the trustees 
 of the Scots Church, on whose behalf I was authorized 
 to act in the case, would by no means give up their 
 right to the ground on which the buildings were erect- 
 ing, and which they had previously agreed to surrender, 
 on the understanding and condition that the plan above 
 mentioned should be carried into full effect. In short, 
 as every attempt to subvert the institution from without 
 had completely failed, it was not difficult to perceive 
 that there was influence employed somewhere to reduce 
 it to a state of comparative inefficiency and insigni- 
 ficance ; and in such circumstances, it was evidently my 
 duty to counteract that influence by every available 
 means. Nay, at a meeting which was held during my 
 own absence in the discharge of clerical duty in the in- 
 terior, certain of the other gentlemen connected with the 
 management of the College were actually told, on good 
 authority, that the 'Archdeacon would have no objection 
 to unite with all of them, but would have nothing to do 
 with Dr. Lang; or, in other words, provided I could 
 have been got rid of, the Archdeacon would not have 
 been unwilling to place himself at the head of an insti- 
 tution which I had sacrificed all my property and 
 risked my life to establish. If this should be con- 
 sidered rather an equivocal mark of brotherly kindness, 
 it was at least a satisfactory evidence of the respectable 
 character of our infant institution. 
 
 To carry on the undertaking in the midst of so much 
 discouragement and so much opposition, both open and 
 concealed, was no easy task. It almost drove me to my 
 
358 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 wits' end ; and the effort to conceal the violent and dis- 
 tressing emotions, with which I was inwardly agitated 
 for months together, was almost too great for a natu- 
 rally strong constitution to undergo. # But to use the 
 language of the Christian Father, whose words I have 
 prefixed as a motto to this chapter, "The work was 
 great and arduous, but God vouchsafed assistance." 
 That assistance was sometimes supplied from quarters 
 from which I could never have expected it ; and on 
 several occasions, after experiencing a degree of cold- 
 ness amounting almost to insult from individuals of 
 the wealthier classes of society in the colony, I re- 
 ceived unsolicited assistance, accompanied with the 
 warmest expressions of friendly encouragement, from 
 persons in the humbler walks of life, both free emigrants 
 and emancipists. 
 
 The founding of an academical institution for the 
 education of youth, in a colony so singularly consti- 
 tuted as that of New South Wales; was an object of 
 too much importance to the community at large, to 
 suppose that it could possibly have been accomplished 
 by the parties connected with the establishment, of the 
 
 * During the progress of the undertaking, I happened one day to light 
 upon a passage in The Scots Worthies, which appeared to indicate a state 
 of things somewhat similar to the one I had myself experienced. It 
 occurs in the life of the eminently pious and learned Samuel Rutherford, 
 and relates to his connexion with the estahlishment of a Divinity 
 College at St. Andrew's, in the seventeenth century ; in which.it seems, 
 he had not only taken an active part, but experienced much difficulty and 
 opposition. " This New College," says Mr. Rutherford repeatedly in 
 the passage I refer to, " will break my heart." The coincidence of cir- 
 cumstances, in situations so very different and so very remote from each 
 other, struck me very forcibly at the moment. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 359 
 
 Australian College, without giving offence in some quar- 
 ter or other : but the success which has already at- 
 tended the institution, notwithstanding every discou- ' 
 ragement, amply compensates for this temporary evil, 
 while it affords to myself at least no small consolation 
 under all the difficulties that have hitherto been ex- 
 perienced in effecting its establishment. Although these 
 difficulties were unexpected, in as far as regarded the 
 particular form they assumed, I was neither unprepared 
 for the occurrence of great difficulties in the under- 
 taking, nor disposed to regard them with despondency. 
 Having been engaged in a somewhat similar struggle 
 for the settlement of the Scots Church in Sydney, 
 shortly after my first arrival in the colony, I was led, 
 from the experience I obtained of the general procedure 
 of the Providence of God in the course and from the 
 issue of that struggle, to record the following sentiment 
 in a pamphlet published at the time in the colony ; and I 
 have since had no reason to alter my opinion : — " In any 
 undertaking in which I may be engaged in future for 
 the glory of God or the benefit of man, I shall esteem 
 opposition and discouragement in the outset as the best 
 earnest of prosperity in the end ; for he that goeth forth 
 and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come 
 again zvith rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." 
 
 The portion of the Australian College Buildings now 
 erected contains a commodious residence for each of 
 the four head-masters or professors of the institution, 
 with highly suitable accommodation for not fewer than 
 from eighty to a hundred boarders ; one principal ob- 
 ject of the establishment of the college being to afford 
 
360 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 education at a cheap rate to youth from the interior of 
 the colony or from India. The education of a youth 
 attending the classical and elementary classes costs £12 
 a year : boarding in the family of one of the head- 
 masters or professors costs £30 additional. On my arrival 
 in the colony in the year 1823, the education of a boy 
 reading Latin, in a school taught by a single master, 
 cost, exclusive of board, £20 a year. 
 
 Hitherto the Australian College has necessarily been 
 rather a series of elementary and classical schools 
 than a college properly so called. It was proposed, 
 however, from the first, that it should occupy a 
 higher or collegiate position as soon as possible; afford- 
 ing to colonial youth of a more advanced standing 
 similar educational advantages to those afforded in the 
 mathematical, philosophical, and natural history classes 
 of the universities of Scotland ; and I am happy to 
 add, that the change recently effected in the ecclesias- 
 tical state of the colony, combined with the provision 
 guaranteed for the establishment of superior schools for 
 elementary instruction, as well as of schools of a higher 
 or intermediate character, will render this arrangement 
 both practicable and necessary at a much earlier period 
 that was at first anticipated. The training up of a native 
 ministry for the Australian colonies is undoubtedly an 
 object of transcendent importance to their moral wel- 
 fare and progressive advancement ; and it is therefore 
 peculiarly gratifying to know, that there is machinery 
 enough on the spot, and already in actual operation, 
 to effect that important object. As a fourth professor, 
 to complete the primary educational establishment of 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 361 
 
 the Australian College, is at present on the eve of 
 embarking for New South Wales, it is probable that the 
 following will henceforth be the distribution and employ- 
 ment of the available force of the Institution, exclusive 
 of assistant masters for the inferior branches ; viz. 
 
 Latin and Greek, Rev. Thomas Aitken, A.M. 
 
 Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, Rev. David 
 Mackenzie, A.M. 
 
 Natural History, in all its branches, Rev. J. Gowans. 
 
 Logic and Moral Philosophy, Rev. Robert Wylde, 
 A.M. 
 
 An educational establishment of this extent will 
 enable the Australian College to afford the native can- 
 didate for the ministry in New South Wales, a course 
 of preparatory education somewhat similar to the one 
 prescribed for candidates for the ministry in the Church 
 of Scotland, previous to the commencement of their 
 theological course. There is reason to believe, more- 
 over, that there will be ample means of establishing a 
 course of theological education, before the first series 
 of students in the Institution shall have completed their 
 preparatory curriculum. A moderate endowment from 
 the colonial government for each of the four professor- 
 ships of the Institution would doubtless facilitate these 
 arrangements ; but this is by no means absolutely ne- 
 cessary ; for, as the colonial government are at present 
 strongly opposed to the endowment of academical in- 
 stitutions in the colony, I have reason to believe that 
 the colonial public will cheerfully contribute whatever 
 funds may be requisite for the accomplishment of an 
 object of so much real importance to their own welfare 
 
 VOL. II. Q 
 
362 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 and advancement. At all events, there will be no want of 
 candidates for the ministry under the new system, either 
 in New South Wales or in Van Dieman's Land ; and 
 as I am confident that the flower of our colonial youth 
 Will easily be induced to offer themselves for that holy 
 office in their native land, there will obviously be less 
 and less reason every succeeding year for depending on 
 second-rate men from the mother country ; for such, I 
 have been repeatedly told, since my return to Europe, 
 is the only sort of clerical men we can reasonably look 
 for in future, whether from the church of England or the 
 church of Scotland, to occupy the pulpits of Australia. 
 There is another object of importance, to which it 
 was conceived the establishment of the Australian 
 College might be rendered subservient — I mean the 
 Christianization and civilization of the numerous isles 
 of the Pacific. The intercourse of the colony with 
 these islands is becoming more frequent, and, of con- 
 sequence, more influential either for good or for evil, 
 every day. At the same time, there is an interesting 
 European population arising in these islands, in the 
 children of missionaries ; who, according to the early 
 training they shall receive, will be powerfully influential 
 either in extending the language, the laws, the civili- 
 zation, and the Protestant religion of Britain over the 
 multitude of the isles, or in augmenting the darkness and 
 the immorality of their heathen inhabitants. Having 
 been informed by several of these missionaries, who 
 occasionally visit the colony, that the children of 
 Europeans were exposed to manifold temptations in 
 the South Sea Islands, and were in danger, moreover, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 363 
 
 of contracting those lethargic habits that are universally 
 prevalent among semi-barbarians, it occurred to me, 
 that if the most promising of the sons of European 
 missionaries at the islands could be educated in New 
 South Wales under the superintendence of able and 
 Christian men, their knowledge of the language, and 
 their constitutional adaptation to the climate of Poly- 
 nesia, would render them peculiarly fit to be after- 
 wards sent forth as missionaries to those numerous 
 and populous isles that have never yet been visited 
 by Europeans, and whose groves of palm-trees have 
 never been lighted up by the torch of knowledge, 
 nor gladdened by the sound of the Gospel. With this 
 idea I wrote to the missionaries at Tahiti, (Otaheite,) 
 shortly after my return to the colony in the year 1826, 
 offering to educate any promising youth they might 
 send up to New South Wales by way of experiment. 
 The son of a Scotch missionary from the London Mis- 
 sionary Society, who had been born in the town of 
 Sydney, but spoke the Polynesian language as fluently 
 as the English, was accordingly sent up to the colony 
 towards the close of the year; and, in a period of time 
 unusually short, acquired, by lessons which I could only 
 afford to give him at irregular intervals, a sufficient 
 knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages, to enable 
 him to translate the Greek Gospels into good Latin at 
 the opening of the book. The young man lived four or 
 five years in my family ; but preferring at length to return 
 to the islands, he did so in the year 1832, and has since 
 been ordained as a missionary for the Samoa or Navi- 
 
364 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 gators' Islands. The experiment consequently proved 
 successful ; and it plainly showed how much might 
 easily be accomplished for the multitude of the isles of 
 Polynesia, as well as for the main-land of Australia, by 
 means of a sufficient and well-directed educational force 
 permanently established in the Australian College. 
 
 It was the hope of rendering that institution as 
 efficient as possible in the various respects I have thus 
 enumerated, as well as of procuring a number of addi- 
 tional ministers and schoolmasters for the Presby- 
 terian Church in the Australian colonies, that induced 
 me to double Cape Horn and to circumnavigate the 
 globe for the fourth time : and if I have occupied too 
 much of the reader's time in detailing the origin and 
 history of an institution with which I have hitherto 
 been in great measure identified, I trust I shall stand 
 excused, when it is borne in mind, that the Australian 
 College promises at no distant period to be the first 
 and the most influential institution for the education of 
 youth in the Southern Hemisphere. 
 
 The only other public educational institutions in the 
 colony are the King's School at Parramatta, founded 
 by the present bishop, when archdeacon of New South 
 Wales, and the Sydney College. All the three institu- 
 tions are at present unquestionably under able and 
 efficient management, and consequently in a highly 
 prosperous and flourishing condition ; the number of 
 pupils or students in each varying from eighty to con- 
 siderably upwards of a hundred. The Australian Col- 
 lege, however, is the only one of the three which pro- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 365 
 
 mises to afford a regular course of academical educa- 
 tion, the other two being intended only to serve the 
 purpose of grammar-schools, 
 
 On my arrival in New South Wales for the fourth time, 
 towards the close of the year 1834, it was somehow 
 the general impression in the colony, that it was the 
 intention of the local government to establish the Irish 
 national system of education throughout the territory, 
 and to withdraw all grants of public money from what- 
 ever primary or elementary schools should not be re- 
 modelled on that system. With the exception of three 
 or four Roman Catholic schools, the endowed elementary 
 schools of the colony were at that time exclusively Epi- 
 scopalian — professedly conducted on the Madras system, 
 but generally of inferior character, and extremely ineffi- 
 cient. That a change of system was loudly called for, 
 was universally acknowledged ; but in regard to the 
 nature of that change, there was considerable difference 
 of opinion. The colonial government, as I have already 
 observed, the Roman Catholics of the colony, the co- 
 lonial liberals, and the colonial press, were all strongly 
 in favour of the exclusive establishment of the Irish 
 system, as it was then generally styled in the colony, as 
 the only educational system that should thenceforth 
 be supported from the public treasury : and as the 
 Rev. H. Carmichael, A.M. (whom I had carried out to 
 the colony for the classical department of the Austra- 
 lian College in the year 1831, partly on the recom- 
 mendation of the Rev. Dr. Chalmers, and on whom, 
 with his two assistants, the duties of that institution 
 had entirely devolved during my own absence in Eng- 
 
366 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 land, through the death of one of his coadjutors, and 
 the translation of another to a clerical charge in Van 
 Dieman's Land,) joined this powerful phalanx, and ac- 
 tually resigned his charge in the Australian College, to 
 be in readiness for the Secretaryship of the future 
 Colonial Board of Education, there seemed for some time 
 to be no doubt whatever of the exclusive establishment 
 of the Irish system in New South Wales ; the slightest 
 murmur of disapprobation, the slightest demonstration 
 of a desire to have the Holy Scriptures of the author- 
 ized version, without note or comment, used in the 
 public schools of the colony, being instantly put down 
 with the hue and cry of sectarianism and intolerance. 
 In this critical conjuncture, the journal to which I have 
 already repeatedly alluded was established in the co- 
 lony ; and as the Rev. Mr. Carmichael, to whom I had 
 previously looked as its future editor, had precluded 
 the possibility of any such arrangement by his own 
 procedure — in deserting our infant institution, on the 
 one hand, after his connexion with it for three years had 
 raised him to a state of respectability and influence in 
 the country ; and in advocating the Irish system, on the 
 other — its editorial management devolved entirely on 
 myself. Its first efforts were directed against the 
 powerful combination I have described, in a series of 
 articles on general education, in which the principle of 
 the Irish system was combated week after week, not 
 only on the ground usually taken by its Protestant 
 opponents in this country, but on ground peculiar to 
 the colony. 
 
 It was argued, for instance, that even taking it for 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 367 
 
 granted that the Irish national system of education was 
 the only system practicable in the present circumstances 
 of unhappy and long misgoverned Ireland, the cir- 
 cumstances of the colony of New South Wales were 
 altogether different ; for whereas the Roman Catholics 
 were as 4^ to 1, as compared with the Protestants of 
 Ireland ; the Protestants were as 3 to 1, as compared 
 with the Roman Catholics of New South Wales ; and 
 it was consequently shown to be preposterous to subject 
 a colonial population, comprising so large a majority of 
 Protestants, to a system which could only be defended 
 as a measure of political necessity, — a measure of con- 
 ciliation towards an overwhelming majority of Roman 
 Catholics in Roman Catholic Ireland. 
 
 It was also argued, that the plea of "justice to 
 the Roman Catholics," which was urged with some 
 propriety in Ireland by the advocates of the Irish 
 national system in Great Britain, could not be urged 
 at all in New South Wales ; the Roman Catholics of 
 that colony having already a grant from the public 
 treasury for the education of their own youth in schools 
 of their own — a grant, which the Protestants were not 
 unwilling to have increased, provided it could be shown 
 to be inadequate to the object in view. It was added, 
 moreover, that the systematic attempts of avowed Ro- 
 man Catholics to force the Irish system upon the 
 colony in such circumstances, could only be regarded as 
 a measure of proselytism on their part, equally offensive 
 and intolerable. 
 
 Besides, it was urged with immediate effect, that 
 New South Wales was a British and not an Irish co- 
 
368 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 lony, and was therefore not to be subjected to a system 
 of education which would immediately be rejected with 
 indignation by the people of England and Scotland, 
 and which was fit only for the people of Ireland. 
 
 The arrangement recommended in the journal in 
 question was that a board of education should be con- 
 stituted by the Government, consisting of ministers of 
 religion, and laymen of all the leading communions of 
 the colony ; and that that Board should annually as- 
 certain the numbers and wants of each communion 
 respectively, and apportion the educational funds of 
 the colony accordingly, under the sanction of the Go- 
 vernor and Council. Under such a system it was as- 
 certained that there would only be three classes of 
 schools required in the colony, viz., Episcopalian, Pres- 
 byterian, and Roman Catholic ; the Wesleyan Me- 
 thodists uniting with the Episcopalians, and the Inde- 
 pendents and Baptists with the Presbyterians : and it 
 was shown in conclusion, that in a colony comprising 
 so many communions, the Irish system, which pro- 
 fessed to please everybody, was a Utopian scheme, 
 and would eventually please nobody ; and that whereas 
 the colonial advocates of that system were perpetually 
 exclaiming against intolerance and sectarianism, they 
 were themselves the only intolerant sectarians in the 
 colony, in attempting to force the system of their own 
 little sect on a population of which the great majority 
 were determined to have none of it. 
 
 These arguments and representations were in the 
 mean time but feebly opposed by the Roman Catholic 
 and latitudinarian journals of the colony, — the ' Sydney 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 369 
 
 Gazette,' the 'Australian,' and the 'Monitor,' — the 
 1 Sydney Herald ' being prudently silent on the subject 
 till it found public opinion fairly formed. In defect of 
 argument, however, ridicule, which it must be acknow- 
 ledged is sometimes the test of truth, was attempted 
 again and again to be thrown upon myself individually, 
 and on all who opposed the exclusive establishment of 
 the Irish system : but this powerful weapon was easily 
 wrenched out of the hands of men who were unable to 
 wield it, and turned against themselves and their system 
 with the happiest effect : the following jeu d'esprit, which 
 was published in the ninth number of the ' Colonist,' 
 the journal to which I have repeatedly referred, having 
 done more to settle the question of the Irish system in 
 the public mind, than a whole series of arguments. 
 
 THE IRISH STEW. 
 
 I sing of good eating ! There once befel 
 A notable feast at a Sydney hotel ! 
 There was plenty for me, and plenty for you ; 
 But the pride of the Board was an Irish stew. 
 
 Who it was that got up the feast, 
 
 Is of many important things the least ; 
 
 For a feast there was, and that is most true, 
 
 And the principal dish was an Irish stew. 
 
 There were guests of every rank and station, 
 Of every possible creed and nation ; 
 Mahometan, Christian, Pagan and Jew; 
 But the only dish was an Irish stew ! 
 
370 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OP 
 
 An Irish Roman Catholic priest 
 Got up in his place and bless'd the feast, 
 And then help'd himself, as he well could do, 
 To a trencher-full of the Irish stew. 
 
 He dived right into it all in a minute, 
 And show'd there was never a Bible in it. 
 " For what," said he, " had the Bible to do 
 Either inside or outside an Irish stew?" 
 
 There was music too, both loud and shrill, 
 To cheer up those who were eating their fill ; 
 And some, it is said, took mountain-dew 
 In plentiful draughts with their Irish stew. 
 
 Monitor H — 11 was the principal chanter ; 
 
 He sat, like the De'il in Tam O'Shanter, 
 
 With a pair of Scotch bagpipes, and sung while he blew, 
 
 " O there 's no dish at all like an Irish stew."* 
 
 For eight long years he had sung like a starling, 
 " O what a tyrant was General Darling ! " 
 But alas ! that good old tune 's replaced with a new, 
 Since he 's taken to play up " The Irish stew." 
 
 Meanwhile a poor Editor, Richard Roe, 
 And his equally brainless friend, John Doe, 
 Stood up on their feet, as they used to do, 
 And began — " The aforesaid Irish Stew — " 
 
 But their eloquence suffer'd a sad eclipse ; 
 For the Judges speedily seal'd their lips 
 
 * Mr. Edward Smith Hall, editor of the 'Sydney Monitor,' a liberal 
 or latitudinarian paper, was an unqualified admirer of the Irish system, 
 and incessant in its praise. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. «j/ 
 
 And turn'd them out ! So all they could do 
 Was to beg for some more of the Irish stew.* 
 
 And other Editors too might be seen 
 With their tickets of leave and their shamrocks green. 
 They may thank English juries ('twixt me and you) 
 For their own tid-bits of the Irish stew.f 
 
 But many, 'tis said, turn'd sick to see 
 So uncommonly little variety ; 
 While Scotch and English parsons too 
 Said they never would dine on Irish stew. 
 
 •" A haggis for me !" cried one reverend brother ; 
 ** Roast-beef and plum-pudding ! " exclaim'd another. 
 But so it was, that amazingly few 
 Were found to relish the Irish stew. 
 
 Then the head of the N 1 1- 
 
 A hero of tact and elocution, 
 
 Got up on a stool (as he needed to do), 
 To be seen when extolling the Irish stew. J 
 
 * 'The Australian' newspaper was, at the time in question, under 
 the editorial management of two colonial solicitors, who were by no 
 means remarkable either for the profundity of their thoughts or the force 
 of their diction. The circumstance alluded to in the rhyme was one 
 which had made a great noise in the colony, and was designated at the 
 time the Division of the Bar ; being a measure of the Supreme Court, 
 precluding solicitors from practising in future as barristers, as they had 
 previously been permitted to do. 
 
 t The 'Sydney Gazette' was at the period in question under the 
 joint editorial management of Mr. Edward O'Shaughnessy, an eman- 
 cipated convict from the green isle ; and Mr. William Watt, a Scotch 
 convict, actually under an unexpired sentence of transportation, and 
 merely holding a ticket of leave. 
 
 % On leaving the Australian College, the Rev. Mr. Carmichael had 
 established a private school in the town of Sydney, which he dig- 
 
372 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 " There are some," he said, " who turn up their nose 
 At the richest and daintiest dish that goes ; 
 But show me the puny sectarian who 
 Has a stomach that nauseates Irish stew ! 
 
 nified with the name of the Normal Institution. The character of this 
 estahlishment may be guessed at from the following advertisement : — 
 
 " NORMAL INSTITUTION, 
 Under the superintendence of the Rev. Henry Carmichael, A.M. 
 
 "This Institution has been formed with the view of laying the foun- 
 dation of a National System of Education in New South Wales. 
 
 " The classes are open to the children of all denominations of religion- 
 ists ; for, whilst the communication of religious knowledge forms part of 
 the course of instruction, the inculcation of any given set of religious opinions, 
 as matter of faith, is distinctly disclaimed. The object aimed at is to 
 enable the pupil, at as early a period as possible, to undertake the task 
 of educating himself; and thus becoming, on religious as well as all other 
 topics, the framer of his own opinions." 
 
 The man who can talk at this rate, and especially in a convict-colony, 
 may well save himself the trouble of inculcating any given set of religious 
 opiniojis, as the probability is, that he has none that are really worth 
 inculcating. 
 
 The following extract from a pamphlet, otherwise unexceptionable, 
 published by Mr. Carmichael, under the title of • Hints to Emigrants,' dis- 
 covers still more clearly the peculiar views of that gentleman on the 
 subject of education : — 
 
 " Under the present circumstances of the colony, there is ample room 
 and inducement for the labour of inferior men as schoolmasters : and 
 certainly, better is it to have inferior labour in this department of 
 exertion, than an utter destitution of the means of elementary instruc- 
 tion. Yet the matter is of such manifest importance, and the con- 
 sequences so obviously beneficial, of having established in the territory 
 an effective system of education ; that the time may not be esteemed far 
 distant, when there shall be a properly and effectively endowed and 
 chartered establishment — independent on the control of clerical umpire- 
 ship, and clear of the meddling of party spirit and sectarian influence, — 
 which shall have authority, and possess capabilities, for spreading 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 373 
 
 " For, upon my honour, this excellent dish 
 Has the nature of herb, fowl, flesh, and fish. 
 It suits all palates. Pray, try it, sir, do ; 
 And you '11 soon ask for more of the Irish stew. 
 
 " There 'a English, French, Latin, and Mathematics, 
 Jurisprudence and Aerostatics ; 
 There 's cod-fish, and plaice and celery too, 
 Combined in this excellent Irish stew ! 
 
 " ' But as for religion,' you say : what then ? 
 Does every gentleman relish cayenne ? 
 To season for one might poison two ; 
 So we shan't season at all our Irish stew. 
 
 " But we '11 have a spice-bottle at hand on a shelf, 
 That each may season it for himself.* 
 
 throughout the territory the blessings and benefits of systematic edu- 
 cation. 
 
 " Until the state shall have made a separate and ample provision for 
 the furtherance of secular education, altogether distinct from religious, 
 the exertions of the schoolmaster, properly so called, will be com- 
 paratively powerless ; as the influence of the clergy of all denominations 
 will of course be plied to disparage his labours and bring his character 
 into disrepute. The common interests of the race however may well be 
 expected, ere long, to prevail over the ambition and esprit -de -corps of so 
 deeply interested a class of men." 
 
 When such sentiments were cherished and avowed by the Rev. Mr. 
 Carmichael, (himself a licentiate of the church of Scotland, and con- 
 sequently at one time an avowed subscriber of the Confession of Faith, 
 the doctrinal standard of that church) it will not be supposed that the 
 desertion of that gentleman could prove either a serious or a protracted 
 calamity to the Australian College, whatever might have been its in- 
 tention. As one of its public instructors of youth, his place has been 
 long since ably occupied ; and considering the Institution in the im- 
 portant character of a nursery for at least one branch of the colonial 
 church, the entire discontinuance of his connexion with it was " a con- 
 summation devoutly to be wish'd." 
 
 * On opening his new school, Mr. Carmichael published a sort of 
 
374 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Neither Pagan, Christian, Turk or Jew, 
 Shall ever season my Irish stew." 
 
 But it seems he had bolted full more than enough 
 Even of that super-excellent stuff: 
 
 For he stopp'd, turn'd pale, and began to sp ; 
 
 So here ends Course the First of the Irish Stew. 
 
 The agitation of this important question in the way I 
 have described, during the early part of the year 1835, 
 undoubtedly prevented the exclusive establishment of the 
 Irish system by the Legislative Council of New South 
 Wales for that year. This delay was of the utmost 
 importance to the colony j for before the next meeting 
 of the Council, in the year 1836, Lord Glenelg's famous 
 dispatch already referred to, — authorizing the establish- 
 ment of a general system of education on the Irish 
 system, if it should be found agreeable to the wishes 
 of the colonists, but directing grants to be issued from 
 the public treasury for the establishment of schools of 
 their own, for those bodies or communions that should 
 prefer such an arrangement, — arrived in the colony. At 
 their meeting in the month of July, 1836, the Legislative 
 Council accordingly voted a specific sum (£3000) for the 
 estalishment of certain schools in the colony on the Irish 
 system, but recognised and established the important 
 
 manifesto, declaratory of his views and intentions, in the colonial pa- 
 pers ; and in reference to the subject of religious instruction, after re- 
 peating his own precious nonsense about religious knowledge as distinct 
 from religious opinions, he threw out the astounding declaration, as a 
 bait I presume to colonial liberalism, that he would have the Bible in 
 his school " as a book of reference," but of course as nothing more. But 
 the respectable colonists were happily not to be practised upon by so 
 peculiarly awkward a manoeuvre. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 375 
 
 principle, that primary schools on a system more ac- 
 cordant with the views and feelings of Protestants gene- 
 rally should be endowed by the Government to an extent 
 equal to the contributions of their respective supporters. 
 This important principle being thus established, it ap- 
 peared to me that the proper course, for the body with 
 which I was more immediately connected, to pursue, 
 was to turn it to immediate account, and to leave to 
 others the task of amending the law, and of thereby 
 getting rid of the Irish system. Fourteen Presbyterian 
 schoolmasters, selected at my request since my re- 
 turn to England by the Glasgow Educational Society, 
 and for whom I am happy to add that His Majesty's truly 
 liberal and enlightened Government have beneficently 
 guaranteed a free passage out, are accordingly at this 
 moment on the eve of embarkation from Scotland for 
 New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land, with a view 
 to the establishment of schools on the most improved 
 plan at present in operation in the mother country, under 
 the auspices of the Presbyterian Church in these colonies. 
 The recently-created Bishop of Australia had arrived in 
 New South Wales about two months before I left the 
 colony in the end of July, 1836, and had immediately 
 commenced a system of agitation, by means of petitions 
 and public meetings, in co-operation with members of 
 all the other Protestant communions of the colony, with 
 a view to have the new law, establishing the Irish system, 
 repealed ; and by the last accounts from the colony it 
 appears that this agitation had been continued up to 
 the close of the year. But there is a time for action as 
 well as for agitation ; and I am decidedly of opinion, 
 
376 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 that the best means of preventing the Irish system from 
 obtaining extensive footing in the colony, is to pre- 
 occupy the ground, which may now be done under the 
 sanction of the Government itself, with efficient schools 
 of a different kind. * 
 
 It would be equally difficult and injudicious to at- 
 tempt to characterize a race who have hitherto enjoyed 
 so few advantages as the youth of Australia. In bodily 
 appearance they are tall and slender, less adapted to 
 make strenuous exertions than to sustain fatigue and 
 privation. As to their mental qualities, it would per- 
 haps be unfair to judge of the many by a few ; but the 
 specimens of native intellect, with which I have come in 
 contact, have evinced for the most part more surface 
 than depth, more sound than metal. The Australian 
 intellect comes to maturity earlier than the British ; 
 but the first ripe fruit is not always the best. I have 
 known instances of boys in the colony making much 
 greater progress, in the acquisition of the languages for 
 instance, in a given time, than I have witnessed in Scot- 
 land ; but the Scotch boy compared with the Australian 
 is like a steady-going draught-horse compared with a 
 hopping kangaroo. Application, indeed, is not the 
 forte of the Australian youth, and he is apt rather 
 to be cast down at the sight of difficulties than roused 
 to exertion. On the other hand, he is giddy and 
 frivolous, impatient of restraint, and apt to fancy him- 
 self of much more importance in society than he really 
 is. These faults, however, are traceable in great 
 measure to the very defective training which the great 
 majority of the youth of the colony have hitherto 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 377 
 
 received under the parental roof ; for it cannot be 
 denied, and I am most happy to bear testimony to 
 the fact, that they are a highly interesting and a highly 
 improvable race. 
 
 There is one trait in their character, however, which 
 is almost uniformly regarded as a virtue, and as the 
 result of a certain innate nobleness of mind, but which 
 I would set down decidedly as a vice, and as merely 
 the result of the by-past condition of their native 
 country as a convict or white-slave colony. The trait 
 I allude to is a blustering and rather offensive affecta- 
 tion of liberty and independence, somewhat similar 
 to the usual demonstrations of the same feeling among 
 the lower classes of Americans. It arises in no respect 
 from a due sense of the rights, or from a consciousness 
 of the character of freemen ; but solely from a pre- 
 posterous comparison of their own unmanacled con- 
 dition, with the chains and fetters of the convict or 
 enslaved portion of the population. A female convict, 
 who has served out her time, and obtained a certificate 
 of freedom, and got drunk on the strength of it, is per- 
 haps apprehended by a constable, who is probably not 
 aware of the important fact, in order to be conveyed to 
 the watch-house ; but Madame nobly sets the myr- 
 midons of the police at defiance by producing her cer- 
 tificate signed and countersigned as the law directs, and 
 shouting as loudly as she can, " I am — a free — woman 
 — huzza ! " # It is quite in the order of things for this 
 
 Cui potenter erit res, 
 
 Nee facundia deseret banc, nee lucidus ordo. — Hor. 
 " She who has taken a copious libation of colonial gin, will neither want 
 eloquence nor distinct arrangement." 
 
378 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 hopeful free subject, on afterwards rearing a family of 
 little Australians, to imbue their minds with somewhat 
 of her own pride of place, and to lead them, uncon- 
 sciously perhaps, to assume no small credit in their own 
 estimation, merely for not being liable, forsooth, to the 
 vassalage, and restraint, and degradation of convicts. 
 It is easy to perceive how such a feeling will operate in 
 rendering the colonial youth impatient, even at an early 
 period, of parental restraint, and subsequently lead 
 them to an assumption of superiority when there is 
 nothing to support it, or to a boisterous assertion of 
 rights which nobody ever thinks of calling in question. 
 Nay, it is not difficult to conceive how such a feeling — 
 originating in the lowest classes of society — may operate 
 far beyond the circle from which it emanated, and dis- 
 play itself in quarters where it would not be suspected. 
 It has even given birth to a school of oratory in the 
 colony — the bouncing * school, it may be styled — which 
 has both wit and talent to support its blustering and 
 brow-beating pretensions.^ For my own part, with cer- 
 tain limitations, I would not object to the sentiment of 
 the poet, 
 
 Thy spirit, Independence, let me share, 
 Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye ; 
 
 but I confess I have never found that spirit conjoined 
 with forwardness or effrontery. It is most frequently 
 the mild aspect and the unassuming demeanour, that 
 conceal the heart that is formed for deeds of noble daring 
 
 * To bounce is a colonial phrase, equivalent to the English phrase, 
 to bluster. 
 
 t Mr. Wentworth, the Australian barrister, is an alumnus of this 
 school. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 379 
 
 in the service of the public, or of unflinching endurance 
 in the suffering of irremediable wrong. 
 
 But slavery, in whatever form it exists, uniformly pro- 
 duces the same evil effect on the native population of 
 the country in which it prevails. It is of no conse- 
 quence whether the slave be for seven years or for life, 
 or whether his crime has been a black skin or a highway 
 robbery. I was rowed ashore one morning, when at 
 Rio de Janeiro in the year 1823, by two negro water- 
 men. The landing-place was near the I/ha das Cobras, 
 or Isle of Serpents ; but there happened to be so many 
 boats at the place when we reached it, that it was with 
 some difficulty we could get close to the shore. While 
 the negroes were endeavouring to get as near as pos- 
 sible, I observed a young Brazilian of respectable ap- 
 pearance — a tiny creature, however, not more I should 
 think than four feet and a half in height — approach the 
 landing-place, apparently looking out for a boat to cross 
 the harbour or to go off to some vessel. A tall, athletic 
 negro made him an offer of his boat in the same forward 
 officious way as a Thames waterman would have done ; 
 but the Brazilian, intending perhaps to take some other 
 boat which he had pre-engaged, or not wishing to be 
 troubled at the moment, clenched his fist and dashed it 
 violently at the face of the negro, who of course had to 
 receive the grievous wrong with unmurmuring patience, 
 —for he was a slave ! 
 
380 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE COLONIAL PRESS, 
 
 Quid domini faciant, audent quum talia fures ? 
 
 Virg. Ecl. III. 
 What should become of honest men, if thieves were allowed to usurp 
 the management of the press 1 
 
 In making the requisite preparations for embarking 
 for New South Wales for the fourth time, after the 
 publication of the first edition of this work in England, 
 in the year 1834, it appeared to me to be absolutely 
 necessary to provide the means of future defence for 
 the interests with which I had previously been iden- 
 tified, in the form of some colonial periodical jour- 
 nal ; especially as I had then engaged to carry out 
 certain additional ministers for the Presbyterian Church 
 in the colony, together with two additional head- 
 masters or professors for the Australian College, — 
 an institution, which the reader is already aware had 
 been almost annihilated during my former residence in 
 the country, through the want of some such means of 
 defence, and through its consequent exposure to the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 381 
 
 virulent and persevering attacks of a thoroughly un- 
 principled and worthless colonial press. 
 
 It appeared to me, also, in accordance with a sen- 
 timent expressed somewhere by Mr. Douglas of Cavers, 
 in his eloquent and admirable work on the 'Advance- 
 ment of Society,' that a weekly periodical journal, under 
 proper management, might be made one of the most 
 powerful "means of promoting that great object, espe- 
 cially in a country like New South Wales, — a country 
 in a state of rapid transition, and in which the very 
 foundations of society were yet to be laid : and it 
 therefore appeared to me, moreover, to be an object 
 worthy of the utmost efforts of any honest man, to 
 render the public press, which had almost uniformly 
 been employed as an instrument of evil in the Au- 
 stralian colonies, an instrument of good for the future, 
 by wresting it from the hands of those incapables and 
 worse than incapables, who had so long employed it 
 for their own petty and contemptible purposes, and 
 virtually for the ruin of society. I accordingly pro- 
 vided myself with the means of establishing a weekly 
 periodical on my return to the colony, which was ac- 
 cordingly commenced, under the designation of l The 
 Colonist, or Weekly Journal of politics, commerce, 
 agriculture, literature, science, and religion, for the 
 colony of New South Wales,' on the 1st of January, 
 1835. 
 
 The colonial press had at that period reached its 
 lowest level, having altogether ceased to exercise ^the 
 slightest influence on reputable men in the colony ; 
 for when the stream of its vapid inanity was broken in 
 
382 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 any instance, it was only to give vent to the vilest 
 passions in language of the most contemptible abuse. 
 The ' Sydney Gazette/ the only paper in the colony 
 which is published three times a week, was, at the period 
 in question, ostensibly under the editorial management 
 of an emancipated convict of the name of O'Shaugh- 
 nessy, a person of very improvident and dissipated 
 habits ; but was virtually under the entire management 
 and control of a Scotch convict of the name of Watt, 
 who had been outlawed in Edinburgh, and afterwards 
 transported from London for embezzlement to a large 
 amount in the house of Todd, Morrison, and Co., of 
 Fore-street, and was still actually under the operation 
 of his unexpired sentence, although holding a ticket of 
 leave, and allowed to employ himself for his own ad- 
 vantage ; which he was somehow permitted to do, while 
 living notoriously in a state of concubinage with a 
 female convict illegally at large, under the very eye of 
 the colonial police. Nay, so thoroughly degraded was 
 the colonial press at the period I allude to, that there 
 had even been a competition for the services of this 
 individual between the ' Sydney Gazette ' and the • Syd- 
 ney Monitor;' and it was only because the balance of 
 power and of emolument seemed to incline towards the 
 former of these journals, that it was honoured with the 
 preference. 
 
 The influence which these individuals were thus per- 
 mitted to exercise was not only demoralizing, but ab- 
 solutely dangerous to the community ; their efforts 
 being virtually directed to the abolition of all those 
 •moral distinctions which the laws of God have esta- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALKS. 383 
 
 blished in society, and to the entire obliteration from 
 the mind of the convict of all sense of degradation and 
 criminality. In fact, the general tendency of their 
 writings was to frustrate all the ends of penal dis- 
 cipline, and to neutralize every attempt at reformation. 
 
 Perceiving the absolute necessity, as far as the cause 
 of public morals was concerned, of putting down this 
 prodigious enormity, and finding that the colonial go- 
 vernment were not disposed to do any thing in the 
 matter, (the convict Watt, notwithstanding the notorious 
 character of his profligacy, being rather under the pro- 
 tection than under the surveillance of the colonial police, 
 while O'Shaughnessy was actually the bosom friend of 
 a very influential officer of the government,) I wrote a 
 series of essays, which were published in the earlier 
 numbers of l The Colonist,' under the title of '. The 
 Literary Profession, or Colonial Press ; ' the object of 
 which was to point out the vast importance of that 
 powerful engine to society at large, and the absolute 
 necessity of having it under the management of re- 
 putable men in a convict colony. In these essays I 
 endeavoured particularly to direct the attention of the 
 public to the state and management of the ' Sydney 
 Gazette' under its convict and emancipated convict 
 editors, and showed that it was an absolute disgrace to 
 the whole community to permit so monstrous a state of 
 things to subsist for a moment longer. 
 
