The development of Australia made rapid progress during the generation following the great war. Though Australia itself and Van Diemen's Land, now called Tasmania, were still in the main convict settlements, free settlers had been arriving at Sydney for some time, and in 1817 they began to arrive in moderate numbers in Van Diemen's Land. In 1825 that island had sufficiently progressed to be recognised as a separate colony. The attempt to found a colony in western Australia in 1829 was, on the other hand, an almost complete failure. But in 1824 a new centre of colonisation in New South Wales had been established at Port Phillip. Meanwhile a sharp cleavage of parties had arisen. The convicts and poorer colonists were opposed to the large sheep-owners, who were endeavouring to form an aristocracy. Governor Macquarie favoured the convicts, and Governor Darling (1825-31) the sheep-owners. In 1823 a legislative council, consisting of seven officials, had been instituted; in 1828 it was developed into one of fifteen members, chosen entirely from among the wealthiest colonists.
Gibbon Wakefield's Letter from Sydney, published in 1829, marks an epoch in the history of Australian colonisation. In this work he proposed that the land should be sold in small lots at a fairly high price to settlers, and that the proceeds of the sales should be used to pay the passage of emigrants going out as labourers. This idea had hardly been published when it was adopted by the home government, and five shillings an acre was fixed as the minimum price of land. The number of emigrants increased rapidly, but the new system threatened ruin to the owners of sheep-runs. Unable to pay the stipulated price, they only moved further into the interior and occupied fresh land without seeking government permission, an unlicensed occupation which has left its mark upon the language in the word "squatter". At last in 1837 a compromise was arranged, by which the squatters were to pay a small rent for their runs, the crown retaining the freehold with the right to sell it to others at some future date. In 1834 the British government sanctioned the formation of a new colony, that of South Australia. It was to be settled from the outset on the Wakefield system, and no convicts were ever sent to it. The first lots were sold as high as twelve shillings an acre, and in 1836 a company of emigrants went out and founded Adelaide.
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX I.
ON AUTHORITIES.[141]
(1) General histories of England for the period 1801-1837: Massey, History of England during the Reign of George the Third (4 vols., 2nd ed., 1865), closes with the treaty of Amiens in 1802, and therefore barely touches this period. There is still room for a general history of England on an adequate scale between 1802 and 1815. After that date we have Harriet Martineau, History of England during the Thirty Years' Peace (1816-1846, 2 vols., 1849, 1850). This was begun by Charles Knight, the publisher, who brought it down to 1819. From 1820 onwards it is Miss Martineau's own work. It is too nearly contemporary to depend on any authorities except such as were published at the time, and it represents in the main the popular view of public events and public men held by liberals at the time. Sir Spencer Walpole's History of England from the Conclusion of the Great War in 1815 (6 vols., revised ed., 1890), a work of high quality and thoroughly trustworthy, full of references to the best published authorities, sympathises with the whigs and more liberal tories. Reference is sometimes made in this volume to Goldwin Smith, The United Kingdom, a Political History (2 vols., 1899), but the work is too slight to be regarded as an authority. Sir T. E. May's (Lord Farnborough) Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860 (3 vols., 10th ed., 1891) is also useful.
(2) The Annual Register is probably the most useful authority for this period. In addition to more general information, it contains a very full report of the more important parliamentary debates and the text of the principal public treaties and of numerous other state papers. The narrative is not often coloured by the political partisanship of the writer, but allowance must be made for the strong tory bias of the volumes dealing with the reign of William IV. The Parliamentary History closes in 1803, at which date Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates had begun to appear. After 1812 Cobbett ceased to superintend the work and his name was dropped, and in 1813 and afterwards the title-page acknowledged that the work was "published under the superintendence of T. C. Hansard," who had also been the publisher of Cobbett's series and of the Parliamentary History.
MEMOIRS AND CORRESPONDENCE.
(3) Political and other memoirs and printed correspondence. The following have been noticed among the authorities for volume x.: Pellew, Life and Correspondence of H. Addington, Viscount Sidmouth (3 vols., 1847), very full wherever Sidmouth was directly concerned, written with a strong bias in favour of the subject of the biography. Lord Stanhope, Life of Pitt (4 vols., 3rd ed., 1867). The appendix to the last volume contains Pitt's correspondence with the king in the years 1804-1806. Lord Rosebery, Pitt (Twelve English Statesmen Series, 1891), brilliant but not always sound. Lord John (Earl) Russell, Memorials and Correspondence of C. J. Fox (4 vols., 1853-1854), and Life and Times of C. J. Fox, 1859-1866. Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George III. (4 vols., 1853-1855; 1801 falls in vol. iii.), continued in Memoirs of the Court of England during the Regency (2 vols., 1856), Memoirs of the Court of George IV. (2 vols., 1859), and Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of William IV. and Victoria (2 vols., 1861; 1837 is reached in vol. i.); these volumes, edited by the Duke of Buckingham, contain the correspondence of the Grenville family. The first series alone, which contains many important letters of Lord Grenville, is of first-rate importance. The editing is often inaccurate. Diaries and Correspondence of the First Earl of Malmesbury (4 vols., 1844), edited by the third earl (vol. iv. extends from February, 1801, to July, 1809), authoritative and useful, especially for the crisis of 1807. Correspondence of Marquis Cornwallis (3 vols., 1859), edited by C. Ross, valuable for the negotiations at Amiens and for Cornwallis's brief second governor-generalship of India. The notes are full of useful biographical material concerning the persons mentioned in the correspondence. Diaries and Correspondence of George Rose (2 vols., 1860), edited by L. V. Harcourt. The Diary and Correspondence of Charles Abbot, Lord Colchester, edited by his son (3 vols., 1861, extending from 1795 to 1829), with interesting notices of Perceval, and generally useful from 1802-1817, when Abbot was Speaker. Lord Holland, Memoirs of the Whig Party (2 vols., 1852), edited by his son, Lord Holland. These memoirs do not extend beyond the year 1807. Volume ii., which covers the period during which Holland was a member of the Grenville cabinet, is of special importance. His memory is not always accurate, and he writes with a whig bias which makes him a harsh judge of George III. Holland's Further Memoirs of the Whig Party, 1807-1821, edited by Lord Stavordale, the present Lord Ilchester (1905), interesting, and, like the earlier volumes, full of personal detail, but of less value, since Holland was not in office again till 1830.