OPERATION OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT IN THE COLONY
FOR THE LAST FIFTEEN YEARS.
It is generally considered a matter of astonishment that the
colony of New South Wales, situated as it is, in a climate equal
to that of the finest parts of France, of Spain, and of Italy,
and possessing a soil of unbounded fertility, should have made so
little progress towards prosperity and independence. The causes,
however, which have contributed to its retardment, are the same,
as have been attended with similar effects in all ages. Not only
the records of the years that are no more, but the experience
also of the present day, concur in proving that the prosperity of
nations is not so much the result of the fertility of their soil,
and the benignity of their climate, as of the wisdom and policy
of their institutions. Decadence, poverty, wretchedness, and
vice, have been the invariable attendants of bad governments; as
prosperity, wealth, happiness, and virtue, have been of good
ones. Rome, once the glory of the world; now a bye-word among the
nations: once the seat of civilization, of affluence, and of
power; now the abode of superstition, poverty, and weakness, is a
lasting monument of the truth of this assertion. Her greatness
was founded on freedom, and rose with her consulate; her
decadence may be said to have commenced with her first emperor,
and was completed under his vicious and despotic dynasty: her
climate and soil still remain; but the freedom which raised her
to the empire of the world has passed away with her
institutions.
If we search still further back into antiquity, we shall find
that all the great nations which have at various times
preponderated over their neighbours, attained their utmost force
and vigour, during the period of their greatest freedom and
virtue; and that their decadence and ultimate annihilation were
the work of a succession of vicious and tyrannical rulers. The
empires of Persia and of Greece, were successively established by
the superior freedom and virtue of their citizens; and it was
only when the institutions, which were the source of this freedom
and virtue, were no longer reverenced and enforced, that each in
its turn became the prey of a freer and more virtuous people.
The experience of modern times is still more conclusive on
this subject; because no part of the chain of events which have
contributed to the aggrandisement or impair of existing nations,
lies hid in the mist of ages. If we regard the unprecedented
wealth and power of our own country, we shall be convinced that
her present pre-eminent position is not so much the effect of her
soil and climate, since in these respects she is confessedly
behind many of the nations of Europe, as of the superior freedom
of her laws, which have engendered her a freer, more virtuous,
and more warlike race of people. It is to her superior polity
alone that she is indebted for a dominion, unparalleled in the
history of the world; and it is to its rigid maintenance and
enforcement that she must look for its durability.
While England has been thus assiduously attentive to her own
immediate internal prosperity, she has not in general been
neglectful of those external possessions, which she has gradually
acquired by colonization, by conquest, or by cession. On the most
distant branches of her empire, she has engrafted, as far as
circumstances would in general admit, those institutions which
have been the main cause of her own internal happiness and
prosperity. In the West Indies, in Canada, and lately in the
Ionian Islands, she has introduced the elective franchise, and
established that mixed counterpoising form of government, whose
three component parts, though essentially different in their
natures, so admirably coalesce and form one combined harmonious
whole. It has, in fact, been one of the leading maxims of her
political conduct, and undoubtedly one of the chief causes of her
present greatness, to attach the people who have been embodied
into her empire, or who have emigrated from her shores only to
colonise new countries, and thus to extend her limits and
increase her resources, by an equality of rights and privileges
with her subjects at home. The navigation act, indeed, militates
in some degree, against the liberal view here taken of her
colonial policy; but the existence of this single act, which,
however its wisdom may be at present canvassed, there can be no
doubt has proved the basis of her commercial and maritime
ascendancy, will not invalidate the claim to liberality, of which
her colonial system is in other respects deserving. The conduct
of her government has undoubtedly been in most instances liberal
and enlightened; and if they have occasionally deviated from
their ordinary enlarged policy of establishing the representative
system, and leaving to the colonies, themselves, the liberty of
framing laws adapted to their several circumstances and wants, it
has been principally in those cases where the ancient inveterate
habits of the people, their difference of religion, and inferior
civilization, have rendered such deviations unavoidable. India
furnishes the principal example of such exception to her general
policy; yet, even in her remote possessions in that country, the
sixty millions who are subject to her sway, enjoy a security of
person and property unknown to them while under the government of
their native princes. It is on this amelioration in their
condition, and not on the strength and number of her armies, that
her dominion in that part of the world is founded; and after all,
what government is so stable as that which is bottomed on
opinion, and depends for its existence on general utility, and
the consent of the governed? Dominion may, indeed, be acquired,
and continued by force and terror; but if it have no other props
to support it, it is at best but precarious, and must, sooner or
later, fall, either by the resistance of those whom it would hold
in subjection, or by undermining their moral and physical
energies, and thus rendering them unfit even for the vile
purposes of despotism itself.