 The convict Watt, however, and his coadjutor 
 O'Shaughnessy, had the address to persuade certain of 
 the wealthier emancipists to make common cause with 
 
384 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 them, and to regard their own interests as identified 
 with their continued maintenance and support as di- 
 rectors of the press. A combination was accordingly- 
 formed to put down the ' Colonist ' journal, and to ruin 
 myself individually for having dared to promulgate 
 such obnoxious sentiments ; a wealthy emancipist, who 
 had been transported not many years ago for robbing a 
 chapel in London, but who had acquired great wealth in 
 the colony after the expiration of his sentence, and who 
 was living at the time in a state of concubinage with a 
 female convict illegally at large, having headed a list of 
 subscriptions for the accomplishment of so desirable an 
 object, by means of a series of actions to be instituted in 
 the colonial courts against the ' Colonist,' with £50. 
 A criminal information was accordingly applied for in 
 the Supreme Court of the colony, at the instance of 
 O'Shaughnessy, on the ground of certain observations 
 in the papers referred to, which were alleged to be libel- 
 lous ; and the first counsel at the colonial bar, W. C. 
 Wentworth, Esq., a native of the colony, who had uni- 
 formly identified himself with the views and claims of the 
 emancipists, was engaged for the prosecution. As the 
 case was one of prodigious importance to the moral wel- 
 fare of the colony, and as I had reason to suspect that the 
 views I entertained, and had published on the subject of 
 the press, were not those of the colonial bar generally, 
 and especially of that portion of it which was supported 
 chiefly by emancipist practice, I undertook the defence 
 in person. The proceedings, of which the following is an 
 abridged account, as reported in the ' Colonist' journal 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 385 
 
 of June 18, 1835, excited intense interest in the colony, 
 and, I am happy to add, have already been productive 
 of the most beneficial effects. 
 
 "THE LIBEL CASE. 
 
 " We intended to have made the new Assignment Re- 
 gulations the subject of our leading article for this num- 
 ber ; but the recent proceedings in the Supreme Court, 
 relative to the case of alleged libel, that has arisen out 
 of the publication of the leading article in the fourteenth 
 number of this journal, have induced us to postpone 
 our intended observations on that important subject till 
 a future opportunity, and to appropriate the space 
 usually occupied by our leading article, in presenting 
 our readers with an account of these proceedings, which 
 they will doubtless acknowledge afford an appropriate 
 sequel to the series of articles we have already pub- 
 lished on ' The Literary Profession, or The Colonial 
 Press.' 
 
 " The article published under this title in the four- 
 teenth number of this journal was written by the Rev. 
 Dr. Lang ; and the authorship was accordingly acknow- 
 ledged in due form whenever it was required to be 
 exhibited in evidence for the institution of law pro- 
 ceedings against this journal. On this acknowledgment, 
 an application for a criminal information against Dr. 
 Lang was made to their Honours, the three Judges, at 
 the instance of Mr. Edward O'Shaughnessy, editor of 
 < The Sydney Gazette,' by W. C. Wentworth, Esq., 
 Barrister ; and Saturday, the 6th instant, was ap- 
 vol. II. R 
 
386 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 pointed as the day on which Dr. L. should be called on 
 to show cause why such an information should not be 
 granted : but Dr. Lang being accidentally absent at 
 Hunter's River on the 6th instant, the case was al- 
 lowed to stand over till Saturday the 13th, when it was 
 accordingly brought forward before their Honours, the 
 three Judges, sitting in banco, 
 
 " Mr. Wentworth's application was grounded on the 
 following affidavit by Mr. Edward O'Shaughnessy : — 
 
 *' * (In the Supreme Court of Neze South Wales.) 
 
 " * Edward O'Shaughnessy, of Sydney, in the colony 
 of New South Wales, gentleman, maketh oath a«d 
 saith, that on the second day of April last past, there 
 appeared in a certain public newspaper, called ' The 
 Colonist, or Weekly Journal of Politics, Commerce, 
 Agriculture. Literature, Science, and Religion, for the 
 colony of New South Wales,' edited, printed, and 
 published by Kenneth Munro, in Sydney, a certain 
 article, entitled ' The Literary Profession, or The 
 Colonial Press,' in which said article, amongst other 
 things, are the following observations of and con- 
 cerning him, this deponent ; that is to say, " If Mrs. 
 Howe, (meaning the proprietor of * The Sydney Ga- 
 zette,' in whose service the deponent now is) there- 
 fore, has had to lament over the gradual but almost 
 total destruction of a splendid property, she must 
 ascribe the circumstance in great measure to the insult 
 she was most unfortunately advised to perpetrate on 
 the common sense and good feeling of this community 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 387 
 
 in elevating Mr. Edward O'Shaughnessy (meaning him 
 this deponent) to the rank of editor of f The Sydney- 
 Gazette.' Nay, if the colony had not actually been 
 almost as totally devoid of right feeling, as such con- 
 duct had a direct tendency to make it, the property in 
 question (meaning the said ' Sydney Gazette') would 
 have been utterly annihilated years ago. For in what 
 other part of the British empire, we would ask, would 
 any number of reputable persons be found to allow a 
 paper, edited by an individual who was only yesterday, 
 as it were, a transported felon, to enter their doors ? " 
 And deponent saith, that in another part of the same 
 article are the following observations of and concerning 
 him, this deponent, that is to say, — " We shall be told 
 that Mr. O'Shaughnessy (meaning him this deponent) 
 is a reformed personage. We deny that he is so. A 
 modest, retiring disposition is the uniform accompaniment 
 of sincere penitence, of genuine reformation ; and we 
 maintain, in the face of the whole colony, and without 
 the least fear of contradiction, that if Mr. O'Shaugh- 
 nessy (meaning him this deponent) had possessed such 
 a spirit in any degree, he would have shrunk back from 
 a situation of such peculiar prominence and responsibility 
 as that of editor of f The Sydney Gazette,' even al- 
 though it had been injudiciously offered him on the 
 one hand, and though he had been quite fit for it on 
 the other. The brazen-faced impudence of the man 
 who could presume to step from the situation of govern- 
 ment-man, or assigned servant to the late Mr. Robert 
 Howe, into that of editor of 'The Sydney Gazette,' or, 
 in other words, literary dictator to the lieges in this 
 
388 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 colony, and could set himself down, in a sort of ma- 
 gisterial chair, to pronounce authoritatively on the 
 character and actions of reputable men, and to issue 
 forth opinions to a gaping public thrice a week on 
 matters of government and legislation, sufficiently 
 proves that he has no right or title to the epithet 
 reformed , and that he is just as bad at heart as when 
 he was legged in Dublin. And has His Majesty's co- 
 lony of New South Wales indeed come to such a pass, 
 that we must all be schooled, forsooth, by a fellow like 
 this? But it is not on these general grounds alone 
 that we would exclude Mr. O'Shaughnessy (meaning 
 him this deponent) from the office into which he has 
 most impudently intruded. The man is naturally quite 
 destitute of the talent and vigour of mind which are 
 indispensably necessary in such an office, to command 
 the respect and to influence the opinions of the public. 
 If he has talent at all, it is a talent for abuse ; and the 
 dish he is in the habit of serving up to his readers 
 thrice a week, is mere mawkish prosing and miserable 
 verbiage. Under i such management, how could the 
 proprietors of 'The Sydney Gazette' expect that 
 their property could be saved from ruin ?" And de- 
 ponent further saith, that in another part of the same 
 article are the following observations upon him, this 
 deponent, (which observations purport to be part of a 
 pretended speech in the House of Commons in Eng- 
 land) that is to say—" I hold in my hand a file of that 
 respectable colonial journal, 'The Sydney Gazette,' 
 which it seems is now conducted by that paragon of 
 editors, Mr. Edward O'Shaughnessy, (meaning him 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 389 
 
 this deponent) who had the honour to be transported 
 from Dublin a few years ago, and who (thanks to the 
 admirable system of penal discipline in our Australian 
 colonies !), instead of being sent direct to a penal settle- 
 ment, agreeably to Sir Robert Peel's express orders, 
 along with the other special scoundrels of his class, was 
 suffered to remain in that hot-bed of pollution, the 
 town of Sydney, where he lived as comfortably all the 
 time of his sentence as ever he had done in his life, in 
 the capacity of government-man or convict-servant to 
 the late editor of * The Sydney Gazette,' and where he 
 now conducts that hopeful journal himself, as a literary 
 dictator to the colony, and ever and anon advocates the 
 necessity of a House of Assembly for the said colony, 
 on the very same grounds as those on which it is now 
 advocated by my honourable friend." And this de- 
 ponent saith, that in the following number of the said 
 newspaper, there appeared the following observations, 
 avowing the motives which induced the publication of 
 the foregoing observations respecting him, this de- 
 ponent, that is to say, — " Nay, we have no hesitation in 
 informing Mr. O'S., (meaning him, this deponent) that 
 one of the objects of our last leading article was to oust 
 him from the situation which he now holds, to the 
 manifest injury of the whole colony, and that we shall 
 be greatly disappointed if that object should not be 
 accomplished sooner or later; for we hold Mr. O'S.'s 
 (meaning this deponent) occupation of the situation of 
 editor of the only paper in this colony which is pub- 
 lished thrice a week a positive disgrace to the colony, 
 and a clear proof of the utter inefficiency of its press in 
 
390 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 times past." And this deponent further saith, that 
 although it is true that he did not arrive free in this 
 colony, yet he has for several years become free by the 
 expiration of his term of sentence, and during the period 
 of his residence in this colony he has always conducted 
 himself as a reputable and orderly member of society, 
 and hath for some time past been employed as editor 
 of ' The Sydney Gazette ; ' and the said deponent 
 saith that the said publication is a false, scandalous, 
 and malicious libel upon him, both in his private cha- 
 racter and in his trade or profession, and hath a 
 tendency to degrade or lower him in the estimation of 
 society, and to injure him in his said trade or pro- 
 fession i and as this deponent verily believes, from the 
 nature of the publication, the same was composed and 
 printed with the express intention of injuring deponent 
 in his character and circumstances, without any just 
 cause or provocation. 
 
 E. W. O'Shaughnessy.' 
 
 u On being called upon by the Court to show cause 
 why a criminal information should not be granted in 
 the case, Dr. Lang submitted the following affidavit, 
 which was accordingly read in Court : — 
 
 " '(Jra the Supreme Court of New South Wales.) 
 
 " l John Dunmore Lang, of Sydney, Doctor of Divinity, 
 and Minister of the Scots Church, Sydney, maketh 
 oath and saith, that an article published in a certain 
 public newspaper called ' The Colonist/ on the second 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 391 
 
 day of April last past, of which he acknowledges him- 
 self to be the author, was written wholly and solely 
 with a view to point out, to the reputable and virtuous 
 portion of the inhabitants of this colony, the moral 
 unfitness, and the political incompetency, of any person 
 who had arrived in this territory as a transported felon, 
 for having the management of so powerful and in- 
 fluential an engine as the public press in any country, 
 but especially in a country appropriated by the Par- 
 liament of Great Britain for the transportation of felons 
 — this deponent believing that any measure, which has 
 the effect of placing the press in the hands of such 
 persons in this country, must have a direct tendency to 
 degrade the character of this community in the es- 
 timation of all reputable men in the mother country, 
 to lower the standard of public morals in the colony, 
 to counteract the ends for which this colony was 
 originally established as a penal settlement by the 
 Imperial Parliament, and to prevent the attainment of 
 those political privileges and advantages for which its 
 free inhabitants have repeatedly petitioned. And this 
 deponent further maketh oath and saith, that it is his 
 belief and conviction that the voluntary assumption 
 of the management of the press by an emancipated 
 convict, or transported felon, who has obtained his 
 freedom in this convict colony, is itself a sufficient 
 and satisfactory evidence that such emancipated con- 
 vict is not a really reformed character, and cannot 
 therefore be trusted by society, with any degree of 
 safety, or without the greatest danger to its own best 
 interests, with the management of so dangerous an 
 
392 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 engine as the public press, especially in a colony 
 established for the reformation of convicts ; but that 
 while this deponent, acting on such belief and con- 
 viction, conceived it his duty, as a member of society, 
 and more especially as a minister of religion, to adopt 
 all such fair and honourable means as the public press 
 afforded, for effecting the discontinuance of a system, 
 which was nevertheless tolerated and is still in full 
 operation in this colony, notwithstanding the danger 
 and detriment to the whole community with which it 
 was fraught, it was by no means either the wish or the 
 intention of the said deponent to injure the plaintiff in 
 this action in his private character, or to prevent him 
 him from earning an honest livelihood in any other 
 reputable situation, than that of editor to a public 
 newspaper, which he was competent to hold. And this 
 deponent further maketh oath and saith, that although 
 he was not influenced to write the article aforesaid by 
 any personal provocation he had received from the said 
 plaintiff, but was actuated merely by a regard for the 
 general welfare of this community, it is, nevertheless, 
 true and notorious, that the said plaintiff has embraced 
 every opportunity, both before the publication of the 
 said article, and again and again thereafter, of em- 
 ploying the public press, in his capacity of editor of 
 'The Sydney Gazette,' for the purpose of blasting 
 the reputation of this deponent as a member of society, 
 and of ruining his character as a minister of religion, 
 of which this deponent can exhibit abundant evidence ; 
 and that, therefore, the said plaintiff, having given 
 much provocation, and having also taken the law into 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 393 
 
 his own hands, is not entitled to seek reparation for any 
 supposed injury he conceives he has sustained from 
 the publication of the said article, as he does not come 
 into Court with clean hands. And this deponent fur- 
 ther maketh oath and saith, that it is his belief and 
 conviction, that the present action has not originated 
 in any consciousness of injury sustained by the plain- 
 tiff through the publication of the aforesaid article, 
 but has been brought at the instigation of certain evil- 
 disposed persons, who have taken up a strong feeling 
 of hostility towards this deponent, for his zealous and 
 successful efforts in promoting the moral welfare and 
 the general advancement of this colony; this depo- 
 nent being credibly informed that a subscription-paper 
 has been circulating in the town of Sydney, to collect 
 money, ostensibly for the purpose of enabling the said 
 plaintiff to obtain justice in this case, but really for the 
 purpose of prosecuting the said deponent, if possible, to 
 his entire ruin. 
 
 John Dunmore Lang.' 
 
 " Dr. L. then addressed the Court in a speech of 
 two hours, of which, however, we can only present our 
 readers with the following abstract : — 
 
 " 'Although I am not accustomed to speak in public 
 in such circumstances as those in which I now find 
 myself, I cannot but account myself fortunate in being- 
 permitted to speak in my own behalf in any circum- 
 stances whatever. It is a privilege I have seldom 
 enjoyed in this colony for many years past ; for con- 
 
394 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 stituted as the colonial press has been till very lately, 
 and engaged, as I have been, in undertakings which 
 have appeared to me to be connected with the advance- 
 ment of the public welfare, I have often been obliged 
 to sit silent, while my character was traduced, and 
 my motives and actions misrepresented by the press, 
 without being permitted to say a single word for myself 
 in any way. 
 
 " " During the long period I have resided in this co- 
 lony, I have often had occasion to observe, that the pro- 
 gress of that system of reformation, for which it was ori- 
 ginally established, was not only slow, but was retarded 
 at every step by certain counteracting influences 
 within the colony ; that the state of society, in regard 
 to the prevalence of virtuous feelings on the part of 
 the community, was exceedingly degraded j and that 
 the standard of public morals was so low, that crime 
 itself was on all hands openly and unblushingly dig- 
 nified with the honourable epithet of misfortune. In 
 looking around for the cause and origin of such a 
 state of things, I could not help observing also that 
 the press had been mainly instrumental in bringing it 
 about. That mightiest engine, which the Almighty 
 had ever enabled mortal man to make use of for the 
 reformation of society, had, it seemed to me, been em- 
 ployed in this colony to increase and to perpetuate its 
 moral degradation. Poison, it appeared to me, had 
 been cast into that fountain, which the All-merciful 
 had opened to pour forth healing waters over the 
 whole face of society ; and that which had been given 
 by Divine Providence as a spirit of health to mankind, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 395 
 
 had, to use the phraseology of the poet, been trans- 
 formed, in the hands of unprincipled men, into a very 
 goblin damn'd. 
 
 " * It appeared to me, therefore, that no general 
 reformation could either be expected or hopad for in 
 this colony, until the press itself should be reformed 
 — till that powerful engine should be placed in the 
 hands of men in whom the public could place con- 
 fidence, to whom they could look up with some de- 
 gree of respect as their guides and instructors, and to 
 whose opinions they would not be ashamed to defer. 
 In considering the state of things in the colony more 
 particularly in reference to this matter, I could not 
 help observing, that ' The Sydney Gazette,' the oldest 
 paper in the colony, the only one that was published 
 three times a week, was under the management of an 
 individual, who had been transported to this colony 
 for his crimes, and who, within the last few years, had 
 held the situation of somebody's convict-servant or 
 government-man in the town of Sydney — a situation, 
 in comparison with which, in reference to the moral 
 character it implied, the lowest pauper in England 
 had much to boast of — nay, and that the associate of 
 this individual in his editorial labours, was another 
 individual actually undergoing the sentence of trans- 
 portation, as a convict holding a mere ticket of leave. 
 
 " ' In these circumstances, it appeared to me that it 
 was the bounden duty of every person who had the 
 welfare of the colony at heart, and who felt himself 
 at all competent to the task, to expose, and thereby, if 
 possible, to put an end to a system which admitted 
 
396 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 such enormities. With this view, and with this view 
 alone, was the article written, for which I am now 
 called to answer before Your Honours, as a false, 
 scandalous, and malicious libel. That article was 
 written to impress upon the reputable portion of this 
 community this important principle, — that an individual 
 who had been transported to this colony for his crimes, 
 was incompetent to have the management of such an 
 engine as the press in New South Wales — that a state 
 of things which permitted such an individual to assume 
 the management of such an engine was a positive 
 disgrace to this colony, dangerous to the interests of 
 pure morality, and the greatest obstacle that could 
 possibly exist to the attainment of those political rights 
 and privileges which all classes of its free inhabitants 
 so ardently desire. 
 
 " ' The principle contended for in the article referred 
 to, viz.— that an emancipated convict is incompetent to 
 have the management of the public press, could never 
 for one moment admit of question in England : and if 
 such a question is entertained, and requires to be 
 agitated here, it only shows that we are as much at 
 the antipodes of Great Britain in point of moral feeling, 
 as we are in point of geographical position. No eman- 
 cipated convict would ever dream of making such a 
 bold experiment on the forbearance of the community, 
 as to assume the management of so powerful an engine 
 as the press in any of His Majesty's three kingdoms: 
 and if the enormity has been practised and tolerated 
 here, it only shows how deeply we have sunk, as a 
 community, below the standard of public feeling in 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 397 
 
 England ; and how absolutely necessary it is, for those 
 who have the welfare of this colony at heart, to make 
 the most strenuous and unremitting efforts to put an 
 end to a system which permits such enormities, and 
 thereby to elevate the tone of public feeling in this 
 colony to its proper, its English level. 
 
 " ' It will doubtless be argued in reply to this reason- 
 ing, that the state of things in this colony is very different 
 from what it is in England — that we have here a com- 
 munity consisting in great measure of emancipated 
 convicts, and a large number of convicts in actual 
 bondage : but this difference, so far from rendering it 
 either expedient or safe for the community to have the 
 press in this colony under such management as ' The 
 Sydney Gazette' is under at this moment, increases 
 the danger of such a state of things tenfold, and ren- 
 ders it a matter of still more urgent and imperious 
 necessity to have so preposterous a system brought to 
 an end. 
 
 '* ' Your Honours are well aware of the nature and 
 strength of those feelings that constitute what is styled 
 esprit de corps*— how they warp a man's understanding, 
 and scoop out a totally different channel for his affec- 
 tions from the one in which they would otherwise have 
 flowed. What, then, I would ask, is the nature of 
 those feelings that constitute the esprit de corps of an 
 emancipated convict ? or in what particular channel do 
 his sympathies flow ? Why, the sympathies of an 
 emancipated convict must necessarily be exercised in 
 favour of all and sundry who belong to the same class 
 as he has himself belonged to, and who occupy the 
 
398 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 same situation as he has occupied himself — for the 
 tenants of hulks and jails, for men who are actually 
 undergoing the sentence of transportation for their 
 crimes ; and it is a principle in human nature, that 
 when our sympathies are engaged for any man's person, 
 they are most easily transferable to his acts. Sym- 
 pathy for the criminal, on the part of the emancipated 
 convict, thus becomes sympathy for his crime. The 
 feeling of kindliness towards the one becomes a feeling 
 of tenderness towards the other ; in proof of which I 
 can appeal to your Honours for the truth of the state- 
 ment I have already made in reference to the state of 
 public feeling in this colony, viz. — that the name by 
 which crime is most frequently distinguished in this 
 colony is misfortune. The natural result, therefore, of 
 a state of things, in which the press has been under the 
 management of emancipated convicts and ticket-of- 
 leave men, or of men who have the same esprit de 
 corps with these classes of our community, — is that the 
 standard of morals and of public feeling has been 
 authoritatively lowered throughout the colony, and 
 that the press generally has sunk to a somewhat cor- 
 respondingly low and degraded condition. But the 
 principle of esprit de corps operates to the disadvantage 
 and injury of the community, in the case of an eman- 
 cipated convict having the management of the press, 
 in another and most important respect : for, taking it 
 for granted, as I feel constrained to do, that an eman- 
 cipated convict, who assumes the management of such 
 an engine as the press in this colony, must necessarily 
 be an unreformed character, what regard can the man, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 399 
 
 who has no character of his own, have for the character 
 of others ? His object, in accordance with the well- 
 known principles of human nature, must necessarily 
 be to reduce all and sundry to the same level with 
 himself — to obliterate the sense or recollection of his 
 own disgrace by obliterating the distinctions between 
 vice and virtue. 
 
 " ' Now, considering that * The Sydney Gazette' had 
 been the prime source of pollution, and the chief cause 
 of the degradation of the press, in this colony, and 
 considering also, that this had arisen from that paper 
 being at present under the management of convicts 
 and emancipated convicts, as well as from its having 
 been almost all along under the influence of men whose 
 sentiments and opinions had been formed, and whose 
 characters had been cast, in that mould ; — it appeared 
 to me that I should be discharging a public and most 
 important duty, by pointing out to the colony the true 
 character of a system of such enormity, that so pow- 
 erful and influential an engine as the press might, if 
 possible, be wrested from the hands of incompetent 
 and unworthy persons. 
 
 " * And to satisfy Your Honours that such was the 
 real origin and object of the article which has been 
 characterized by the plaintiff as a false, scandalous, 
 and malicious libel, I shall read a portion of it to 
 your Honours : — 
 
 " When the business of an editor of a newspaper was 
 merely to report the common occurrences — the acci- 
 dents and offences — of the day, and especially when 
 
400 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 his readers comprised only a small portion of the 
 general population, his office was neither important 
 nor influential : such was the state of the periodical 
 literature of Great Britain within the recollection of 
 many individuals yet alive : the mass of the people 
 were utterly devoid of curiosity as to what was hap- 
 pening in the great world around them ; and the mi- 
 serable periodical press of the period merely furnished 
 the country squire, the parish clergyman, and the 
 village milliner, with a list of the births, marriages, 
 and deaths of the day. 
 
 M The first important event that led to a different 
 state of things — arousing the nation from its state of 
 lethargy, and exciting the press into vigorous action — 
 was the American war ; an event, which in one day 
 severed thirteen flourishing colonies from the parent 
 state, and subjected the British arms to a series of 
 disastrous repulses, such as they had never expe- 
 rienced from all the chivalry of France. That event, 
 awakening as it did a warm sympathy on behalf of 
 the injured and oppressed Americans in the breast of 
 a large proportion of the general intelligence and vir- 
 tue of the nation, led the people at large to inquire, 
 on the one hand, into the political rights of their fel- 
 low subjects, the late colonists of America ; and to 
 hold an inquest, on the other, on the miserable policy 
 of their rulers, whose incapacity and gross misma- 
 nagement had made the nation — 
 
 A destiny meet, 
 So dark with dishonour, so foul with defeat. 
 
 " Shortly after this period of national excitement, the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 401 
 
 French revolution came like a thunder-clap upon the 
 dwellers in the world. By that earthquake, in the 
 course of which the tenth part of the Babylonish city 
 fell, and the sun and moon were darkened, and the stars 
 refused to give their light ; in the political firmament of 
 an ancient European kingdom, the minds of men were 
 again strongly excited, and the press began to exercise 
 an influence and a power which it had never done 
 before. The nature and character of this excitement 
 were altogether political ; and the inquiries to which it 
 led respected the constitution and the administration 
 of government, and the national, civil, and political 
 rights of men. 
 
 u The unfortunate issue of the French revolution, and 
 the military despotism in which it terminated, enabled 
 the Toryism of England to repress the spirit of the age 
 for a whole quarter of a century, by involving the 
 nation in what is now considered, almost universally, 
 an unjust and unnecessary war. But that war came 
 to an end, and so also did the peace that followed it ; 
 for in a period of profound tranquillity the revolutionary 
 drum was again beat fiercely, and France, Belgium, 
 and Poland were fearfully convulsed to their centres. 
 Surrounded as they were with the ocean-waves, it was 
 not to be supposed that the British Isles could remain 
 unaffected in the midst of this moving of the waters : 
 the revolutionary wave passed over them also, and the 
 Reform Bill was the earliest grand result of the mighty 
 movement that ensued. In the progress of that move- 
 ment, the press suddenly assumed a position which it 
 had never occupied before, and began to exert an in- 
 
402 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 fluence which no party, however wealthy, or numerous, 
 or powerful, could disregard with impunity : for, in- 
 stead of merely affording the country squire, the parish 
 clergyman, and the village milliner, a list of the births, 
 marriages, and deaths of the day, as it did fifty years 
 ago, that powerful engine now commands the willing 
 attention of myriads and myriads more of the general 
 population, and has acquired the power of influencing, 
 either for good or for evil, vast masses of men. In 
 short, the object of the press is no longer to furnish 
 a list of 'hair-breadth 'scapes, and moving accidents 
 by flood and field/ but to enlighten the understanding 
 and to guide the judgment of nations, and thereby to 
 ameliorate the condition of the human race. In pur- 
 suance of this object it has reared for itself a dictatorial 
 throne in the face of all Europe, and given forth laws 
 for the general welfare of society, which even monarchs 
 must obey : it sits in judgment on all matters of foreign 
 and domestic policy ; and from its ultimate decisions 
 there lies no appeal : it holds its inquests on the cha- 
 racters and principles of all public men, from the first 
 magistrate of the state to the meanest constable : and 
 whereas the old British constitution acknowledged only 
 king, lords, and commons, it has in so far new-modelled 
 that constitution, as to get itself acknowledged the 
 fourth, and that not the least influential estate of the 
 realm. 
 
 " What then shall we think of the state of things in a 
 community, formed of British subjects, in which the 
 manager of so powerful an engine, the occupant of a 
 situation of such commanding influence and such high 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 403 
 
 responsibility, is an individual, who was only yesterday, 
 as it were, a transported felon, and whose ankles are 
 probably still blue with the marks of his iron fetters ? 
 What shall we think of the presumption of the party 
 or parties who could insult the good feelings of a whole 
 community by such an arrangement ? What shall we 
 think of the moral and political degradation of that 
 community itself, that could tolerate such an arrange- 
 ment for a single day ? 
 
 " After the death of the late Mr. Robert Howe, the 
 Rev. Ralph Mansfield acted for several years as editor 
 of the * Sydney Gazette,' in virtue of an arrangement 
 which he had made with Mr. H. a short time previous 
 to his death ; but that arrangement being found dis- 
 advantageous to the trustees, it was broken off, and an 
 engagement made with the Rev. H. Carmichael, A. M., 
 who was then classical professor in the Australian 
 College, to conduct the paper. Mr. C. accordingly 
 did so for a quarter of a year ; but having on one 
 occasion written a leading article, in which he thought 
 proper to maintain that the salaries of certain high 
 functionaries in the colony were much more than a 
 reasonable compensation for the services they rendered 
 to the community ; and articles of that nature being 
 altogether repugnant to the principles of obsequiousness 
 and servility to the powers that be, which had uni- 
 formly distinguished ' The Sydney Gazette ; ? and 
 Mr. C. refusing, moreover, to suffer himself to be 
 gagged for the future ; — his services were dispensed 
 with in so summary a manner, that the Supreme Court 
 allowed him £150 damages in a civil action which he 
 
404 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 brought against Mrs. Howe's trustees for breach of 
 engagement. 
 
 u The late Mr. Howe, being unfortunately supposed 
 useful to the late colonial administrations in a variety 
 of ways, was treated by these administrations with 
 especial indulgence, and occasionally received favours, 
 which the rival editors of the colony could not even 
 hope to obtain. In this way a person of the name of 
 O'Shaughnessy was assigned to him as a government- 
 man or convict servant, and was found so useful in that 
 capacity, as a collector of accidents and general re- 
 porter to the paper, that Mr. H. treated him with much 
 more indulgence as a convict-servant than he could 
 have had directly from the government as the holder of 
 a ticket of leave. O'Shaughnessy, our readers will 
 perceive, was of the class of specials or literary con- 
 victs — a class, which Sir Robert Peel rightly considered 
 as far more dangerous to the reputable portion of this 
 community than the poor Irish White-Boy or English 
 machine-breaker, and accordingly ordered the late 
 Governor to send direct to the penal settlements of 
 Wellington Valley, Moreton Bay, or Norfolk Island ; 
 but of which General Darling occasionally allowed in- 
 dividuals, in direct contravention of that salutary regu- 
 lation, to get back to Sydney, to the great annoyance 
 of the colony. At what time or in what manner 
 O'Shaughnessy obtained his emancipation — whether by 
 servitude or by favour — we neither know nor care ; but 
 during the respective incumbencies of the Rev. Messrs. 
 Mansfield and Carmichael, he occasionally wrote se- 
 condary articles for ' The Sydney Gazette,' (by whose 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 405 
 
 proprietors he was still engaged as reporter, clerk, and 
 newsmonger) which, in order to enable those who 
 were no judges of style to distinguish from his prin- 
 cipal's, were generally indicated by an index or hand. 
 
 " Whether Mrs. Howe and her trustees are judges of 
 style or not, we cannot pretend to determine ; but this 
 we know and are assured of, that they must be very 
 indifferent judges of propriety, and that their estimate 
 of the intellect and the moral feeling of this colony 
 must be sufficiently low : for, on the discontinuance 
 of Mr. Carmichael's engagement, they deemed Mr. 
 O'Shaughnessy, late government-man to Mr. Robert 
 Howe, a competent person to occupy the high, com- 
 manding, influential, and responsible situation of editor 
 of what ought otherwise to have been the first periodical 
 in the country; to sit in judgment on all measures of 
 the colonial government, whether towards the free or 
 towards the bond ; to offer his opinion authoritatively 
 on the character and tendency of the system of penal 
 discipline in this convict colony — that system, of which 
 he had himself been so notorious an instance of the 
 gross abuse ; to hold an inquest thrice a week on the 
 characters and actions of all public men ; and to in- 
 fluence, for good or evil, to a degree which almost no 
 other situation in the colony can enable its occupant 
 to do, the intellectual and moral character of our entire 
 population. 
 
 " If Mrs. Howe, therefore, has had to lament over the 
 gradual but almost total destruction of a splendid pro- 
 perty, she must ascribe the circumstance, in great mea- 
 sure, to the insult she was most unfortunately advised 
 
406 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 to perpetrate on the common sense and good-feeling of 
 this community, in elevating Mr. Edward O'Shaugh- 
 nessy to the rank of editor of ' The Sydney Gazette :' 
 nay, if this colony had not actually been almost as 
 totally devoid of right feeling, as such conduct had a 
 direct tendency to make it, the property in question 
 would have been utterly annihilated years ago : for in 
 what other part of the British empire, we would ask, 
 would any number of reputable persons be found to 
 allow a paper, edited by an individual, who was only 
 yesterday, as it were, a transported felon, to enter their 
 doors ? 
 
 " But the evil done to this colony generally, by the 
 introduction of such a man as Mr. O'Shaughnessy into 
 such a situation as the one he occupies, is of a still 
 more serious kind : in short, it is the most effectual 
 means that could possibly be adopted by the worst 
 enemies of the colony, to lower its character in the 
 estimation of His Majesty's Government and the Par- 
 liament of England, and to bring it into absolute con- 
 tempt. If Mr. Bulwer, # for instance, were to bring 
 forward a motion in the House of Commons, founded 
 on our colonial petitions of former years, to grant this 
 colony a House of Assembly ; and if we had any 
 private interest to serve in preventing that " con- 
 
 * A petition to the House of Commons for a House of Assembly for 
 the colony had been forwarded by a large party of the colonists, chiefly 
 of the class of emancipists, to Mr. Bulwer. Mr. Morrison, M.P., of 
 Fore-street, London, was the head of the mercantile establishment in 
 which the convict Watt had been employed when he committed the 
 crime for which he was transported. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 407 
 
 summation devoutly to be wish'd," and were deter- 
 mined, as we generally are, to carry our point, we 
 should just adopt the following plan ; and however 
 favourably disposed the House might otherwise be to 
 promote the best interests of the colony, by granting 
 the earnest prayer of nine-tenths of its respectable 
 inhabitants, we are confident we should succeed in 
 defeating the measure. We should call on Mr. James 
 Morrison, M. P., of Fore-street, London, who unfor- 
 tunately knows as much about some of the worthies 
 of * The Gazette Office' as we do ourselves, and who 
 would therefore feel disposed to take up any subject 
 in which they are personally concerned ; and we should 
 give him a friendly hint as to how it was proper to 
 proceed in defeating the object of the colonial petition. 
 As soon, then, as Mr. Bulwer had finished his luminous 
 and argumentative speech, setting forth the population 
 and resources, the agriculture and commerce, the rapid 
 extension and the future advancement of the colony, 
 and concluding by pointing out to the honourable 
 House the propriety of granting a House of Assembly 
 to so loyal, and flourishing, and hopeful a colony, 
 Mr. Morrison would start up to second the motion, 
 and he would do so in some such terms as the fol- 
 lowing : — 
 
 " ' I rise to express my cordial assent to every syl- 
 lable that has fallen from my honourable friend, in 
 regard to the rapid growth and the present prosperity 
 of His Majesty's colony of New South Wales : but, as 
 my honourable friend appeared to me not to have his 
 
408 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 argument in favour of granting a House of Assembly 
 to that colony supported by sufficiently unexceptionable 
 authority, it gives me infinite pleasure to be able to 
 supply this material defect in my honourable friend's 
 speech, by producing an authority, in support of the 
 various forcible and convincing statements of my ho- 
 nourable friend, to which, I am confident, this House 
 will most cheerfully bow. I hold in my hand, therefore, 
 a file of that respectable colonial journal, 'The Sydney 
 Gazette,' which, it seems, is now conducted by that 
 paragon of editors, Mr. Edward O'Shaughnessy ; who 
 had the honour to be transported from Dublin a few 
 years ago, and who, (thanks to the admirable system of 
 penal discipline in our Australian colonies !) instead of 
 being sent direct to a penal settlement, agreeably to 
 Sir Robert Peel's express orders, along with the other 
 special scoundrels of his class, was suffered to remain 
 in that hot-bed of pollution, the town of Sydney, where 
 he lived as comfortably all the time of his sentence 
 as ever he had done in his life, in the capacity of go- 
 vernment-man, or convict servant, to the late editor 
 of ' The Sydney Gazette ;' and where he now con- 
 ducts that hopeful journal himself, as literary dictator 
 to the colony ; and ever and anon advocates the neces- 
 sity of a House of Assembly for the said colony, on 
 the very same grounds as those on which it is now 
 advocated by my honourable friend. Now, although 
 I would most unhesitatingly support my honourable 
 friend's motion on its own intrinsic merits, I must 
 inform the Honourable House, that supported as it is 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 409 
 
 by the respectable authority of Mr. O'Shaughnessy, I 
 shall do something more, for I shall propose the fol- 
 lowing- amendments, viz. — 
 
 1 1st, That in the event of a House of Assembly being 
 granted to the colony of New South Wales, the thrice- 
 convicted felons, at the penal settlements of Norfolk 
 Island and Moreton Bay, be empowered to send knights 
 of the shire, to represent their interests in the said 
 House, and — 
 
 \ 2ndly, That in the event of a House of Assembly 
 being granted to the convict colony of New South 
 Wales, — in which men like Mr. O'Shaughnessy are 
 allowed to direct public opinion, — the inmates of His 
 Majesty's prison of Newgate be empowered to send 
 down two of their number in future to represent them 
 in this House, irons and all.' — Parliamentary Debates, 
 New Series. 
 
 " After such an expose, the colonial petitioners, how- 
 ever numerous and however respectable, would be sure 
 to get a horse-laugh, instead of a House of Assembly, 
 from the Commons, in answer to their petition, how- 
 ever eloquently supported that petition might be by 
 Mr. Bulwer, or by any body else. Whoever there- 
 fore is desirous of seeing a House of Assembly in this 
 colony, let him endeavour by all means to shut Mr. 
 O'Shaughnessy's mouth on that subject in future." 
 
 " ' It will doubtless be urged in reply to these obser- 
 vations, that an emancipated convict is restored to all 
 the rights and privileges of a free subject, and may 
 therefore undertake the management of the press, as 
 well as fill any other situation for which he is com- 
 vol. n. s 
 
410 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 petent. I admit that the emancipated convict is re- 
 stored to all the rights and privileges of a free subject, 
 inasmuch as he is free to claim, and is sure to receive, 
 the protection of the law as a member of society, in 
 the exercise of whatever reputable business or calling 
 he may engage in for earning an honest livelihood, 
 equally with any other free subject of the realm : but 
 if it is meant to be insinuated, as is generally done 
 when the case is argued by the press in this colony, 
 that the emancipated convict is restored to all the 
 rights and privileges of a free subject, in such a sense 
 that he stands thereafter upon exactly the same ground, 
 in all respects whatsoever, as any other free subject on 
 whom the sentence of transportation has never passed, 
 I deny the position altogether. Why, if the restoration 
 to rights and privileges, which an emancipated convict 
 who has undergone the sentence of transportation can 
 rightly claim, is to be understood in so wide and un- 
 limited a sense as is thus contended for, then might we 
 find an emancipated convict, provided he had pre- 
 viously received the requisite education, sitting on that 
 bench with Your Honours, or pleading as a barrister 
 in this Court ; for these are objects of ambition to 
 which every other free subject may look forward under 
 our happy constitution, in which mere humbleness of 
 birth precludes no man from either seeking or obtain- 
 ing the highest honours of the State. But Your 
 Honours are aware, that no such anomaly can possibly 
 occur even in this land of anomalies : for, in order to 
 keep the fountain of justice pure and unsuspected, and 
 to maintain a becoming respect for this Honourable 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 411 
 
 Court throughout the country, this Court has found it 
 both expedient and necessary to protect itself from the 
 intrusion of any such individuals ; insomuch, that not 
 only is it incompetent for an emancipated convict to 
 sit on that bench with Your Honours as a judge, or to 
 plead in this Court as a barrister, it is even incompetent 
 for him to practise in the lowest rank of the profession 
 as an attorney. And, if it is indispensably necessary 
 for the public welfare, and for the interests of justice 
 and morality in this colony, to protect this Court from 
 the intrusion of emancipated convicts into any depart- 
 ment of the legal profession, are not these interests 
 equally concerned, and does not regard for the public 
 welfare equally demand, that the situation of an Editor 
 of a public newspaper shall be protected from a similar 
 intrusion, — especially in an age like the present, in 
 which the press claims for itself a species of absolute 
 domination over all interests, over all classes of society, 
 over all men ? If a judge acts corruptly, he is amenable 
 to justice, and may be impeached with comparative 
 facility ; if a barrister or attorney acts corruptly, it is 
 in the power of this Court to strike him off the rolls : 
 but if the Editor of a newspaper acts corruptly — if the 
 director of the public press disseminates opinions that 
 are subversive of the peace, and ruinous to the morals 
 of society — by what law shall we bring him to justice? 
 at what bar shall we impeach him of his moral in- 
 competency ? The interests of justice and the welfare 
 of the public demand, therefore, that the situation of 
 the Editor of a public journal shall be protected from 
 the intrusion of incompetent persons, of persons in 
 
412 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 whom the public cannot place confidence, just as much 
 as the situation of an attorney, or of a barrister, or of 
 a judge. And if a situation of such commanding in- 
 fluence in society, as that which secures to an indi- 
 vidual the management of the press, is nevertheless 
 intruded into by an individual morally and politically 
 incompetent to hold it, one in whom the public can 
 have no confidence, and who only employs his power 
 for the injury of society, it becomes the duty of every 
 honest man — of every man who has the welfare of 
 society at heart — to impeach that individual of his 
 incompetency at the bar of public opinion, as I have 
 done the plaintiff in the article for which I am called to 
 answer this day. In short, the man who would main- 
 tain that the restoration of an individual, upon whom 
 the sentence of transportation has passed, to the rights 
 and privileges of a free subject, renders that individual 
 morally and politically competent for any situation 
 whatsoever, — that man's motto is not Fiat Juslitia, but 
 lluat ccdum ; or, in other words, l Let all the distinctions 
 that subsist in civilized society be done away with ; let 
 those land-marks, which the Eternal has established 
 between right and wrong, be entirely removed; and let 
 the world revert to that state of chaos in which it 
 existed ere the Creator said Let there be light, and 
 separated the light from the darkness.' 
 
