great people, is, the want of large rivers penetrating very far into the interior, and navigable for small craft. The Hawkesbury, the largest river yet discovered, is not accessible to boats for more than twenty miles. This same river occasionally rises above its natural level, to the astonishing height of fifty feet; and has swept away, more than once, the labours and the hopes of the new people exiled to its banks. The laborious acquisition of any good we have long enjoyed is apt to be forgotten. We walk and talk, and run and read, without remembering the long and severe labour dedicated to the cultivation of these powers, the formidable obstacles opposed to our progress, or the infinite satisfaction with which we overcame them. He who lives among a civilised people may estimate the labour by which society has been brought into such a state, by reading in these annals of Botany Bay, the account of a whole nation exerting itself to new floor the government-house, repair the hospital, or build a wooden receptacle for stores. Yet the time may come, when some Botany Bay Tacitus shall record the crimes. of an emperor lineally descended from a London pickpocket, or paint the valour with which he has led his New Hollanders into the heart of China. At that period, when the Grand Lahma is sending to supplicate alliance; when the spice islands are purchasing peace with nutmegs; when enormous tributes of green tea and nankeen are wafted into Port Jackson, and landed on the quays of Sydney, who will ever remember that the sawing of a few planks, and the knocking together of a few nails, were such a serious trial of the energies and resources of the nation? The Government of the colony, after enjoying some little respite from this kind of labour, has begun to turn its attention to the coarsest and most necessary species of manufactures, for which their wool appears to be extremely well adapted. The state of stock in the whole settlement, in June 1801, was about 7,000 sheep, 1,300 head of cattle, 250 horses, and 5,000 hogs. There were under cultivation at the same time, between 9 and 10,000 acres of corn. Three years and a half before this, in December 1797, the numbers were as follows: Sheep, 2,500; cattle, 350; horses, 100; hogs, 4,300; acres of land in cultivation, 4,000. The temptation to salt pork, and to sell it for Government store, is probably the reason why the breed of hogs has been so much kept under. The increase of cultivated lands between the two periods is prodigious. It appears (p. 319.) that the whole number of convicts imported between January 1788 and June 1801 (a period of thirteen years and a half), has been about 5,000, of whom 1,157 were females. The total amount of the population on the continent, as well as at Norfolk Island, amounted, June 1801, to 6,500 persons; of these, 766 were children born at Port Jackson. In the returns from Norfolk Island, children are not discriminated from adults. Let us add to the imported population of 5,000 convicts, 500 free people, which (if we consider that a regiment of soldiers has been kept up there) is certainly a very small allowance; then, in thirteen years and a half, the imported population has increased only by two-thirteenths. If we suppose that something more than a fifth of the free people were women, this will make the total of women 1,270; of whom we may fairly presume that 800 were capable of child-bearing; and if we suppose the children of Norfolk Island to bear the same proportion to the adults as at Port Jackson, their total number at both settlements will be 913;-a state of infantine population which certainly does not justify the very high eulogiums which have been made on the fertility of the female sex in the climate of New Holland. The Governor, who appears on all occasions to be an extremely well-disposed man, is not quite so conversant in the best writings on political economy as we could wish and indeed (though such knowledge would be extremely serviceable to the interests which this Romulus of the Southern Pole is superintending), it is rather unfair to exact from a superintendent of pick-pockets, that he should be a philosopher. In the 18th page we have the following information respecting the price of labour: Some representations having been made to the Governor from the settlers in different parts of the colony, purporting that the wages demanded by the free labouring people, whom they had occasion to hire, was so exorbitant as to run away with the greatest part of the profit of their farms, it was recommended to them to appoint quarterly meetings among themselves, to be held in each district, for the purpose of settling the rate of wages to labourers in every different kind of work; that, to this end, a written agreement should be entered into, and subscribed by each settler, a breach of which should be punished by a penalty, to be fixed by the general opinion, and made recoverable in a court of civil judicature. It was recommended to them to apply this forfeiture to the common benefit; and they were to transmit to the head-quarters a copy of their agreement, with the rate of wages which they should from time to time establish, for the Governor's information, holding their first meeting as early as possible.' And again, at p. 24., the following arrangements on that head are enacted: In pursuance of the order which was issued in January last, recommending the settlers to appoint meetings, at which they should fix the rate of wages that it might be proper to pay for the different kinds of labour which their farms should require, the settlers had submitted to the Governor the several resolutions that they had entered into, by which he was enabled to fix a rate that he conceived to be fair and equitable between the farmer and the labourer. The following prices of labour were now established, viz. Felling forest timber, per acre ditto ditto Breaking up stubble or corn ground 14d. per rod, 7 7 - 0 10 ∞000 Thrashing ditto, per bushel, per acre Pulling and husking Indian corn, per bushel Splitting paling of seven feet long, per hundred Sawing plank, ditto £ s. d. 009 Ditching per rod, three feet wide and three feet deep 0 0010 Carriage of wheat, per bushel, per mile Ditto Indian corn, neat Yearly wages for labour, with board Wages per week, with provisions, consisting of 4 lib. of salt pork, or 6 lib. of fresh, and 21 lib. of wheat with vegetables A day's wages with board Ditto without board A government-man allowed to officers or settlers in 10 0 2 0 3 0 1 0 2 6 The settlers were reminded, that, in order to prevent any kind of dispute between the master and servant, when they should have occasion to hire a man for any length of time, they would find it most convenient to engage him for a quarter, halfyear, or year, and to make their agreement in writing; on which, should any dispute arise, an appeal to the magistrates would settle it.' It This is all very bad; and if the Governor had cherished the intention of destroying the colony, he could have done nothing more detrimental to its interests. The high price of labour is the very corner-stone on which the prosperity of a new colony depends. enables the poor man to live with ease; and is the strongest incitement to population, by rendering children rather a source of riches than of poverty. If the same difficulty of subsistence existed in new countries as in old, it is plain that the progress of population would be equally slow in each. The very circumstances which cause the difference are, that, in the latter, there is a competition among the labourers to be employed; and, in the former, a competition among the occupiers of land to obtain labourers. In the one, land is scarce, and men plenty; in the other, men are scarce, and land is plenty. To disturb this natural order of things (a practice injurious at all times) must be particularly so where the predominant disposition of the colonists is an aversion to labour, produced by a long course of dissolute habits. In such cases the high prices of labour, which the Governor was so desirous of abating, bid fair not only to increase the agricultural prosperity, but to effect the moral reformation of the colony. We observe the same unfortunate ignorance of the elementary principles of commerce in the attempts of the Governor to reduce the prices of the European commodities, by bulletins and authoritative interference, as if there were any other mode of lowering the price of an article (while the demand continues the same) but by increasing its quantity. The avaricious love of gain, which is so feelingly deplored, appears to us a principle which, in able hands, might be guided to the most salutary purposes. The object is to encourage the love of labour, which is best encouraged by the love of money. We have very great doubts on the policy of reserving the best timber on the estates as government timber. Such a reservation would probably operate as a check upon the clearing of lands, without attaining the object desired; for the timber, instead of being immediately cleared, would be slowly destroyed, by the neglect or malice of the settlers whose lands it encumbered. Timber is such a drug in new countries, that it is at any time to be purchased for little more than the labour of cutting. To secure a supply of it by vexatious and invidious laws, is surely a work of supererogation and danger. The greatest evil which the Government has yet had to contend with is, the inordinate use of spirituous liquors; a passion which puts the interests of agriculture at variance with those of morals: for a dram-drinker will consume as much corn, in the form of alcohol, in one day, as would supply him with bread for three; and thus, by his vices, opens an admirable |