The colony of New South Wales, is, I believe, the only one of
our possessions exclusively inhabited by Englishmen, in which
there is not at least the shadow of a free government, as it
possesses neither a council, a house of assembly, nor even the
privilege of trial by jury. And although it must be confessed
that the strange ingredients of which this colony was formed, did
not, at the epoch of its foundation, warrant a participation of
these important privileges, it will be my endeavour in this essay
to prove that the withholding of them up to the present period,
has been the sole cause why it has not realized the expectations
which its founders were led to form of its capabilities.
It is not difficult to conceive that the same causes, which in
the lapse of centuries have sufficed to undermine and eventually
ingulph vast empires, should be able to impede the progress of
smaller communities, whether they be kingdoms, states, or
colonies. Arbitrary governments, indeed, are so generally
admitted to impair the moral and physical energies of a people,
that it would be superfluous to enter into an elaborate
disquisition, in order to demonstrate the truth of a position,
which has been confirmed by the experience of ages. Whoever is
convinced that he has no rights, no possessions that are sacred
and inviolable, is a slave, and devoid of that noble feeling of
independence which is essential to the dignity of his nature, and
the due discharge of his functions. This noble assurance that he
is in the path of duty and security, so long as he refrain from
the violation of those laws which may have been framed for the
good of the community of which he is a member, is the main spring
of all industry and improvement. But this dignified feeling
cannot exist in any society which is subject to the arbitrary
will of an individual; and although the governor of this colony
does not exactly possess the unlimited authority of an eastern
despot, since he may be ultimately made accountable to his
sovereign and the laws, for the abuse of the power delegated to
him, I may be allowed to ask, should he invade the property, and
violate the personal liberty of those whom he ought to govern
with justice and impartiality, where are the oppressed to seek
for retribution? Is it in this country, situated at sixteen
thousand miles from the seat of his injustice and oppression? To
tell a poor man that he may obtain redress in the court of King's
Bench, what is it but a cruel mockery, calculated to render the
pang more poignant, which it would pretend to alleviate?
I am not here amusing myself with the supposition of
contingencies that may never occur. I am alluding to outrages
that have been actually perpetrated, and of which the bare
recital would fill the minds of a British jury with the liveliest
sentiments of compassion and sympathy for the oppressed, and of
horror and indignation against the oppressor. Leaseholds
cancelled, houses demolished without the smallest compensation,
on the plea of public utility, but in reality from motives of
private hatred and revenge; freemen imprisoned on arbitrary
warrants issued without reference to the magistracy, and even
publicly flogged in the same illegal and oppressive manner: such
were the events that crowded the government of a wretch, whom it
would be as superfluous to name, as it is needless to hold him up
to the execration of posterity* If such an immortality were, as
it appears to have been, the object of his pursuit, he has
completely attained it. Almost at his very offset in life, he
acquired a notoriety which has increased through all the
subsequent sinuosities of his career. Not content with pushing
the discipline of the service to which he belonged, in itself
sufficiently severe, to its extreme verge, by an excess of
vexatious brutality, he goaded into mutiny a crew of noble-minded
fellows, the greater part of whom it has been since discovered,
pined away their existence on a desolate island, lost to their
country and themselves, the sad victims of an unavailing remorse.