 " - I am no lawyer, and cannot appeal to legal author- 
 ities ; but I appeal to Your Honours, whether there 
 are any to refer to in this particular case : nay, I am 
 confident there is not a single case in all the law-books 
 in England, of an emancipated* convict assuming the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 413 
 
 management of the press. I shall take the liberty, 
 however, of citing one or two cases from the ancient 
 classics, to point out in what manner public opinion 
 usually operated, in excluding individuals, in the con- 
 dition of the plaintiff, from situations of influence and 
 prominence in society, even when the standard of 
 public morals was pitched far lower than it is in 
 Christian nations. In the reign of the Emperor Au- 
 gustus, a freedman, who had somehow acquired an 
 immense fortune in the city of Rome, conceived him- 
 self entitled, on the ground of his wealth, to occupy 
 one of those seats in the Roman amphitheatre, that 
 were appropriated, by the law of Otho, to Roman 
 citizens of equestrian rank. The poet Horace, ob- 
 serving the circumstance, was moved with indignation 
 at the individual, and, in an ode on the subject, ad- 
 dressed him in such terms as the following : — 
 
 Ibericis peruste funibus latus, 
 Et crura dura compede ; 
 
 ' Thou who hast undergone corporal punishment, and 
 whose legs have been bound in double irons, how 
 canst thou presume to assume the rank and place of 
 the honourable citizens of Rome?' During the same 
 emperor's reign, a regiment of Roman soldiers had 
 allowed themselves to be taken prisoners by the enemy 
 —a circumstance which was held much more dis- 
 reputable in ancient than it is in modern times ; and 
 the government had resolved not only to ransom them 
 from the enemy, but to restore them to their place 
 among the troops of the line. Horace felt as highly 
 
414 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 indignant at the measure as he did in the case of the 
 freedman, and in a beautiful ode on the subject he thus 
 writes : — ' 
 
 Flagitio additis 
 Damnum. Neque amissos colores 
 
 Lana refert medicata fuco : 
 Nee vera virtus, quum semel excidit, 
 
 Curat reponi deterioribus. 
 
 ' The restoration you propose is not only disgraceful, 
 but a serious loss to the commonwealth. Wool, when 
 once dyed, never recovers its original colour ; and 
 when a virtuous character is once lost, it cannot be 
 restored/ I should be sorry to subscribe to these 
 sentiments in their full extent : I only quote them to 
 show, that public opinion has operated in all countries, 
 in excluding, from situations of prominence and in- 
 fluence in society, men who have once degraded them- 
 selves by their criminality in the eye of the law. And 
 to show Your Honours that the object of the article, 
 which is stigmatized as a false, scandalous, and ma- 
 licious libel, was nothing more nor less than to esta- 
 blish this important principle, I shall take the liberty 
 of reading another extract to the following effect : — 
 
 " There are certain situations of importance to the 
 public in this colony, which an emancipist cannot hold, 
 however irreproachable his subsequent conduct. He 
 cannot, for instance, hold the situation of a judge of 
 the Supreme Court ; he cannot plead as a barrister in 
 that court ; nay, he cannot even practise as an attorney. 
 Again, would the Archdeacon attempt to place an 
 emancipist, however irreproachable his colonial cha- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 415 
 
 racter, as Episcopalian chaplain in any district of the 
 colony 1 Would the Roman Catholic Vicar appoint 
 such a person as a Roman Catholic priest ? Or would 
 the Scotch Presbytery ordain him as a minister of one 
 of the colonial churches in their communion ? We 
 think not. There would be a precious outcry over the 
 whole colony, if any such preposterous attempt were to 
 be made. And is the situation of an editor of a news- 
 paper of less importance to the community in this 
 literary age — this age of the despotism of the press — 
 than that of an attorney ? or than that even of a district 
 colonial chaplain ? We are not likely to form a lower 
 estimate of the clerical office than other men ; but we 
 hold it a matter of as paramount importance to the 
 public, that in an age like the present — teeming as it 
 is to overflowing with the principles of revolution and 
 infidelity — the press should be in the hands of right- 
 principled and right-hearted men, as it is that such 
 men only should have access to the pulpit. And if a 
 sincere regard for the public welfare on the part of the 
 government on the one hand, and of the colonial 
 ecclesiastical authorities on the other, precludes the 
 emancipist from practising in the courts of law, or 
 from officiating at the altar ; why should he be allowed 
 to have the management of an engine which has 
 evidently far more influence on a large portion of this 
 community than either the pulpit or the courts of 
 law — an engine which, if not under the vigorous 
 and active management of men of sound principle, 
 is sure to scatter firebrands, arrows, and death, and 
 
416 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 to diffuse a moral pestilence over the whole face of 
 society." 
 
 " ' It will doubtless be argued in reply, that to exclude 
 emancipated convicts from any situation in society 
 which they have ability to occupy, is repugnant to 
 those principles of charity that distinguish the Christian 
 religion, and that therefore the right hand of fellow- 
 ship should be held forth to help the emancipated 
 convict over the stile, into every situation which a free- 
 man, on whom the sentence of transportation has never 
 passed, may lawfully occupy. But Your Honours are 
 well aware that there is a spurious charity in the world, 
 which often passes current for the true ; and that in- 
 dividuals can never have claims upon our charitable 
 feelings inconsistent with the exercise of justice to 
 society at large. ' Jampridem, equidem,' exclaimed 
 the famous Cato in the Senate House at Rome, when 
 Julius Caesar, who was afterwards emperor, was plead- 
 ing for the manifestation of charitable and kindly feel- 
 ings towards the men who had been engaged in Ca- 
 tiline's conspiracy ; ' Jampridem, equidem, nos vera 
 rerum vocabula amisimus ; quia bona aliena largiri 
 liberalitas, malarum rerum audacia, fortitudo vocatur : 
 eo respublica in extremo sita. Sint sane, quoniam ita 
 se mores habent, liberales ex sociorum fortunis ; sint 
 misericordes in furibus serarii : ne illis sanguinem nos- 
 trum largiantur, et dum paucis sceleratis parcunt, bonos 
 omnes perditum eant.' — ' It is long, indeed, since we 
 lost the proper designations of things : for, to make free 
 with and to squander away other people's property is 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 417 
 
 now called liberality, and the audacity that perpetrates 
 the most flagitious actions is styled boldness and spi- 
 rit : at such a pass, in regard to virtuous feeling, has 
 the commonwealth arrived. But if public feeling, if 
 public morals, are indeed in so low a state, let men 
 be liberal, if they please, with their own property, and 
 with that of their friends ; let them show their kindly 
 feelings, if they so incline, to common thieves and 
 robbers : but let them not sacrifice our best interests to 
 persons of this description ; and while they manifest a 
 benignant disposition to a few miscreants, let them not 
 devote the whole class of reputable men to one common 
 ruin.' 
 
 " * Particular stress is laid in the plaintiff's affidavit, 
 on that part of the article in which it is asserted that 
 the plaintiff is not a reformed character. I shall read 
 the portion of the article to which the plaintiff par- 
 ticularly refers : — 
 
 "We are aware we shall be met with the argument 
 which was once used by the late Mr. Robert Howe 
 himself, when, relating the circumstances of his own 
 conversion at a public meeting in the Wesleyan 
 Chapel, he observed with a pardonable degree of self- 
 complacency, * Tell me not what I was, but what I 
 ham.' We shall be told that Mr. O'Shaughnessy is a 
 reformed personage : we deny that he is so. A modest 
 retiring disposition is the uniform accompaniment of 
 sincere penitence, of genuine reformation ; and we 
 maintain, in the face of the whole colony, and without 
 the least fear of contradiction, that if Mr. O'Shaugh- 
 nessy had possessed such a spirit in any degree, he 
 
418 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 would have shrunk back from a situation of such 
 peculiar prominence and responsibility, as that of 
 Editor of the ' Sydney Gazette,' even although it 
 "had been injudiciously offered him, on the one hand, 
 and though he had been quite fit for it, on the other. 
 
 " The brazen-faced impudence of the man who could 
 presume to step from the situation of government-man 
 or assigned servant to the late Mr. Robert Howe, into 
 that of Editor of t The Sydney Gazette,' or, in other 
 words, literary dictator to the lieges in this colony ; and 
 could set himself down in a sort of magisterial chair, 
 to pronounce authoritatively on the character and 
 actions of reputable men, and to issue forth opinions 
 to a gaping public, thrice a-week, on matters of go- 
 vernment and legislation, sufficiently proves that he 
 has no right or title to the epithet reformed, and that 
 he is just as bad at heart as when he was legged* in 
 Dublin. And has His Majesty's colony of New South 
 Wales indeed come to such a pass, that we must all be 
 schooled, forsooth, by a fellow like this ?" 
 
 «< t Why, when your Honours consider what sort of 
 an engine the press is, and what sort of jurisdiction it 
 claims over all classes of society, over all interests 
 whatever, I am sure your Honours will admit that a 
 really reformed emancipated convict would never pre- 
 sume to assume the management of such an engine, or 
 the exercise of such a jurisdiction. And yet the plaintiff 
 has the assurance to come to your Honours to demand 
 the punishment of the writer of this article, because, 
 
 * The cant word for apprehended or convicted. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 419 
 
 forsooth, it has a tendency to injure him in his trade 
 or profession ! Why, if he ventured to carry on such a 
 trade, or to exercise such a profession in England, the 
 populace would have him burnt in effigy for the insult 
 he had dared to perpetrate on the virtuous feelings of 
 the community. 
 
 " ' I submit then to your Honours, whether the article 
 for which I am this day called to answer, as a false, 
 scandalous, and malicious libel, is, in any respect, 
 either false, or scandalous, or malicious ; and whether 
 it is not rather a fair comment on the principle or text 
 which it proposed to establish, — viz. that an emancipated 
 convict, that is, an individual who has once been trans- 
 ported to this colony for his crimes as a felon, is 
 morally unfit, and politically incompetent, to undertake 
 the management of the press in this convict colony. 
 
 " ' But the plaintiff has not only imputed malice to 
 myself, as the writer of the article referred to, but has 
 made affidavit that he had given me no provocation. 
 Now, although I can assure your Honours, that not a 
 line of that article was written from malicious feelings 
 towards the plaintiff, or under the influence of personal 
 provocation, but that it was written merely to establish 
 a principle of the utmost importance to the welfare of 
 this community ; it is not true, as is stated in the 
 plaintiffs affidavit, that he had given me no pro- 
 vocation : for months before the article was written, 
 ' The Sydney Gazette' was filled with papers and 
 paragraphs of every description, written in a style of 
 the most personal and provoking hostility towards my- 
 self. I made it a rule indeed not to read such articles, 
 
420 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 nor even to look at 'The Gazette' at all j and it was 
 only when some particular paragraph was forced on 
 my attention, that I came to know any thing of it : but 
 having very recently had occasion to look over a file of 
 the plaintiff's paper, with a view to this defence, I can 
 assure your Honours, I had to encounter a perfect 
 dunghill of personal abuse. In such circumstances, I 
 submit to your Honours whether this Honourable Court 
 is not called on to discourage and to put an end to 
 such prosecutions as the present, on the part of such 
 individuals as the plaintiff. I shall read the following- 
 extract on this subject, from the article so often re- 
 ferred to : — 
 
 " The other circumstance, indicative of the low de- 
 spicable state of the colonial press, is the rabid desire, 
 so long evinced by its respective Editors, to prosecute 
 one another before the Supreme Court for defamation 
 of character. There is nothing of the kind known in 
 England. The Editor of a public journal there trusts to 
 his own pen, and to the acknowledged respectability of 
 his character, when unjustly attacked. But English 
 Editors are generally gentlemen ; we can only wish 
 they were all so here. The peculiar sensitiveness of 
 the colonial tribe, as to character, is both amusing and 
 instructive. When an honest man walks along the 
 highway, and hears a fellow shouting out unprincipled 
 ruffian, he walks on peaceably, conscious that the 
 epithet must be meant for somebody else, as it cannot 
 possibly apply to him. Nay, if the impudent knave 
 stops short in his very path, and repeats the obnoxious 
 expression to his very face, instead of making a fuss 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 421 
 
 about it, he will probably merely say, ' Get out of the 
 way, sir ; do you wish to provoke me to knock you 
 down ? ' But whenever certain colonial Editors hear 
 such words, or words to the same effect, in their 
 editorial walks, they instantly stop short, and stand 
 with their ears pricked up, like a horse listening to a 
 trumpet; for their conscience tells them that the phrase 
 does apply to themselves ; and therefore, whenever they 
 can identify the speaker, they have him up forthwith 
 before the Supreme Court, to get him punished, under 
 the famous Lawyer's Act, or Law of Libel, for telling 
 the truth." 
 
 " * It will doubtless be maintained, that the character 
 of my article, and the course I have taken in this de- 
 fence, are inconsistent with the genius and spirit of 
 the Christian religion : but that religion, which was 
 designed for the reformation of mankind and the moral 
 renovation of the world, carries in it terrors to evil- 
 doers, as well as praise to those that do well ; and 
 there is nothing for which it ever evinces a deeper 
 anxiety, than that the fountains of knowledge and the 
 sources of instruction should be kept pure and uncon- 
 rupted. 
 
 " ' Individuals will also be ready to maintain, that my 
 article and my defence both evince a spirit of hostility 
 towards the whole class of emancipists. On this sub- 
 ject, I beg to read the following paragraph from the 
 article itself: — 
 
 " If any evil-disposed person should assert, that these 
 remarks have been dictated by a feeling of hostility to 
 the whole class of emancipists, we have only this short 
 
422 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 answer to give — It is false. We will yield to none in 
 our earnest and sincere desire to elevate the character 
 and to promote the best interests of the emancipists 
 generally, and especially to give all due countenance to 
 the virtuous and well-disposed portion of that class of 
 our colonial population, in contradistinction to the 
 worthless and the vile : but, if the circumstance of 
 having ever been a convict disqualifies a man for the 
 bar or the pulpit, we maintain, with the best of feelings 
 towards the emancipists generally, that it ought to 
 disqualify him also for the management of the press. 
 There are five hundred other situations in the colony 
 in which an emancipist may earn his bread and find 
 employment, creditably for himself and beneficially 
 for the public : why then should he be suffered to 
 intrude himself into a situation in which his very pre- 
 sence is an argument, not against his own class in 
 particular, but against the whole colony, in the Par- 
 liament of England ? " 
 
 " • During the whole course of my residence in this 
 colony, I have ever exhibited the most kindly feelings 
 towards the emancipists ; and as a writer on the actual 
 state of the colony, I have not only evinced the pro- 
 priety of extending the elective franchise to all respectable 
 persons of that class, but maintained their eligibility to 
 sit as members of a future House of Assembly — a 
 situation to which I trust I shall ever be held ineligible 
 myself as a minister of religion. 
 
 " * But if it should be represented as inconsistent with 
 the character of a minister of religion, who, it will 
 doubtless be alleged, ought always to be meek and 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 423 
 
 lowly, like his Master, to assume the vindication of the 
 rights of the public and the claims of virtue in this 
 particular instance, I beg to observe, that there are 
 occasions on which this mild and gentle demeanour is 
 as unbefitting a minister of religion, as an opposite 
 demeanour is on all others. When the divine Author 
 of Christianity found the temple at Jerusalem polluted 
 with the presence of unworthy persons, did he merely 
 go up to them, and request them in a very mild manner 
 to walk out ? No ! he made a whip of small cords, and 
 scourged them from within the sacred precincts : and I 
 submit to your Honours, whether I have been doing 
 any thing more, as a minister of religion, than merely 
 acting on this precedent and following up this example, 
 in endeavouring, in the article for which I have this 
 day been called to answer before Your Honours, to 
 cleanse and to purify the press in this colony.' 
 
 ••? On the conclusion of this speech, which was listened 
 to throughout with the most profound attention, the 
 Chief Justice, after conferring for a few minutes with 
 the other Judges, observed, that the Court, exercising 
 the functions of a Grand Jury, but without entering 
 into the merits of the case, conceived there was suf- 
 ficient matter upon the plaintiff's affidavit for referring 
 the case to a Jury, and would therefore make the Rule 
 absolute. 
 
 " There was an unusually large number of the respect- 
 able inhabitants of Sydney present during the pro- 
 ceedings, which appeared to excite the deepest interest. 
 The reading of certain parts of the obnoxious article, 
 especially the passage containing an extract of an 
 
424 HISTOKICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 imaginary speech in the House of Commons, by Mr. 
 Watt's late master, Mr. Morrison, gave general amuse- 
 ment : even the stern visage of Mr. Wentworth, coun- 
 sel for the plaintiff though he was, was occasionally 
 relaxed into a smile at the expense of his client. At all 
 events, nothing could possibly have happened in the 
 colony more strongly calculated than this prosecution, 
 to advance the object for which the obnoxious article 
 was written, or eventually to raise the character of the 
 colonial press. The case has excited intense interest 
 in all quarters, and we have reason to believe, that the 
 result has been a general acquiescence in the soundness 
 of Dr. Lang's position. Mr. O'Shaughnessy, it seems, 
 has taken the hint, and made his exit from the l Gazette' 
 Office ; and although he has left a ticket-of-leave man 
 virtually in his place, we shall not consider our task 
 accomplished till we have put down that enormity also." 
 
 Although the Rule (to use the technical phraseology) 
 teas made absolute, the colonial judges having no dis- 
 cretionary power in such matters ; and although a 
 criminal action was consequently allowed to be insti- 
 tuted in the case, no such action was ever commenced ; 
 Mr. O'Shaughnessy and his friends having wisely con- 
 cluded that it was not prudent to venture their cause on 
 a second hearing. The moral effect of the whole proceed- 
 ing, however, on the colony generally was powerful and 
 instantaneous : the sentiments to which expression had 
 been given — for the first time in the history of the colony 
 — were immediately recognised and adopted as those of 
 all reputable men in the community; O'Shaughnessy 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 425 
 
 was driven from the office he had usurped by the force 
 of public opinion ; and the emancipist interest — as dis- 
 tinct from the interests of all virtuous men in the colony 
 — received a shock, from the paralyzing effects of which 
 all the eloquence of a Bulwer # will in vain attempt to 
 retrieve it. In fact, that interest, which had been pre- 
 dominant in New South Wales for twenty years before, 
 began to sink rapidly from the moment of O'Shaugh- 
 nessy's ill-judged application for a criminal information 
 to protect the convict press of the colony ; and it has 
 already very nearly reached the humble level of absolute 
 insignificance. 
 
 The convict Watt, however, having in the mean time 
 ingratiated himself into the favour of the proprietrix of 
 'The Sydney Gazette,' whom he was afterwards permitted 
 to marry, still exercised the whole management and con- 
 troul of that paper ; and in order expressly to dislodge 
 him from this situation, his trial at the Old Bailey was 
 republished from ' The London Criminal Trials for the 
 year 1828,' in the ' Colonist' of May 21st, 1835, prefaced 
 with the following article on 
 
 "THE LITERARY PROFESSION, OR, THE COLONIAL 
 
 PRESS. 
 
 ' When bad men combine, the good must associate ; else they will fall, 
 one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.' — Buiike. 
 
 "We are indebted for this highly appropriate motto to 
 \ The Sydney Gazette.' It stood prefixed to the leading 
 article in that Journal on the 8th of April, 1834,-— a 
 
 * Mr. H. L. Bulwer, M.P. is the volunteer parliamentary agent of the 
 emancipist interest of New South Wales. 
 
426 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 time when l The Sydney Gazette' was notoriously 
 under the joint editorial management of an eman- 
 cipated convict, of extremely doubtful character, and 
 a ticket of leave man, of the utter worthlessness of 
 whose character there could be no room to doubt. For, 
 after having been outlawed in Scotland for certain 
 fraudulent transactions in the city of Edinburgh, in the 
 year 1825, and transported from London for trans- 
 actions of a similar but still more flagrant character, in 
 the year 1 828 ; and after having served for some time 
 on his arrival in this colony at the penal settlement of 
 Wellington Valley, pursuant to the express orders of 
 the present Premier, who was then Secretary for the 
 Home Department ; the individual we allude to ob- 
 tained from the late Governor a ticket of leave for the 
 district of Sydney, — a place which, if General Darling 
 had only obeyed his orders, and thereby discharged 
 his own bounden duty to this community, he would 
 never have been suffered to come within a hundred 
 miles of, till he had completed the full term of his 
 original sentence, — and was actually cohabiting with a 
 convict woman illegally at large, if not at the very 
 time, at all events either shortly before, or shortly 
 after, the time when himself and his worthy associate 
 had the almost inconceivable impudence to prefix the 
 motto we have given above to a leading article of their 
 joint manufacture ! When Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, 
 who made Israel to sin, wished to detach his subjects 
 from the worship of the true God and the loyalty they 
 owed to the house of David, he got two golden calves 
 manufactured, and, setting them up with great pomp 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 427 
 
 in the presence of the people, said, These be thy Gods, 
 O Israel! In like manner, when Mrs. Anne Howe 
 wished to perform a somewhat similarly meritorious 
 service to the colonists of New South Wales, she meta- 
 morphosed an individual in her employment, who had 
 been her late husband's government-man, and the 
 ticket of leave man of whose life and manners we have 
 just given an abridgment, into the joint managers of 
 her old-established paper ; saying, virtually, if not 
 actually, to the wondering community, ' These be thy 
 friends, philosophers, and guides, O thou long-eared 
 colony of New South Wales ! ' 
 
 " In a former article on the subject of the colonial 
 press, we showed that it was not only disreputable and 
 disgraceful to the colony, to allow such a man as Mr. 
 Edward O'Shaughnessy to guide the opinions of this 
 community, as the editor of a public journal, but that 
 such a circumstance was itself the most serious ob- 
 stacle that could possibly exist to the attainment of 
 those free institutions which every true friend of the 
 colony, whether free emigrant or emancipist, is so 
 earnestly desirous that it should speedily obtain ; and 
 that it would only require a little address, on the part 
 of any able member of the House of Commons, to 
 employ that single circumstance in such a way as most 
 effectually to defeat every petition for a House of 
 Assembly that might emanate from the colony for ten 
 years to come. If such be the fact, what an over- 
 whelming effect would it not give to the repre- 
 sentations of Mr. Morrison, one of the members of 
 
428 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Parliament for the city of Ipswich, or of any other 
 member who might feel disposed to set aside the ar- 
 guments of Mr. Bulwer, in advocating the claims of 
 this colony to a colonial legislature, or even to render 
 that gentleman himself completely ridiculous, were 
 Mr. Morrison able to add, that in discharging the 
 duties of his high and highly responsible office of 
 'friend, philosopher, and guide' to the colony of 
 New South Wales, Mr. O'Shaughnessy was assisted 
 by a ticket of leave man, of whom he had been un- 
 fortunate enough to have some knowledge himself, and 
 who, he could assure the House, was one of the most 
 thoroughly worthless and dangerous persons of his 
 ciass that had ever been transported to New South 
 Wales ! Nay, if Mr. Morrison were enabled to state, 
 that these two individuals — the emancipated convict 
 and the ticket of leave holder — had the impudence to 
 quote the sentiment which stands at the head of this 
 article, and to apply it to themselves as an association 
 of good men, forsooth, in contradistinction to the really 
 reputable portion of this community ; and to issue 
 forth editorial bulletins three times a week on such 
 subjects as the transportation system, penal discipline 
 in the Australian colonies, the mutual relations and 
 correlative claims of free emigrants and emancipists, 
 ticket of leave men and convicts ; and to sit in judg- 
 ment on all the measures of the colonial government, 
 and to endeavour to overwhelm with abuse every honest 
 man who refused to subscribe to their opinions, or 
 dared to proclaim their own worthlessness to the peo- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 429 
 
 pie of this colony j the feeling of contempt that would 
 naturally arise in the breast of every member of Par- 
 liament towards the members of a community, which 
 allowed such individuals to retain the management of 
 its press, would be succeeded by a feeling of general 
 indignation and thorough disgust. Nay, it would 
 perhaps even be made a matter of question, whether 
 the member of Parliament who could offer such an 
 insult to the House of Commons, as to propose to grant 
 a House of Assembly to a community apparently so 
 utterly destitute of honourable and British feeling, did 
 not deserve immediate expulsion." 
 
 Watt's subsequent history in the colony is briefly 
 contained in the following paragraphs, which I shall 
 take the liberty to quote, as a most appropriate illus- 
 tration of the character and tendency of a convict press, 
 from a work I have recently published, and which has 
 been already referred to, on ' Transportation and Colo- 
 nization.' 
 
 " Watt was at length tried in the Supreme Court of 
 the colony, at the instance of the proprietors of the 
 * Herald ' newspaper, on a somewhat singular charge. In 
 the year 1834 an anonymous letter had been written 
 for publication in that journal, reflecting on the cha- 
 racter and conduct of an individual in Sydney, who had 
 formerly been a convict, but was then free. In the 
 hurry of business it was put in type ; but, on being read 
 for correction, it was found to be libellous and unfit for 
 publication, and was consequently suppressed. Watt, 
 who was then sole manager in the ' Gazette f Office, got 
 
430 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 intelligence of the circumstance ; and being desirous of 
 having the proprietors of the ' Herald/ who were re- 
 putable free emigrants, subjected to an action for libel 
 — a course, which, in a colony abounding in needy and 
 rapacious lawyers, is not unfrequently resorted to by 
 artful villany and conscious worthlessness, as an ap- 
 proved instrument of torture for honest men, — bribed an 
 emancipated convict compositor in the ' Herald ' Office 
 to steal for him a proof or printed copy of the sup- 
 pressed article ; which he immediately enclosed in an 
 anonymous letter, written in a feigned hand, and trans- 
 mitted through the colonial post to the person to whom 
 it alluded, that its being forwarded through so public a 
 channel might be pleaded as a legal publication. The 
 action was accordingly instituted, but was eventually 
 lost ; its main object, however, being gained to a cer- 
 tain extent, in subjecting the parties interested to much 
 inconvenience and considerable expense. It was more 
 than eighteen months afterwards when Watt's villanous 
 procedure in the whole matter came to light. On its 
 being discovered, he was tried in the Supreme Court 
 on a charge of felony, but was acquitted ; the jury 
 consisting partly, if not chiefly, of emancipated con- 
 victs. His acquittal was hailed by the worthless por- 
 tion of the community — convicts and emancipated con- 
 victs, of the lowest grade — as the triumph of their 
 principles and party ; but His Honour, Mr. Justice 
 Burton, who presided at the trial, having represented 
 to the Governor, from the facts elicited in the course 
 of it, that Watt was an unfit person to be allowed to 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 431 
 
 remain any longer in Sydney, His Excellency ordered 
 him forthwith to Port Macquarie, a subordinate settle- 
 ment about two hundred miles to the northward. 
 
 " In the course of his defence in the Supreme Court, 
 Watt had made an outrageous attack on a magistrate 
 of the territory, who was in no way connected with the 
 affair. For this outrage he was called to account before 
 the Sydney bench of magistrates, to whose summary 
 jurisdiction he was amenable, as a convict holding a 
 ticket of leave. The outrage, it appeared, was not 
 punishable ; but various other charges being exhibited 
 against Watt, the magistrates determined to enter into 
 them at length. The investigation that ensued lasted 
 many days ; and in the course of it, Watt's whole 
 manner of life in the colony, and the countenance he 
 had been receiving from certain officers of government, 
 fully appeared, notwithstanding a formidable array of 
 perjury and chicanery of every description, which were 
 sedulously employed on his behalf. To the utter as- 
 tonishment of the colony, however, several of the most 
 respectable magistrates of the territory, who had been 
 concerned in conducting the investigation, and who had, 
 perhaps, acted in the matter with greater zeal than 
 prudence, were shortly after publicly dismissed from 
 the commission of the peace ! 
 
 " On his arrival at Port Macquarie, Watt obtained 
 permission to marry the widow of the former pro- 
 prietor of the Gazette, whose valuable property he had 
 reduced to the brink of ruin ; and having subsequently 
 succeeded in ingratiating himself into the favour of the 
 police magistrate of the settlement, he was the means 
 
432 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 of sowing so much dissension between that officer and 
 the harbour-master, that a commission of inquiry had 
 actually to be appointed to proceed to Port Macquarie 
 in the month of May last (1836), to investigate their 
 mutual criminations. The result of that commission 
 was the dismissal of both of these functionaries, and 
 an order for the immediate cancelling of Watt's ticket 
 of leave. On being apprised of this order, Watt ab- 
 sconded ; and the last account of him, in August 1836, 
 was that he had been apprehended, and flogged as a 
 runaway ! # 
 
 " Now, that a criminal like Watt, who ought un- 
 questionably to have been doomed for a long period 
 to hard labour and solitary confinement, should have 
 been allowed to occupy a station of such commanding 
 influence, as that individual attained so very lately in 
 the penal colony of New South Wales, even during the 
 period of his sentence of transportation, — subjecting 
 the characters of various officers of His Majesty's 
 Government to general suspicion, from alleged con- 
 nivance at his delinquencies ; occasioning the dismissal 
 of various respectable magistrates from the commission 
 of the peace, for investigating these delinquencies 
 somewhat too minutely ; occupying the time of courts 
 of justice and benches of magistrates for weeks to- 
 gether, and thereby commanding all the while the 
 exclusive attention of the press and the public ; and 
 finally raising up a formidable party in the colony for 
 the countenance and protection of vice and villany ;— * 
 
 * He has since been drowned at Port Macquarie. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 433 
 
 that a state of things, implying so enormous a per- 
 version of justice, should be permitted to subsist at the 
 present moment in any part of the British empire, is 
 (to say the very least of it) as strange in itself as it is 
 disreputable to the British nation. Talk of the ten- 
 dency of transportation as a species of punishment ! 
 It would, indeed, have been miraculous if trans- 
 portation had been found conducive in any degree to 
 the prevention of crime and the reformation of cri- 
 minals, under a system of management so thoroughly 
 monstrous." 
 
 There were various other objects of great importance 
 to the colony of New South Wales, to which the efforts 
 of 'The Colonist' journal were successfully directed ; 
 such as the re-establishment and revival of the Aus- 
 tralian College, which had sustained a considerable 
 shock from the unexpected desertion of the Rev. H. 
 Carmichael ; the discontinuance of the system of female 
 emigration, which was rendering the whole colony, and 
 especially the town of Sydney, a sink of prostitution ; 
 and the arousing of the reputable portion of the colonists 
 generally to a due sense of the vast importance of the 
 revenue arising from the sale of the Crown lands of the 
 colony, as a means of promoting their best interests, 
 through the importation of a numerous, industrious, 
 and virtuous free emigrant population. 
 
 There was another effort, however, on the part of 
 ' The Colonist' journal, of much greater difficulty than 
 any of these ; of which, moreover, as it has recently 
 excited some attention, and led to some inquiry, on the 
 part of the Committee of the House of Commons on 
 vol. n. T 
 
434 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Transportation, at present sitting,* I shall briefly detail 
 the particulars. 
 
 The practice of concubinage, and the general pro- 
 fligacy of manners to which it leads, had been gradually 
 disappearing from the face of colonial society during 
 the ten years previous to the year 1833. About 
 that period, however, the system of female emigration 
 having come into operation, and that system having 
 introduced into the colony a very large number of most 
 abandoned females, together with not a few others of 
 questionable virtue, picked up, wherever he could find 
 them, in the whole three kingdoms, by Mr. John Mar- 
 shall, the agent of the London Female Emigration 
 Board, this demoralizing practice began to revive, and 
 scenes of the most outrageous profligacy to be ex- 
 hibited. It was therefore to the putting down of this 
 practice, and to the establishment of a high standard 
 of morals throughout the colony, that the principal 
 efforts of ' The Colonist' journal were for some time 
 directed. With this view, certain cases either of pe- 
 culiar notoriety or of a peculiarly offensive character 
 were indirectly and variously exposed ; and the effect 
 of such exposure, in other cases of a less flagrant cha- 
 racter, was equally salutary and gratifying. For al- 
 though two of the cases I allude to led to certain law pro- 
 ceedings in the colonial court, the moral effect produced 
 on the community at large was not the less beneficial. 
 . One of these cases excited intense interest in the 
 colony. It was that of Mr. John Thomas Wilson, the 
 managing partner in an extensive Sheffield house in 
 
 * I have had the honour to he examined hy that Committee for three 
 days successively. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 435 
 
 Sydney. This person had for several years been one 
 of the most prominent individuals of our colonial 
 community ; being a leading member of all the joint- 
 stock speculations of the country, and either secretary, 
 treasurer, or honorary member of almost every religious 
 or philanthropic society in the colony. It was ascer- 
 tained, however, by the parties connected with 'The 
 Colonist' journal, that he had not only ruined a 
 young Scotchwoman of the name of Cavill, the sister of 
 one of the free emigrant Scotch mechanics whom I had 
 carried out to the colony to erect the Australian College 
 Buildings, in the year 1831 ; but that, after sending that 
 young woman clandestinely home to her friends in Scot- 
 land, with a promise, forsooth, that he would very soon 
 follow her and marry her there, he had taken under his 
 protection a woman of the name of Taylor, who had de- 
 serted her husband in Van Dieman's Land, and come to 
 New South Wales to practise as an actress. Wilson 
 had even proposed to take the Sydney Theatre for this 
 woman ; and in various ways his profligacy was os- 
 tentatiously obtruded upon the public, while his pro- 
 cedure towards the relatives of the young Scotchwoman 
 had been peculiarly distinguished for its heartlessness 
 and enormity. In short, the case of this individual 
 appeared to the parties connected with 'The Colonist' 
 journal eminently deserving, of exposure, as well from 
 the prominence of the delinquent as from the character 
 of his immorality. The following jeu d' esprit was ac- 
 cordingly published in that paper on the 31st of March, 
 1836 ; and, in a subsequent number, a letter was 
 inserted from the young Scotchwoman's brother, de- 
 
436 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 tailing, in a very artless and affecting manner, Wilson's 
 unprincipled and profligate procedure. 
 
 THE FAMILY MAN; 
 
 A NEW SONG. 
 
 To be sung at the next Concert 
 
 BY A MEMBER OF THE ARTILLERY CORPS. 
 
 Tune — We '11 run the risk for a' that. 
 
 John Thomas was a Shropshire man, 
 
 And eke a worthy nailer ; 
 He had a stout-built portly frame, 
 
 And his flame she was a Taylor ; 
 Who, though she tried to fasten John 
 
 In Hymen's pleasant noose, 
 Found to her cost, alas ! that he 
 
 Was not a Taylor's goose. 
 
 She bound him with a silken cord, 
 
 And then a cord of cotton ; 
 But silk and cotton, flax and tow, 
 
 Snapp'd as if each were rotten ! 
 She took to pouting then, and vow'd 
 
 She 'd sooner die of hunger, 
 Than e'er be bound with bullock chains, 
 
 Or wed an Ironmonger! 
 
 " What is 't you say?" said he, as she 
 
 Stood bolt upon the boards ; 
 " You 're tenfold happier than if kept 
 
 By half a dozen lords. 
 There 's not a show-room in the place 
 
 Can be compared with mine ; 
 There 's not a woman on the town 
 
 Has such a lot as thine. 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 437 
 
 " Why, there 's the Sydney Theatre, — 
 
 Its owners wish to let it ; 
 'Twould be the noblest spec of all, 
 
 If we could only get it. 
 We 'd take it either by the week, 
 
 Or by the month or year; 
 And there's my good friend B n, 
 
 Will back us out, my dear." 
 
 Said Parson H one day, as they 
 
 Were riding in their carriage, 
 11 Why, you '11 disgrace us all, friend John, 
 
 If you don't make this a marriage. 
 The thing has got about the town, 
 
 In fearful notoriety ; 
 And, mind, we '11 turn you out of each 
 
 Religious Society." 
 
 John Thomas blush'd, and said 'twas strange 
 
 How idle people Cavill, 
 But he would tell him all the truth 
 
 And the whole case unravel. 
 He would have married long ago ; 
 
 (He 's of the marrying kidney :) 
 But when one has a wife at home, 
 
 He can't have one in Sydney. 
 
 The sensation produced in the town of Sydney, and 
 indeed all over the colony, by the publication of this 
 little jeu d' esprit, was quite unprecedented ; the parties 
 concerned being known to every body, while the allu- 
 sions were universally intelligible. Within two hours 
 of its publication Wilson applied in person to Mr. Bull, 
 the editor of ' The Colonist/ for information as to its 
 authorship ; and on being refused such information, he 
 
438 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 committed a violent assault on Mr. B., who was in a 
 very delicate state of health at the time, in one of the 
 principal streets of Sydney. Mr. B. immediately com- 
 menced an action of damages against Wilson, in the 
 Supreme Court of the colony; and on the case being 
 tried before Mr. Chief Justice Dowling and a special 
 jury, a verdict of £5 damages was given for the plain- 
 tiff. That verdict was justly regarded by Wilson and 
 his friends as a complete triumph, and was accordingly 
 interpreted by the virtuous portion of the community 
 as a demonstration, on the part of the jury, of their 
 fixed determination to countenance and to maintain the 
 vile system of outrageous profligacy of which Wilson 
 formed so conspicuous a part, and to discourage every 
 effort to put it down. There was less difficulty in ar- 
 riving at this conclusion than there might otherwise 
 have been from the composition of the jury itself ; as 
 two of the members of that body were of the class of 
 emancipists, of whom one, if not both, had himself 
 lived for many years in a state of concubinage ; while 
 certain of the free emigrant Sydney merchants, who 
 formed the larger portion of the remainder of the jury, 
 were themselves actually living at the time in the same 
 disreputable state, with certain of Mr. John Marshall's 
 free emigrant females. As the real question, therefore, 
 which had been before that respectable body, was whe- 
 ther such a system should be kept up for the future or 
 put down, (it being evident on all hands that there was 
 no other method of putting it down than the one which 
 * The Colonist' had adopted,) it was deemed expedient 
 and necessary for the moral welfare of the colony to coun- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 439 
 
 teractthe evil influence of such a verdict, and to prevent 
 the establishment of such a precedent as it afforded, by 
 indicating the polluted source from which that verdict 
 had unquestionably flowed. This was accordingly done 
 in the following remarks on the subject, which v ere 
 published in * The Colonist' immediately after the trial. 
 
