This fact is so much in opposition to the general opinion on the intermixture of human races, that before attributing it to physiological causes, we must inquire whether it is not owing to some other causes.
We might be tempted, for instance, to suppose, that there was no intermixture, and that the ugliness and dirty habits of the native women bridled the sexual desire of the Europeans. This has been advanced, not by travellers who have precisely asserted the contrary, but by honest and sensible reasoners, whose refined taste revolted at the aspect of the portraits and busts of the Australian women. It would be a serious fact that a whole race should have such an irresistible repugnance to another, for nature has only inspired with such a feeling of repulsion beings of different species, and man is certainly of all animals the least exclusive. Is there in our seaports a prostitute sufficiently ugly and old to frighten the sailor? Is it not known that the Hottentots, whose ugliness is proverbial, have intermixed with the Europeans of South Africa? We must then set aside such a supposition, which is not founded upon a correct knowledge of human nature. There are, moreover, some documents, which induce us to believe that the Europeans of Australia and Van Diemen’s Land have intermixed with the native women.
According to Malte-Brun the population of the colony of Sydney amounted in 1821 to 37,068 individuals, thus distributed.[63]
| Free settlers, or liberated convicts, | men | 12,608 |
| Free”settlers,” or liberate” | women | 3,422 |
| Free”settlers,” or liberate” | children | 7,224 |
| Convicts of both sexes | 13,814 | |
| ——— | ||
| 37,068 | ||
Thus there were among the free adults only twenty-seven women for a hundred men, that is to say, that seventy-three men in a hundred were absolutely prevented from marrying.
The relative proportion of convicts of the two sexes is not indicated in the above account, but it is known that originally the male convicts formed the great majority, and that there were ever afterwards far fewer women than men.
In 1825[64] the number of inhabitants amounted to nearly 50,000; but from this period the convicts were mostly sent to Van Diemen’s Land, and the white population of Australia diminished rapidly from not receiving regular reinforcements. In 1836 there were only 36,598 of all classes.
| Free | men | 13,456 | } | 20,930 |
| Fr” | women | 7,474 | ||
| Convicts | men | 14,135 | } | 15,668 |
| Con” | women | 1,513 | ||
| ——— | ||||
| 36,598 | ||||
There were thus, among the convicts, only one woman to nine men, and among the free population one woman to two men.[65]