Yet there is one of them still living, who has since fully
evinced his devotedness for his country's glory, and has been
deservedly raised to that elevated rank in her service, which but
for him many more might have lived to attain. Despised by his
equals in his profession, and detested by his inferiors, he was
contradistinguished from other worthy officers of the same name,
by prefixing to his _that_ of the vessel which was the scene
of this act of insubordination, in the event the grave of many a
noble spirit, that might otherwise have proved an honour to
themselves and a credit to their country. The brutal tyranny that
characterised his conduct on this occasion, would have alone
sufficed to brand him with the imputation of "coward," had it
been even unconnected with the many subsequent acts of oppression
which have stamped his career, and of which it is to be hoped for
the prevention of future monsters, that the infamy will long
survive the records. The 26th of January, 1808, the memorable day
when, by the spontaneous impulse of a united colony, he was
arrested; and fortunate for the cause of humanity is it that he
was then arrested, for ever** in the perpetration of the most
atrocious outrages that ever disgraced the representative of a
free government, has substantiated his claim to this character
beyond the possibility of doubt. Dreading the resentment of the
people whom he had so often and so wantonly oppressed, and having
on his back that uniform which was never so dishonoured before,
he skulked under a servant's bed in an obscure chamber of his
house, but was at length discovered in this disgraceful hole, and
conducted pale, trembling, and covered with flue,*** before the
officer who had commanded his arrest; nor could this gentleman's
repeated assurances that no violence should be offered his
person, convince him for a considerable time that his life was in
safety from the vengeance of the populace: so conscious was he of
the enormity of his conduct, and of the justice of an immediate
and exemplary retaliation.
[* The following anecdote, for the authenticity of
which I pledge myself, will afford a better illustration of this
monster's character, than whole pages of general declamation and
invective. At the period of his government cattle were very
scarce in the colony, and the stockholders were very tenacious of
allowing their cows to be milked, from the injury which it did
the calves. Milk was in consequence a great rarity; but as the
governor, naturally enough, did not choose to forego any of the
good things of this life, particularly whenever it was in his
option to obtain them without any expence, he had always a number
of cattle from the government herds, to furnish a supply of it
for his household. The surplus he generously distributed among
his favourites. One of these was a gentleman belonging to the
medical staff, who used in common with all those permitted the
same indulgence, to send his servant daily for his share of this
precious fluid. This unfortunate wight happened to go one morning
a little too late; and whether the person charged with the
distribution of this milk had been a little too liberal in his
donations to such of the gentlemen's servants as had attended in
due time, or whether the cows did not give their usual quantity
that morning, there was not a drop left for him on his arrival.
Not reflecting that this disappointment was occasioned by his own
negligence, he ventured to make some remarks, such as "he did not
know why his master should not have his share as well as another
gentleman, etc. etc." which proved so highly disagreeable to the
feelings of the great man who administered this highly important
office, that he immediately went and complained to the still
greater man who had invested him with it. This august personage
not only feelingly participated in the insult which had been
offered his faithful domestic, but also vowed that he should have
the most ample satisfaction. He accordingly ordered the
complainant to send the offending party into his presence on the
following morning; strictly enjoining him before hand, to take
especial care that he should remain ignorant of the chastisement
which was in petto for him. The next morning when the poor fellow
came as usual for his master's quota of milk, he was told by the
great man whom he had the day before unwittingly offended, that
the governor desired to speak to him. Wondering that so
distinguished a personage should even know that so humble a being
as himself was in existence, and at a loss to conjecture what
could be his gracious will and pleasure, he was ushered trembling
into his dread presence. In an instant his alarms were quieted.