 " The case of the editor of this paper versus the notorious John 
 Thomas Wilson, for an aggravated and brutal assault perpetrated in the 
 public street, was tried before His Honour the Chief Justice and a 
 special jury yesterday afternoon. The fact, and the aggravated nature 
 of the assault were proved by the second police magistrate ; the delicate, 
 and even dangerous state of health of the editor of this paper at the time 
 the assault was committed was also proved by the testimony of Dr. 
 Nicholson; and it was even admitted by the defendant's counsel, that at 
 that very time he was impressed with the belief that Mr. Bull was not 
 the author of the jeu d'esprit, under the title of 'The Family Man,' 
 which had appeared in this journal, and provoked the wrath of the no- 
 torious debauchee. And yet so delicate is the sense of propriety of a 
 New South Wales special jury, or rather, for we must speak it out, so 
 strong is their sympathy with all that is vile and villanous in outrageous 
 profligacy, and in cold-blooded and heartless iniquity, that they consider 
 five pounds a sufficient compensation to the husband of a virtuous wife, 
 and the father of a reputable family, for a grievous assault committed 
 upon his person in open day, and in the open street of a town, by an 
 individual whose advance in profligacy has kept pace with his success in 
 business, and who after practising the most nefarious arts to accomplish 
 the ruin of a virtuous female, and to destroy the peace of a respectable 
 family, wipes his mouth, and is even applauded by the wretched crea- 
 tures in the shape of ladies and gentlemen who frequent that sink of 
 iniquity, the Sydney play-house, when holding parley with his adulter- 
 ous paramour on the very boards ! Talk of the jury system after this ! 
 Oh, no. Mr. Justice Burton, an emancipist jury for us after all ! a jury 
 of Moreton Bay men or Norfolk islanders. We shall be satisfied with any 
 jury now ! And if that worthy character, Jack the Slapper, who carries 
 certain orders of their Honours into effect in the rear of the Sydney 
 jail, should be made the foreman of a jury in our next case, we shall 
 at least promise ourselves as good a verdict as that of the special jury in 
 the case in question. If the jury had even taken fifteen minutes to de- 
 
440 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 liberate upon their verdict, we might have supposed that at least one 
 solitary individual of their number had lifted up his voice in favour of 
 the interests of morality, and had maintained his ground for the long 
 period of thirteen minutes and three quarters in behalf of public virtue. 
 But the men were of one heart and of one mind in the matter. They 
 allowed themselves no time for deliberation ; for as soon as that worthy 
 
 juryman Mr. , who keeps at least one concubine, in the neighbourhood 
 
 of Darling Harbour, and who, of course, could not but have a fellow 
 feeling for the worthy defendant, had reminded the other jurymen of the 
 sage remark of Mr. Counsellor Therry, that ' what was John Thomas' 
 case to day might be theirs to-morrow,' the thing was decided at once, 
 and out came The Patriotic Association, with a verdict of Five Pounds 
 damages ! Prodigious ! 
 
 " There has nothing appeared since the commencement of this journal 
 more strikingly illustrative of the direct patronage which the most out- 
 rageous vice and villany may expect to experience in certain quarters 
 in this here virtuous colony, than this verdict. We have even heard, 
 that it is intended to present an address to the jury for their services to 
 a certain cause in the matter, and that it is to lie for signature for 
 three days successively in every house of ill-fame in Sydney. As a 
 specimen of the sort of influence which such a verdict as the one we 
 wot of will naturally have in a community like this, we shall conclude 
 this notice by merely mentioning the following incident. As soon as 
 the verdict was announced, a drunken creature of an attorney, of the 
 name of Foster, who had been paragraphed in this journal a few weeks 
 ago, for publicly exposing his person in a state of intoxication, hied 
 him off from the precincts of the Supreme Court to one of his haunts 
 in the neighbourhood, and returning forthwith, actually met Mr. Bull, 
 as he was descending the steps at the principal entrance of the Court, 
 with a large horsewhip in his hand, threatening him with a personal 
 application of it, as John Thomas had done ; observing, very signifi- 
 cantly, that it could only cost him five potmds. Mr. B. immediately ap- 
 plied to the judge, who granted a warrant for the horsewhipper's 
 apprehension. We have no remarks to make on such an occurrence. 
 The observation was as shrewd as the verdict was significant." 
 
 These remarks were considered by His Majesty's 
 Attorney-General as a contempt of Court, and were com- 
 plained of accordingly by that high functionary before 
 his Honour Judge Dowling, who sentenced the editor 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 441 
 
 of ' The Colonist/ notwithstanding his solemn disavowal 
 of any such intention, to a fine of £100 sterling, and 
 imprisonment till it should be paid; commenting on 
 the enormity of his offence with all the unseemly bit- 
 terness which that dispenser of colonial justice, who had 
 acquired his own code of morals in the capacity of 
 reporter to the London daily press, has uniformly 
 evinced wherever 'The Colonist' and the cause of colo- 
 nial morality have been concerned — with all the bitterness 
 in fact which it is conceivable for a j udge to manifest 
 in any case, in accordance with a due regard to his oath 
 of office. As a proof, however, that it was the general 
 impression, on the part of the virtuous portion of the 
 community, that the moral sense of the judge had been 
 as obtuse as that of the jury, the whole amount of the 
 fine to which the editor of ' The Colonist' was thus sub- 
 jected was paid by the public within a few hours after 
 the sentence was pronounced ; while the mercantile house 
 to which Wilson belonged, finding that in the improv- 
 ing moral temper and spirit of the colony their con- 
 tinued connexion with that individual would materially 
 affect their business, gave him a large steamboat which 
 they had recently purchased, to get rid of him alto- 
 gether.* 
 
 * A new trial had in the mean time been applied for by the Attorney - 
 General, on the ground of misdirection on the part of the Judge ; but it 
 was not granted, although the judges were unanimous in expressing 
 their strong disapproval of the verdict. The following were the very 
 apposite remarks of His Honour Judge Burton on the occasion : — 
 
 ". The situation of an editor of a newspaper is a peculiarly arduous 
 one ; he possesses no legally-constituted right to become the censor morum 
 of the community, such as is possessed by a judge on the bench or a 
 
442 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 At all events it must be evident, from the cases I 
 have detailed, that public opinion — I mean the opinion 
 
 clergyman in the pulpit ; the law does not throw that shield around him 
 that it does around those who possess that right. The assumption of 
 the office is voluntary, and the person assuming it exposes himself to 
 such attacks as these. But when an editor honestly discharges his duty 
 ir upholding virtue and exposing vice, in showing ' the very age and 
 body of the time, its form and pressure,' where can he better look for 
 protection, or from whom has he a better right to demand it, than from a 
 jury of his country. 
 
 " He had taken the liberty of expressing his dissatisfaction with the 
 verdict of the jury ; he would therefore state his reasons for that dissatis- 
 faction. He had attentively examined the evidence, and he could not 
 discover any thing there that could have justified him in coming to such 
 a decision. Every circumstance which appeared to have been urged in 
 mitigation, would have been considered by him an aggravation of the 
 offence. The article from which the provocation is alleged to have 
 arisen, could not possibly have been considered as any mitigation of the 
 assault. It was not even alleged that it was libellous ; but if it had been, 
 it was the duty of the defendant to have appealed to the laws of his 
 country for redress. It could not be considered any cause of provocation, 
 because it appeared from the evidence, that the assault was not com- 
 mitted on the impulse of the moment. On the contrary, the defendant had 
 been aware of its publication four days previously ; but it was seen that 
 the assault was premeditated, that he had been lying in wait four days to 
 commit the assault ; this would therefore in his mind have assumed the 
 form of a very serious aggravation of the offence. The assault it had 
 been shown was a very outrageous one, and committed under very 
 aggravated circumstances ; he could not, therefore, conceive why the 
 jury had returned such a verdict ; he should have thought that such a 
 verdict would afford a vast advantage to bold and wicked men over good 
 and virtuous ones. He felt satisfied, from what had fallen from his 
 brother judge who tried the case, that the jury had not been induced to 
 return the verdict by misdirection on the part of the judge ; he thought 
 that the responsibility of the verdict rested solely between the jury and 
 their God. If it had appeared that the judge had told the jury to con- 
 sider the article as a false and malicious libel, without any qualification, 
 he should have thought a new trial should be granted ; but as he con- 
 sidered that the jury were solely responsible for the verdict, he was ot 
 opinion that the Court could not interfere with it." 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 443 
 
 of reputable and virtuous men — is rapidly gathering 
 strength in the colony of New South Wales, and that 
 
 The following remarks were inserted in ' The Colonist' of July 14, 1836, 
 in conclusion of the whole matter. 
 
 " Our remarks on the * strange eventful history ' of the last few days 
 must necessarily be brief. We observe, however, 
 
 " 1. That it has been allowed on all hands that the verdict of the jury, 
 in the case of Bull versus Wilson, was an unwarranted and unjust verdict. 
 Their Honours, the three judges, have declared as much from the bench, 
 and one of their number, Mr. Justice Burton, in terms which, we trust, 
 the jury themselves, as well as the public generally, will understand 
 and appreciate. For our own part, we would much rather be the victim 
 of such a verdict from the jury, than the recipients of such a censure 
 from the bench. 
 
 " 2. That the onus of that verdict lies either on His Honour the Chief 
 Justice, or on the jury. His Honour, indeed, has endeavoured to shift 
 off the onus entirely from his own shoulders — with what success we 
 leave our readers to determine. His Honour, it seems, was impressed 
 with the idea, or rather perhaps with the fear, that the jury would give 
 outrageous damages; and therefore — What"? — why! and therefore — he 
 leant too much to the other side ! We cannot, of course, divine what 
 His Honour's wishes were on the occasion ; but, if we could, we should 
 have been able to ascertain a point which, we are sorry to say, must 
 remain a mystery — viz., whether the verdict was not rather in ac- 
 cordance with His Honour's wishes, than with his fears. At all events, 
 we are sure the jury will not thank His Honour for throwing the whole 
 onus and responsibility of the verdict upon them. Legally, doubtless, 
 the jury are the only responsible parties in the matter. Morally and 
 virtually, however, that responsibility rests in some measure somewhere 
 else. The jury, we have no hesitation in saying, took their impression 
 of the case from the judge ; and when they retired into their private 
 room and resolved instanter — with the exception of one of their number 
 who stood out for a higher amount, and who eventually succeeded— to 
 give only a farthing damages, (such is the common report) that im- 
 pression undoubtedly was, that the plaintiff and defendant in the case 
 had only squared accounts with each other; the song (which had been 
 characterised as a false, scandalous, and malicious libel) being, in their 
 opinion, as outrageous as the assault. 
 
 "3. It will not do for Mr. Chief Justice Dowling to tell Mr. Bull, as 
 
444 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 there is consequently a fair promise already afforded 
 that that colony, debased as it has hitherto been 
 
 he does in his judgment on Monday last, that he was under the special 
 protection of the Court, and had therefore no excuse for the remarks that 
 were published in our paper of this day fortnight, after Mr. Foster, the 
 attorney, (whether drunk or sober, we shall not inquire) had threatened 
 him with a second assault, on the very threshold of the Supreme Court, 
 and pleaded, as his motive or encouragement for such procedure, the 
 outrageous verdict which had just been given for the brutal assault per- 
 petrated by Mr. J. T. Wilson. Why, will any man suppose that the cir- 
 cumstance of being merely protected from a second assault, threatened 
 by Mr. Foster, was any compensation whatever to the Editor of this 
 paper, for the moral effect which Mr. Foster's threat demonstrated had 
 been already produced on a thoroughly depraved community by that 
 notable verdict? 
 
 "4. As it was not sworn by Mr. Bull that he was himself the writer 
 of the objectionable remarks on the verdict of the jury, Mr. Dowling 
 takes it for granted that he was not, and inveighs, in no measured terms, 
 on the cool deliberate malice of the writer behind the scenes, who, for- 
 sooth, could not plead excitement, who had no right to feel in the 
 matter at all, and who, if His Honour could only have got hold of him 
 (ay, there was the pity !) would have been visited with a measure of 
 punishment unexampled in the history of Courts of Justice. Admirable 
 logician ! Let us suppose, however, that the writer of the remarks had 
 also been the writer of the famous jeu d 1 esprit out of which this whole 
 affair has arisen, and that that jeu d'esprit had been written for the ex- 
 press purpose of inflicting needful castigation on a most conspicuous and 
 notorious offender in this community, whose example was as contagious 
 as his practice was infamous, and whom there was no other possible means 
 of bringing to condign punishment, — what in such a case were the cir- 
 cumstances of that individual, when applied to to write a few observations 
 on the issue of the trial which had just been concluded as this paper was 
 going to press 1 Why, the jeu d'espritwe allude to had subjected the editor 
 of this paper to a brutal assault at noon-day in the public street, the 
 very report of which had, in the case of his virtuous wife, been attended 
 with such trepidation and alarm as to be followed with distressing 
 effects, to which delicacy forbids us to allude more particularly ! On 
 applying, moreover, to a Court of Justice for a legal remedy for that 
 assault, the aggrieved and injured party is insulted with a verdict, which 
 
NEW SOUTH W/VLES. 445 
 
 through the demoralizing example of unprincipled and 
 profligate men, will at no distant day become the source 
 
 their Honours themselves have characterised as altogether unwarranted 
 hy the evidence adduced, which certain respectable practitioners in the 
 Supreme Court have designated as infamous, which many reputable and 
 intelligent persons out of Court have styled iniquitous, but which we our- 
 selves, being under legal surveillance at present, will only call outrageous I 
 Nay, and to give edge to the insult, and to make the triumph of rampant 
 iniquity to be felt by the victim of that verdict, he is threatened with a 
 second outrage on the very threshold of the Supreme Court ! In such 
 circumstances the writer of the jeu d'esprit must have had ' the heart of a 
 beast,' (to use a Norfolk Island expression,) if he had not felt ex- 
 ceedingly, and if he had not manifested that feeling in some way or 
 other, in the few observations he was applied to to write on the subject 
 of the verdict, at seeing a reputable family subjected to such unmerited 
 indignity, to such mental suffering through his instrumentality. The 
 writer of these observations was ' no disappointed suitor,' as His 
 Honour Judge Dowling most inaccurately described him, in regard to 
 the mere amount of damages awarded ; for in that award he had no pe- 
 cuniary interest, either direct or indirect. But he was interested in the 
 award of damages in another and much more creditable way, inasmuch 
 as that award was tantamount to a declaration on the part of the jury, 
 that in the brutal assault which had been perpetrated upon him by 
 Mr. J. T. Wilson, and which had been attended with such effects as we 
 have alluded to, Mr. Bull had sustained no injury whatever, had suf- 
 fered no wrong. A man of a rightly-constituted mind will always feel 
 tenfold more keenly at any injury inflicted on others on his account than 
 at his own wrongs. The writer of the remarks can therefore afford to sit 
 entirely at his ease under Mr. Justice Dowling's castigations. 
 
 " In regard to these remarks themselves, we do not pretend to infal- 
 libility. We certainly had no intention to write any thing that could 
 either be construed into a contempt of Court, or calculated to diminish 
 the respect of the public for the administration of justice. But as our 
 remarks had such a construction put upon them by the Court, we sub- 
 mitted, of course, and expressed our willingness to make every apology. 
 In short, we bowed submission to their Honours, saying in effect, Hu- 
 manum est errare. And how much more dignified, we ask, would it not 
 have been for their Honours to have received that submission under all 
 the circumstances of the case in good part, dismissing the alleged 
 
446 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 of a salutary moral influence to the numerous and semi- 
 barbarous nations of the Southern Hemisphere. In the 
 course of a recent examination, — in a quarter, however, 
 to which it would be a breach of privilege to allude more 
 
 offender with a reprimand as strong as they liked, and adding with the 
 same lieathen authority to which we are indebted for the maxim we have 
 quoted, ignoscere divinum ! Such a decision, we conceive, would have 
 tended much more powerfully and unequivocally to inspire respect for 
 the administration of justice, than a fine of ^100 to the King, and to 
 give personal security besides for ^200, and to find two sureties for 
 ,,£100 each, for good behaviour for two years— an award which had 
 the effect of tearing the editor of this paper from the bosom of his 
 injured family, and consigning him to a cold damp apartment in the 
 common jail of Sydney, in the middle of an unusually cold winter, till 
 the said fine was paid and the sureties obtained. Such severity, we beg 
 to inform His Honour the Chief Justice, to whose remarks in the course 
 of the trial we cannot help ascribing the verdict of the Jury, as well as 
 all that followed it, uniformly falls short of its object, wherever British 
 feelings, and that innate sense of justice with which they are uniformly 
 accompanied, are to be found. This has been remarkably evinced in the 
 present instance; for within twenty-four hours of the time when the 
 astounding sentence of the Court became generally known, Mr. Bull was 
 liberated from confinement, and the fine paid by a generous public ; two 
 of whom subscribed themselves "Enemies of injustice," three "Friends 
 of morality," one " The father of a family," one " a Friend to the op- 
 pressed," and one " A Friend indeed," vindicating his well-merited 
 title to the appellation by subscribing towards the payment of the fine, 
 not less than ^20. 
 
 " As we are altogether at issue, however, with their Honours in regard 
 to the character and tendency of our remarks, and as the Supreme Court 
 of JMew South Wales is necessarily the highest Court in this colony, we 
 shall take special care to refer the whole matter, from first to last, 
 to a higher Court still ; we mean the British public. From that high- 
 minded, generous-hearted and virtuous tribunal, we are confident that 
 our own well-meant efforts for the cause of virtue in this colony — efforts 
 unparralleled, we have reason to believe, in the history of British colo- 
 nies—will receive a very different award from a fine of ^flOO to the 
 Kins, and imprisonment in a common jail till it be paid." 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 447 
 
 particularly, — the prosecutions and other legal proceed- 
 ings to which * The Colonist ' journal had been subjected, 
 in consequence of its advocacy of the best interests of 
 that colony, were enumerated with a considerable dis- 
 play of zeal by the accredited parliamentary agent of 
 O'Shaughnessy and his peers, evidently with a view to 
 disparage the moral character and influence of that 
 journal. So far, however, from wishing to conceal any 
 thing of that kind, — connected as I was avowedly for 
 sometime with the journal in question, — I have no hesi- 
 tation in voluntarily affording the reader the additional 
 information, that in consequence of that connexion I 
 was in one instance threatened with personal violence, 
 from which I had to ask protection from the colonial 
 police, while in another dark hints were actually thrown 
 out by the employes and supporters of the convict and 
 emancipist press of the colony, that the stiletto itself 
 would be had recourse to if other means were found un- 
 availing to silence ' The Colonist/ But are honest men, 
 who are conscious that their sole object is the reformation 
 of a whole community, to be deterred from pursuing that 
 object of transcendent importance by such menaces as 
 these ? In such a struggle as the one in which ' The 
 Colonist ' has been engaged for the general advance- 
 ment of society in His Majesty's colony of New South 
 Wales, every additional hour that the contest could be 
 maintained afforded an additional assurance of ultimate 
 success — every defeat was the prelude of victory. 
 
448 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 CHAPTER X.* 
 
 emigration; or, the value and importance 
 OF the colony of new south wales to 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN AS A PRACTICABLE AND IN- 
 EXPENSIVE OUTLET FOR HER SURPLUS POPU- 
 LATION. 
 
 The wealth and strength of a country are its population, and the best 
 part of that population are the cultivators of the soil. 
 
 President Jackson's Message to Congress, December, 1832. 
 
 " In the year 1831 His Majesty's government were induced, on the 
 representations of certain philanthropic persons in England, to dis- 
 continue the practice of making free grants of land to free emigrants in 
 the Australian colonies, and to order that all Crown land in these colonies 
 should thenceforward be sold by public auction, on being applied for by 
 intending purchasers; (the upset or minimum price to be five shillings 
 per acre;) and that the revenue arising from all such sales of land 
 should be devoted exclusively towards the encouragement and pro- 
 motion of emigration. Numerous and strong objections were advanced 
 
 * Part of this chapter has been copied from the work already re- 
 ferred to—' Transportation and Colonization.'^ 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 449 
 
 at the time both in Great Britain and in New South Wales against this 
 change of system ; and it was long and loudly asserted, that the pro- 
 posed arrangement would completely put a stop to emigration, and that 
 no revenue of any amount could ever be realized from the sale of waste 
 land in the colonial territory. I am happy to state, however, that these 
 objections have all proved unfounded, and that the system of selling 
 land has already enabled the colonial government to realize a large and 
 rapidly increasing revenue from that source ; the future and exclusive 
 appropriation of which to the encouragement and promotion of emigra- 
 tion promises not only to supply the free colonists of New South Wales 
 with free labour to any extent, but to introduce an entirely new era in 
 the colonial history of the empire, by rendering those transmarine and 
 expensive appendages of the country, which have hitherto been regarded 
 as drags and dead weights upon its body politic, of which it has some- 
 times even been represented as inexpedient to retain possession, useful 
 and inexpensive outlets for its superabundant population, and sources 
 of employment and wealth to all classes of its inhabitants, to an extent 
 never dreamt of even by the most sanguine speculators. 
 
 " At the time when the granting system was superseded by that of sel- 
 ling Crown land by public auction in the Australian colonies, the colony 
 of New South Wales was slowly recovering from the eifects of a severe 
 and protracted drought, as well as from an unprecedented depreciation of 
 property of all kinds, induced by extensive and ruinous speculations in 
 sheep and cattle during the years 1826 and 1827. From these unforeseen 
 and calamitous circumstances many of the colonists were deeply involved 
 in debt, and many estates of great extent and value were, from time to 
 time, disposed of at Sheriffs' sales for much less than the minimum price 
 of Crown land established by government. In such circumstances, it 
 was not to be expected that a large extent of such land could be disposed 
 of for some time, even at the minimum price ; and accordingly the pur- 
 chasers were at first very limited. In proportion, however, as the colo- 
 nists began to recover their ground, and especially when the rapid 
 increase of their flocks and herds rendered the extension of their estates, 
 by the purchase of additional tracts of waste land from the government, 
 absolutely necessary, these purchases increased with great rapidity, 
 insomuch that the revenue arising exclusively from the sale of Crown 
 land in the territory of New South Wales already amounts to ^£120,000 
 per annum ; the following being the amount realized by the colonial 
 government for Crown land sold in the colony, from the first of January, 
 1832, to the 30th of September, 1836. 
 
450 
 
 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 LANDS SOLD BY THE GOVERNMENT, 
 From the 1st of January to the 30th of June, 1836. 
 
 January 
 
 February 
 
 March 
 
 April 
 
 May 
 
 June 
 
 Total No. of acres 
 
 January 
 
 February 
 
 March 
 
 May 
 
 June 
 
 Total No. of acres 
 
 
 LANDS. 
 
 Number of acres 
 
 36,960 
 
 
 
 5,027 
 
 30 
 
 38,872 
 
 
 
 49,325 
 
 2 10 
 
 23,728 
 
 25 
 
 15,951 
 
 
 
 169,933 3 25 
 
 TOWN ALLOTMENTS. 
 
 16 1 
 
 8 
 
 17 2 
 28 37 
 11 
 
 80 
 
 37 
 
 Total for the six months 170,014 
 
 22 
 
 Amount sold for 
 ,£12,358 12 9 
 
 13,429 
 
 15,439 
 
 7,137 
 
 4,440 
 
 ,£58,079 6 
 
 ,£54,885 
 
 16 
 
 11 
 
 £576 
 
 18 
 
 4 
 
 121 
 
 
 
 
 
 550 
 
 13 
 
 4 
 
 1,919 
 
 11 
 
 6 
 
 25 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 £3,193 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 Land and town allotments "] 
 
 sold during the quarter V Extent not ascertained. ,£32,884 
 
 ending 30th Sept. 1836. J 
 
 Total for nine months ,£90,963 6 9 
 
 Extent and proceeds of land sold in New South Wales during the years 
 under mentioned. 
 
 Year 
 
 Extent 
 
 in acres 
 
 Amount 
 
 
 1832 
 
 20,860 
 
 1 15 
 
 ,£6,513 
 
 11 
 
 6 
 
 1833 
 
 29,001 
 
 2 3 
 
 12,528 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 1834 
 
 91,399 
 
 1 311 
 
 28,589 
 
 10 
 
 9 
 
 1835 
 
 271,945 
 
 2 3f 
 
 87,997 
 
 9 
 
 1 
 
 1836 
 
 Extent not ascertained 
 
 90,963 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 ;ill 30th Sept. 
 
 Or at the rate of ,£1 
 
 20,000 per annum. 
 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 451 
 
 This amount, however, large as it is beyond all rea- 
 sonable anticipation, is likely to be greatly increased in 
 the course of the next few years, from the rapid exten- 
 sion of colonization within the territory of New South 
 Wales. The colonial boundary having been extended 
 within the last few months to the southern extremity 
 of the Australian continent, and a settlement having 
 been actually formed by authority at Port Philip, in 
 Bass' Straits, a vast extent of eligible land of the first 
 quality has been thrown open to the numerous intending 
 purchasers, who had already taken temporary possession 
 of large tracts for their rapidly increasing flocks and 
 herds, both in that district and at Twofold Bay. 
 
 " In the former of these localities, — in which a government settlement 
 was formed and speedily abandoned, through some extraordinary and 
 unaccountable mismanagement, in the year 1804,— a settlement of squat- 
 ters from Van Dieman's Land has been formed during the last two 
 years ; and so highly eligible has the situation been found for a per- 
 manent settlement, that it already contains a population of 200 persons, 
 possessing or having the management of 30,000 sheep, with a propor- 
 tionable number of horses and cattle. The whole of this agricultural 
 stock and population has been imported into Port Philip from Van 
 Dieman's Land during the last two years or thereabouts ; there being 
 now no fewer than eight or ten colonial vessels constantly employed 
 in the transport of stock of all kinds to that settlement from Hobart 
 Town and Launceston. The extent of available land of the first qua- 
 lity, which has already been discovered in the immediate vicinity of 
 Port Philip, amounts to upwards of three millions of acres. 
 
 "The extensive tract of table-land lying beyond the present colonial 
 boundary to the southward, between the Great Warragong Chain, ter- 
 minating in Wilson's Promontory, and now called the Snowy Moun- 
 tains, or Australian Alps, and the mountainous range abutting on the 
 east coast, is also occupied at present by numerous squatters, with 
 large flocks and herds from New South Wales. This elevated tract of 
 country is called Maneira, or Monaroo Plains, and consists of eligible 
 pasture-land of the first quality, very thinly wooded and well watered ; 
 
452 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 forming a square of a hundred miles each side, and consequently con- 
 taining upwards of six millions of acres, having for its outlet to the 
 eastward the small but convenient and safe harbour of Twofold Bay, 
 about twenty-five miles to the northward of Cape Howe. The nature 
 of the country still farther to the southward, from Cape Howe to 
 Wilson's Promontory, a distance of a hundred and eighty miles, is still 
 unknown. The Snowy River skirting the plains to the westward, and 
 sweeping along the base of the Snowy Mountains, descends into Bass' 
 Straits on this part of the coast, forming numerous cataracts in its 
 course; its embouchure, if I am not misinformed, being sufficiently wide 
 and open to be practicable for colonial vessels. 
 
 " The extensive tract of picturesque and pastoral country still farther 
 to the westward, along the left bank of the Murrumbidgee, which is at 
 present the boundary of the colony to the southward and westward, is 
 also occupied for pastoral purposes by numerous colonial squatters from 
 within the present limits of the colony. These squatters are all rapidly 
 increasing their flocks and herds, and thereby enriching themselves 
 through the permissive occupancy of the Crown land beyond the present 
 limits, — a privilege which has hitherto been most judiciously allowed 
 them by the colonial executive : for these persons are thus acquiring 
 the means of making extensive purchases of land from the government 
 in their respective localities, whenever the colonial boundary shall have 
 been extended to Bass' Straits ; and are thus forming an important 
 link in the new chain or system of Australian colonization." 
 
 To the north-westward of Port Philip, a tract of 
 land of much greater extent than any of the three 
 sections of the colonial territory I have already indi- 
 cated, and of the highest promise both as to soil and 
 climate, has very recently been discovered by Major 
 Mitchell, the surveyor-general of the colony. On his 
 former expedition that able officer had left 130 miles of 
 the supposed course of the Darling river unexplored ; 
 and in the more recent expedition to which I have just 
 referred, after tracing that river to the spot where Cap- 
 tain Sturt had found a large river, which he rightly 
 supposed to be the Darling, emptying itself into the 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 453 
 
 Murray or Murrumbidgee, Major Mitchell crossed the 
 latter river and then pursued a direct course to the 
 Southern coast at Portland Bay, situated between Port 
 Philip and Kangaroo island. In the course of this 
 journey, Major Mitchell was fortunate enough to dis- 
 cover a region to which he has given the name of 
 " Australia Felix," and which will doubtless be soon 
 thrown open to advancing colonization — " a region," to 
 use the words of his own dispatch, " of vast resources, 
 and the most varied and fascinating description, more 
 extensive than Great Britain, equally rich in point of 
 soil, and which is now ready for the plough, as if espe- 
 cially prepared by the Creator for the industrious hands 
 of Englishmen." 
 
 " Now, as it is equally the interest of the British government and 
 of the colonial executive, as well as of all classes of free colonists in 
 New South Wales, that the revenue arising from the sale of Crown land 
 in that colony should be as large as possible, and that the number of free 
 emigrant agricultural labourers, shepherds, and mechanics, which this 
 revenue has been appropriated to import into the colonial territory, 
 should also be increased to the utmost ; I would beg leave to suggest 
 that the minimum price of all Crown land in the colony should hence- 
 forth be raised to seven shillings and sixpence, and, in particular dis- 
 tricts, to ten shillings per acre. A large proportion of the land recently 
 purchased by resident proprietors in New South Wales, in extension 
 of their respective estates, would have been purchased at these rates 
 as readily as at five shillings ; for much of the land hitherto sold at 
 the government minimum price has been purchased on speculation, to 
 be afterwards resold at a greatly advanced price. Good land, whether 
 for agriculture or for grazing purposes, especially in such vicinities as 
 Twofold Bay and Port Philip, is well worth ten shillings an acre, and 
 the colonial proprietors of sheep and cattle are well able to afford that 
 price. Nay, Mr. Commissioner Bigge, in his Report to the House of 
 Commons on the agriculture of the colony in the year 1821, recom- 
 mended that good land in New South Wales should then be sold at 
 
454 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 not less than ten shillings per acre ; and if the colonial settler could 
 have afforded such a price at that period, much more will he be able 
 to afford it now. Besides, it would be positively unjust for the British 
 government to be selling waste land at Port Philip at a minimum price 
 of five shillings per acre, when the minimum within the limits of the 
 South Australian colony, almost inits immediate vicinity, has been fixed 
 by Act of Parliament at twelve shillings ; a minimum, which the coloni- 
 zation commissioners of that colony have since increased to one pound : 
 for as the price of all descriptions of agricultural and grazing stock, as well 
 as of the necessaries of life, will for some time be much cheaper at Port 
 Philip than in Southern Australia, it is not to be supposed that a prudent 
 capitalist, arriving in the latter colony, would be deterred from crossing 
 the meridional line that separates the one colonial territory from the 
 other, when the comparative advantages of the two localities are in all 
 these important respects — the price of land, of stock, and of provisions, 
 —so very dissimilar. That line will soon be crossed in every part of its 
 extent by sheep and cattle tracks innumerable, from the territory of 
 New South Wales ; and the emancipist, the ticket of leave man, and 
 even the convict still in bondage, will ere long find their way across it 
 into the land of freedom, let the colonists of Southern Australia do what 
 they may to prevent them. In justice, therefore, to the inhabitants of 
 that infant colony, His Majesty's government will undoubtedly be even- 
 tually constrained to raise the minimum price of land in New South 
 Wales ; and the sooner they do so, the more effectually will they protect 
 the interests of the embryo colony. For it cannot be supposed, that infhe 
 present age of steam conveyance, any great inequality in the price of 
 land, any more than in the price of labour or in that of provisions, can 
 possibly be maintained long between two settlements so easily accessible 
 from each other both by sea and land, however differently they may have 
 been originally constituted in other respects.* 
 
 * It is the general desire, however, of the free colonists of New South 
 Wales, and it has also been a special recommendation of a committee of 
 the Legislative Council of that colony, with a view to the encouragement 
 and promotion of emigration to its extensive territory, that respectable 
 free emigrants arriving from England at their own charges, with the view 
 of settling in the colony, should each be allowed to purchase one or two 
 sections, that is, 640 or 1280 acres of waste or Crown land, at the esta- 
 blished minimum price, wherever they can find an eligible locality, with- 
 out being liable to the mortification and disappointment of being out- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 455 
 
 '• But there is also a large increase of the land revenue of New South 
 Wales to he expected from the sale of town allotments. In a letter, 
 which I did myself the honour to address to Lord Viscount Goderich in 
 December, 1830, previous to the adoption of the present system of 
 selling land, (and in which I took the liberty to recommend that the 
 government should sell certain Crown lands and town allotments in that 
 colony, and appropriate the proceeds towards the emigration of agricul- 
 tural labourers and mechanics, of whom a large number were then in 
 great difficulty from want of employment in England,) I pointed out 
 certain town allotments belonging to government in the town of Sydney, 
 which I conceived would at that time realize ,£200,000. Measures are 
 now in progress for the sale of these allotments, of which, from the 
 greatly increased value of property in the colonial capital, the present 
 value has been estimated by competent persons at not less than half a 
 million sterling. Besides, the formation of towns at Twofold Bay and 
 Port Philip, which must necessarily become sea-ports of first-rate im- 
 portance within a very short period, as well as in various other parts of 
 the territory, will enable the colonial executive greatly to increase the 
 land revenue, from the sale of town allotments. The minimum or upset 
 price of town allotments belonging to government in the town of 
 Sydney is at present £"1000 per acre, the price actually realized by pri- 
 vate individuals for eligible allotments during the last few years being 
 uniformly much higher. In the future towns of Twofold Bay and Port 
 Philip, ,£50 or £100 per acre would, I am confident, be a very moderate 
 amount to be established as a minimum price ; as even at Bathurst, a 
 rising town beyond the Blue Mountains in the interior, ,£50 an acre has 
 been obtained for town allotments. The present minimum price in Par- 
 ramatta, the second town in the colony, is ,£20, but the allotment ob- 
 tained from government for the Scots church in that town during the 
 year 1835 has been since valued at ,£1000, although not more than half 
 an acre ; and in the town of Maitland at Hunter's River, where £7 an 
 acre is the minimum price, a half-acre allotment has brought ,£56. 
 
 " At all events, it may be calculated that the revenue arising from the 
 
 bidden at a public sale by some colonial land-shark, after all their 
 trouble and annoyance in traversing the country, perhaps for months 
 together. It is also the desire of the colonists generally, and the recom- 
 mendation of a committee of the Legislative Council, that every such 
 emigrant should also be allowed a certain drawback from the purchase - 
 money of his land, to cover the expense of the passage out. In the pro- 
 priety of both these suggestions I entirely concur. 
 
456 HISTOTUCAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 sale of land in New South Wales will very shortly amount to ,,£200,000 
 per annum ; and if that revenue is exclusively appropriated to the in- 
 troduction of useful emigrants of the working classes into the colony, it 
 will enable the free colonists to import a sufficient number of virtuous 
 and industrious labourers, artisans, and other operatives of all descrip- 
 tions, not only to supply the existing and rapidly increasing demand for 
 labour in the colony, but also to form a reputable free emigrant pea- 
 santry, to cultivate the soil, either as tenants or as small proprietors 
 and a middle class, consisting of reputable mechanics and other opera- 
 tives in the towns ; thereby gradually elevating the moral character of 
 the colony, and supplying the likeliest means of insuring the progressive 
 amelioration of its anomalously constituted society. 
 
 " To encourage and promote the importation of free labour, in accord- 
 ance with the views and intentions of His Majesty's government as 
 above mentioned, the colonial executive give a bounty of ,£30 from the 
 colonial land revenue for every married couple, of the class of agricul- 
 tural labourers, shepherds, or mechanics, imported into New South 
 Wales, provided the persons so imported have been selected by some 
 agent duly authorized by a colonial proprietor ; five pounds additional 
 being allowed for every child above a year old. On a large scale, this 
 sum would probably be sufficient to cover the whole expense of the emi- 
 gration of such persons ; but the system has not yet been sufficiently long 
 in operation for the colonists to have adopted any plan for carrying it 
 into effect with combined exertion; and the expense to individuals is 
 consequently somewhat larger than the sum allowed. 
 
 " In regard to the probability of finding a sufficient number of virtuous 
 and industrious persons in the mother country willing to emigrate to 
 New South Wales, there can be no doubt whatever on the subject. It is 
 well known that distress, arising from the want of food and clothing and 
 fuel, or rather from the want of remunerating employment for an over- 
 grown population, prevails at this moment to a most appalling degree 
 over an extent of country in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, con- 
 taining a population of 160,000 souls ; and the only means of affording 
 permanent relief to that population, in the opinion of all parties in- 
 terested in the subject, is emigration." 
 
 Having been apprised of the lamentable state of de- 
 stitution to which so many of our fellow countrymen are 
 thus reduced, from the details given at a public meeting 
 held in London in the month of March last, I ad- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 457 
 
 dressed a letter to the Deputation * which had been sent 
 from Scotland to represent their actual condition to His 
 Majesty's government, as well as to the public gene- 
 rally ; pointing out the capabilities of the colony of New 
 South Wales as a country to which an extensive emi- 
 gration could immediately be effected through the colo- 
 nial land fund, without expense to the mother country. 
 On the receipt of that letter, the deputation applied to 
 the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the 
 Colonies, for the requisite advances from the colonial 
 treasury, to enable them to send out six thousand of the 
 distressed Highlanders and Islanders of Scotland, in- 
 cluding men, women, and children, to New South 
 Wales. Lord Glenelg, I am happy to state, entered 
 into the views of the deputation with the utmost cor- 
 diality, and agreed, on the part of His Majesty's go- 
 vernment, to send out three ships, to carry about a 
 thousand of the distressed Highlanders, in the first 
 instance, to the Australian colonies ; one to Van Die- 
 man's Land, and two to New South Wales. The letter 
 1 allude to has since been published by the deputation 
 for circulation in the Highlands of Scotland : the three 
 ships are actually on their way to their destination ; 
 and I am happy to be enabled to add, that this aus- 
 picious commencement of a Celtic emigration to the 
 Australian colonies already promises to lead to the 
 happiest results. 
 
 * Consisting of the Rev. Dr. M'Leod, late Moderator of the General 
 Assembly of the Church of Scotland; John Bowie, Esq. W. S., Edin- 
 burgh ; and C. Baird, Esq., Solicitor, Glasgow. 
 
 VOL. II. U 
 
458 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 " The inhabitants of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland have 
 peculiar claims on the British government. They have uniformly sup- 
 plied a large proportion of the gallant men who have fought the battles 
 of their country for a century past. The destitution they are suffering at 
 present has been induced, moreover, in a great degree by a government 
 measure in favour of the free-trade principle ; the result of which was the 
 immediate and entire destruction of their only manufacture — that of kelp. 
 They are a frugal and industrious people, — eminently virtuous and re- 
 ligious; and I need scarcely state, that whether as agricultural labourers 
 or as shepherds, they would be peculiarly welcome, and would be sure to 
 find immediate employment and sufficient subsistence in New South Wales. 
 In short, that colony could very easily find room for not fewer than from 
 five to ten thousand Highlanders, including men, women, and children, 
 every year. Then it is difficult to say whether Great Britain would be 
 more benefited on the one hand by the gradual removal of such persons 
 from a country that cannot possibly support one half their number, than 
 the colony of New South Wales on the other, by their progressive settle- 
 ment in its ample and fertile territory. 
 
