[163] Commons Report, 1812.
[164] Bigge's Report.
[165] Ibid.
[166] "A small farm of 30 acres was now offered to me by Bryan: I recommended Mr. Cox (of New South Wales) to buy it, which he did for £40; half money and half property. I also purchased for him two others; one of 25 acres, and another of 50 acres, from Mr. Hume, for £45; another of 30 acres from Thomas Higgins, for £35; and another farm, of 100 acres, I also purchased for Mr. Cox for £50 and ten gallons of rum. I likewise bought another farm of 100 acres from Captain Campbell for £100; and of Dr. Thompson, a farm of 100 acres, with twenty-five sheep, an old mare, two fillies and a colt, a cow, and a young ox, for £500: the stock, when valued, was worth more than the purchase money. Next year (1801) I bought John Ramsay's farm of 75 acres, for £40; and then Michael Fitzgerald's, with eight large pigs and eighty bushels of maize, for £100. I let this farm, ten days after, for £40 per year. I then purchased Barrington's (the celebrated pickpocket), 25 acres, an old brood mare with a colt at her foot, for £100, and sold the mare a few days after for £85. I then bought 50 acres from Edward Elliot, for £100, and by these means squared the estate."—Holt's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 137.
[167] "A lurcher is the lowest order of thieves."—Holt.
[168] Bigge's Report.
SECTION X
Van Diemen's Land was divided into counties by Governor King (1805). An imaginary line was drawn across the island from east to west midway; Buckingham being on the south, and Cornwall on the north. Macquarie made sections more minute, by a running survey.
In 1826, letters patent were issued, constituting Edward Dumaresq, chief, and Roderick O'Connor and Peter Murdoch, assistant commissioners, for the survey and valuation of crown lands. They were instructed in delineating counties, hundreds, and parishes, to observe the natural boundaries and recognised nominal limits. The parishes were to contain about twenty-five square miles. On this task they were ten years employed; but their valuation became available so soon as one parish was proclaimed. The names assigned to the various localities are commonly welcome to the British ear;[169] though occasionally productive of confusion.[170]