The governor told him with a condescending smile, that as the
chief constable's house was in his way home, he had merely sent
for him to be the bearer of a letter to that person, from a
desire to spare his dragoon the trouble of carrying it. The poor
fellow, of course, delivered the letter with all haste, little
imagining what were its contents. When the chief constable
perused it, he ordered out the triangles; the poor wretch was
instantly tied up to them, and in a stupor of surprise and
consternation underwent the punishment, (whether twenty-five or
fifty lashes I am not sure) which was ordered to be given him,
without any explanation till after its infliction, of the reasons
why he received it. Was not this a refinement of cruelty worthy
the most atrocious monster of antiquity?]
[** When I wrote this part of the present work the
person to whom it has reference was living; and the only
alteration which I have made in it since his death, has been the
necessary changes in the tenses of the verbs. My assertions have
been scrupulously regulated by truth; but I am still aware that
they might have been pronounced libellous in a court of justice;
and I have been advised by some of my friends to cancel them, on
the ground that the recollection of injuries should not be
prolonged beyond the grave. The applicability, however, of this
principle to private resentments is not more evident, than its
inapplicability to public. The tomb which ought to be the goal of
the one, is the starting-post of the other. It is the legitimate
province, nay, more, one of the most sacred duties of the
annalist to speak of public characters after their deaths, with
that severity of reprobation or of praise, to which their conduct
in public life may have entitled them. Have not all impartial
biographers and historians acted on this principle? And shall I
be deterred from following so just and salutary an example? If
when death has set his seal upon a man's actions, and when the
evil which he has committed is irremediable, the voice of censure
is still to be silent, when, I may ask, ought it to be heard? Had
such an ill-judged forbearance been practised by historians,
would the world have known that any tyrants, except those who may
exist at the present epoch, or who may have existed within the
reach of memory or of tradition, ever infested the earth? Would
not the enormities of the Dionysii, of Caligula, and of Nero,
have been long since forgotten? And would not many of those
princes who have merited and obtained the appellations of
"great," of "good," and of "just," have become as atrocious
monsters as _these_ were, but from the dread of being held
up as objects of similar execration to posterity? The tyrant,
indeed, whose conduct I would stamp with merited detestation,
moved, fortunately for the interests of mankind, in a humbler
sphere, and therefore, his atrocities have a greater tendency to
sink into premature oblivion. But is it a less sacred duty to
take all such steps as may be calculated to deter his successors
from treading in his footsteps; because they will only have
_thousands_ to trample upon instead of _millions_?
Ought not oppression in every community, whether great or small,
to be discouraged by every possible means? And what means are so
likely to effect this end, and to prevent these secondary tyrants
from sneaking out of the pages of record and recollection, as to
project their memories red-hot from the sun of public
indignation, with a long fiery train of inextinguishable
ignominy, which may serve to point out their tracks; and to
render them for ever glaring objects of dread and execration, not
only to the planet of which they may have proved the bane, but to
the whole system encircled by their orbits? In persevering,
therefore, in the remarks which I made on this man's actions when
he was living, it is my conscientious belief that I have only
acquitted myself of an imperative duty; and that I should have
been guilty of a gross dereliction of it, had I done otherwise.
On this conviction, unalloyed by any baser impulse, I rest the
defence of my conduct; should there be any of my readers, who may
be inclined to view it in the same unjustifiable light as it is
regarded by some few of my friends.]
[*** See Lieutenant-Colonel Johnstone's
court-martial.]
The instance of this man's conduct, is, I am willing to allow,
an aggravated one, and such as it is to be hoped for the honour
of our species would be rarely repeated. That it has occurred is,
however, sufficient to demonstrate the impropriety of confiding
unlimited power to any individual in future. The mere possession,
indeed, of such vast authority, is calculated to vitiate the
heart, and to engender tyranny; nor are examples wanting in
history of persons, who though models of virtue and moderation in
private stations, yet became the most bloody and atrocious
tyrants on their elevation to supreme power. So great, indeed, is
the fallibility of human nature, that the very best of us are apt
to deviate from that just mean, in the adherence to which
consists virtue. All governments, therefore, should provide
against this capital defect; they should be so constituted as not
only to have in view what should happen, but also what might;
possibilities should be contemplated as well as probabilities.