 " Supposing therefore that a voluntary emigration of virtuous and 
 industrious families and individuals is henceforth to take place to the 
 territory of New South Wales, to the full extent to which the land 
 revenue of that colony can be made available, it may not be out of 
 place to estimate the future probable amount of that emigration, and 
 the benefits which the land-selling system will thus be the means of 
 securing both to the mother country and to the colony. The land revenuer 
 of New South Wales amounts at present to upwards of ^100,000 per 
 annum, but will probably be increased very shortly to double that 
 amount. That revenue, it should be observed, however, is almost ex- 
 clusively of colonial creation, upwards of nine-tenths of its whole 
 amount being received for purchases of land and town allotments, made 
 in extension of their former possessions, by residents of some stand- 
 ing in the colony, who have acquired the means of making such pur- 
 chases chiefly by the rearing of sheep and the growth of wool. And 
 it should also be borne in mind, that before the ^100,000 has been 
 paid into the colonial treasury chest, for the land so purchased, the 
 carriage of the wool and other colonial produce, of which it has been 
 the price, from New South Wales to London, has afforded profitable 
 employment for six months to at least four British ships of 350 tons 
 register, with crews of twenty men each. At the rate of „£30 for each 
 family, the amount of bounty recently fixed by the colonial executive, 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 459 
 
 exclusive of children, the present colonial land revenue will pay for the 
 annual emigration of three thousand three hundred families of farm 
 labourers, shepherds, and mechanics, from Great Britain and Ireland. 
 Now at the rate of one hundred families for each ship, a number which 
 would require a vessel of 500 tons, the conveyance of these families 
 to their colonial destination will afford profitable employment for six 
 months together to thirty-three first class British merchant-ships, having 
 crews of twenty-five or thirty men each, entirely at the expense of the 
 colony of New South Wales ; the profits of the voyage, including the 
 outfit and provisions, being exclusively appropriated by British mer- 
 chants. As for the emigrants themselves, they consist of families and 
 individuals, who, before leaving the mother country, are in all likelihood 
 a dead weight on the community ; as they can only obtain subsistence 
 by elbowing out of employment other deserving individuals of the same 
 class, whose circumstances will consequently be greatly improved by 
 their emigration; or by reducing the wages of labour generally below the 
 proper standard for the comfortable subsistence and education of a vir- 
 tuous family. In all these respects, therefore, the value of such a colony 
 as New South Wales to the mother country, whether as a cheap and 
 practicable outlet for her surplus labouring population, or as a source of 
 profitable employment for her commercial navy, is evident and incal- 
 culable. 
 
 " On their arrival in New South Wales, the emigrants will be employed 
 for the most part as farm-servants, shepherds, overseers, handicraftsmen j 
 and in any one of these situations they will be able to live in the enjoy- 
 ment of many of the comforts and conveniences of life, of which a large 
 proportion of the industrious classes of society in England are deprived 
 through sheer poverty. Their much higher rate of wages, and their other 
 superior opportunities of accumulating property, will also enable them, 
 if at all industrious and frugal, eventually to become proprietors of 
 sheep and cattle, houses and land. They will thus materially augment 
 the capital and raw produce, as well as the population of the colony, and 
 assist in developing its vast resources; while, besides consuming pro- 
 bably four times the amount of British manufactures that labourers of a 
 similar class can afford to purchase in the mother country, they will con- 
 tribute to sustain the vast fabric of British commerce, by also paying for 
 the freight of these manufactures from England in British vessels. 
 
 " In a moral and religious light, the introduction of a numerous and 
 virtuous free emigrant population into the colony of New South Wales 
 cannot fail to afford a highly gratifying prospect to all who are sincerely 
 desirous of promoting the best interests of that important dependency 
 
460 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 of the empire. I acknowledge, indeed, that if things had continued to 
 be carried on in the colony in the way in which they have hitherto been 
 managed, the free emigrants themselves would have had but a sorry 
 prospect for the future in regard to their own spiritual welfare, and 
 the intellectual and moral improvement of their offspring : but now that 
 every hundred free adults can obtain a salary of ^£100 per annum from 
 the colonial government for the support of a clergyman of their own 
 communion, in whatever part of the colony they may choose to settle, 
 besides liberal assistance for the establishment of a school for their 
 children, there is evidently much less to be feared in these important 
 respects,— nay, there is every thing to be hoped for the future. 
 
 " From the preceding enumeration of the benefits that are likely to 
 accrue, both to the mother country and to the colony of New South 
 Wales, from the future and exclusive appropriation of the land revenue 
 of that colony towards the encouragement and promotion of emigration, 
 it will be difficult to determine whether the mother country or the 
 colony is likely to reap the greater advantage fiom that admirable 
 arrangement. To Great Britain, whose ministers of state and par- 
 liamentary committees have, on the recurrence of every periodical 
 return of difficulties and distress among her labouring population, 
 arising from the want of food and the want of employment, been 
 holding endless consultations, accumulating volumes of evidence, and 
 ever and anon devising ways and means of carrying off the surplus 
 portion of that miserable population to a land of duly-requited labour, 
 and of abundance of the necessaries of life ; — to Great Britain, so circum- 
 stanced, it cannot surely be a matter of indifference to find a revenue sud- 
 denly created for that very purpose, independently of her own internal 
 taxation, in the woods and wilds of New Holland, — a revenue, more- 
 over, annually increasing, and of which the very expenditure in this way 
 insures the constant and rapid increase. With such a system in actual 
 operation, who can doubt the policy of the maxim of Napoleon, — 'Ships, 
 Colonies, and Commerce,' — as it is thus the legitimate use of a well- 
 regulated colony to afford profitable employment to numerous ships, and 
 a powerful stimulus to commerce and manufactures 1 " 
 
 There are ten thousand localities, both on the coast 
 and in the interior of the Australian continent, in which 
 flourishing settlements might be gradually, and indeed 
 rapidly, formed, by carrying out the important principle 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 461 
 
 now adopted by His Majesty's Government, in regard to 
 the alienation of Crown land in the Australian colonies, 
 to the full extent to which it may be easily carried. 
 
 " Little as we know of the capabilities and resources of that con- 
 tinent, this at least can be affirmed with safety. And with a coast 
 line six times more extensive than that, of the whole thirteen colonies 
 that revolted from Great Britain on the declaration of American inde- 
 pendence, and numerous harbours along that extensive line of coast, 
 equal, if not superior, to any in North America — with a range of 
 climate, and a fertile soil adequate to the production of all the products 
 of American agriculture, in addition to its own peculiar and unrivalled 
 production, fine wool,— it is impossible to estimate the stimulus that 
 would be given to the manufacturing industry and the commercial 
 enterprise of Great Britain, by the rapid colonization of that continent 
 with virtuous and industrious free emigrants from Great Britain and 
 Ireland. For within a period of time comparatively short, a population 
 of entirely European origin, as numerous as that of the thirteen Ame- 
 rican colonies in the year 1776, might be successfully established on 
 the continent and islands of Australasia, whose industry and enterprise 
 would afford constant employment to thousands of British ships, and 
 to tens of thousands of British sailors, artisans, merchants, and manu- 
 facturers." 
 
 In regard to the manner in which emigration to New 
 South Wales may be extensively effected, so as to en- 
 sure the furtherance of the general welfare of the colony 
 and the economical and judicious expenditure of its 
 land revenue, there can be no difficulty whatever. In- 
 dignant and disgusted at the manner in which the best 
 interests of the colony had been sacrificed for years 
 together, to subserve the private interests of an unprin- 
 cipled London jobber in the matter of female emigra- 
 tion, the colonial government, after entering their protest 
 against the continuance of that notable system, which 
 was actually filling the colony with prostitutes and 
 
462 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 threatening to demoralize the uncorrupted portion of its 
 population, authorised three surgeons of the royal navy, 
 who had all acquired much experience as surgeon 
 superintendents of convict ships, to proceed to the mother 
 country — one to England, one to Scotland, and one to 
 Ireland — to select each an hundred families of me- 
 chanics for the erection of certain government buildings 
 in New South Wales. These gentlemen accordingly 
 proceeded to their respective stations ; advertised their 
 object in the nearest provincial papers, offering a free 
 passage-out to New South Wales to intending emigrants 
 of the descriptions required ; selected from the list of 
 applicants those whom they deemed fittest for the pur- 
 pose, and, on completing their number, advertised for 
 ships to carry them out, and for rations for the emi- 
 grants, according to a fixed scale, during the voyage. 
 By this judicious arrangement there was no room left 
 for jobbing, no inducement to send out disreputable 
 characters with a view to get the ships filled, as had 
 been repeatedly done in the case of Mr. Marshall's 
 vessels, while every thing was done to promote the com- 
 fort of the emigrants. A similar course has been pur- 
 sued, under the direction of His Majesty's government 
 in effecting the emigration now in progress from the 
 Highlands and Islands of Scotland ; and the most bene- 
 ficial results may accordingly be anticipated. 
 
 The colonial land-selling system, which has already 
 given rise to these interesting and important operations, 
 is not merely introducing a new era in the history of 
 British colonization, but, by affording the means of 
 transforming the surplus and comparatively useless 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 463 
 
 population of the mother country into the sturdy and 
 independent yeomanry of the colonies, is enabling Great 
 Britain to pursue a course the most profitable to herself 
 and her colonies, and the most interesting to the genuine 
 philanthropist. 
 
 The lover of military glory will naturally delight to 
 contemplate the British nation as a warlike nation, and 
 will doubtless point with a feeling of exultation to the 
 laurels of Trafalgar and Waterloo. It may be questioned, 
 however, whether posterity are destined to reap any 
 real advantages from either of these great victories, or 
 whether the vast accession of military glory they were 
 the means of acquiring for the nation was not achieved 
 at too great a sacrifice of national principle, as well as 
 too great an expenditure of national blood and national 
 treasure. Besides, there are numerous indications, in the 
 present aspect of affairs in Great Britain and Ireland, of 
 that retributive justice, which, as it takes cognizance of 
 nations as well as of individuals, will assuredly afflict 
 the nations that delight in war, and eventually stain 
 the pride of all their military glory. 
 
 The political economist, on the other hand, will doubt- 
 less regard the commercial and manufacturing resources 
 of the British nation as a far broader and far firmer 
 basis for the perpetuity of its existence and the per- 
 petuity of its fame. But the history of the world sup- 
 plies us with many precedents for regarding it as a 
 possible case, that the spirit of commercial enterprise 
 may in some future age be diverted to other shores, and 
 that the goodly fabric of the manufacturing wealth and 
 
464 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF 
 
 prosperity of Britain may fall at some future period as 
 rapidly as it rose. 
 
 But when we regard Great Britain — in the light in 
 which the colonial land-selling system will enable us to 
 regard her — as the planter of colonies, the mother of 
 nations, " the nurser of men," we see her in a point of 
 view in which there are no gloomy shadows to darken 
 the light of her glory ; we see her fame resting on a 
 basis too firm and too permanent to be affected by the 
 revolutions of empires ; and we feel assured that her 
 name and her memorial will continue illustrious while 
 the race of man inhabits the earth. 
 
 Suppose for a moment, that in some future age Great 
 Britain herself should become the scene of perpetual 
 desolations, and that some Christian philanthropist from 
 some distant land should be induced to visit her de- 
 serted shores ; he would doubtless regard the ruined 
 monuments of her military glory and her commercial 
 greatness — were there nothing else to arrest his atten- 
 tion — with the tear of pity or the smile of contempt ; 
 and he would doubtless exclaim, " What ! art thou too, 
 thou Queen of nations ! thou haven of ships ! art thou 
 also become as Babylon and Tyrus ? How are the 
 mighty fallen, and their glory departed ! " But should 
 he be enabled to look beyond the wide Atlantic to the 
 vast continent of America, and there to behold a hun- 
 dred millions of the descendants of Britons still speak- 
 ing the language, and governed by the laws, and cherish- 
 ing the religion of the long-deserted isle — should he be 
 enabled to witness a scene equally cheering to philan- 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 465 
 
 thropy at the southern extremity of Africa — nay, should 
 he be enabled to behold at the uttermost ends of the 
 earth a third great nation sprung from the same prolific 
 source on the continent of New Holland, and sending 
 forth scions every successive year to the ten thousand 
 isles of the boundless Pacific ; methinks he would re- 
 gard every object around him with a feeling approach- 
 ing to religious veneration ; and the stones and the dust 
 of Britain would be as pleasant and as dear to the tra- 
 veller as those of Zion to the Jew. 
 
 Let no cold-blooded political economist, therefore, 
 presume to reason down the propriety of emigration, so 
 as to deter virtuous and industrious families and indi- 
 viduals from adopting that expedient, or to prevent the 
 British Government from affording them such encou- 
 ragement and assistance as the colonial land revenue is 
 intended to afford. Let no affected patriotism throw any 
 obstacles in the way of a measure that would enable 
 thousands of such families and individuals to live in 
 comfort and independence abroad, instead of struggling 
 with increasing poverty and privations at home. I 
 should sooner doubt the fact of my own existence, than 
 doubt that the happiness and prosperity of the British 
 nation are indissolubly connected with the pursuance 
 of a course, which Divine Providence has made so 
 clearly imperative, and on which the true glory of the 
 nation so evidently depends. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 No. 1. Page 214. 
 
 Instead of inserting the dispatch referred to in the text, it may be suffi- 
 cient for the general reader, especially as this volume has already ex- 
 ceeded a reasonable size, to state the following results of Major Mitchell's 
 expedition, from « The Colonist ' of October 22, 1835. 
 
 The results of Major Mitchell's recent expedition are interesting in 
 the highest degree to the colony. They may be enumerated as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 1. The fate of the Macquarie river has now been definitively ascer- 
 tained ; the surplus waters of that river finding their way by Duck 
 Creek, rather than, as Captain Sturt supposed, by Morrisett's Ponds and 
 the Castlereagh River, into the channel of the Darling. 
 
 2. A practicable route, not only for sheep and cattle, but even for 
 wheel- carriages, has been chalked out and traversed from the Bathurst 
 country to the Darling River, and for 300 miles along the banks of that 
 river, from the point where it receives the waters of the Boga, towards its 
 embouchure. There is reason to hope, if not to presume, that the country 
 along the Darling River, for the unexplored portion of its course to its 
 supposed junction with the Murray or the Murrumbidgee, will be 
 equally practicable, or, at least, that the river will in that portion of its 
 course be found available for navigation. 
 
 3. During the prevalence of a drought of almost unexampled se- 
 verity, although but of short duration, in which, moreover, almost every 
 blade of grass disappeared, and sheep and cattle were dying in all 
 directions in the colony, Major Mitchell found both grass and water in 
 sufficiency for his cattle, along the whole course of the Boga river, as 
 well as in the valley of the Darling. Indeed the country along the 
 whole of Major Mitchell's route appears to be available for the sus- 
 
APPENDIX. 467 
 
 tenance both of man and beast ; and we are happy to have ascertained 
 also, that it abounds with timber suitable for all purposes. 
 
 4. The fourth and last result we shall mention of Major Mitchell's 
 recent expedition is the light it has thrown on the botany of the in- 
 terior. Only two varieties of grass — and these the two usually met with 
 in the colony— were observed along the whole course of the Boga 
 river ; but along the banks of the Darling no fewer than thirty varieties 
 were observed— most of them altogether unknown in the colony. A 
 species of vegetable, which, it is expected, will in future form an im- 
 portant addition to the kitchen garden of Australia, was also found by 
 the expedition in the distant interior. For our own part, we should 
 be sorry to say a single syllable in depreciation of Major Mitchell's 
 cabbage, or whatever else people may choose to call it : but when 
 we consider what sorry fare scientific enthusiasts are sometimes glad 
 to put up with in the bush, we feel strongly disposed to make it a 
 matter of question, whether the heroes of a half-famished expedition 
 of discovery in the interior are the fittest persons in the world to 
 decide as to what is likely to please the palate, or to ascend me up into 
 the brains of a Sydney epicure. Till we have an opportunity of trying it 
 ourselves, however, all we shall say of the Boga turnip is De gustibus 
 non disputandum ;— These is no disputing about tastes. 
 
 There is one particular, however, in which the delicacy of Major 
 Mitchell's taste is unquestionable, and for which he richly deserves the 
 thanks of the whole Australian Republic of Letters. We allude to his 
 uniform substitution of the native names wherever they can be ascer- 
 tained, for the Gothic barbarism of giving English names to localities of 
 every description in this territory. Captain Sturt's JSew Year's Creek, 
 for instance, becomes the Boga River in the hands of the Surveyor 
 General. What a change for the better ! 
 
 Extracts of the Dispatch of Major Mitchell, dated, Camp on the River Mur- 
 rumbidgee, October 24, 1836, giving an account of his recent discovery of 
 Australia Felix. 
 
 The first part of the dispatch contains merely an account of the iden- 
 tification of the Upper and Lower Darling, the country being very 
 unpromising. The following is the latter and more interesting part 
 of it:-* 
 
 " From the depQt camp to the junction of the Murrumbidgee and 
 Murray, the distance was eight miles, over firm ground ; and for two 
 
468 APPENDIX. 
 
 miles below the junction (by tbe river) I moved the whole party across 
 the Murray, with a view to proceed up that river, according to the 
 second part of my instructions. 
 
 ** We had proceeded far up this river before the country on its banks 
 appeared much better than any we had seen lower down. Grassy plains 
 extended some way from the river, but were limited by sand-hills 
 covered with cypress-trees and scrubs. We crossed various broad la- 
 goons, apparently the beds of and -branches of the river in seasons of 
 high flood. After several days' travelling^ nearly southward) reeds ap- 
 peared in extensive flats along the river ; and in longitude 143° 40' E., 
 the course of the river being from the S.E., the reeds extended eastward 
 to the horizon. The mean distance of the bergs of sand hills covered 
 with pine, which limited the reedy flat, was there about eight miles 
 across. We soon passed the region of reeds, which, gradually dis- 
 appearing as we ascended, were replaced by grassy plains-. 
 
 " In this vicinity, we came upon a very singular formation, con- 
 sisting of numerous lakes of salt or brackish water, and which were 
 enclosed by semi-circular ridges on their eastern shores. The largest of 
 these lakes was named Boga, and was six miles in circumference. The 
 river floods having reached this by a small channel, the water in it was 
 sweet, and it was peopled by a very savage tribe, who refused to give 
 us any information, throwing their spears at Piper, who shot one of 
 them. 
 
 " Beyond Boga Lake we crossed some very fine plains ; but the main 
 channel of the river we were endeavouring to explore, was no longer 
 accessible, nor even visible, from the numerous branches and still 
 reaches which intersected the alluvial margin', which appeared to be 
 very broad. 
 
 " The extreme western point of a range then appearing in the southern 
 horizon, I proceeded towards it, anxious to know more of the country 
 back from the river. The view I obtained from that summit induced me 
 to direct our course southward, with the intention of returning across 
 the heads of the Murray further to the eastward, where I hoped the hills 
 might afford me the means of extending the survey across the adjacent 
 country : I perceived from the height a distant line of lofty trees, which 
 seemed to mark the course of another river ; beyond were the summits 
 of very distant hills, verdant plains variegated with clumps and lines 
 of trees extending westward to the horizon; the whole seeming good 
 pasture land. 
 
 " At about thirty miles from the hill, and on the 144th degree of 
 longitude, we reached a deep but narrow stream, flowing between high 
 
APPENDIX. 469 
 
 and grassy banks to the westward, at the rate of one mile and a half per 
 hour. Its mean depth was nine feet ; in one night, however, it suddenly 
 rose fourteen feet higher, carrying away a rough bridge we had just 
 completed. The aboriginal name of this river is the ' Yarrayne ; ' the 
 plains beyond it were five miles in breadth, and of the best description. 
 Forests of black-butted gum, and casuarinse, then extended back to the 
 mountains and forest hills : in these forests, instead of novelty, we 
 found the Blue Mountain parrot, and other birds common near Sydney ; 
 many of the plants also which grow in Cumberland. 
 
 " ' Barrabungale,' a lofty mountain of granite, was the chief point of 
 that range, but, on ascending it, the weather was unfavourable for my 
 observations : a group of open forest hills were connected with Barra- 
 bungale, they enclosed vallies richly covered with grass, and all well 
 watered. We passed over many fine tracts, sheltered by open forest 
 hills, and crossed various fine streams, all flowing westward. At length, 
 on the 11th July, I discovered the summits of a noble mountain range 
 of broken and picturesque outline ; and by subsequent survey I found 
 that this was the predominant feature of that vast territory, lying 
 between the River Murray and the southern coast, giving birth to nu- 
 merous streams of convenient width and constant current, by which the 
 surrounding country is watered abundantly. These Grampians of the 
 south are situated between 56° 52' and 37° 38' of south latitude, and 
 between 141° 55' and 142° 47' of east longitude ; the latter being the 
 longitude of Mount William, the highest and most eastern summit, 
 and on which I passed a night, vainly hoping that the clouds would 
 rise above it. 
 
 " Situated thus centrically, this lofty mass, so essential to water the 
 lower country, presents no impediment, like the coast ranges of the 
 settled district, to the formation of roads, and the progress of colo- 
 nization. 
 
 " The principal river flowing under the north side of these mountains 
 is the ' Wimmera,' which has no steep banks, and appears to be a very 
 constant stream. I explored its course to 142° of longitude, when it 
 turned to the north-west, leaving me in a country covered with circular 
 lakes, in all of which the water was salt or brackish. These had semi- 
 cular ridges on the eastern side, as in those of Boga, on the Murray, 
 and the land about them was in general very good and grassy, its mean 
 elevation above the sea being about 580 feet. 
 
 " From the continued rainy weather the earth was in a very soft state, 
 and this at length became a most serious impediment to the progress of 
 the expedition, the party being unable, even with the greatest exertion, 
 
470 APPENDIX. 
 
 to proceed through the mud above three miles a day. But for this, I 
 might have returned at least two months ago. 
 
 " When we gained the head of a small ravine falling towards the 
 principal river rising in the Grampians, we found firmer ground, and our 
 progress was much better, although still occasionally impeded by the 
 soft and boggy state of the earth. 
 
 "The river, which I named the 'Glenelg,' flows first westward, and 
 then southward, entering the sea at the deepest part of the bay, between 
 Cape Northumberland and Cape Bridgewater. I explored the last fifty 
 miles of its course in the boats, having left Mr. Stapylton with a depot, 
 for I had great reason to hope that it led to some important estuary ; the 
 average width was one hundred yards, the mean depth four fathoms. 
 In this I was, however, disappointed, for the river terminated in a shal- 
 low basin within the sand-hummocks of the coast, the outlet being 
 between two low rocky heads, but choked up with the sands of the beach. 
 
 " My route homeward, from the vicinity of the Australian Pyrenees, 
 passed through a country of the most varied and fascinating description. 
 At intervals of fifty or sixty miles, we crossed ranges of granite, through 
 all of which I found passes for the carts across the very lowest parts, 
 reconnoitring the ranges as far as possible in advance. The districts 
 between the different ranges consisted of excellent land, thickly covered 
 with Danthonia grass, and well watered. 
 
 M I trust that the results of this expedition will prove satisfactory to 
 His Majesty's Government, considering the various difficulties sur- 
 mounted, and the elements with which 1 have had to contend. Besides 
 establishing the fact of the identity of the Upper and Lower Darling, it 
 lias been in my power, under the protection of Providence, to explore 
 the vast natural resources of a region more extensive than Great Britain, 
 equally rich in point of soil, and which now lies ready for the plough in 
 many parts, as if specially prepared by the Creator for the industrious 
 hands of Englishmen." 
 
 No. 2. Page 272. 
 
 Dispatches on the subject of the Clergy and School Establishments of Neic 
 South Wales. 
 
 TO THE RIGHT HON. E. G. STANLEY. 
 
 Sydney, September 30, 1833. 
 Sir, 
 Having lately received the order of the King in Council for dissolving 
 the Church and School Corporation in New South Wales, unaccompanied 
 
APPENDIX. 4?1 
 
 by any intimation of the views of His Majesty's Government as to the 
 future maintenance and regulation of Churches and Schools within the 
 colony, I deem it my duty to submit for your consideration such ob- 
 servations upon these important subjects, as my knowledge of the state 
 of the country enables me to offer, and to suggest such arrangements as 
 will, in my opinion, meet with the favour and support of the great ma- 
 jority of the colonists, and thereby promote, with the best assurance of 
 success, the religious instruction and general education of this people. 
 
 To enable you, sir, to ascertain more clearly the propriety of the 
 measures I shall have the honour to propose, I would observe, that the 
 inhabitants of this colony are of many different religious persuasions, the 
 followers of the Church of England being the most numerous ; but there 
 are also large bodies of Roman Catholics and Presbyterians of the Church 
 of Scotland, besides Protestant Dissenters of many different denomi- 
 nations, having separate places of worship. Of the convicts who have 
 arrived here for the last seven years, about one-third are Irish and 
 Catholic ; and if the families of these persons, arriving from Ireland in 
 considerable numbers, are taken into account, it may be stated with some 
 probability of accuracy, that about one-fifth of the whole population of 
 the colony is Catholic. The members of the Church of Scotland form a 
 smaller portion ; but are amongst the most respectable of the inhabit- 
 ants, and are to be found, with fewer exceptions, in the class of free 
 emigrants. For administering the offices of religion to these three prin- 
 cipal denominations of Christians, there are, of the Church of England, 
 an archdeacon, fifteen chaplains, and four catechists ; of the Church of 
 Scotland, four paid ministers ; and of the Romish Church, there are a 
 vicar-general and two priests, at present receiving stipends from Govern- 
 ment ; but further sums have been voted by the Council for the support, 
 of four additional Roman Catholic chaplains, in the next year. The 
 clergy of the Church of England are supported chiefly by payments from 
 the Treasury, and to a small amount by the rent and sale of lands 
 formerly granted to the Church and School Corporation. The charge for 
 the Church of England next year, including that for minor church 
 officers and contingencies of all sorts, is estimated at £11,542. lOd. The 
 whole charge on the public treasury for the Church of Scotland for the 
 same period is ,£600, and for Roman Catholic chaplains and chapels 
 ,£1500. The Protestant dissenters receive no support from Government 
 beyond some small grants of land made to some of them, as sites upon 
 which to erect their places of worship. 
 
 With respect to places of worship, it may be convenient to observe 
 here, that the Church of England possesses at this time, in Sydney and 
 
472 APPENDIX. 
 
 within forty miles of it, seven stone or brick churches of moderate size 
 but respectable appearance, besides two others of the same description 
 in more remote parts of the colony, and several less permanent buildings 
 in various places. The expense of erecting these houses of worship, I 
 cannot immediately ascertain ; but it has been considerable, and has, as 
 I believe, been wholly defrayed by public funds. The Church of Scot- 
 land possesses one church of respectable exterior in Sydney, and two or 
 three temporary buildings in the country districts. The Scots Church 
 in Sydney was built by subscription, aided by a loan from this Govern- 
 ment amounting to ^£'520, for which a mortgage has been taken on the 
 premises ; but no part of the money has yet been repaid. The Church 
 of Scotland has received no other aid for buildings that I can discover. 
 The Roman Catholics possess one large and handsome church in Sydney, 
 not yet completed : in aid of its construction, donations, amounting in 
 all to about ,,£1200, have been at different times granted by this Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The sum of ,£400 (included in that of ,£1500 before mentioned) has 
 been appropriated by the Council to be paid in the next year, in aid of a 
 similar sum to be raised by private subscriptions for erecting Roman 
 Catholic chapels at Maitland and Campbelltown. A chapel was begun at 
 the latter place as well as at Parramatta some years ago; but neither 
 has been completed from wants of funds. 
 
 The chaplains from the Church of England are provided with glebes of 
 40 acres each, or with a money allowance in lieu, and with houses or 
 lodging money. No advantage of this kind, obtained at the public ex- 
 pense, is possessed by the clergy of the Established Church of Scotland, 
 or by the Roman Catholics, if I except a grant of 40 acres for the use of 
 the Scots Church at Bathurst. 
 
 A distribution of support from the Government, of so unequal an 
 an amount as that which I have just described, cannot be supposed to be 
 generally acceptable to the colonists, who provide the funds from which 
 this distribution is made. Accordingly, the magnitude of the sums 
 annually granted for the support of the Church of England in New South 
 Wales is very generally complained of; and a petition to the Governor 
 and Legislative Council has been lately prepared at a public meeting, 
 and very numerously signed, praying for a reduction of this expenditure. 
 If the complaint be well founded, as I confess I consider it to be, the 
 recent dissolution of the Church Corporation affords an opportunity for 
 placing upon an equitable footing the support which the principal Chris- 
 tian churches in the colony may, for the present, claim from the public 
 purse. I would, therefore, earnestly recommend to His Majesty's Go- 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 473 
 
 vernment to take the case into their early consideration, and to adopt 
 such arrangements as may be expected to give general satisfaction to the 
 colonists. I would observe that, in a new country, to which persons of 
 all religious persuasions are invited to resort, it will be impossible to 
 establish a dominant and endowed church without much hostility, arid 
 great improbability of its becoming permanent. The inclination of these 
 colonists, which keeps pace with the spirit of the age, is decidedly 
 adverse to such an institution ; and I fear the interests of religion would 
 be prejudiced by its establishment. If, on the contrary, support were 
 given, as required, to every one of the three grand divisions of Christians 
 indifferently, and the management of the temporalities of their churches 
 left to themselves, I conceive that the public treasury might in time be 
 relieved of a considerable charge ; and, what is of much greater im- 
 portance, the people would become more attached to their respective 
 churches, and be more willing to listen to and obey the voice of their 
 several pastors. 
 
 It may be expected that in addressing you, sir, on this occasion, I 
 should submit some specific arrangements for your consideration. I 
 cannot, without much diffidence, proceed to discharge this duty; but, as 
 I have reason to believe that the outline which follows is in unison with 
 the sentiments of many of the most intelligent of the colonists, I have 
 the less hesitation in laying it before you. 
 
 I would propose, that wherever a moderate congregation can be col- 
 lected throughout the colony, and that a subscription shall have been 
 entered into for building a place of worship and minister's dwelling, 
 amounting to a sum not less than ,,£300, upon application an equal sum 
 shall be issued from the Colonial Treasury in aid of the undertaking ; 
 and that the buildings, when completed, and the grounds upon which 
 they stand, whether provided by the subscriber or granted by the 
 Crown, shall be vested in trustees elected by the congregation. These 
 trustees shall have power to dispose of the seats or pews (excepting 
 one-fourth, which shall be reserved as free sittings) ; and out of the rents, 
 or by means of voluntary subscriptions, the trustees shall provide for the 
 maintenance of church officers, the repairs of the church, minister's 
 dwelling, church-yard, burial-ground and appurtenances, and the con- 
 tingent expenses connected with the celebration of Divine worship. 
 The buildings thus erected will be, at no other period, a charge upon 
 the public revenue. A chaplain of the creed of the congregation shall 
 then be appointed by the Crown in the manner now practised, and his 
 stipend shall be issued by the Governor at the following rate : — If in the 
 district where the church or chapel to which he shall be appointed is 
 
474 APPENDIX. 
 
 situated, there be a resident population of one hundred adults, who shall 
 subscribe a declaration setting forth their desire to attend such place of 
 worship, the chaplain shall receive from the Treasury one hundred 
 pounds a year ; if there be two hundred adults, one hundred and fifty 
 pounds ; and if five hundred adults, then two hundred pounds ; which 
 is pi'oposed as the maximum salary to be paid by the Government, to a 
 chaplain of whatever persuasion. 
 
 In this way it is imagined that the erection of places of public worship 
 may be obtained wherever a competent congregation can be collected, 
 whilst there will be secured to the officiating clergyman such a moderate 
 stipend as is sufficient for his support, but will not render him in- 
 dependent of his own exertions or the respect of the congregation. 
 These chaplains should be empowered to perform the ceremonies of 
 marriage, baptism, and burial, in their several churches, for moderate 
 fees, and should be secured in the receipt of their stipends, unless 
 removed from their chaplancies for misconduct. The whole of this 
 arrangement, with such further details as shall seem necessary, will 
 require the authority of an Act of the Governor and Council to put it 
 into operation. 
 
 The foregoing system may be applied to the existing churches of the 
 establishment, by vesting them and the ministers' houses and glebes in 
 trustees for the purposes before-mentioned ; but the present incumbents 
 should remain with the salaries and advantages they now enjoy, so far as 
 these emoluments have been secured to them by previous engagement 
 with the Government. 
 
 For the better discipline of the chaplains of the Church of England, 
 for obtaining the necessary celebration of the rites of ordination and 
 confirmation, and for maintaining the connexion of this church with the 
 metropolitan, I would suggest that the Archdeacon of New South Wales 
 be made a suffragan to the Archbishop of Canterbury, or Bishop of 
 London. The stipend of the present archdeacon is more than sufficient 
 for the proper discharge of this office, and that of his successor might be 
 reduced considerably. The inconvenience attending the dependence of 
 this church on the authority of a bishop placed at the distance of Calcutta 
 from Sydney, is too obvious to require much proof. * * 
 
 The establishment in the colony of a Presbytery of the Church of 
 Scotland, which I had the honour to recommend in my dispatch of the 
 8th July last, No. 56, will secure the proper discipline of that church ; 
 and the recent appointment of a vicar-general, with whose discretion, 
 character, and morals, I have the greatest reason to be satisfied, will, 1 
 hope, effect what is required in the Roman Catholic Church. I am 
 
APPENDIX. 475 
 
 inclined, however, to tbink that the salary of ,£200 a year is too low for 
 the office, and that it might be advantageously raised to ,^400, to enable 
 the vicar-general to visit frequently the chapels in the interior. 
 
 In the foregoing outline I have limited the support of the Government 
 to the three principal Christian congregations in the colony. This limi- 
 tation may be considered an objection to the plan, as it may be urged, 
 that in granting assistance systematically to more than one church, a 
 claim is given for assistance upon the same principle to every con- 
 gregation of Dissenters and of Jews. This, however, is an objection to 
 the theory, and is not likely to interfere with the practical benefits of the 
 plan. If it should be thought proper at any future period to extend 
 assistance to other congregations whose members may seem to require 
 it, there will be nothing in the present arrangement to prevent it ; or if 
 it shall be deemed more advisable, the proposed system may be es- 
 tablished by the local law as it affects the Church of England only, 
 leaving it to the discretion of the Governor and Council to extend a 
 similar provision to such other congregations as shall require it. At 
 this early period of the colony's existence, it is, 1 think, necessary that 
 the Government should grant pecuniary assistance for the establishment 
 of religious institutions, and take upon itself the nomination of the 
 ministers ; or it might happen that the ordinances of Christianity would be- 
 come altogether neglected, or its tenets perverted by incompetent teachers. 
 I cannot conclude this subject without expressing a hope, amounting 
 to some degree of confidence, that in laying the foundations of the 
 Christian religion in this young and rising colony, by equal encourage- 
 ment held out to its professors in their several churches, the people of 
 these persuasions will be united together in one bond of peace, and 
 taught to look up to the Government as their common protector and 
 friend, and that thus there will be secured to the State good subjects, 
 and to society good men. 
 
 I shall now beg leave to lay before you a brief account of the schools 
 which have been lately under the superintendence of the Church and 
 School Corporation. The principal of these are the Male and Female 
 Orphan Schools, at the former of which 133 boys are now maintained 
 and educated, at an expense estimated for the year 1834 at ^1300; and, 
 at the latter, 174 girls, at an estimated expense of ^1500, exclusive of 
 supplies from the land set apart for the use of these schools. The 
 buildings of the Female School are handsome and commodious, and 
 those for the boys are sufficient for the purpose. In both of these 
 schools the children are brought up exclusively in the doctrines of the 
 Church of England. As they are received at a very early age, and those 
 
476 APPENDIX. 
 
 who are not orphans in the strict meaning of the term, are, for the most 
 part, deserted or neglected by their parents, it is proper that they 
 should be so brought up. There is in Parramatta also a considerable 
 Boarding School, called the King's School, at the head of which is a 
 clergyman of the Church of England, with a salary of ,£100 a year only, 
 but who has been promised the occupation of a house, to be built at the 
 public expense, to contain from 60 to 80 boarders and day scholars. 
 The house not being built, two are rented in the village by Government, 
 at .£80 per annum, in which the master receives at present 54 boarders 
 and 15 day scholars ; the former at the rate of ,£28, and the latter at 
 from £6 to £ 10 a-year. This arrangement, which originated, I believe, 
 with the late archdeacon, is an expensive one, and the wealthier part of 
 the community will be the greatest gainers by it. The three schools 
 thus described, now are, and will in all probability continue to be, ex- 
 clusively for the Church of England : they may be supported, and the 
 Orphan Schools extended by means of the income which will, at no 
 great distance of time, be derived from the lands granted under Seal to 
 the Church and School Corporation ; and which, on its dissolution, 
 became, by the terms of the charter, vested in the Crown, to be disposed 
 of by His Majesty, his heirs, and successors, "in such manner as shall 
 appear most conducive to the maintenance and promotion of religion, and 
 the education of youth in the said colony." Under these terms the in- 
 come of the lands may be applied to the support of any of the churches 
 or schools referred to in this dispatch. 
 
 The Primary Schools established by the Corporation, which are 35 
 in number, situated in various parts of the colony, attended, upon an 
 average, by 1248 children of both sexes, are charged in the estimates for 
 1834, at £2756. These are superintended by the chaplains, and in all 
 of them the Catechism of the Church of England is taught ; and although 
 children of other persuasions may and do sometimes attend these 
 schools, they are necessarily considered as belonging to the Church of 
 England. Thus the charge for all the schools of this description for the 
 year 1834 is taken at £5737, to which should be added a vote of the 
 Legislative Council, of ,£2300, for the site and buildings for the King's 
 School at Parramatta. Nothing has been granted to any Primary School 
 connected with the Church of Scotland, but a loan of £3500 has lately 
 been made by the Government, and secured by mortgage, for aiding the 
 erection of the Scots College. The sum of ,£800 has been voted for 
 Roman Catholic Schools for the year 1834. 
 
 You may thus perceive, sir, the great disproportion which exists in 
 the support given by the state to schools formed for the use of different 
 
APPENDIX. 477 
 
 denominations of Christians in the colony ; a disproportion not based on 
 the relative numbers of each, but guided, it would seem, by the same 
 principles which have regulated the support afforded to the different 
 churches. It is a subject of very general complaint. I am inclined to 
 think, that schools for the general education of the colonial youth, sup- 
 ported by the government, and regulated after the manner of the Irish 
 schools, which, since the year 1831, receive aid from the public funds, 
 would be suited to the circumstances of this country. I have not the 
 parliamentary papers to refer to, and cannot give those schools their 
 proper designation, but I allude to those in which Christians of all 
 creeds are received, where approved extracts from Scripture are read, 
 but no religious instruction is given by the master or mistress, such 
 being imparted on one day in the week by the ministers of the different 
 religions attending at the school, to instruct their respective flocks. I 
 am certain that the colonists would be well pleased to find their funds 
 liberally pledged to support schools of this description. It would be 
 necessary, however, that government took the lead in their institution, 
 fixing the places from time to time where they should be established as 
 population increased, erecting the school-houses, and appointing well- 
 qualified masters and mistresses, to be brought from England, if re- 
 quired. The salaries of such persons should be liberal, not less than 
 from ^ 100 to ^£150 per annum. Whatever weekly payments were ob- 
 tained from the parents of the children who attend these schools should 
 be applied to the repair of the school-houses, and to purchase school- 
 requisites, under the care of local committees. In like manner, infant 
 schools should be established in the towns and other populous places. 
 I may, without fear of contradiction, assert, that in no part of the world 
 is the general education of the people a more sacred and necessary duty 
 of the Government, than in New South Wales. .The reasons are too ob- 
 vious to require that I should state them. The proposed arrangement 
 will, like that for the churches, require a local law. 
 
 W r ith respect to the thirty-five Primary or Parish Schools as they are 
 called, established by the Church and School Corporation, I would ob- 
 serve, that they are of no great importance or value ; and I propose, 
 that in proportion as schools for general education are established in the 
 manner I have described, the support of Government should be with- 
 drawn from the Primary Schools, leaving the buildings and furniture to 
 any of the congregations of the Church of England that might choose to 
 maintain the schools at their own expense. 
 
