If, in the course of this work, he has spoken in terms of unqualified reprobation of the baneful system to which the unhappy place of his nativity has been the victim, he would have it distinctly understood, that it has been furthest from his thoughts to connect the censure which he has bestowed on it, with those who have permitted its continuance. He is too deeply impressed with a sense of the arduous and momentous nature of the contest which they have had to conduct, not to allow that it was justly entitled to their first and chief attention. Our whole colonial system, in fact, he considers to have been but a mere under plot in the great drama that was acting. It could not, therefore, be reasonably expected that the grievances of any one colony should become the subject of minute and particular investigation; and still less could it be imagined that the government should convert their attention to the relief of one, which has comparatively excited but a small share of public interest, and has hitherto been considered more in the light of a prison, than of what he has endeavoured to prove it might be rendered,--one of the most useful and valuable appendages of the empire. This apology, however, for the neglect which the colony has experienced during the war, cannot be pleaded in vindication of a perseverance in the same impolitic and oppressive course in time of peace. Nor is it to be wondered at, as upwards of three years have now elapsed since the consolidation of the tranquillity of the world, that the colonists should begin to feel indignant at the continuance of disabilities, for the abrogation of which the most powerful considerations of justice and expediency have been urged in vain. To remove such just grounds for dissatisfaction and complaint, and to allow them, at length, the enjoyment of those rights and privileges, of which they ought never to have been debarred, would, at best, be but a poor compensation for an impeded agriculture and languishing commerce; but it is the only one that can now be offered; and, although it cannot repair the wide ravages which so many years of unmerited and absurd restrictions have occasioned, it may arrest the progress of desolation, and prevent any further increase to the numbers who have already sunk beneath the pressure of an overwhelming system. It is, therefore, to be hoped that the cause of humanity will no longer be outraged by unnecessary delay, and that the only atonement, which can be made the colonists for their past and present sufferings, will no longer be withheld.
The author is fully aware that, in the course of this work, he has developed no new principle of political economy, and that he has only travelled in the broad beaten path in which hundreds have journeyed before him. For troubling, therefore, the public with a repetition of principles, of which the truth is so generally known and acknowledged, the only plea he can urge in his justification is a hope that the reiteration of them will not be deemed unnecessary and obtrusive, so long as their application is incomplete; so long as vice and misery prevail in any part of the world, from the want of their adoption and enforcement.
PART I
NEW SOUTH WALES.
STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE SETTLEMENTS IN NEW HOLLAND.
The colony of New South Wales is situated on the eastern coast of New Holland. This island, which was first discovered by the Dutch in 1616, lies between the 9 degrees and 39 degrees of south latitude, and the 108 degrees and 153 degrees of east longitude; and from its immense size, seems rather to merit the appellation of continent, which many geographers have bestowed on it. Since that period it has been visited and examined by a galaxy of celebrated navigators, among whom Cook and Flinders rank the most conspicuous. Still the survey of this large portion of the world cannot, by any means, be deemed complete; since not one of all the navigators who have laid down the various parts of its coasts, has discovered the mouth of any considerable river; and it is hardly within the scope of possible belief, that a country of such vast extent does not possess at least one river, which may deserve to be ranked in the class of "rivers of the first magnitude."
If a judgment were formed of this island from the general aspect of the country bordering the sea, it would be pronounced one of the most barren spots on the face of the globe. Experience, however, has proved that such an opinion would be exactly the reverse of truth; since, as far as the interior has been explored, its general fertility amply compensates for the extreme sterility of the coast.
The greater part of this country is covered with timber of a gigantic growth, but of an entirely different description from the timber of Europe. It is, however, very durable, and well adapted to all the purposes of human industry.