The power to do good should if possible be unlimited: the ability
to do evil, followed with the highest responsibility, and
restrained by a moral certainty of punishment. An authority such
as the governor of this colony possesses, might be tolerated
under a despotic government; but it is a disgrace to one that
piques itself on its freedom. What plea can be urged for
encouraging excesses in our possessions abroad, that would be
visited with condign punishment in our courts at home? Are those
who quit the habitations of their fathers, to extend the limits
and resources of the empire, deserving of no better recompence
than a total suspension of the rights and liberties which their
ancestors have bequeathed them? Are they on their arrival in
these remote shores, to meet with no one of the institutions,
which they have been taught to cherish and to reverence? If the
want, indeed, of these institutions, of which so many centuries
have attested the wisdom, had as yet been productive of no evil,
there might be some excuse offered for the withholding of them;
but after such a scandalous abuse of authority, the colonists
expected, and had a right to expect, that no subsequent governor
would have been appointed without the intervention of some
controlling power, which, while it should tend to strengthen the
execntive in the due discharge of its functions, might at the
same time protect the subject in the legitimate exercise and
enjoyment of his private and personal rights. Never was there a
period since the foundation of the colony, when the impolicy of
its present form of government was so strikingly manifest; and
never, perhaps, will there be an occasion, when the establishment
of a house of assembly, and of trial by jury, would have been
hailed with such enthusiastic joy and gratitude: and accordingly
the disappointment of the colonists was extreme, when on the
arrival of Governor Macquarie, it was found that the same unwise
and unconstitutional power, which had been the cause of the late
confusion and anarchy was continued in all its pristine vigor;
and that he was uncontrolled even by the creation of a
council.
I would here have it most distinctly understood that I do not
mean to cast the slightest imputation on the conduct of this
gentleman, whom his majesty's ministers selected with so much
discrimination in this delicate and embarrassing conjuncture. The
manner in which he has discharged, during a period of more than
nine years, the important functions confided to him, has
completely justified the high opinion that was formed of his
moderation and ability. He has fully proved that he had no need
of any controlling power,* to keep him in the path of honour and
duty; and has raised the colony, by his single prudence and
discretion, to as high a pitch of prosperity, as it perhaps could
have attained, in so short a period, under such a paralysing form
of government. But it has not been in his power to benefit the
colony to the extent which he has contemplated and desired; many
of the projects which he has submitted to the consideration of
his majesty's ministers, have not obtained their approval. It
would appear, indeed, that the very parent, to whom this strange
unconstitutional monster owes its birth and existence, is
distrustful of her hideous progeny; and that by way of securing
the people whom she has suffered it to govern against the
unlimited devastations which it might be tempted to commit, she
has prohibited it from moving out of certain bounds, without her
previous concurrence and authority. The wisdom of this precaution
has been sufficiently manifested by the terrible excesses which
it has committed within the sphere of this circumscribed
jurisdiction. If its conduct, with the possession of this
imperfect degree of liberty has been atrocious, it cannot be
difficult to conceive to what lengths an unlimited power of
action might have tempted it to proceed. Still there can be no
doubt that this state of restraint, on the one hand so salutary
and provident, has on the other occasioned much injury, and
prevented the adoption of many measures of the highest urgency
and importance to the welfare of the colony. Among these the
failure of Governor Macquarie's attempt to procure the sanction
of his majesty's ministers for the erection of distilleries, is
perhaps the most justly to be deplored.