 KlCIIAltD Bourke. 
 
478 APPENDIX. 
 
 TO HIS EXCELLENCY SIR R. BOURKE, K.C.B. 
 
 Downing Street, November 30, 1835. 
 Sir, 
 
 The successive changes which have taken place in His Majesty's 
 
 Government since the receipt of your dispatch of the 30th September, 
 
 1335, No. 76, and the importance of the subject to which it refers, have 
 
 occasioned a delay in answering it, which I much regret, but which has 
 
 been in a great measure unavoidable. 
 
 Your dispatch had, however, received the serious attention of my 
 predecessors ; and since my accession to the office which 1 have the 
 honour to hold, I have bestowed much consideration on its contents. I 
 have had the advantage of frequent communications with Mr. Arch- 
 deacon Broughton, on the Ecclesiastical and Scholastic Establishments in 
 New South Wales, and I have referred to the various communications 
 on the same topic, which have taken place from time to time between 
 the local authorities and my predecessors in this department. 
 
 His Majesty's Government are deeply sensible of the importance of 
 the subject thus brought under their consideration. They fully concur 
 with you in the opinion that in no part of the world is the general 
 education of the people a more sacred and necessary duty of the Go- 
 vernment, than in New South Wales. With a view not only to higher 
 interests, but also to the good order and social improvement of the 
 colony, too great a value can scarcely be set upon the promotion, by all 
 means, of those habits and principles which tend so eminently to elevate 
 the human character, and to oppose the firmest obstacle to crime and im- 
 morality. The only question is, that of the most effectual mode of 
 attaining this end, regard being had to the condition of the colony and 
 the sentiments of the inhabitants, for whose benefit and at whose ex- 
 pense the instruction is to be provided. 
 
 With reference to this question, I have much pleasure in offering to 
 you, on their part and my own, the acknowledgement of His Majesty's 
 Government for the full and clear statement which you have transmitted 
 to them of the existing means of religious instruction and education in 
 connexion with the wants and circumstances of the colony, and also for 
 the suggestions with which you have followed up that statement. To 
 these suggestions His Majesty's Government, bearing in mind your 
 local experience, and influenced by the general confidence which they 
 place in your judgment, are disposed to attach great importance. 
 
 A general principle to which I am anxious to adhere on this, as on 
 
APPENDIX. 479 
 
 other matters affecting the internal interests of the colony, is, that the 
 details of the measures to he adopted should be left to the decision of 
 that body, to which, by the existing constitution, legislative powers are 
 entrusted, and which must be supposed to be best informed as to the 
 wants of the population, and the most efficient and satisfactory means of 
 supplying them. I am disposed, therefore, to commit to the Governor 
 and the Legislative Council, the task of suggesting and enacting such 
 laws and regulations for the distribution and appropriation of the funds 
 applicable to the general purposes of religion and education, as they 
 consider best adapted to the exigences of the colony. I feel it, however, 
 a duty to offer some observations on the plan which you have submitted 
 for the consideration of His Majesty's Government. 
 
 In the general principle upon which that plan is founded, as applicable 
 to New South Wales, His Majesty's Government entirely concur. At- 
 tached as I am, in common with the other members of the Government, 
 to the Church of England, and believing it, when duly administered, to 
 be a powerful instrument in the diffusion of sound religious instruction, 
 I am desirous that every encouragement should be given to its extension 
 in New South Wales, consistently with the just claims of that large 
 portion of the community which is composed of Christians of other de- 
 nominations. In dealing with this subject in a case so new as the 
 Australian colonies, few analogies can be drawn from the institutions of 
 the parent state to our assistance. In those communities, formed and 
 rapidly multiplying under most peculiar circumstances, and comprising 
 great numbers of Presbyterians and Roman Catholics, as well as mem- 
 bers of the Church of England, it is evident that the attempt to select 
 any one church as the exclusive object of public endowment, even if it 
 were advisable in every other respect, would not long be tolerated. To 
 none of the numerous Christians of those persuasions should oppor- 
 tunities be refused for worship and education on principles which they 
 approve. 
 
 The plan which you have suggested appears to me fully in accordance 
 with these views in both its branches : — in that which relates to the 
 places and ministers of worship, or, as it may be more briefly described, 
 to public religion ; and in that which concerns public education. 
 
 With respect to the first branch, the equity of the proposed rule 
 cannot be contested. The amount of private contribution is to be the 
 condition and the measure of public aid. The Church of England, from 
 its great numerical strength in the colony as compared with that of either 
 of the above denominations, and from its superior command of resources, 
 
480 APPENDIX. 
 
 will probably obtain a share proportionately large of the general fund : 
 but ample encouragement and assistance will be afforded to the efforts of 
 the other communities towards a similar object. 
 
 The proposal that the trustees, in wbom the care of the buildings 
 when completed is intended to be vested, should be elected by the con- 
 gregation, appears to me not sufficiently definite ; and I would suggest 
 that their nomination should be vested, in the first instance, in the sub- 
 scribers, with a provision for supplying vacancies as they occur. The 
 number of the trustees should also be limited by law. There can be no 
 question but that it will be right to continue to the present incumbents, 
 those salaries and advantages which they now enjoy, under any existing 
 arrangement with the Government. 
 
 Some deviation, however, from this general plan may be necessary, in 
 order to provide Religious Instruction for districts comprising any large 
 body of convicts, where there is no reason to anticipate that voluntary 
 subscriptions can be obtained for the erection of a place of worship, or 
 for the ministration of Religion. 
 
 In your dispatch of the 28th February, 1832, No. 30, you stated your 
 entire concurrence in opinion with the archdeacon, as to the absolute 
 necessity of stationing a minister of religion at Norfolk Island ; and 
 Lord Ripon, in a dispatch of the 25th December, 1832, No. 148, sug- 
 gested a mode by which he hoped an immediate provision might be 
 made for stationing one of the chaplains then in the colony at each of the 
 penal settlements of Norfolk Island and Moreton Bay, so long as a large 
 convict population should be collected there. I regret to find that this 
 arrangement could not be carried into effect. In the same dispatch, 
 Lord Ripon recommended to your serious consideration the practicability 
 of breaking up the establishment at Moreton Bay, which you had your- 
 self previously contemplated. As I hope that measures may have been 
 taken for carrying this recommendation into effect, I may now, I pre- 
 sume, take for granted that the services of a minister of religion will be 
 required only for one penal settlement. Fully agreeing with you as to 
 the necessity of such an appointment, I have used every endeavour to 
 find a clergyman of the church of England qualified for the office, by 
 character, and that missionary spirit* which you justly think of such 
 importance, and at the same time willing to undertake it ; but I regret 
 to inform you that I have not been successful. The archdeacon, of 
 whose anxiety on this subject you are well aware, has been equally 
 unfortunate, and I have therefore felt it my duty to institute an enquiry 
 in other quarters j and I hope shortly to be able to announce to you 
 
APPENDIX. 481 
 
 that I have obtained the services of a clergyman of some other de- 
 nomination. 
 
 The reasons which you have alleged in favour of the erection of the 
 archdeaconry of New South Wales into a bishopric, seem to me con- 
 clusive. My predecessors had determined to carry this proposal into 
 effect ; and His Majesty's present Government have decided, with the 
 sanction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to adhere to that deter- 
 mination. The zeal and energy with which Mr. Broughton has dis- 
 charged the duties of Archdeacon of New South Wales, and the strong 
 interest which he takes in the spiritual welfare of the colony, pointed 
 him out as the fittest person to be invested with the episcopal office ; 
 and I have much pleasure in informing you that His Majesty has been 
 graciously pleased to nominate him to the new See. He will receive the 
 same salary which he has hitherto received as archdeacon ; and any 
 reduction which the Governor and Council may deem practicable and 
 expedient, will, of course, take effect only on the appointment of a 
 successor. 
 
 I now proceed to offer some observations on the second part of your 
 plan — that which has reference to Public Education. 
 
 The orphan schools, though the expense of their maintenance is con- 
 siderable, make provision for a class of children who have no natural 
 protectors ; and, although I should doubt the expediency of extending 
 them, I think that sufficient grounds exist for their continuance, at least 
 for a time ; nor do I see any reason for altering the general management 
 or the plan of education, provided that you are satisfied that no undue 
 expenditure is sanctioned, and that they are maintained in a state of 
 efficiency. With this view, I think it highly expedient that such com- 
 mittees, as recommended by yourself and the Archdeacon, should be 
 appointed for the purpose of internal regulation, and the superintendence 
 of all matters connected with the conduct and administration of the 
 schools, the visitor exercising the ordinary powers attached to that 
 office. 
 
 The King's School at Parramatta, however, appears to me very dif- 
 ferently circumstanced : the pupils of this Institution belong chiefly, if 
 not exclusively, to that class of society which has no just claim to 
 gratuitous aid, at the public expense, towards the education of youth ; 
 and I think, that if the school is to be maintained, it should be at the 
 charge of the parents or connexions of the scholars. An immediate 
 withdrawal of the whole support, which it has received from the public 
 funds, would probably be attended with great inconvenience, but I 
 VOL. II. X 
 
482 APPENDIX. 
 
 think it right to convey to you my opinion, that eventually it ought not 
 in any degree to be a charge upon the public. 
 
 In respect to education generally, it follows, from the principles al- 
 ready laid down, that some plan should be adopted for the establishment 
 of schools for the general education of the youth in the colony, uncon- 
 nected with any particular church or denomination of Christians, in 
 which children of every religious persuasion may receive instruction. 
 This object it is proposed to effect, not by the exclusion of religious 
 instruction from the school, but by limiting the daily and ordinary in- 
 struction of this nature, to those leading doctrines of Christianity, and 
 those practical duties on which I hope all Christians may cordially agree. 
 The peculiar tenets of any church ought to find no place, as such, in 
 these general schools ; but opportunities should be afforded, at stated 
 periods, for the imparting of instruction of this nature to the children of 
 different persuasions by their respective pastors. Such is the plan of 
 National Education which has recently been adopted in Ireland, and, as 
 I have reason to believe, with considerable success, notwithstanding 
 some peculiar obstacles arising from circumstances not likely, as I trust, 
 to exist in the Australian colonies. This plan will require the formation 
 of a Board of Education, composed of members of different religious 
 denominations. The board will have to agree on such extracts from the 
 authorised version of the Scriptures, to be used in the schools, as they 
 shall deem best adapted for the instruction of youth. It will also be 
 their duty, by a vigilant superintendence, to secure a strict adherence to 
 the regulations under which the schools will have been constituted. 
 Persuaded, as I am, that education, founded on the Scriptures, is the 
 best calculated to produce those permanent effects which must be the 
 object of every system of education, I should wish it may be thought 
 practicable to place the whole of the New Testament, at least, in the 
 hands of the children ; but, at all events, I hold it to be most im- 
 portant that the extracts in question should be of a copious description. 
 It is my intention to send to you, for your information and assistance, 
 various documents relating to the system of National Education in Ire- 
 land, and also a Report of the British and Foreign School Society, which 
 is conducted on very liberal and comprehensive principles. I feel as- 
 sured that I may safely leave to you and the Legislative Council the 
 task of framing, on these principles, such a system as may be most 
 acceptable to the great body of the inhabitants, and at the same time 
 most conducive to the important end in view. 
 
 I have hitherto had in view those schools which are to be supported 
 wholly at the public expense, and I am of opinion that schools so sup- 
 
APPENDIX. 483 
 
 ported, ought to be invariably of the general nature just adverted to. 
 But the system of public education would, I think, be incomplete, if it 
 did not leave an opening for the admission, on certain terms, of private con- 
 tributions in aid of the public. There may be persons, and even classes of 
 persons, who may entertain such objections to the general plan, as must 
 practically exclude them from a participation in its benefits, and who yet 
 may be unable to supply a proper education for their children from their 
 own funds exclusively. It would be hard that any large class of His 
 Majesty's subjects should be debarred from the advantage of education 
 on principles which they conscientiously approve. I submit to you and 
 your Council, as a just object for your consideration, whether, in such 
 cases, some pecuniary assistance might not be afforded from the public 
 funds, in aid of contributions from parties dissatisfied with the more 
 comprehensive system. The terms and conditions on which such as- 
 sistance may be tendered, I leave to the deliberate judgment of yourself 
 and your Council, persuaded that you will arrange a system, which, ex- 
 cluding no large class of conscientious religionists from its benefits, 
 shall be, in a true sense, national. I fully approve of your suggestion, 
 that the buildings and furniture of the primary schools should be left in 
 the hands of any of the congregations of the Church of England, who 
 may undertake to maintain the schools at their own expense. An im- 
 mediate withdrawal from these schools, of the whole of the support 
 which they have hitherto received from the government, would probably, 
 as in the case of the King's School at Parramatta, involve them in con- 
 siderable difficulty ; but I feel assured that the mode in which the new- 
 system will be introduced, as well as the details of the system itself, 
 will receive that mature consideration which will secure its adoption, 
 with the least possible inconvenience to any existing institution. 
 
 I have not previously adverted to the establishment of Sunday Schools, 
 because they are chiefly found in connexion with some particular church 
 or congregation ; and the services of the teachers being for the most part 
 gratuitous, they do not require the aid of public funds : I am, however, 
 unwilling to close my dispatch on this subject, without expressing my 
 sense of the great value of such schools, and of the claim they have to 
 encouragement, not indeed as a substitute for others, but as affording 
 the opportunities of fuller religious instruction than can usually be given 
 in any daily schools for general education. 
 
 In this dispatch, as in that to which it is a reply, the religious in- 
 struction and education is considered in relation only to the European 
 inhabitants of Australia, without adverting to the case of the Aborigines, 
 which, being peculiar, is properly reserved for separate discussion. I 
 
484 APPENDIX. 
 
 shall therefore content myself in this place, with expressing, what I 
 know to he also your feeling, that the moral improvement of that un- 
 fortunate race is an object, among the first, which demands the attention 
 of the Colonial and the Home Governments. 
 
 Glenelg. 
 
 No. 3. Page 312. 
 Missions to the Aborigines. — The Great Libel Case. 
 
 (From 'The Colonist.') 
 We promised in our last number to give a condensed report in this 
 week's paper of the long trial for alleged libel, which had arisen out of 
 the articles published in this journal, during the months of November 
 and December last, on the subject of Missions to the Aborigines ; and 
 we now proceed to fulfil our promise. 
 
 The action instituted by the Rev. L. E. Threlkeld, against the Editor 
 of this paper, was an action for damages, on account of the injury which 
 he alleged had been done to his character, as a Missionary to the Abori- 
 gines, by the articles in question ; the damages being estimated by Mr. 
 Threlkeld himself at a Thousand Pounds. But as the Rev. Dr. Lang 
 avowed himself in the mean time as the writer o.f the articles alluded to, 
 the prosecution was transferred to him from the Editor of this paper. 
 The case came on for trial before His Honour Judge Burton and a Special 
 Jury, on Monday the 21st current; the Solicitor-General and Richard 
 Windeyer, Esq., being the Counsel for the plaintiff, and Dr. Lang 
 appearing for himself. The trial lasted for two whole days, and excited 
 intense interest in the town ; the Court being unusually crowded during 
 the whole of the proceedings. 
 
 The case was opened by the Solicitor-General, who read and commented 
 on the paragraphs alleged as libellous; giving of course, agreeably to the 
 use-and-wont phraseology of the law, " a false, scandalous, and mali- 
 cious " construction to every sentiment or sentence which the plaintiff 
 had thought proper to object to. The following is an outline of the 
 learned Gentleman's speech : — 
 
 The Solicitor- General stated the case to the Jury. This was an action 
 brought to recover damages for a libel published in 'The Colonist' 
 newspaper, the Editor of which was a gentleman named Bull ; but the 
 defendant upon the record had avowed himself the author of the articles 
 complained of. Plaintiff and defendant were both ministers of religion ; 
 
APPENDIX. 485 
 
 the one had heen ordained as a missionary, and the other as a minister of 
 the Scots church. He felt much pain in entering into this case, knowing 
 that his client had felt considerable grief at having been obliged to have 
 recourse to such a mode of proceeding. His client knew that this was 
 not a proper arena for the display of two clergymen ; he knew well that 
 such an action as the present would only afford ground for the scoffs of 
 the irreligious and the infidel, and would gladly have availed himself of 
 any other means of justifying himself in the eyes of the world, against 
 the baneful influence such libels would carry with them. The defendant 
 had doubtless justified the libel ; but let the defendant, if he could, prove 
 the justification on the record. Such justification only added insult to 
 injury. Of course he knew his own case best, and might consider that 
 he was right. The following, the learned Solicitor-General observed, 
 were the circumstances out of which the case had arisen : — 
 
 About the year 1824, plaintiff had been stationed on one of the South 
 Sea Islands ; but in August of that year he came up to Sydney, in com- 
 pany with two gentlemen who had been sent out as a Deputation from 
 the Parent Society at home. When the party arrived in Sydney, they 
 considered they were entitled to form a Mission to the Aborigines in this 
 colony ; and, in consequence, made application to Governor Brisbane, 
 who gave them a grant of 10,000 acres of land, to enable them the better 
 to prosecute their object; but a clause was inserted in the deed, to the 
 effect, " that the land was given for the sole benefit of the Aborigines, 
 and not to the London Missionary Society." A selection of land was 
 made at Reid's Mistake, some twenty miles' distance from Newcastle, as 
 being the most eligible site for furthering their purposes. When the 
 Deputation retm-ned to England, they left Mr. Threlkeld with certain in- 
 structions relative to the Mission. He had his wife and family with 
 him, and considered it best to build a house upon the ten thousand acres. 
 He continued upon this Mission, under the London Society, until the 
 close of 1827, when it seemed the Deputation, from whom Mr. T. had 
 received his instructions, had reached home, and had some misunder- 
 standing with the Parent Society, owing to the instructions given by 
 them to Mr. T. having been more extensive than was approved of. Mr. 
 T. had previously discovered that the expenses were more than he at 
 first anticipated, but for an average of three years he had not drawn more 
 than .,£200 for his own expenses. Mr. T. had been induced to draw 
 some bills upon the Parent Society to meet current expenses ; but these 
 bills were not met when due, and Mr. T. was obliged to meet the law 
 expenses consequent upon their having been dishonoured. These bills, 
 however, were subsequently paid by the Rev. Mr. Marsden. Mr. T. 
 
486 APPENDIX. 
 
 notwithstanding did not consider himself well used in the matter. The 
 London Society gave instructions to Mr. Marsden to abandon the Mission 
 altogether, and to pay the expense of passage, &c. of Mr. T. to England ; 
 but Mr. T. replied " that as he had risked his all in the affair, he would 
 rather go and herd with the Blacks, than give up an enterprise in which 
 his whole heart was centered." He continued to live upon a portion of 
 the land until 1830; when, through the recommendation of Archdeacon 
 Scott, he was offered by the Colonial Government ,,£150 per annum, 
 with £36 yearly for clothes and rations for four assigned servants. This 
 agreement was to continue from 1830 to 1835, five years, which had just 
 expired when these publications appeared, and which were calculated to 
 have a very material effect upon the plaintiffs prospects. The Solicitor- 
 General proceeded to comment on the passages in the articles, amounting 
 to ten in number, charged as libellous, pointing out the injury likely to 
 be done to Mr. T.'s character by that publication. He then proceeded to 
 state to the Jury, that when these libels appeared, Mr. T. wrote to 
 defendant, calling upon him for an apology ; but this was refused ; and, 
 instead, portions of his letter appeared with comments in ' The Colonist ' 
 of the 31 st December, wherein Mr. T. was charged with either a lack of 
 conscience or of common sense. After the learned gentleman had com- 
 mented at great length upon the character and probable effect of the 
 libels, he concluded by saying that Mr. T. did not come there to seek for 
 heavy damages. If they (the Jury) gave the whole amount stated in 
 the declaration, he (Mr. T.) would shrink from touching one farthing of 
 it ; but when the proceedings went forth amongst the friends of Mr. T., 
 scattered as they were over all parts of the world, they would judge of 
 the nature of the libels by the amount of damages they saw appended to 
 the end of the trial ; and therefore mere nominal damages would not 
 answer the purpose sought to be obtained that day. 
 
 At the close of the learned gentleman's speech, the following witnesses 
 were examined on the part of the prosecution : — 
 
 Mr. James Backhouse. I am at present sojourning in this colony on 
 a religious mission, undertaken at my own expense, but sanctioned by 
 the Society of Friends ; I have read the articles complained of; I think 
 they are calculated to do much injury to the character of Launcelot 
 Threlkeld ; the conclusion I came to on reading these articles was, con- 
 sidering the articles to be written by Dr. Lang, I thought he would be 
 convinced of the accuracy of his statements before he made them ; but at 
 the same time knowing Launcelot Threlkeld, I considered that he had 
 evinced great want of judgment, to say the least of it, in the conduct of 
 the mission. The phrase " liberal of other people's goods " 1 believe to 
 
APPENDIX. 487 
 
 imply that Launcelot Threlkeld was more liberal of other people's pro- 
 perty than he would have been of his own. I do not consider these 
 words as implying plaintiff was dishonest. T understood by the use of 
 the word untrustworthy, that the writer of the articles considered, that 
 having squandered away the property of the mission, he was unfit to be 
 entrusted with its management ; the effect of these articles on reaching 
 England would be modified according to the description of persons into 
 whose hands they might fall — if into the hands of a friend to the 
 mission, they would be suppressed ; but an enemy would be likely to 
 make a handle of them against the cause. 
 
 Cross-examined by Dr. Lang. I have read the whole of the articles ; I 
 am aware that other missionaries are included in the remarks about sheep, 
 but taking that part in connexion with some verses from a song, which 
 appeared in another part of the paper, I consider it as applying to 
 Launcelot Threlkeld ; I consider such publications as injurious to mis- 
 sions ; I admit that truth is paramount to all other interests in its proper 
 place. 
 
 Mr. George Washington Walker, another member of the Society of 
 Friends, deposed to the same effect. He was cross-examined as to 
 whether Mr. Threlkeld had produced any documentary evidence to con- 
 vince him that the statements were incorrect; to which he replied that 
 he had not. 
 
 The Rev. Charles Price, a minister of that body of religionists 
 called Congregationalists or Independents, gave evidence similar to the 
 preceding witnesses. On his cross-examination, he deposed that Mr. 
 Threlkeld had never shown him any statement of his accounts ; he had 
 come to the conclusion, that the whole was false, because ho considered 
 the comments on Mr. Thelkeld's letter weak and contemptible. 
 
 The Honourable Alexander M'Leay, Esq., Colonial Secretary, de- 
 posed, that the plaintiff was a missionary paid by Government, at the 
 rate of £150 per annum, and £36 allowances for four convict servants. 
 He was recommended to Government for that employment by Arch- 
 deacon Scott ; he believes that the plaintiff had always conducted him- 
 self to the satisfaction of the Government. 
 
 Cross-examined. The grant to the London Missionary Society was 
 abandoned by the Directors, on account of the expense of the mission ; I 
 have the letter of Mr. Hankey, renouncing the grant ; the Wesleyan 
 Missionary Society applied for a similar grant, but I do not remember 
 the result. 
 
 This was the case for the prosecution, at the close of which the 
 Court adjourned for a few minutes. 
 
488 APPENDIX. 
 
 As soon as the Court had again met, Dr. Lang commenced his reply, 
 hy observing, — 
 
 That he had to apologise to His Honour, and to the gentlemen of the 
 legal profession generally, for appearing personally in this case, instead 
 of availing himself of the services of counsel. He had not done so from 
 any want of confidence in the abilities of the gentlemen of the Bar, much 
 less from any distrust of their uprightness. But as the case appeared to 
 him to be very much out of the ordinary course of legal proceedings ; as 
 it involved the character of several Ministers of religion in this colony > 
 as it was intimately connected with the interests of Christian missions ; 
 and as it bore upon the character of the first grand effort that was 
 ever made in behalf of the Aborigines of this territory; he had felt him- 
 self constrained not to leave it in the hands of any gentleman, however 
 talented and upright, who would be likely to treat it as a mere matter of 
 law— he had felt himself compelled to plead in person. In short, the 
 motive by which he was actuated, was the one embodied in the maxim, 
 " Ne respublica Christiana capiat detrimentum ;" — lest the interests of 
 the Christian religion should otherwise be compromised. 
 
 He was aware it had bc-en insinuated that his only motive in coming 
 before that Honourable Court in person was a mere desire of display— a 
 mere itching for an opportunity of speaking in public. He begged, how- 
 ever, to meet every such insinuation with a flat and peremptory denial. 
 His Honour might not be aware of the fact, but many gentlemen present 
 were, that no man in the colony had been more traduced and libelled by 
 the public press for many years past than himself; and that, conse- 
 quently, if he had been desirous of figuring in that Honourable Court on 
 a subject so comparatively insignificant as himself, he might have had an 
 opportunity of doing so, by instituting actions for libel, almost every 
 term. But during the whole thirteen years he had been resident in the 
 colony, he had never brought any such action against any individual what- 
 ever. God forbid that he should ever prosecute any man for merely libelling 
 him ! God forbid that his reputation, as a minister of religion, should ever 
 fall so low that he should require to ask for a certificate of character in a 
 court of law ! The Master whom he had served had been publicly desig- 
 nated a glutton and a winebibber, a Samaritan and a devil — the worst words 
 in the Jewish vocabulary ; and he was well aware, that the more honestly 
 any of his servants endeavoured to tread in his footsteps, both by embracing 
 every opportunity of doing good to his fellow-men, and by expressing 
 his candid opinion of those who were sacrificing the best interests of the 
 community under the pretence of religion, the more certainly would he 
 meet with precisely similar treatment at the hands of unprincipled men. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 489 
 
 But the Divine Author of our holy religion instituted no actions for libel, 
 and neither would any of his professed followers, if at all actuated by his 
 spirit, and desirous of following his example. The plaintiff in this case, 
 doubtless, professed to come into Court in the character of a minister of 
 religion — of a minister of religion possessed, forsooth, of such apostolic 
 zeal as to carry him beyond the bounds of civilized society, and to make 
 him devote all his energies both of body and mind to the Christianization 
 and civilization of the wretched Aborigines of Australia. The plaintiff, 
 he repeated, had come into Court with a prosecution for alleged libel, 
 simply because he had been accused of an injudicious and extravagant 
 expenditure of the public money as a Missionary to the Aborigines, and 
 of having thereby compromised and ruined the cause he professed to 
 advocate and defend ! Why, as a minister of religion, he would ask no 
 better presumptive evidence of the truth of the accusations against this 
 individual in the articles alleged as libellous, than the fact of his having 
 instituted such an action. It was evident at all events from such pro- 
 cedure, that he was no follower of the Master he professed to serve. If 
 he had, he would have shrunk from the apostolic interrogatory, " Dare 
 any of you go to law 1 " He would have found that there were other ways 
 and means, open to a minister of religion, for the vindication of his 
 injured character than that of instituting an action for libel. 
 
 He was desirous, however, that he should not be misunderstood in 
 these observations. He would be sorry to attempt to shelter himself 
 from the just punishment due for inflicting an injury on the plaintiff, by 
 pleading the plaintiffs incompetence as a Christian man and a Christian 
 Missionary, by asking reparation for such injury in a Court of law. If he had 
 done the plaintiff wrong, he was ready to suffer for that wrong. He only 
 mentioned the circumstance, to show that there must have been some- 
 thing grievously wrong with the man as a professed Christian Missionary 
 all along ; for if there had not, he would have acted the part of a Chris- 
 tian Missionary on the present occasion, in regard to this alleged attack 
 upon his character ; and instead of coming to that Honourable Court to 
 have his character rectified, he would have remembered the divine in- 
 junction, ** Commit thy way unto the Lord ; trust also in him ; and he 
 shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the 
 noon-day." He was truly sorry, however, — he was absolutely ashamed 
 to find a professed minister of religion, nay, a professed Missionary to 
 the Aborigines, who must be supposed a much more apostolic character 
 than a common minister of religion, appealing not to the Scriptures — that 
 last Court of Appeal for all genuine Protestants — but to the law. It 
 reminded him of those dark and gloomy days when ministers of reli- 
 
490 APPENDIX. 
 
 gion were accustomed, for lack of argument, to call in the secular arm, 
 and to appeal to the justice of the Holy Inquisition. 
 
 He felt it necessary to establish this principle — the incompetency of 
 a minister of religion to prosecute for libel — on general grounds, as well 
 as in regard to this particular case. A minister of religion had doubtless 
 an equal right with any other subject of the realm to claim the protection 
 of the law, when his character was attacked through the press ; but the 
 moment a man stood forth before the public as a minister of the religion 
 of Jesus Christ, he renounced all such right; and it was thenceforth as 
 incongruous for him to prosecute for libel, when his character was as- 
 sailed through the press, as it would be to fight a duel. This was the 
 principle on which he had uniformly acted himself in this colony, when 
 traduced and libelled by the public press. It was the principle on which 
 he had uniformly acted years before he had ever had the slightest expect- 
 ation of having any control over any portion of that press himself; 
 and it was the principle on which he was determined to act for the 
 future. 
 
 But independently altogether of this ground of disqualification, the 
 plaintiff had disqualified himself for bringing any such action as the 
 present in another way. At an early stage of his history as a Missionary 
 to the Aborigines, the plaintiffs procedure in that capacity had been 
 called in question, and his expenditure of the funds of the Society he 
 belonged to found fault with as extravagant and enormous. The Rev. 
 Mr. Marsden, as agent of the Society, had refused to sanction his bills ; 
 the Directors had refused to pay them, and they were consequently 
 returned to the colony dishonoured and protested — a circumstance which 
 had given rise to legal proceedings in the Supreme Court. In these cir- 
 cumstances the plaintiff had appealed to the public— he had appealed 
 from the alleged injustice of the Society's agent in the colony, and of the 
 Directors in London, through the press ; having published a pamphlet 
 in Sydney, in which he reflected in the most unmeasured language both 
 on the Rev. Mr. Marsden and on the Directors. Now it was a principle 
 acknowledged in the Court of Criticism, that when a man appealed to the 
 public through the press, he precluded himself from all right to appeal to 
 the law. But here was a minister of religion, who ought never to have 
 prosecuted for libel at all, appealing to the law for the vindication of his 
 character after having appealed to the press! The press was quite as 
 open to him now, as it was on the occasion he referred to ; why then did 
 he not adopt the same course? He had thrown his whole case upon the 
 press then, and submitted it to the judgment of his country ; why did he 
 now shrink from the same court of appeal, and appeal to the law ? 
 
APPENDIX. 491 
 
 As to the motives which had induced him to write the articles on 
 Missions to the Aborigines, which the plaintiff held to be libellous, they 
 had been greatly mis-stated by the learned Solicitor-General ; and as soon 
 as he had stated these motives, the jury would see that he had not gone out 
 of his way to libel the plaintiff, nor had taken up his case unnecessarily. 
 
 It was well known that he had written a good deal for the press 
 during the last few years. He had published three volumes, chiefly 
 relating to the colony, when last in England; and since his return to the 
 colony, he had also written occasionally for publication ; but in both 
 cases his sole object in so writing was the furtherance and advancement 
 of the intellectual, the moral, and the spiritual welfare of his adopted 
 country. Now it was natural above all things for a writer on this colony 
 to advert to the state and circumstances of its aboriginal inhabitants, 
 and especially to point out whatever had been attempted, either by 
 the Government or by private religious associations, to improve their 
 character and to ameliorate their condition. 
 
 But another circumstance had induced him to take up the subject of 
 the Aborigines at the time when the articles alleged to be libellous were 
 published. When in London, in the year 1834, Mr. Buxton, with whom 
 he had the honour to be acquainted, had informed him of his intention to 
 move for the appointment of a Select Committee of the House of Com- 
 mons, to ascertain the circumstances and condition of the aboriginal 
 inhabitants of all the colonies of the empire. Mr. Buxton had also 
 requested him to remain in England, to be examined by the Committee 
 on the subject of the Aborigines of this colony ; and when the appoint- 
 ment of that Committee had to be deferred in consequence of ministerial 
 changes, he had requested him to write him a letter on the subject, which 
 he told him he would cause to be printed in the Committee's Report. 
 He had subsequently written Mr. Buxton such a letter as he desired ; 
 and at the period when the subject of the Aborigines was taken up for 
 discussion in 'The Colonist' newspaper, information had just arrived 
 in the colony, of the appointment of Mr. Buxton's Commjttee, and of its 
 having actually proceeded to business. The object of that Committee 
 would appear from the following title of the Minutes of Evidence taken 
 before it, as extracted from a recent number of ' The South African 
 Commercial Advertiser,' in which numerous extracts from the evidence 
 had been lately published :— 
 
 " Minutes of evidence taken before the Select Committee appointed to 
 consider what measures ought to be adopted with regard to the native 
 inhabitants of countries where British settlements are made, and to the 
 neighbouring tribes, in order to secure to them the due observance of 
 
492 APPENDIX. 
 
 justice and the protection of their rights, to promote the spread of civi- 
 lization among them, and to lead them to the peaceful and voluntary 
 reception of the Christian religion." 
 
 Now feeling assured that the appointment of this Parliamentary Com- 
 mittee would very soon lead to the adoption of vigorous measures, on 
 the part of Government, for the protection of the Aborigines of the terri- 
 tory, as well as for their Christianization and civilization, he conceived it 
 was both expedient and necessary, previous to the actual adoption of 
 any such measures, to put the colonial public in possession of the facts, 
 as to what efforts had already been made on behalf of the Aborigines, either 
 by the Government or by religious societies ; or, in other words, to give 
 an historical account of such Missions as had been actually undertaken 
 to the Aborigiues, or of such Institutions as had been formed in the 
 colorty for their intellectual and moral advancement. That this was the 
 real object of the articles alleged as libellous, that the plaintiff's case 
 was taken up in these articles as a matter of history and as a matter of 
 course, and that he had not gone out of his way to make a libellous attack 
 upon him, would be evident beyond a doubt, both to his Honour and to 
 the gentlemen of the Jury, from the following extract, which he would 
 read from the introductory parts of the articles : — 
 
 " It is scarcely possible to contemplate the wretched condition of the 
 Aborigines of this colony, in connexion with their various opportunities 
 of improvement during the last forty years, without being irresistibly 
 impelled to the melancholy conclusion, that in the wise but mysterious 
 arrangements of Divine Providence, they have been consigned to a 
 process of gradual deterioration and ultimate extinction before the 
 overwhelming progress of European colonization. Such indeed appears 
 to be the usual and perhaps unavoidable consequence of the European 
 occupation of any country thinly inhabited by uncivilized tribes. For 
 savage and uncivilized man is of all animals the most untractable and the 
 most difficult to be tamed ; and the usual result of his coming in contact 
 with the civilized portion of his species is not certainly his gradual 
 adoption of the habits of civilization, but rather his speedy extinction. 
 European vice and European disease gradually thin the ranks of the 
 wretched Aborigines ; and they speedily disappear from the haunts of 
 their forefathers, like the snow from the southern mountains at the 
 return of spring. The Caribs have long since been extinct in the West 
 India Islands. The North American Indians have almost entirely dis- 
 appeared from the settlements of New England. And the black Abori- 
 gines of the various islands of the Great Eastern Archipelago have, 
 except in a few instances, perished before the superior skill and prowess 
 
APPENDIX. 493 
 
 of the half-civilized Malay. In all these instances war has doubtless 
 slain her thousands, but intemperance and the other vices of civilized 
 life have slain their ten thousands. 
 
 " But is the colonist of New South Wales to remain inactive in reference 
 to the black natives, under the self-complacent idea, that they are con- 
 signed by Divine Providence to hopeless barbarism and speedy extinc- 
 tion ? Nay, is he not personally accountable, in some degree at least, for 
 their present degeneracy, and for their progressive extermination? And 
 is he not bound, therefore, to endeavour, if possible, to improve their 
 condition, and to avert their otherwise inevitable doom ? We have taken 
 possession of their country, and deprived them in great measure of their 
 means of subsistence ; shall we not then endeavour to make them some 
 compensation for the injuries they have sustained at our hands? We 
 have introduced among them a moral pestilence, unknown to their former 
 generations ; shall we not then make some effort to stay the plague by 
 endeavouring to supply them with the antidote of religion? 
 
 " The treatment of an uncivilized people by a civilized and Christian 
 nation, who have invaded and occupied and monopolized their territory, 
 and under whose long-continued and systematic aggressions they have 
 been exterminated in one colony, and reduced to a mere skeleton of what 
 they once were in all the inhabited districts of another, is a subject that 
 ought to occupy the first place in a colonial periodical professing to 
 treat of ' Colonial Politics.' And if any department of that general 
 subject is of more importance than another, it is surely that which relates 
 to the efforts which have been made either by the Government, or by 
 private religious societies, for the Christianization and civilization of so un- 
 happy a people. The honour of the British nation, as the grand colonizing 
 nation of modern times, is deeply concerned in this question ; and every 
 individual of that nation who sits his foot on these shores, has conse- 
 quently an undoubted right to ask, * What has been done for the Black 
 Natives of this territory? ' and if it should turn out from the answer he 
 receives to this question, that whatever has been done hitherto has only 
 proved a failure, he has a further right to ask • the reason why.' Now 
 as we had recently occasion to notice a motion which had been made in 
 the House of Commons by T. F. Buxton, Esq., M. P.., in regard to the 
 actual condition of the Aborigines of all the colonies of the empire, we 
 felt ourselves bound in our editorial capacity to take up these questions 
 seriatim, and to treat the subjects they refer to as a matter of colonial 
 history." 
 
 After these introductory observations, the articles in question pro- 
 ceeded to describe the first effort which had ever been made on behalf of 
 
4134 APPENDIX. 
 
 the Aborigines. That effort was made by the late Governor Macquarie, 
 from whom a despatch, exhibiting His Excellency's views on the sub- 
 ject to Earl Bathurst, together with two very long letters to His Excel- 
 lency from the Rev. Mr. Cartwright, of Liverpool, was inserted in the 
 first of the four articles on the subject of the Aborigines ; the account of 
 Governor Macquarie's effort on behalf of the Aborigines occupying not 
 less than six columns of the paper. That account concluded in the fol- 
 lowing manner : — 
 
 " The public are aware that the Institution at Black Town, after pro- 
 mising well for a short time, completely failed. We believe we shall be 
 thought somewhat singular in our mode of accounting for that failure ; 
 but we have no hesitation in avowing our opinion, that it rose chiefly 
 from its being the primary, if not the sole, object of the Institution to 
 civilize the natives ; and from its not giving sufficient prominence to re- 
 ligious instruction, as one of the means, and, in our opinion, the only 
 means adequate to the accomplishment of so desirable an end. In 
 reference to the very important question which this subject involves, 
 we hold, in opposition to the unfounded dogmas of certain modern philo- 
 sophers, but in direct accordance with the dictates of revelation, and the 
 voice of universal history, that the original stbte of man was not. that of a 
 savage, but, on the contrary, one of comparative civilization — a state in 
 which he possessed the knowledge of God, and was divinely instructed 
 in a pure and holy religion. For if we institute an inquiry into the 
 ancient nations of India on the one hand, and of" Greece on the other, we 
 shall find that the higher we go, the religious system of both these 
 idolatrous countries was the more simple, and the more pure, and the 
 more conformable to reason and truth. Now, in conformity to this incon- 
 testably accurate view of the past history of man, we hold also that it is 
 only in consequence of his apostacy from God, and from the pure and 
 holy religion of primeval antiquity, that man has in any instance become 
 a savage, or fallen from his natural and original state of comparative civi- 
 lization ; and, consequently, that the only rational and the only efficient 
 mode of restoring a savage to that primeval state is to instruct him in 
 the knowledge of God, and to captivate his heart and his understanding 
 with the truths of revelation. A mission to the Aborigines, having this 
 object professedly in view, may doubtless be unskilfully managed, and 
 may be undertaken by men who have other things at heart than the 
 spiritual and eternal welfare of these children of the forest. Still how- 
 ever, notwithstanding the ridicule that such sentiments are likely to call 
 forth, from those who consider themselves exceedingly wise in these 
 matters, we maintain, that the establishment of a mission to the Abori- 
 
APPENDIX. 495 
 
 gines is the only rational mode of attempting to civilize them ; that their 
 civilization will remain utterly hopeless till their conversion to Chris- 
 tianity ; that their moral and intellectual darkness will never he dis- 
 pelled but by the marvellous light of the Gospel. We acknowledge, 
 indeed, that the Christianization of the Aborigines is an event of which 
 we have hitherto had no reason to entertain sanguine expectations. But 
 perhaps we should cease to regard it much longer as either impossible 
 or impracticable, if some zealous missionary were found willing to 
 conform to their wandering habits for a time, in order to gain access 
 to their understandings and their hearts ; following them as they skim 
 along the surface of the solitary lake in their bark canoes, or hunt 
 the bandicoots and opossums in the depths of the forest, or sing the 
 artless songs of their tribe by their evening fires, or mimic the gambols 
 of the elegant kangaroo in their merry corrobories. And surely the 
 deadly climates of Sierra Leone and the Indies, the fierce intolerance of 
 the Persian Mussulman, and the savage propensities of the cannibal of 
 New Zealand, present far more formidable difficulties to the Christian 
 Missionary, than any he is likely to encounter among the artless Ab- 
 origines of New South Wales, in the salubrious climate of Australia." 
 
 Now he would put it to His Honour and to the gentlemen of the 
 jury, whether this could possibly be the language of a man who was not 
 sincerely desirous of promoting the best interests of the Aborigines, or 
 who had taken up their cause merely for the purpose of venting personal 
 animosities against any individual whatever. 
 
 The second chapter, as it might be called, in this history of Missions 
 to the Aborigines, gave an account of the Mission undertaken by the 
 Wesleyan Missionary Society, and conducted by the Rev. William 
 Walker, of that Society. The following is the account which was given, 
 in the articles in question, of that Mission : — 
 
 " The first mission to the Aborigines, which was actually established 
 (for Governor Macquarie's good intentions respecting them were never 
 carried into effect), was projected by the Wesleyan Board of Missions, 
 at the instance of the Rev. Samuel Leigh, a zealous and indefatigable 
 missionary of that communion, who had undergone considerable hard- 
 ships among the lower orders of the white population of this colony. 
 The Rev. William Walker, a young man of great vivacity of disposition, 
 of considerable eccentricity of manner, and apparently of apostolic zeal, 
 was selected by the Wesleyan Society as their first missionary to the 
 Aborigines. The work for which Mr. W. was destined required neither 
 supereminent abilities nor splendid acquirements ; but in both of these 
 
496 APPENDIX. 
 
 particulars he was, perhaps, sufficiently qualified, and he was furnished 
 with such books as were likely to be of use to him in acquiring a bar- 
 barous and unwritten tongue. The main requisites for his office were 
 undoubtedly a sincere desire for the spiritual welfare of the Aborigines, 
 an elevation of soul that would enable its possessor to look with in- 
 difference on the money-making pursuits of an avaricious generation, a 
 constitution capable of sustaining both fatigue and privations, and a 
 spirit of indomitable perseverance. Mr. W.'s qualifications in all these 
 important respects were estimated very highly by his friends, and san- 
 guine expectations were entertained, by himself at least, of his speedy 
 and complete success. For on some persons remarking to him, shortly 
 after his landing, that he had embarked in a very arduous undertaking, 
 and had very unpromising subjects to cope with, he replied, with an air 
 of confidence, ' O, I will either convert them, or they will convert me.' 
 It is scarcely necessary to inform the colonial public, which term of this 
 singular alternative has been actually realized. The natives unfortu- 
 nately are still precisely in the same state in which they were found by 
 the zealous missionary ; but, alas ! the Rev. Mr. Walker has, agreeably 
 to his own prediction, been converted (we presume by these worthy 
 natives, Cogie, Bungary, Terribalong, &c.) into a settler of the fifth or 
 sixth magnitude, in this money-making colony ! ' O, what a falling oft' 
 was there ! ' 
 
 "A different result, we must acknowledge, was for some time anticipated 
 by Mr. Walker's friends; and that anticipation, we deem it but right to 
 add, was founded chiefly on his own representations. Shortly after his 
 arrival in the colony, in the year 1821, Mr. Walker visited the institu- 
 tion at Black Town, and, if we are not misinformed, subsequently resided 
 for some time at that settlement. From his own letter, published in 
 ' The Australian Magazine ' for 1822 or 1823, a short-lived colonial 
 periodical, long since defunct, his reception appears to have been equally 
 warm and encouraging— in short, every thing that a Missionary could 
 have wished. ' On Sunday the 7th instant (the Rev. Gentleman 
 writes), the inexpressible gratification was afforded me of paying a visit 
 to the settlement of the Aborigines. * * * Having brought some clothes 
 with me, I distributed four gowns to the females, four pair of trowsers to 
 the men, and one frock to a little baby. These small presents were 
 received with those expressions of gratitude, which have made an 
 indelible impression on my mind, of their capability to receive instruc- 
 tion, and of adorning any or every station in civilized life.' Mr. W. 
 subsequently, as he tells us, ' perambulated the wood, whilst the poor 
 
APPENDIX. 497 
 
 Aborigines were left to their own cogitations and discourse. On our 
 return we received such a welcome as will ever redound to the sensi- 
 bilities of their minds. The Lystrians (Acts xiv.) were not more bent 
 upon acts of benevolence and beneficence. Their week's supply of food 
 produced, as it were, instantaneously to satisfy, what, they conceived, 
 the calls of nature. In fact, I may use the language of the Apostle, and 
 say, • I bear them record, that, if it had been possible, they would have 
 plucked out their own eyes and given them to me.' — Gal. iv. 15. I 
 could easily adduce facts to substantiate these assertions. Facts are 
 stubborn things ! * * * There is an open field for British beneficence. 
 Shall those who can say, ' Am I not a man and a brother,' be destitute 
 of our assistance ? Shall we not render those poor creatures some equi- 
 valent for the vast territory of this land which we occupy? Every reader's 
 heart, I feel confident, rebounds with, What can I do? When can 1 do 
 something? I answer, Do all you can, and do it immediately. Now is the 
 accepted time. In conclusion, let me add, I have only presented a very 
 brief epitome to our readers of the pleasing visit. I left them with a 
 consciousness of having never been favoured with a more profitable or 
 serious season during my ministerial career. The number was thirteen ; 
 and all were agreed that, if I could tell them when my next visit would 
 be paid, all their tribes would be in attendance. Moreover, I was 
 assured by their unanimous voice, that were the above encouragement (a 
 few clothes, agricultural implements, and a temporary supply of food) 
 afforded, their respective tribes would immediately form themselves into a 
 settlement.' 
 
 " The world we live in is doubtless a scene of most mortifying disappoint- 
 ment. Who, for instance, could have expected that the writer of these 
 ' elegant extracts,' (taking it for granted, all the while, that they exhibited 
 the truth, and nothing but the truth,) that the kind-hearted, humane, 
 zealous friend of the Aborigines would desert the cause he had so elo- 
 quently pleaded, and the congregation that clung to him with such ardent 
 affection ! We speak not of his duty as a Christian and a Missionary, 
 when we reprobate such desertion, as we cannot help doing in passing ; 
 we merely ask, Where were his feelings as a man 1 " 
 
 Now it was evident from these passages, that if the plaintiff had 
 been libelled in the articles in question, he was not the only person who 
 had been so. Mr. Walker had a prior right to prosecute for libel, as it 
 was evident he too had been somewhat roughly handled, in regard to his 
 mode of managing the W r esleyan Mission to the Aborigines, even before 
 the plaintiff's case had been taken up at all. But it was equally evident 
 
498 APPENDIX. 
 
 from these passages that both the one case and the other had been taken 
 up solely on public grounds, and that, in doing so, the parties interested 
 had been weighed impartially in the balance of history. Mr. Walker 
 indeed was too sensible a man to institute an action for libel for any thing 
 of the kind. He was doubtless conscious that he had got nothing more 
 than what he richly deserved, and he was right therefore in taking it 
 patiently. 
 
 The third chapter, as it might be called, in the history of Missions 
 to the Aborigines, was the one relating to the mission in which the 
 plaintiff had been concerned— the mission undertaken under the auspices, 
 and at the expense, of the London Missionary Society. The history of 
 that Mission is introduced, in the articles alleged as libellous, with the 
 following observations : — 
 
 " The next person who appears in the annals of the colony as a Mis- 
 sionary to the Aborigines, is the Rev, L. E. Threlkeld, of the London 
 Missionary Society. Towards the close of the year 1825, the Rev. 
 Daniel Tyerman and George Bennet, Esq., arrived in this colony from 
 Tahiti and the South Sea Islands, to which they bad been sent in the 
 year 1821, as a deputation, to inquire into the state of the missions in 
 these islands, by the London Missionary Society. During their residence 
 in this colony, the state of the wretched Aborigines of New South Wales 
 was brought repeatedly under the notice of these gentlemen, as well as 
 under that of His Excellency Sir Thomas Brisbane, by Saxe Bannister, 
 Esq., who was then Attorney-General of New South Wales, and whose 
 slender abilities as a lawyer were perhaps more than counterbalanced 
 by his warm and active benevolence as the friend and advocate of injured 
 and oppressed humanity. At the suggestion of Mr. Bannister, the depu- 
 tation agreed to establish a missionary to the Aborigines of this territory ; 
 and in order to the successful accomplishment of so important an object, 
 His Excellency Sir Thomas Brisbane granted to the London Missionary 
 Society, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
 ten thousand acres of land, in whatever part of the unlocated territory of 
 the colony the directors might think proper to make a selection to that 
 extent, for the establishment of a mission to the Aborigines." 
 
 These preliminary observations were then followed by a copy of the 
 deed of grant to the London Missionary Society, by an account of a 
 similar grant given for similar purposes to the Church Missionary 
 Society, and by certain correspondence with the Secretary of State for 
 the Colonies ; from which it appeared that the faith of Government had 
 been pledged to make a similar grant to the Wesleyan Missionary 
 
APPENDIX. 499 
 
 Society, provided the other two should be found to prove conducive 
 towards the attainment of their common object, the Christianization and 
 civilization of the wretched Aborigines. 
 
 Having thus shown in what manner the case of the plaintiff as a 
 Missionary to the Aborigines had been taken up, in the articles alleged 
 as libellous, he would now read and make a few explanatory ob- 
 servations on those passages in these articles on which the plaintiff had 
 been pleased to put a libellous construction.— The first of these passages 
 was the following : — 
 
 " On proceeding to his station, Mr. Threlkeld was furnished by the 
 deputation with a carte blanche, authorising him to draw upon the Di- 
 rectors of the London Missionary Society for whatever sums might be 
 indispensably necessary for the establishment of the mission. And as 
 nothing further could possibly have been required for that purpose, 
 especially at the outset of the undertaking, than was necessary for the 
 formation of an agricultural or grazing establishment, the deputation had 
 a right to expect that Mr. Threlkeld's wants would be comparatively 
 few, and his demands on the Society correspondingly limited. In fact, 
 all he had to provide for, in the first instance, was the erection of a 
 bush-house, and the clearing and cultivating of a few acres of land ; 
 and as the services of three or four convict servants, to be rationed by 
 the Government, could have been procured for the mission at the 
 period of its commencement with the utmost facility, the expenditure 
 absolutely necessary for its establishment and maintenance ought to have 
 been comparatively small. In short, when we think of the extremely 
 limited means with which many individuals of undoubted respectability, 
 and of superior education, were enabled, about the period we refer to, 
 to establish themselves in the bush in this colony, we are confident we 
 make a most ample allowance for Mr. Threlkeld, when we give it as our 
 decided opinion, that with ,£500 of original outlay, and a salary of 
 <£ 100 or at most ,£ 150 per annum thereafter, the London Missionary 
 Society's proposed mission to the Aborigines ought to have been suc- 
 cessfully established and permanently maintained. We appeal for the 
 correctness of this statement to every settler of eight or ten years' 
 standing in the colony. We know the country well, and we know also 
 how very little many respectable men, who have since made themselves 
 independent in the colony, had to expend in those days : and, taking 
 into consideration, moreover, the manner in which the Society's funds 
 are for the most part collected, viz. — by penny-a-week subscriptions from 
 persons of the humbler classes of society in Great Britain and Ireland, 
 by the hard-earned but freely contributed donations of the virtuous 
 
500 APPENDIX. 
 
 servant-girl, and by the Christian widow's accumulated mite, we have no 
 hesitation in adding, that the man who could expend more than the sum 
 we have mentioned, in establishing a mission to the black natives, or ask 
 a larger salary thereafter than the one we have represented as sufficient, 
 must have been utterly unfit for the office assigned him. 
 
 " What then will the public think, when we inform them, that, during 
 the period of two years and a half from the commencement of the mission 
 to the Aborigines, Mr. Threlkeld managed to expend upwards of two 
 thousand seven hundred pounds sterling of the funds of the London 
 Missionary Society, for the establishment of that mission ; and that 
 because the Rev. Mr. Marsden, who was then the agent of the Society in 
 New South Wales, would not allow him to draw upon the Society for a 
 permanent salary of £ 500 per annum, as he considered ,£300 a year, 
 which he offered to allow him, was amply sufficient for the purpose, the 
 zealous Missionary left the settlement at Lake Macquarie, on which so 
 vast an expenditure of public money had been incurred by his own 
 orders altogether, and came to Sydney with his family, to get up a 
 pamphlet of crimination, forsooth, against the Rev. Mr. Marsden, re- 
 presenting himself as a deeply injured and persecuted man." 
 
 Now he would show His Honour and the gentlemen of the jury, that 
 although the plaintiff, in a letter to which he would have occasion to 
 advert afterwards, had been pleased to characterize the statements he 
 had made in this passage, relative to the expenditure of the mission, as 
 a " malicious misrepresentation" and a " wilful falsehood," they were 
 not only substantially but literally correct. As to the carte blanche which 
 had been given the plaintiff to draw upon the funds of the London 
 Missionary Society, it was given explicitly enough in the following 
 passages of the letter of instruction, which the deputation had written 
 the plaintiff, of date, Sydney, February 24, 1825, a copy of which is 
 given in the plaintiff's own pamphlet — 
 
 " You will use your best endeavours to erect a suitable residence on 
 some appropriate spot within the limits of the land which has been 
 given. As to the best means of building such a house, this will be left 
 to your own discretion ; the funds of the Society being responsible for the 
 expenses, you will see it necessary to use all the economy which is con- 
 sistent with domestic convenience and comfort. 
 
 " As to the means of subsisting yourself and family, it must be left to 
 your own discretion. Assured that you will use all the economy which 
 is consistent with your domestic comfort, we pledge the funds of the Society 
 for your support, and authorise you to draw upon the Treasurer for such sums 
 from time to time as may be necessary ; at the same time, we request that, 
 
APPENDIX. 501 
 
 so soon as you can ascertain what sum will be equal to your annual 
 support, you will name it to the Society at home, persuaded that a fixed 
 annual salary will be more agreeable to all parties." 
 
 In reference to these instructions, it was worthy of remark, that, in the 
 plaintiffs pamphlet, the clauses pledging the funds of the Society were 
 given in Italics, to make the thing conspicuous to the reader, while the 
 clauses enjoining economy were allowed to remain in the old Roman 
 character. As to the expense required for the organization and the sub- 
 sequent maintenance of a mission to the Aborigines, he could not con- 
 ceive what else was necessary for such a purpose than was required for 
 the formation of a common agricultural or grazing establishment. A 
 house would require to be erected, and a few acres of ground cleared and 
 fenced and cultivated, and a family supported till some produce could be 
 obtained from the land. And he was confident— he appealed to men of 
 experience, who would bear him out in the assertion, when he appealed 
 to the gentlemen of the jury, as to whether they had not known many 
 respectable individuals who had done all this in the bush in this colony 
 for much less in the way of original outlay than of 500, and who had to 
 draw their entire subsistence from the soil thereafter, instead of re- 
 ceiving a yearly salary of .,£150, which he had allowed the Missionary to 
 the Aborigines. In regard to the time in which he had alleged the 
 plaintiff had expended upwards of ^£2700 for the formation of the 
 Aboriginal Mission, viz., two years and a half, he appealed for the truth 
 of that statement to the plaintiffs own printed pamphlet. At the close 
 of that pamphlet there was a summary of the plaintiffs expenditure for 
 that Mission from June 4, 1824, to September 21, 1827 ; the sum total 
 expended during that period being ^£2734 14s. 9\d. But on the 4th 
 of June, 1824, the plaintiff was in Raiatea, one of the South Sea Islands, 
 and did not arrive in this colony, on his way to England, till the 19th of 
 August following j and it was three or four months thereafter before the 
 Mission to the Aborigines was even thought of. On the 7th of January, 
 1825, the plaintiff went to Newcastle with Messrs. Bennet and Tyerman ; 
 returning to Sydney on the 19th, without visiting the future station for 
 the Mission at all. In the month of March following, he proceeded to 
 Newcastle a second time, and got as far as Lake Macquarie ; but it was 
 actually the 7th of May, 1825, ere he finally left Sydney with his family 
 and establishment to form the Mission to the Aborigines. Deducting 
 therefore the sum of ,£"30 charged by the plaintiff for his passage from 
 Raiatea and incidental expenses ; and allowing ,.£4 14s. 9\d. for his ex- 
 penses in visiting Newcastle in January 1825, there remained an ex- 
 penditure of ,£2700 incurred, on the plaintiff's own showing, on account 
 
502 APPENDIX. 
 
 of the Aboriginal Mission, from the middle of March, 1825, to the middle 
 of September, 1827, that is, exactly two years and a half. Incredible as 
 it might appear to- people residing in this colony, the plaintiff had 
 actually incurred, on his own showing, for the establishment of his 
 Mission to the Aborigines, an expenditure of £? 1080 a year for two years 
 and a half! And from whose funds, he would ask the gentlemen of the 
 jury, was this enormous expenditure derived 1 Not from the public 
 treasury of New South Wales, replenished as that treasury is, ever and 
 anon, by the rum-sellers and the rum-drinkers of this colony ; but from 
 the penny-a-week subscriptions of the poor but virtuous English servant- 
 girl, of the Christian and charitable workers in cotton-mills and other 
 unhealthy establishments, of the poor widow and the little child, who were 
 both encouraged and invited to cast in their mite, for the propagation of 
 the Gospel among the heathen, into the treasury of the Lord ! It was 
 from such a source as this that the plaintiff could incur the heartless 
 and enormous expenditure of ,,£1080 a year for two years and a half! 
 
 As to the purposes for which this vast expenditure had been incurred, 
 without going over the accounts particularly, he would only advert to a 
 single item in these accounts — the item of tobacco ! In one part of these 
 precious accounts, a keg of tobacco, partly for the Blacks, is charged to 
 the Society at ^30 15s. ! In another, tobacco for the Aborigines forms 
 one of a list of sundries, amounting altogether to £69 2s. 5d. ! And in a 
 statement of the probable annual expense of the Mission for the future, 
 —which the plaintiff estimated -at the very least at ^500 a year,— two 
 shillings a day, or ,£36 10s. a year, is the sum charged for tobacco ! 
 Now, who ever heard of a Minister or a Missionary teaching his people 
 to smoke or chew tobacco 1 The apostle Paul had to preach to Barbarians 
 and Scythians, as well as to the polished Greek and the lordly Roman ; 
 but who ever heard of his teaching any of these classes to smoke tobacco 1 
 He knew it would be said in reply, that it was necessary to give the 
 natives tobacco to get them to work: but the use of tobacco leads di- 
 rectly to the use of strong drink, and the use of strong drink to crime, 
 transportation, and ignominious death ; and was either a Minister or a 
 Missionary justified in doing evil in any instance that good might come 1 
 
 But the fact was, the plaintiff had entirely mistaken both his duty and 
 the nature of his employment as a Missionary to the Aborigines. He 
 had gone about, in direct opposition to the express instructions of his 
 constituents, to found a colony, instead of establishing a Mission ; and 
 he had consequently incurred the enormous expenditure he had been 
 reprobating, for purposes that were in no way connected with the 
 Christianization of the Aborigines. The object of the London Missionary 
 
APPENDIX. 503 
 
 Society was not to found a colony, but to preach the Gospel, to dis- 
 seminate Christian knowledge among the heathen ; and in the pursuit of 
 that grand object the Christian Missionary was to go forth into the 
 forests of Australia, with exactly the same weapons in his hand as the 
 Holy Apostles had wielded of old, and trusting for his success to the 
 same mighty, or rather almighty, power, to which alone they had trusted 
 when they went forth, with the everlasting Gospel in their hands, into 
 the porticos of Athens and the capitol of Rome. 
 
 The learned Solicitor-General had alleged that the plaintiff had never 
 charged more than ^180 or ,,£200 a year for his own personal expenses ; 
 the other expenses being what he calls the expenses of the Mission. 
 But for the first year, or rather for the six weeks that elapsed from the 
 7th of May, 1825, when the plaintiff finally left Sydney for Newcastle, 
 to the 21st of June, or the month following, he found ,^322 8s. Jjd. 
 charged for personal expenses, in addition to of 150 19s. lOd. for house- 
 hold furniture, and ,,£24 12s. Sid. for medicine ! There was doubtless 
 board and lodging in Sydney to be paid for out of this amount for a few 
 months previous to the 7th of May, 1825 ; but the sum total was exactly 
 as he had stated it, and that sum he had no hesitation in characterising 
 as extravagant and enormous. 
 
 In regard to the plaintiff's estimate, as to o £500 per annum being the 
 sum indispensably necessary for conducting the mission, while the Rev. 
 Mr. Marsden would allow him only ,£300, the plaintiff's own statement 
 in his own precious pamphlet w r as surely sufficient authority. " I can 
 only state the fact," observes the plaintiff, in a letter to the Directors, of 
 date, 31st October, 1826, " that it is impossible to be conducted under 
 five hundred pounds sterling per annum at present, and that the decrease 
 will not be, for years to come, of great importance." And again, " I met 
 Mr. Marsden at a friend's, where a statement was shown him of the 
 expenditure, and, to the best of my reeollection, no fault was found with 
 it, only Mr. Marsden thought to allow me o£300 a year, &c." 
 
 The following extracts of letters addressed to the plaintiff by the 
 Directors of the London Missionary Society, would evince the opinion 
 that was entertained of the plaintiff's expenditure by his own con- 
 stituents. The first of these extracts was from a letter, dated Mission 
 House, Austin Friars, London, March 2, 1826, when the plaintiff had 
 drawn only ,£750. 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " We wrote you at considerable length, under date the 29th August 
 last. Our letter was forwarded per the Prince Regent, and the du- 
 
504 APPENDIX. 
 
 plicate thereof by the Sesostris, both addressed to the care of the Rev. 
 Mr. Marsden. Since that time we have received the following letters : 
 — from Sydney, under dates of 23rd and 25th of April, and 1st of June, 
 and from Newcastle, of July 5, 1825— and we think it necessary to inform 
 you, that we experienced no small surprise and concern to find that you 
 had drawn upon the Society to so very large an amount, for which, 
 indeed, we are not at all prepared. We, of course, expected that the 
 establishment of the mission would occasion, for the first year, an extra 
 expenditure ; but we certainly did not anticipate any such amount on 
 this ground, as that for which you have drawn bills on the Society ; and 
 this appears is not all, but that you also purpose drawing bills for ^100 
 or ^£150 more, making a total amount of ,,£900. Giving you the fullest 
 credit for the goodness of your motives, we cannot refrain from ob- 
 serving, that while it was yet a matter of uncertainty whether the So- 
 ciety would sanction the project, and while you were quite uninformed 
 as to the extent we should be disposed to go, in point of expense, for 
 any mission at all in that quarter, to incur obligations to so great an 
 amount as almost one thousand pounds does appear to us a procedure by 
 no means to be justified on the score of prudence ; and we doubt not, 
 upon reconsideration, that you will yourself perceive that it would have 
 been proper to expend, in the first instance, just so much money as your 
 necessities absolutely required, and no more, until you had received 
 communications from us, containing our views and determinations as to 
 the establishment of the mission, and the scale of expenditure on which 
 it was our will that it should be conducted, in case we sanctioned the 
 establishment of the mission itself. 
 
 " But our principal reason for writing to you at present, is to prevent all 
 future immoderate expenditure ; and, in reference to this point, we have 
 adopted the two following resolutions : — 
 
 " 1. That the Rev. Mr. Threlkeld be instructed to give no more bills 
 on the Society, unless drawn with the sanction of the Rev. Mr. Marsden, 
 as without his sanction they will not be honoured. 
 
 " 2. That the Rev. Mr. Marsden be respectfully requested to sanction 
 the bills drawn by the Rev. Mr. Threlkeld, only to such amount as, in 
 his judgment, shall appear absolutely necessary to carry on efficiently, 
 and with the strictest regard to economy, the Aboriginal Mission at 
 Reid's Mistake." 
 
 He had drawn for a somewhat more respectable amount when the 
 letter, of which the following is an extract, was written him : 
 
APPENDIX. 505 
 
 " Mission House, Austin Friars, London, 
 " March 22, 1827. 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " After being apprised, by the perusal of the postscript to our letter 
 to you of the 8th ultimo, of the painful feelings excited in our minds by 
 your letters just then received, advising of your having further drawn 
 on the Society bills to nearly the sum of ,£640, (making a total outlay on 
 account of the proposed Mission to the Aborigines of upwards of ^lSOO 
 in the course of only two years,) you will be prepared to hear, that 
 we have resolved to adopt some measure with a view to put a stop 
 to this exorbitant expenditure, which has excited in us a degree of 
 surprise and apprehension that we should find it difficult to express." 
 
 The next portion of the articles on Missions to the Aborigines, on 
 which a libellous construction had been put by the plaintiff, was as 
 follows : — 
 
 " In the mean time, the Directors of the London Missionary Society 
 became completely disgusted at the manner in which their Mission to 
 the Aborigines had been conducted, and, accordingly, giving Mr. Threl- 
 keld his ticket-of-leave, gave up the grant, and abandoned the under- 
 taking altogether. 
 
 " The direct pecuniary loss which the London Missionary Society 
 sustained through this individual, was greatly above three thousand 
 pounds sterling." 
 
 He would only observe in reference to this passage, that the plaintiff's 
 dismissal, and the abandonment of the grant by the London Missionary 
 Society, would be clearly established by documentary evidence in the 
 sequel, and that the plaintiff acknowledged in his own letter that the 
 cost of the Mission had been upwards of ^3600. The whole of that 
 amount, it could not be doubted, was a dead loss to the London Mis- 
 sionary Society. 
 
 Neither would it be necessary to take much notice of the third 
 passage alleged as libellous in the articles in question, which was as 
 follows : — 
 
 " But through the gross mismanagement of the London Society's 
 Mission by the Rev. Mr. Threlkeld, both the London and the Wesleyan 
 Missionary Societies have been deprived of the extensive grants they 
 would otherwise have possessed at this moment, and been virtually com- 
 pelled to abandon the field of missions to the black natives of this territory 
 altogether. The loss which the whole Protestant community of all de- 
 VOL. II. Y 
 
506 APPENDIX. 
 
 nominations in this colony have thus sustained, through the incom- 
 petency (to use the very mildest phrase which the case warrants) of a 
 single individual, is quite incalculahle, especially in these dark days of 
 Popish ascendency." 
 
 It was matter of notoriety that the Wesleyan Missionary Society, 
 whose labours for the conversion of the heathen had in other countries 
 been so indefatigable and so eminently blessed, had solicited a grant of 
 10,000 acres of land from Government for the establishment of a Mission 
 to the Aborigines of this colony, and that the faith of the Government 
 had been pledged to their obtaining it, provided that the grants actually 
 given to the other two Societies should prove conducive towards the 
 attainment of their common object : but, through the plaintiff's gross 
 mismanagement of the London Society's Mission, not only had that 
 Society been deprived of their grant, but the Wesleyan Society had also 
 failed to obtain theirs. And who could doubt but that the Protestant 
 community, of all denominations, in this colony, had sustained a very 
 serious injury through such mismanagement'? It would surely be un- 
 necessary to justify an inference so obvious and direct as this. 
 
 He had now come to the fourth count in this libellous indictment, and 
 it was the one to which the learned Solicitor-General had directed 
 his utmost efforts. The passage complained of was as follows : — 
 
 " It is truly lamentable, however, to reflect on the vast amount of 
 good that might have been done to all classes in this most unfortunate 
 colony, through the means of extensive usefulness that have been en- 
 joyed at different periods, and rendered utterly inefficient, by incom- 
 petent and untrustworthy individuals." 
 
 Now, he would observe in the first place, that this was a mere general 
 remark, to which the preceding narrative had doubtless naturally led, 
 but which included various individuals in this colony, and had no 
 special reference to the plaintiff: for it was matter of notoriety to 
 all in the least acquainted with the past history of this colony, that the 
 fact stated and deplored in this paper had occurred again and again, to 
 the manifest injury of the cause of religion in this territory. But he 
 would observe further, that the word untrustworthy was not meant to be 
 taken in this passage in the libellous sense which had been given to it 
 by the learned Solicitor-General, as implying moral delinquency. It 
 was evident from the context, that the meaning of the word was, that 
 the plaintiff was, in consequence of his utter incompetency, evinced in 
 his exorbitant and enormous expenditure of the London Missionary 
 Society's funds, unfit for the trust which had been committed to him by 
 
APPENDIX. 507 
 
 the deputation of" that Society, as the organizer of a Mission to the 
 Aborigines : besides the general signification of confidence, the word trust 
 signified also either certain property committed to the management of some 
 person who had to give account of his management of that property, or 
 certain duty whieh the trustee was bound fully as well as faithfully to 
 discharge. Now if it appeared that the person so entrusted was in- 
 competent to the discharge of that duty, or to the management of that 
 property, it was quite allowable to designate him as untrustworthy in 
 that particular respect, without implying any imputation on his general 
 character as a member of society. If the captain or sailing-master of 
 any of His Majesty's ships happened to lose his vessel, and it was proved 
 on the court-martial that he had done so through ignorance either of the 
 art or of the science of navigation, he would not only be held as in- 
 competent and untrustworthy in that particular respect, but he would either 
 be cashiered or shot for his culpable and criminal ignorance, although 
 not the slightest imputation could be thrown all the while upon his 
 moral character. In like manner, if any person, professing to be a 
 medical man, undertook the cure of a patient labouring under any 
 disease, and by his ignorant and unskilful management killed the patient, 
 he would not only be held incompetent and untrustworthy in that particular 
 respect, though in other respects of good moral character, but the law 
 would hold him guilty of culpable homicide, and treat him accordingly. 
 A case of this kind had occurred when he was last in London. A famous 
 quack, a Mr. St. John Long, had got himself into notoriety among the 
 vulgar of the higher classes in the metropolis as a curer of consumption ; 
 which he attempted, of course, by rubbing some combustible stuff, as the 
 lower classes in this colony would call it, into the patient's back. He 
 had tried this notable experiment upon a young lady of a highly respect- 
 able family, who died under the operation ; and the jury at the coroner's 
 inquest returned a verdict of culpable homicide against Mr. St. John 
 Long, who of course had to make the best of his way to the continent. 
 But he could appeal, for the meaning of the word on which the learned 
 Solicitor- General had laid so much stress, to a most unexceptionable 
 authority. That authority was neither Johnson nor Walker, but a better 
 than either, at least in the present case, — the plaintiff himself. For in the 
 plaintiff's own precious pamphlet, in a letter addressed to the Directors, 
 of date 31st October, 1826, in which he comments upon a resolution of 
 the Directors "that the Rev. Mr. Marsden be respectfully requested to 
 sanction the bills drawn by the Rev. Mr. Threlkeld, only to such amount 
 as in his judgment shall appear absolutely necessary to carry on effec- 
 tually, and with the strictest regard to economy, the Aboriginal Mission 
 
508 APPENDIX. 
 
 at Reid's Mistake;" he observes, " Now, how is Mr. Marsden, residing 
 nearly 100 miles off, to form a judgment, but by a reference to my judg- 
 ment, who conducts the mission and resides on the spot? This re- 
 solution, therefore, does nothing to remove the possibility of immoderate 
 expenditure on my part, were I disposed to act so unworthily ; but only 
 displays an unhandsome, unjust reflection on me, as being unfit for future 
 trust." Now, without adverting to the absurdity of supposing that a man 
 of so much agricultural as well as general experience as the Rev. Mr. 
 Marsden could not know what sum was necessary for the establishment 
 of a missionary settlement in any part of this territory, it was evident 
 that the plaintiff himself recognised in express words, in this passage, 
 the distinction for which he contended, viz., that the word untrustworthy 
 referred exclusively to his incompetency for the trust which had been 
 committed to him by the London Missionary Society, and contained no 
 imputation of moral delinquency. In short, the plaintiff accused the 
 Directors of stigmatising him as unfit for future trust, or, in other words, 
 as untrustworthy in the former of these senses, while they expressly dis- 
 claimed every such imputation as that of moral delinquency. 
 
 The fifth count in this libellous indictment was founded on the fol- 
 lowing passage, alluding to the plaintiff's having accepted a salary of 
 ,^150 from the Government of this colony, as a Missionary to the Abo- 
 rigines, under the orders of the archdeacon, after having been dismissed 
 by the London Missionary Society, from which he had previously refused 
 to accept of anything less than ,£500 a year. 
 
 " In ordinary circumstances, we should have been somewhat surprised 
 at seeing a non-conformist missionary giving in his adhesion to an arch- 
 deacon, and marching thereafter under the broad banners of episcopacy. 
 But we confess that a change of this kind, on the part of so liberal a 
 man (liberal of other people's goods) as Mr. Threlkeld, does not sur- 
 prise us in the least." 
 
 In regard to this passage, he was more than astonished at finding any- 
 thing like a libellous construction fastened, either by the plaintiff or the 
 learned Solicitor-General, on the mere mention of the circumstance of a 
 *' non-conformist missionary giving in his adhesion to an archdeacon." 
 It never entered into his mind to impute it as a disreputable affair to the 
 plaintiff, that he had accepted office under the archdeacon, and had 
 received a government salary in that capacity . He would not have done 
 so himself under any circumstances, but he would not condemn any 
 other man for doing so. In short, his sole reason for adverting to the 
 circumstance at all, was the singular contrast which that circumstance 
 afforded, when compared with the high ground which the plaintiff had 
 
APPENDIX. 509 
 
 himself assumed in his own precious pamphlet. So long as he was a 
 missionary of the London Society, he would submit to no control what- 
 ever : he would not submit to the least interference, on the part of the 
 Rev. Mr. Marsden, with his extravagant and wasteful expenditure of 
 the Society's funds. " If any part of the management," observes this 
 missionary pamphleteer, in a most unchristian and insulting letter to the 
 Directors in London, in which he talks, forsooth, of their abominable 
 spirit, because they found fault with him for spending the Society's funds, 
 at the rate of ^1080 a year, — " if any part of the management is interfered 
 in, it had far better be under the management of the archdeacon at 
 once ; then there would be but one master ; in the other case, there 
 would be too many." 
 
 As to the other part of this portion of the alleged libel — the phrase 
 liberal of other people's goods — he really did not see a single syllable to eat 
 back there. Considering that the plaintiff had expended the London 
 Missionary Society's funds, as a missionary to the Aborigines, at the rate 
 of ^£1080 a year, for two years and a half— an expenditure which the 
 Directors themselves had repeatedly characterised as exorbitant and 
 enormous; and, considering whose funds it was that he was thus ex- 
 pending — that it was the funds contributed in penny-a-week sub- 
 scriptions by virtuous servant-girls, by poor widows, and by little 
 children, in England ; he conceived that the plaintiff had earned his 
 title well — as a liberal expender of 6ther people's goods. If such a 
 phrase— a phrase which so exactly fitted the individual whom it was 
 intended to characterise, if such a phrase was to be fixed upon as libel- 
 lous, then there was an utter end of what our great poet had character- 
 ised as "the liberty of unlicensed printing" — that palladium of the 
 liberties of the people of England. And, that a non-conformist mis- 
 sionary, who had been thus liberal of other people's property, should 
 afterwards have gone over to the archdeacon, he confessed, did not sur- 
 prise him ; for it was not to be expected that the man who could waste 
 the public money in this way would act consistently with his profession 
 in other respects. 
 
 He would now come to the sixth count in this libellous indictment. 
 It was founded on the following passage in the articles on Missions to 
 the Aborigines : — 
 
 " The injury that has been done to the cause of Christianity in this 
 colony, by men who have been sent out by the British public as Mis- 
 sionaries to the Southern Hemisphere, but who have been utterly unfit 
 for their office from the very first— some of them as to intellect and edu- 
 cation, and others as to morals and religion — has been utterly incalcu- 
 
510 APPENDIX. 
 
 lable ; and the evil they have actually done to this community has been 
 done chiefly by their acting a part in our limited society which the Lord 
 hates — that of solving discord among brethren. The genuine and right- 
 hearted Missionary — he who seeks not his own things, but the things of 
 his Master, and who counts- all things but loss that he may advance his 
 glorious cause in this worthless world — this is. the man whom the King 
 delighteth to honour ; for though contumely and ingratitude should be his 
 constant earthly portion, he will ere long bring forth his righteousness as the 
 light, and his judgment as the noon-day. But the counterfeit Missionary 
 — the man who doffs his apostolic coat to-day, and becomes a mere sheep 
 and cattle man, a mere worldling to-morrow — such a man is a perfect 
 abomination ; and sorry are we, from our very heart, that the race has 
 always been so numerously represented in this colony." 
 
 In order to ascertain the exact meaning and particular application of 
 this passage, it was necessary to observe, that in the year 1826, imme- 
 diately after his return from England, he (the defendant) had ascertained 
 from certain Missionaries then resident in New South Wales, that there 
 were upwards of sixty Missionaries' children in the South Sea Islands 
 growing up in a state of semi-barbarism. Conceiving, with these Mission- 
 aries, that it would be exceedingly advantageous for these children to be 
 educated in this colony, he had sent to the Missionaries at the Islands, of- 
 fering to board and educate, free of cost, one or two of the most promising 
 of their children by way of experiment. They had accordingly sent him 
 a promising boy, a native of Sydney, but who had been all his life at the 
 islands, and who could only read and write and cast accounts on his 
 arrival in the colony. That boy had resided between four and five years 
 in his family ; and so well had he answered the expectation of his 
 friends, and so fully had the experiment succeeded, that in eighteen 
 months from the period of his arrival in the colony, he was able to read 
 the Scriptures in the Latin and Greek and French languages, and to 
 translate them from the original into Latin at the opening of the book. 
 In consequence of the correspondence to which this offer had led, one of 
 the Missionaries at the islands had written him on the subject of having 
 an establishment formed for the education of Missionaries' sons in this 
 colony ; and he had laid the matter before General Darling, who entered 
 into it most warmly, and would not only have given a grant of thirty or 
 fifty acres of land in the immediate neighbourhood of Sydney, for the 
 formation of such an establishment, but even offered to recommend to 
 the Secretary of State to grant more effectual assistance on the part of 
 the Government. But the whole affair had been knocked on the head, 
 through the interference of certain individuals who had been previously 
 
APPENDIX. 511 
 
 in connexion with the London Society's Mission ; and although the 
 plaintiff Lad virtually admitted in his own letter that he was the person 
 who had interfered on that occasion, and thus rendered any further 
 evidence of the fact unnecessary, he would have heen able to bring it 
 home to him, had the young man to whom he had just alluded, as having 
 received his education under his roof, been now in the colony. That 
 young man, he was happy to say, was now at his post, as a Missionary in 
 the South Sea Islands, one of the best-educated Missionaries that the 
 London Society had ever had in these seas. At this moment he was 
 acting in the vanguard of a mission to the Samoa or Navigators' Islands, 
 a groupe which had been designated by sea-faring men, from the savage 
 ferocity of their inhabitants, the isles of murderers. The account of the 
 transaction to which he had thus referred was followed up in the articles 
 alleged as libellous with the following reflection : — 
 
 " Such was the second grievous loss which Mr. L. E. Threlkeld, Mis- 
 sionary to the Aborigines, was the means of entailing upon the London 
 Missionary Society, and the cause of Protestant Christianity, in the 
 Southern Hemisphere ! It is a loss for which he would never be able to 
 make an adequate compensation, though he should live to the age of Methu- 
 selah i But all this, and infinitely more than all this, naturally and neces- 
 sarily arises, as the venerable John Newton observes, from the system of 
 taking Tom, Dick, and Harry from their benches, their lasts, and their 
 looms, and transforming them all at once into the Rev. Mr. Thomas, the 
 Rev. Mr. Richard, and the Rev. Mr. Henry, &c, and sending them forth 
 into the field of the world as Christian Missionaries, forsooth, to occupy 
 a station in society, for which, for the most part, they have no suitable 
 •qualifications, and to exert an influence which they are so apt — even 
 unintentionally and unconsciously — to abuse." 
 