[* Since I wrote this encomium on Governor
Macquarie's administration, a petition from some few individuals,
complaining of and enumerating several acts of oppression, said
to have been committed towards them by this gentleman, has been
presented to the House of Commons by Mr. Brougham. The honourable
and learned member did not, however, choose to pledge himself for
the correctness of the allegations set forth in this petition;
and therefore, until they are substantiated, the gentleman whose
conduct has been thus impeached, ought to be considered as
innocent of the charges preferred against him. If the event,
however, should prove that they are founded in truth, the fact
will only afford an additional proof of the demoralizing
influence of arbitrary authority on the minds of those who
possess it, and of the impolicy of suffering the present form of
government to continue in force a single hour beyond the period
necessary for its supercession. Never was there a more humane and
upright man than Governor Macquarie; and if the power with which
he has been for so many years intrusted, has indeed at length
propelled him beyond the bounds of moderation and justice, it may
be safely asserted that there are but very few men in existence
whom it would not have tempted to commit a similar
indiscretion.]
From the period* at which this colony was able to raise a
sufficiency of grain for its consumption, the adoption of this
measure has been imperatively called for by the wants and
circumstances of its inhabitants; and it is to so palpable an
omission, that the constant succession of abundance and scarcity,
which, to the astonishment of many inquiring persons, has for the
last fifteen years alternately prevailed there, is mainly
ascribable. So long as the necessities of the government were
greater than the means of the colonists to administer to them,
the productive powers of this settlement developed themselves
with a degree of rapidity which furnishes the surest criterion of
its fertility and importance. But from the moment this impulse
was checked, from the instant the supply exceeded the demand, the
colony may be said to have continued stationary, with respect to
its agriculture; producing in favourable seasons, somewhat more
than enough grain for its consumption, but in unfavourable ones,
whether arising from drought, or flood, falling so greatly
deficient in its supply, that recourse has been invariably had to
India, in order to guarantee its inhabitants from the horrors of
famine, which have so often stared them in the face; and to
which, but for such salutary precaution, the majority of them
must have long ago fallen victims. These dreadful deficiencies
have been the natural and inevitable result of a want of market;
since no person will expend his time and means in producing that
which will not ensure him an adequate return for his pains. So
long, therefore, as other channels of industry, yielding a more
certain compensation for labour, were open, the colonist would
naturally prefer such more profitable occupation, to the
comparatively precarious and unproductive culture of his land;
and it was accordingly found, that many, who had till then
devoted their sole attention to agriculture, abandoned at this
period all tillage but such as was necessary for the support of
their households, and employed the funds which they had acquired
by the former successful cultivation of their farms, in the
purchase and rearing of cattle, which continued a certain
lucrative employment, long after agricultural produce had become
of a depreciated and precarious value. The reason why these two
branches of husbandry did not keep pace in this as in other
countries, is obvious, from the remoteness of its situation,
which rendered the conveyance of cattle thither so extremely
difficult and expensive, that but a very limited supply of them
was furnished, in comparison with its necessities. The increase,
therefore, of these cattle could only be proportionate to their
number; while no bounds were as yet assigned to the extension of
agriculture, but, on the contrary, the whole combined energies of
the colonists directed to this single channel, by the great
demand which existed for their produce. Not but that the rearing
of cattle was from the commencement equally, and indeed far more
profitable than the cultivation of the land; but their exorbitant
price excluded all but a few great capitalists from embarking in
so profitable an undertaking; while, on the contrary, a stock of
provisions with a few axes and hoes, and a good pair of hands to
wield them, were the principal requisites for an agricultural
establishment; and, indeed, in the early period of this
settlement, all these essentials were supplied the colonists by
the liberality of the government, till sufficient time had
elapsed for the application of the produce of their farms to
their own support.