 Now it was self-evident, that the remarks which had been introduced 
 in this manner were intended to be of general, and not of particular 
 application; and sorry he was to observe, that there had been so many 
 cases, in the history of Missions to the South Seas, to which they applied. 
 These cases had not been confined to the Society to which the plaintiff 
 had belonged ; viz. The London Missionary Society. They had been 
 furnished by all the three Societies that had established Missions in the 
 South Seas and in this colony — the London Missionary Society, the Wes- 
 leyan Missionary Society, and the Church Missionary Society — insomuch 
 that wherever one went in New South Wales, he could not fail to meet 
 with individuals who had once been Missionaries, but had subsequently 
 thrown aside the Missionary character and office, and degenerated into 
 mere worldlings ; thereby bringing contempt upon the Missionary cha- 
 
512 APPENDIX. 
 
 racter, and doing infinite injury to the cause of our common Christianity. 
 This great evil was attributable in great measure to the Directors of these 
 Societies, rather than to the individuals themselves, in having sent out 
 unqualified persons into the Missionary field. When the London Mis- 
 sionary Society was first instituted, the existence of the South Sea 
 Islands, and the singular state of their inhabitants, had just been made 
 known to the astonished European world by our great circumnavigator, 
 Captain Cook; and the effect which the circumstance had upon the religious 
 world in Great Britain, was a general and ardent desire for the conver- 
 sion of that singular people to Christianity. It was a period of great 
 religious excitement ; and as the London Missionary Society, which was 
 then instituted, could not obtain such persons as they could have wished, 
 to go out as Missionaries to the South Sea Islands, they had just to 
 take such persons as they could get. Of some of these individuals, he 
 was happy to have it in his power to speak in, terms of the highest 
 praise ; but by far the greater number were totally unfit in regard to 
 intellectual qualifications for the office assigned them ; while others, 
 who, in a moment of strong religious excitement, had given themselves 
 publicly to the work of the Lord, in the presence of the religious public 
 of Great Britain, had shown by their subsequent conduct in this colony, 
 that " their righteousness was only like the morning cloud, or the early 
 dew which passeth away." He belonged to a section of the Christian 
 Church which was commonly understood to be the farthest possible from 
 the Church of Rome ; but there was one maxim of the Roman Catholics 
 which he was not ashamed to acknowledge that he held, although a 
 Presbyterian — that maxim was, Once a priest, always a priest; for he 
 held most distinctly, that the man who was once solemnly ordained 
 and set apart by the Church of Christ, at his own express desire, 
 either for the work of the Christian ministry or for that of Christian 
 missions, could never afterwards desert that work, or, to use the words 
 of the article alleged as libellous, " doff his apostolic coat, and become 
 a mere worldling," without being guilty of an act which implied the 
 grossest dereliction of duty, and the lowest depth of degradation. But 
 grossly as the plaintiff had mismanaged the London Society's Mission to 
 the Aborigines, and humble as his own opinion was of his procedure in that 
 capacity, it never could have entered into his heart to accuse him of the 
 still greater enormity of deserting the Missionary work, and throwing 
 aside- the Missionary character altogether. " The man who doffs his 
 apostolic coat to-day, and becomes a mere sheep and cattle man, a mere 
 worldling, to-morrow," was doubtless most exactly descriptive of the 
 Rev. Mr. Walker, formerly Wesleyan Missionary to the Aborigines, and 
 
APPENDIX. 513 
 
 of various other individuals in the colony whom it would be easy to 
 enumerate ; but it neither could nor did apply to the plaintiff, who had 
 never thrown aside his Missionary character at all. 
 
 Much stress had been laid by the learned Solicitor-General on a letter 
 which the plaintiff had written to the defendant, after the publication of 
 those parts of the articles on Missions to the Aborigines on which he had 
 now commented. The plaintiff had doubtless written him aletter, offering 
 to submit his case, as a Missionary to the Aborigines, to any competent 
 tribunal ; but he had also required him to make a full and ample apology, 
 in the next number of ' The Colonist,' for the statements he had pub- 
 lished relative to his expenditure of the Society's funds; and in the 
 same breath he had characterised these statements as " a malicious mis- 
 representation and a wilful falsehood." Now how could either His 
 Honour or the Gentlemen of the Jury suppose it possible for him to 
 make au apology for his statements on such grounds as these, even sup- 
 posing he had been conscious of having exceeded the bounds of strict 
 truth, which he was confident he had not 1 The articles alleged to be 
 libellous were published while he was absent on clerical duty in Van 
 Dieman's Land. They had been written partly before he left Sydney for 
 that colony, and partly in the public office of a Scotch merchant at 
 Hobart Town, where it was out of his power to procure the plaintiff's 
 pamphlet, which he had not seen for upwards of seven years. But so in- 
 delible was the impression which the perusal of that pamphlet had made 
 upon his mind, that he could refer to the plaintiff's expenditure with 
 perfect confidence : and he had that day been able to prove to the Court, 
 from the precious pamphlet itself, that he was right as to the period 
 during which the expenditure had been incurred, to a single week, and 
 to a single pound, as to the amount. In such circumstances, how was it 
 possible for him to write himself a liar, merely because the plaintiff 
 desired him? He had done, however, what he conceived was his duty 
 in such circumstances. Leaving out the introductory and concluding 
 portions of the plaintiff's letter, which had no reference whatever to the 
 matter in question, he had caused to be copied out from it, and published 
 in the next number of « The Colonist,' a category of seven statements, 
 contained in the articles alleged to be libellous, with the plaintiff's notes 
 and comments at full length — merely adding a few observations of his 
 own in reply. He had thus given him the full benefit of the press — that 
 court of appeal to which he had himself applied seven years before, when 
 bringing his railing accusation against Mr. Marsden and the Directors ; 
 and if in the following passage, constituting the seventh count in the 
 libellous indictment, he had been characterised somewhat uncere- 
 
514 APPENDIX. 
 
 moniously,he would put it to His Honour and the Gentlemen of the 
 Jury, whether the writer of such a letter could expect any other treat- 
 ment from any man who had the smallest regard either for his own 
 character or for the sanctity of truth : — 
 
 " Our character as public journalists stands committed in regard to 
 the statements put forth respecting the Mission to the Aborigines con- 
 ducted by Mr. Threlkeld. We shall, therefore, hold ourselves in readi- 
 ness to vindicate the correctness of these statements, whenever they are 
 called in question in a respectable quarter and in a proper manner; but 
 as to Mr. T.'s imputations of ■ prejudice,' ' calumny,' ' misrepresen- 
 tations,' ' vindictive feeling,' ' long-continued wrath,' ' base sordid 
 motives,' and in short of every thing else that is inconsistent with the 
 character of a Christian man, much more of a minister of religion, to the 
 writer of the articles we refer to, we must first be satisfied that Mr. T. 
 is a man of unexceptionable character and conduct himself, as a pro- 
 fessed Christian, and especially as a missionary, before we can allow 
 him to cast imputations of this kind upon any person whatever." 
 
 He would now proceed to the eight count in the indictment. It was 
 founded on the following passage in the last of the articles alleged to be 
 libellous : — 
 
 " Now as we had recently occasion to notice a motion which had been 
 made in the House of Commons by T. F. Buxton, Esq., M. P., in regard 
 to the actual condition of the Aborigines of all the colonies of the 
 empire, we felt ourselves bound, in our editorial capacity, to take up 
 these questions seriatim, and to treat the subjects they refer to as matter 
 of colonial history. And we are not to be deterred from doing a service 
 of such importance to the public, merely because a man, like Mr. Threl- 
 keld, who has ruined the cause with which he was more immediately 
 connected, and done prodigious disservice, besides, to the general 
 interests of the Missions to the South Seas, chooses to storm and stamp, 
 like a wild bull in a net, at any person connected or supposed to be con- 
 nected with this paper, for detailing and remarking upon his extrava- 
 gant procedure. We are not to be deterred from doing our duty to the 
 public, merely because Mr. Threlkeld chooses to threaten us with 
 a prosecution. Prosecution, forsooth ! let him prosecute when he 
 likes." 
 
 To interpret this paragraph as imputing improper procedure to the 
 plaintiff during his residence as a Missionary in the South Sea Islands, 
 was to put a most unwarrantable construction upon the language em- 
 ployed. It had no such meaning. But if the plaintiff had managed the 
 London Society's grant as he might and ought to have done, it would 
 
APPENDIX. 515 
 
 not only have proved conducive to the attainment of its immediate 
 object, but been an asylum for all the Missionaries' sons in the South 
 Sea Islands, where they might have been brought up either as handi- 
 craftsmen or as Missionaries to the South Sea Islands and to the Abo- 
 rigines of this territory. And who could doubt that in this light the 
 abandonment of the Society's grant, through the plaintiff's mismanage- 
 ment, had been a prodigious disadvantage and loss to the South Sea 
 Mission generally? 
 
 The ninth count in this libellous indictment is founded on the fol- 
 lowing passage in the comments on the plaintiff's letter, in which, in 
 allusion to the charge of having expended ^'2700 for the formation of 
 the Mission to the Aborigines within two years and a half— a charge 
 which the plaintiff characterises in his letter as " a complete falsehood 
 and a most malicious misrepresentation," but which he had that day 
 demonstrated from the plaintiff's own printed statement, was the truth 
 and nothing but the truth — the plaintiff admits, that in six years and 
 four months he had expended, for the Aboriginal Mission and his 
 voyage from Raiatea, ,£3686. 10s. 3|d. 
 
 " Six hundred a year to be expended by a single Missionary for six 
 years in succession, in establishing a mission to the Aborigines of this 
 territory ! — it was a scandalous expenditure; and that the man who could 
 have been guilty of expending other people's property at such a rate, 
 must either have lacked conscience or common sense !" 
 
 Now, he really did not know how he could retract a single syllable 
 of this language. For whether the expenditure should be rated at ^1080 
 a year for two years and a half, or at ^£600 a year for six years, he could 
 only repeat, especially considering the source from which that expen- 
 diture was derived, " that it was a scandalous expenditure, and that the 
 man who could have been guilty of expending other people's property at 
 such a rate, must either have lacked conscience or common sense." He 
 had not accused the plaintiff of downright dishonesty ; he only told 
 him that if he did not lack conscience, he must have been destitute of 
 common sense ; and he was welcome to either term if the alternative. 
 (At this stage of the proceeding?, His Honour observed, in reference to 
 the last observation, Utrum mavis accipe — " take which of them you like ; " 
 —a sentiment in which, of course, the defendant bowed acquiescence.) 
 
 He would now come to the tenth and last count in this libellous 
 indictment. In the course of his observations on the plaintiff's pro- 
 cedure as a Missionary to the Aborigines, he had accused him of being 
 instrumental, either directly or indirectly, in preventing the formation 
 of the institution, projected by himself, for the education of the sons of 
 
516 APPENDIX. 
 
 Missionaries, for the establishment of which General Darling had been 
 so beneficently solicitous. The plaintiff, in his letter, had, indeed, dis- 
 avowed all knowledge of any such institution ; but he had, most unfor- 
 tunately, appended to that disavowal, the following awkward admis- 
 sion : — 
 
 " I may have said that I did not consider Dr. Lang to be a suitable 
 person to instruct the children of the Missionaries, in the event of an 
 establishment being formed in the colony on very different principles 
 which I proposed to the Missionaries, lest they should imbibe the vin- 
 dictive spirit of the tutor." 
 
 On this passage of the plaintiff's letter he had made the following 
 observations, which he still conceived were fully warranted, although the 
 plaintiff had made them the ground -work of the tenth and last count of 
 this indictment : — 
 
 " This is a confession with a witness ! The proposal which Dr. Lang 
 submitted to General Darling at the suggestion of a resident Missionary at 
 Eimeo, and of which General Darling testified his warm approbation, was, 
 that the Missionaries' sons should be boarded and educated in the insti- 
 tution which His Excellency was so willing to assist in forming, under 
 the superintendence of a married Missionary who had resided in the Islands 
 and could speak the Polynesian language. Dr. Lang's connexion with it as 
 a tutor was never contemplated. And yet, because Dr. L. was in any 
 way instrumental in forwarding a measure of such prodigious importance 
 to all Missionaries in the South Sea Islands, this individual, who, after 
 ruining and abandoning the cause of his own Society at Lake Macquarie, 
 had come to Sydney to sow discord among other peaceable communities, 
 managed, through his influence with some weak-minded superannuated 
 Missionaries here, to get the whole affair knocked on the head, and 
 thereby deprived the London Society of a second and most valuable 
 grant from the Crown, as well as of the benefit of an Institution in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of Sydney for the education of their Mission- 
 aries' sons 1 Yes ! this personification of Christian charity, who is 
 perpetually harping about vindictive feelings in others, did all this to be 
 revenged on Dr. Lang, merely for telling him, through the colonial press, 
 to return to his station at Lake Macquarie, and to leave the Roman 
 Catholic controversy to men who were able to manage it ! This was the 
 only offence which Dr. L. had given Mr. Threlkeld either directly or 
 indirectly at the period we refer to ; and to deprive the Society for this 
 of what would otherwise have been a very fortune to every Missionary's 
 child in the South Seas, his own included, was indeed Italian revenge. 
 In fact, we can never think of the grievous loss which the cause of 
 
APPENDIX. 517 
 
 Protestantism and the cause of Missions have thus experienced through 
 this individual, but with the deepest regret and the utmost indignation. 
 * There are six things which the Lord hates ; ' and* the sixth, let Mr. 
 Threlkeld remember, is, • he that soweth discord among brethren.' " 
 
 After what he had already observed, he did not deem it necessary to 
 make any further remarks on the subject of this portion of the charge, 
 as he felt he could safely put it to His Honour and to the Gentlemen of 
 the Jury, whether the plaintiff's own letter did not contain a distinct 
 admission of the very thing with which he had been charged — sowing 
 discord among brethren ; for, up to the period when the plaintiff was so 
 obliging as to communicate such information to the missionaries respect- 
 ing himself, he had been living on the best of terms both with the 
 missionaries at the islands, and with those of their number who were 
 then residing in this colony. 
 
 Having already occupied their time to so great a length, he would 
 refrain from any additional remarks, and would now leave the case in 
 the hands of the Gentlemen of the Jury ; appealing to their candid 
 opinion, as to whether he had exceeded the bounds of propriety in his 
 remarks on the plaintiff's procedure, as a missionary to the Aborigines, 
 — whether, in fact, the articles alleged as libellous were any thing more 
 than a fair critique on the plaintiff's own previous pamphlet. He had 
 taken up the subject on public grounds— as a matter of colonial history 
 in which the colonial public were deeply interested — and not, as the 
 plaintiff alleged, as a matter of private pique and personal animosity. 
 Neither had he taken up that subject as a mere writer for a newspaper, 
 who had no right nor interest in the matter, and who was merely ani- 
 mated with a spirit of hostility towards the cause of missions altogether. 
 On the contrary, no man in this colony would have rejoiced more cor- 
 dially than himself in the success of the London Society 's Mission to the 
 Aborigines ; no man could more sincerely deplore its entire failure and 
 ruin through the gross mismanagement of the plaintiff. As a con- 
 tributor to that society, he had not merely thrown into its treasury the 
 paltry subscription of a guinea a year— the usual extent of Christian 
 benevolence in these days of coldness and indifference— he had taken 
 one of the Society's missionary youth from the Islands, and given him a 
 liberal education, and fitted him for returning to his post in these 
 islands, as a well-furnished labourer on the missionary field. Of all 
 persons in the colony, therefore, he had the best right to inquire into the 
 plaintiff's mismanagement of the Society's funds. In fine, he felt confident 
 as to the resultof this action : assured that the Gentlemen of the Jurv would 
 
518 APPENDIX. 
 
 show by their verdict that they would not suffer any unwarrantable 
 interference with the liberty of the press in this colony. 
 
 Dr. Lang's address to the jury, of which we have only given an 
 outline, occupied four hours and twenty-five minutes, and was listened 
 to throughout with the utmost interest by an unusually crowded Court. 
 The Court then adjourned till the following day. 
 
 Tuesday, March 22. 
 
 The following evidence was then heard for the defence : — 
 
 Archibald M'Leod, Esq. I have lived in this and the sister colony 
 about fifteen years, both as a settler and a government officer. I have 
 experienced many of the difficulties attending the formation of a settle- 
 ment in the interior. I think it would be as easy to settle a family for 
 instructing the Aborigines as for any other purpose ; in either case, a 
 house would be required, and a few acres of cleared land. The expense 
 attendant on a settlement depends on many things ; but I have known 
 many respectable families who have settled in the interior for a less 
 sum than ^500. These families had no salary afterwards : a salary of 
 ^£150 yearly would make a great difference. 
 
 Cross-examined. I know but little of the expenditure necessary 
 for a missionary. If a settler wants to attach the Blacks to his place, he 
 must bribe them with tobacco and victuals. 
 
 The Rev. R. Wylde. I am a licentiate of the Church of Scotland ; 
 I have read the articles in ' The Colonist,' which form the subject of the 
 present action ; I am accustomed to read reviews ; supposing the facts 
 stated to be true, I should consider this a fair critique ; I have read 
 much severer ones, where they were much less called for, supposing the 
 statements true ; when the word ' untrustworthy ' is used in an absolute 
 sense, I conceive it to mean dishonesty ; but used as it is in the passage 
 before me, I do not think it bears that meaning. Referring to the extract 
 from Mr. Threlkeld's letter, I do not believe that if Mr. T. alleged that 
 Dr. Lang, as a tutor, was likely to infuse a spirit of vindictiveness into 
 his pupils, that such information was likely to produce unanimity ; if 
 Dr. Lang was on good terms with those to whom it was said, I should 
 think it would be likely to cause discord ; the passage reflecting on the 
 Missionary who doffs his Apostolic coat cannot apply to the plaintiff if 
 he still continues to wear it. 
 
 Cross-examined. I conceive it to be impossible that Mr. Threlkeld, 
 
APPENDIX. 519 
 
 if he still wears the Missionary coat, can he meant here ; 1 take the 
 words in their literal sense ; taken in connexion with the last line of the 
 song, " The grant is an excellent run," I still cannot believe it to apply to 
 the plaintiff, unless he has become " a mere sheep and cattle man, a mere 
 worldling ;" I suppose it was intended that whomsoever the coat fitted, 
 they should wear it. 
 
 Re-examined. If I had been aware that one Missionary had become 
 a settler, another a constable, and a third a baker, I should have thought 
 them much more likely to be meant. 
 
 Mr. Raymond, jun. 1 am a clerk in the Colonial Secretary's Office. 
 I produce a letter from W. A. Hankey, Esq. Treasurer of the London 
 Missionary Society, to His Excellency Governor Darling, of date 
 August 18, 1829. The following is the purport of Mr. Hankey's letter : — 
 
 " Although the undertaking had been entered upon without the sanc- 
 tion of the Directors, yet they were unwilling to withdraw from it their 
 support, provided the scale of expenses had been compatible with the bur- 
 dened state of their finances, and the progress of it satisfactory to their 
 minds. In both these respects he was sorry to state, that their hopes 
 had been greatly disappointed. The expense had proved incompatible 
 with their other engagements, and the conduct of the individual entrusted 
 with its management quite unsatisfactory. Their endeavours to regulate 
 his expenditure were treated with disregard and disrespect, till they 
 were under the painful necessity of resorting to the last means of con- 
 trouling him, by dishonouring some of the bills he had drawn upon them. 
 The indecent manner in which Mr. Threlkeld saw fit to resent this act of 
 protection of the Society, by printing a virulent pamphlet (charging the 
 Society in his account with the expense), and circulating copies of it in 
 England, as well as in the colony, and among the other stations of the 
 Society, inevitably so far injured all the proper feeling required in the 
 relation subsisting between him and them, that by a letter addressed to 
 him, dated 30th May, 1828, they had communicated their resolution to 
 dissolve that relation, and to defray the expense of his and his family's 
 passage to England, in case he chose to return thither." 
 
 After expressing his regret at such a result, and observing " ** 
 behaviour and proceedings of Mr. Threlkeld had been such.OTa ^ llia 
 frustrate the design of the mission ;" Mr. Hankey p regret t » n ^ t0 
 that " Mr. T. had continued, in virtue of a ResoV* 
 which had subsequently been surperseded 
 but that they had now resolved no lop^ 
 on account of the Mission, but>^ 
 abandon the undertaking.'V^ 
 
520 . APPENDIX. 
 
 I produce a copy of documents ordered by the House of Commons to 
 be printed, among them is a dispatch from Lord Goderich. 
 
 The Solicitor-General objected to this evidence being received, and 
 cited a case in support of his objection. 
 
 His Honour Judge Burton sustained the Solicitor-General's objection. 
 
 The Rev. Samuel Marsden. I know that Mr. Threlkeld was employed 
 as a Missionary by the London Missionary Society, for which I am agent. 
 Messrs. Tyerman and Bennet were appointed by the Society as a Depu- 
 tation, to visit the various stations of the Society ; they brought letters 
 to me from the Society. After visiting the Islands, they came to Port 
 Jackson, bringing Mr. Threlkeld with them. At this time the Wesleyan 
 Mission to the Aborigines had been abandoned, and they expressed a 
 wish that Mr. T. should be employed as a Missionary to the Aborigines. 
 He was appointed, and directed to proceed to Lake Macquarie. The De- 
 putation wished me to take charge of the Mission ; but I refused, unless I 
 should have some controul over the expenditure. I considered Mr. T. 
 perfectly unequal to the task, because he had no experience to fit him 
 for such an undertaking, and I felt certain he would fall into errors ; I 
 had done so myself, and I knew that others had done so. The Depu- 
 tation, contrary to my advice, gave Mr. Threlkeld liberty to draw upon 
 the Society to any amount ; they also directed R. Campbell, Esq., to 
 pay his bills. A bill for £500, which he had drawn, came back pro- 
 tested. I was requested by the Society to pay the amount and discon- 
 tinue the Mission. I had directions, if Mr. T. chose to continue the 
 Mission, to offer him ,£250 per year, to which I offered to add £50 on 
 my own responsibility ; but he refused to accept less than ,£500 per 
 annum. — Mr. Threlkeld has only ,£150 a year now, with allowance for 
 four convict servants. 
 
 Cross-examined. I did not think Mr. T. hardly treated by the 
 Directors; I am aware that Mr. T. was sued by Mr. Scott for the bill, 
 but I never thought he would send him to prison ; custom has established 
 the use of tobacco, but 1 should not consider it absolutely necessary in 
 forming a Mission. I was not aware of any proposal being made by Dr. 
 Lang for the establishment of a school for the children of the Missionaries ; 
 I do not think it disreputable for Mr. T. to hold office under Govern- 
 * : the articles in * The Colonist ' would, I think, have been better 
 
 11 Esq., (a juryman) produced a statement of the ac- 
 -Mid his father, up to the period of the abandon- 
 
 t; on of ever having heard of a proposal 
 
APPENDIX. 521 
 
 by Dr. Lang j or the education of the children of the Missionaries, till I saw it 
 in ' The Colonist.' There may have been such a proposal, but I have no 
 recollection of it. The salary for a Missionary at the Islands is £30 
 for a man, £20 for his wife, and £5 for each child. That was Mr. T.'s 
 salary at the Islands. 
 
 Cross-examined. When 1 was in London, Mr. Ellis showed me a 
 letter from Dr. Lang, accusing Mr. Threlkeld of squandering the funds 
 of the Society. 
 
 Re-examined. The subject of that letter teas Lang's proposal for the 
 establishment of a school for the children of the Missionaries. 
 
 This closed the evidence for the defence. 
 
 The Solicitor-General rose to reply : — 
 
 It now became his duty to reply upon the evidence which had been 
 brought before the Jury both by the plaintiff and defendant, as also to 
 the able speech of the defendant. The defendant had thought proper to 
 apologise for not having employed counsel in the case ; but no counsel, 
 no matter how talented, could have exhibited so much eloquence and 
 talent. He has unfolded his own views in a way which he was certain no 
 barrister could have done for him ; he (Mr. P.) had not the presumption 
 to think that he could compete with Dr. Lang. The learned Doctor in- 
 formed you, that the reason why he dispensed with the assistance of 
 counsel was, because the interests of religion were concerned. Now, he 
 (Mr. Plunkett) could not but feel for his client, who, differing as he did 
 from him in religious belief, had yet resolved to trust his casein his hands. 
 Defendant had said that Protestants all agreed in some points ; but in 
 none did they more agree, than in differing from the religion which he 
 professed. In justice, however, to himself and his religion, which was 
 between God and himself, he would take the liberty of denying the 
 truth of the often-refuted statement, that Catholics are opposed to the 
 spread of the Gospel. He went along with his Rev. client, and also 
 with the defendant, in wishing heartily and sincerely the diffusion of the 
 Gospel through the world. It was said in these articles, that these were 
 the dark days of Popish ascendency. God forbid that we should have 
 any such ascendency. He agreed with the defendant in wishing that 
 there should be no ascendency, save that of virtue and morality. It 
 matters not to him what the religion of another is ; that is a question 
 between him and his God. He would say in the words of the Catholic 
 poet Dryden, 
 
 " For modes of faith let zealous bigots fight, 
 His can't be wrong whose life is in the right." 
 
522 APPENDIX. 
 
 The defendant has told you in his powerful speech, thatThrelkeld had 
 no right to bring an action for libel. In reply, he would ask Dr. L., is a 
 man, because he belongs to the sacred cloth, to be called a robber 1 Is he 
 to be held up before the public to scorn and derision? He says, it is 
 quite incongruous for a clergyman to bring an action for libel ; but where 
 is the incongruity ? Is it not with him who makes the attack ? A man 
 who is insulted and is compelled, by the false rules of honour, to justify 
 himself, is to be pitied ; not the man who provokes him to do it. That 
 is exactly the case here. Mr. Threlkeld has used every means in his 
 power to avoid this. Dr. Lang says, why has he not proposed an arbitra- 
 tion? What arbitration could have satisfied Dr. Lang? and if the arbi- 
 trators declared the libels were not justified, would he have published in 
 ' The Colonist' that they were so? No, he never would have done so. 
 Why did he not treat Threlkeld like a brother ? Threlkeld wrote his letter, 
 smarting under wrongs sharper than any man had ever before suffered. 
 Besides, although he is a minister, has he not the feelings of a man? 
 Is he to be held up not only as a disgrace to his cloth, but as a public 
 peculator? Could be do otherwise than take up the subject with all 
 the warmth of an injured man? He wrote that letter as a private one, 
 and never expected that it would have been published ; yet Dr. Lang 
 tells you, he thought he had done him ample justice by publishing his 
 letter. In his introduction to his remarks on it, he picks out all the 
 expressions which Mr. T. had, under the influence of excited feelings, 
 applied to him. Was that done with a friendly feeling? Dr. Lang told 
 you that another course than this was open to Mr. Threlkeld for re- 
 dress. Does he mean that Mr. Threlkeld should have commenced a paper 
 war? You have heard what a powerful speaker and also what a powerful 
 writer Dr. Lang is ; his talents are well known. And had Threlkeld 
 ventured to ask a favour from 'The Gazette,' 'Herald,' 'Monitor,' 
 or 'Australian' newspapers, and obtained liberty to write in their 
 columns, what would have been the consequence ? It would have called 
 forth a rejoinder three or four columns in length from ' The Colonist.' 
 Dr. Lang told you, that Mr. Threlkeld had before had recourse to the 
 press ; that he had thrown himself upon it, and should now have abided 
 by it. But what was the fact? This pamphlet, upon which he relies 
 with so much confidence, was not meant for circulation ; it was not 
 meant for sale ; it was meant only to set his character right with the 
 Directors. And could it be said, that if for convenience he had certain 
 documents printed for the purpose of sending home, that any man would 
 be justified in getting hold of his pamphlet, and holding him up to 
 ridicule, merely because he had put it in print ? The only excuse Dr. 
 
APPENDIX. 523 
 
 Lang has made for libelling Mr. Threlkeld is, that he libelled others, 
 and that Mr. T. came in for his share among good company. He denies 
 the application of that part of the article to Mr. T. which speaks of 
 the doffing of the apostolic coat ; but you must take it in connexion with 
 the rest of the article, with this catch, for example, from an old song, — 
 
 " The grant is an excellent run." 
 
 What is meant by a run ? It is not running after natives, — it is a run 
 for cattle. No matter what may be the talent or the genius of Dr. L., 
 he cannot get over the fact that this applies to Mr. T. He would call 
 their attention to that passage which says, ^600 per annum was spent 
 for so many years, and that no man in his senses could expend such a 
 sum without he either lacked conscience or common sense. After 
 having repeated it over and over again, Dr. L. said he had nothing to 
 retract ; Threlkeld might take which he liked. Of the two alternatives, 
 it certainly would be worse to lack conscience, than common sense. He 
 lays great stress upon the items of expenditure he has put before you. 
 These expenses commenced at Raiatea in the year 1824. But have the 
 Society complained of these expenses? No. And is it for Dr. Lang 
 to complain, after seven years have passed over? It mattered not when 
 the expense was incurred ; Threlkeld had a right to charge it. It 
 would weary them too much if he were to go through the paragraphs 
 word for word, which the Rev. Doctor read with so much emphasis ; 
 but he would call their attention to the 4th, which says, " It is truly 
 lamentable to think what mischief has arisen through incompetent and 
 untrustworthy individuals." As to that word ' untrustworthy,' which 
 Dr. Lang tells you merely means incompetency, and is not intended to 
 impute moral delinquency, I will ask you, gentlemen, to exercise your 
 own common sense, and say what could be the meaning of the writer, 
 when he puts it in contradistinction to 'incompetent?' What would 
 be the use of coupling them with the conjunction and, if they had both 
 the same meaning ? Would so classical a writer as Dr. Lang be guilty 
 of such tautology ? If you had an overseer whom you were going to 
 discharge, a man who might be honest, but did not know his business, 
 would you do him justice, if you said, " I discharge him, because he is 
 an untrustworthy man ? " No ; you would say, that he was incompetent, 
 that you had nothing to say against his moral character. If you did 
 otherwise, the servant would not take the character. If he was fool 
 enough to take it, what would be the consequence ? Why, his new master 
 would say, you are a rogue upon your own showing. All the eloquence 
 of Cicero could not persuade any person but that the word meant a 
 
524 APPENDIX. 
 
 moral imputation. The defendant stands convicted, upon his own con- 
 fession, of calling the plaintiff an untrustworthy individual, or, in other 
 words — a thief. Then the next part of the libel, that of " being liheral 
 of other people's goods," following in the next sentence but one, — does 
 it not imply an improper squandering of money which had been en- 
 trusted to him by the Deputation ? As to the item of tobacco, which 
 could not escape the philippic of the defendant, he cannot, he says, 
 find any passage in Scripture to authorise its use. Why, certainly it is 
 not to be found in Scripture. But I am sure that if the twelve apostles 
 themselves came down amongst the Aborigines, and did not give them 
 either trinkets or tobacco, they would not be able to get them to listen to 
 their preaching ; and I question whether they would even be allowed to 
 remain amongst them for as brief a period as three days ; for the defen- 
 dant knows, that if they wished to make them useful, they must make them 
 presents. It happened also that in that very neighbourhood the most 
 vicious Blacks in the colony were to be found. Mr. Threlkeld anticipated, 
 if left alone at the station, that he would have become a prey to the ill- 
 disposed Blacks. He actually was plundered ; the men were tried in 
 this Court. As to the letter which had been produced, it was a matter 
 exclusively between the Society and the Government, giving an excuse 
 for relinquishing the grant the Government had made with so much 
 liberality. This letter, in itself, shows, that the original fault rested 
 with the Deputation, — two inexperienced men, with whose views the 
 Society did not agree. The Directors say, " had we been consulted 
 before it was begun, we would not have acceded to it." This shows that 
 the Deputation were ignorant of the resources of the Society, or they 
 would have taken the sound and wise advice which Mr. Marsden gave 
 them. But the Deputation did not limit Threlkeld, and he went upon 
 the best of his judgment. It was the Deputation, therefore, who were 
 in the wrong; and if he (T.) exceeded their finances, of the extent of 
 which both he and they were ignorant, it was not Threlkeld's fault. If 
 it is any disgrace to receive ,£150 from the Treasury chest, it must be a 
 double disgrace to receive twice as much. But when we see that the 
 plaintiff for so many years carried on the Mission at his own expense, it 
 was only creditable to the Government that they should pay him when he 
 was out of the service of the London Society. Before he was employed 
 by them, they must have made some inquiry respecting him, as being a 
 man of morals, of honour, and integrity. It was upon the pledge given 
 by the Deputation, that he involved himself in pecuniary embarrassment. 
 Why, it is upon this very letter that General Darling, when he heard 
 that the London Missionary Society had abandoned the grant altogether, 
 
APPENDIX. 525 
 
 and that Threlkeld was no longer in their employment — it was then 
 that he was appointed by the Government. Therefore, although this 
 letter was given in evidence against Threlkeld for having spent so 
 much money, we find it was actually upon its receipt, that he got the 
 appointment. Threlkeld came here with the deputation, in August, 
 1824, and was not dismissed until September, 1827; therefore it will 
 be seen, that he has been longer in the employment than Dr. Lang 
 would have you to believe ; he says only two years and a half, whereas it 
 is upwards of three years. Another charge against him, is that of '* sow- 
 ing discord among brethren." You will, I am sure, expect strong proof 
 of the justification to that effect. But have you a particle of proof? A 
 witness has been put into the box to prove that he was sowing discord, 
 and thus prevented Dr. Lang from establishing a school for the benefit 
 of the Missionaries' children ; but have you heard any evidence to prove 
 that fact? On the contrary, the evidence is all the other way. No 
 doubt, Dr. Lang may have heard of it ; but is that a justification to any 
 man, to hold another up to his brethren as a person of such a character? 
 I do not mean to say Dr. Lang has not been informed of it ; but it was 
 highly imprudent and improper to designate him in his sacred character 
 as a person wishing to sow discord. But Dr. Lang says, he has an ad- 
 mission in Threlkeld's own letter to that effect. Threlkeld says, that he 
 never saw nor heard of any plan for such a school, and therefore could 
 not have opposed it. He adds, I may have said that Dr. Lang was not a 
 proper person to establish a school for such a purpose. That is the 
 only expression that he can lay hold of. It is very possible that Threl- 
 keld might have spoken to other missionaries, and, when talking about 
 their own business, they might talk casually on the other. All these 
 expressions, however, are contained in a private letter, which is the 
 same as from one brother to another, and would never have seen the 
 light, had it not been for Dr. Lang himself publishing it. Dr. Lang 
 now says, he disclaims imputing dishonest motives to Mr. Threlkeld ; 
 but he must have blindfolded himself not to see what effect his state- 
 ments would have before the world ; he must be very fond of the emana- 
 tions of his own pen, ere he can believe them to be so harmless. If 
 Threlkeld had interfered with the Scotch Church, or the Presbyterian 
 Ministers, why, Dr. Lang would have been up in arms, and he has a press 
 of his own to defend himself. He says, he would not have brought an 
 action ; but if he had not • The Colonist' at his back, we would have him 
 here making a speech as long as that we heard yesterday. If I could make 
 such a speech for my client, I would imitate it now; but I must leave 
 
526 APPENDIX. 
 
 it to you to imagine what I should have said. The speech of Dr. Lang 
 was so long, so able, and so powerful, I cannot attempt to follow him 
 in the course of it. 1 know the disadvantage I labour under in fol- 
 lowing him so far as I have gone ; however, he derived an advantage 
 from being allowed to travel out of the direct course, so as to make an 
 impression upon the jury, which counsel are not allowed to do. He 
 would bring his remarks to a conclusion. We have stated in our de- 
 claration, that we were held up as a person unfit to be a Missionary 
 — held up as a counterfeit that had doffed our cloak, in order to get 
 under the broad banners of episcopacy. We are also charged with being 
 a sheep and cattle breeder. I ask, has the defendant proved any of 
 these 1 What right has he, therefore, to claim a verdict ? He has said 
 repeatedly, that he is willing to make reparation, if he is wrong ; he 
 must therefore bear with the consequences. This action was first 
 brought against the editor of the paper containing the libellous articles ; 
 but defendant came forward and avowed himself the author. The 
 boasted Freedom of the Press, therefore, Dr. Lang cannot claim ; he is 
 not the editor; but even if he was, he ought to have gone to Threlkeld 
 as a friend, as a brother. The Freedom of the Press can never be so 
 abused as to allow any man to hold another up to ridicule and contempt. 
 I am sure you will give the whole amount of damages laid in the de- 
 claration ; and even that will be for my client a poor compensation. 
 I will now say no more, but will be disappointed indeed if you do not 
 give the whole damages laid in the declaration. 
 
 His Honour Judge Burton then summed up the evidence at con- 
 siderable length ; observing very feelingly on the peculiarity of the 
 case, and expressing his sincere regret that it should ever have come 
 into Court at all, intimating at the same time his own impression that 
 it would injure the cause of our common Christianity. 
 
 The Jury then retired, but returned to Court in about half an hour, 
 stating their inability to come to a decision, and requesting that a 
 juror might be withdrawn. His Honour having informed them, how- 
 ever, that he had no authority to accede to such a proposal, they re- 
 tired a second time. 
 
 During their absence, His Honour having suggested to the parties that 
 they should withdraw a juror, and leave the matter for his decision, 
 the defendant expressed his entire willingness to do so, and observed 
 that he had no intention whatever to impute moral delinquency to the 
 plaintiff. The plaintiff, however, having refused to accede to this ar- 
 rangement unconditionally, it was agreed to leave the case in the hands 
 
APPENDIX. 527 
 
 of the jury. After having been absent about an hour and a half, the 
 jury again returned to Court, and asked His Honour whether they could 
 give such a verdict as would leave each of the parties to pay his own 
 costs ; such being the arrangement which they had conceived to be 
 equitable in the case. His Honour, however, having told them that no 
 such verdict could be received, a verdict was given for the' plaintiff : 
 damages, One Farthing. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BY A. 3. VALPY, 
 RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET. 
 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 25 Wov5lAl 
 26NOV*f t 
 
 JAN 23 1989 
 
 9EC 28*88 
 
 MAY 1 1999 
 
 LD 21-95m-ll, , 50(2877sl6)476 
 
iMfWif 
 
 B ooo3i4sai 
 
 i 
 
 M315997 
 
m^mTNt 
 
 ;^Ak A^rk 
 
 
 m^Mm^w^ 
 
 
 I^M^flteSft 
 
 IMMi>mM, 
 
 $ -*^iyfe*i 
 
 
 vWmESIISheS 
 
 mmm 
 
 ^»#f*iift^ 
 
 »toft 
 
 ^lii.