[* This epoch may be dated so far back as 1804: the
harvest of that year was so abundant, and the surplus of grain so
extensive, that no sale could be had for more than one half of
the crop. During the greater part of the following year, wheat
sold at prices scarcely sufficient to cover the expence of
reaping, thrashing, and carrying it to market; pigs and other
stock were fed upon it; and these two years of such extraordinary
abundance involved the whole agricultural body in the greatest
distress; grain was then their only property, and it was of so
little value that it was invariably rejected by their creditors
in payment of their debts. The consequence was that it was wasted
and neglected in the most shocking manner; scarcely any person
would give it house room, and had the harvest of the following
year proved equally abundant, the majority of the settlers must
have abandoned their farms, and sought for other employment.
Fortunately, however, for the agricultural interests, the great
flood of 1806 intervened to prevent the impending desertion; the
old and the new stocks on the banks of the Hawkesbury and Nepean
were all swept away, and thus for a few years afterwards the
supply of grain was pretty nearly kept on a level with the demand
for it.]
But to return to the epoch when the supply of corn became too
great for the demand, and when, as has been already noticed, some
part of those who till then had been exclusively engaged in
agriculture, turned their attention to the more beneficial
occupation of rearing cattle; still the secession of these, who
formed but a very inconsiderable member of the agricultural body,
in consequence of the enormous price of cattle even at that
period, and the great capital which it consequently required to
become a stock-holder to any extent, afforded but a very trivial
relief to those who adhered from necessity to their original
employment. In this conjuncture, therefore, many of the next
richer class abandoned their farms, and with the funds which they
were enabled to collect, set up shops or public-houses in Sydney.
This town was at that time the more favourable to such
undertakings, in consequence of the brisk commerce carried on
with China, by means of American and India-built vessels, that
were in part owned by the colonial merchants, and procured sandal
wood in the Fegee Islands, at a trifling expense, which they
carried direct to China, and bartered for return cargoes of
considerable value. The Seal Islands too, which were discovered
to the southward of the colony, furnished about the same period,
an extensive and lucrative employment for the colonial craft, and
contributed not less than the sandal wood trade to the
flourishing condition of this port. It was also about this time
that the valuable whale fisheries, which the adjacent seas
afford, were first attempted; but repeated experiment has proved
that the duties which are levied, as well in this country as in
the colony, on oil procured in colonial vessels, amount to a
complete prohibition. Many of the merchants, whose enterprising
spirit prompted them to repeated efforts, in order to bear up
against the overwhelming weight of these duties, have found to
their cost, that they are an insuperable obstacle to the
successful prosecution of these fisheries, which would otherwise
prove an inexhaustible source of wealth to the colony, and
provide a permanent outlet for its redundant population. These
two branches of commerce, so long as they were followed, afforded
a support to great numbers of the colonists, and rendered the
shock which the agricultural body had sustained, less sensible
and alarming. I say these two, because the third has never been
prosecuted but with loss; and has, in fact, proved a vortex which
has devoured a great part of the profits which the othertwo
yielded. For some years, however, these two channels have been so
completely drained, that they are only at present pursued by
desperate adventurers, who seldom or never obtain a return
commensurate with the risk they run, and the capital they employ.
But even during the period of their utmost productiveness, the
number of persons who were immediately engaged in them, or who
abandoned the plough to place themselves behind the counter, was
far from providing a remedy for the disease of the agricultural
body: because in the former instance these two branches of
commerce were only capable of affording employment to a limited
population; and in the latter a capital was necessary, not so
great indeed as had been required to enter successfully on the
grazing system, but yet far more considerable than it was in the
ability of the majority of the colonists to raise. By these
migrations, therefore, the pressure and embarrassment of the
agricultural body, which by this time had gradually lost the
richest and most respectable portion of its members, was but
little, if indeed at all alleviated; and some other expedient
became everyday more and more necessary to be adopted by those
who remained. In this exigency many abandoned their farms
altogether, and hired themselves as servants to such richer
individuals as had occasion for their services; while others, and
undoubtedly the greater part of them, cultivated but a small
portion of their land, and afterwards travelled in search of
labour till harvest time, at which period they returned, reaped,
threshed, and disposed of their crops, and after recultivating
the same spot, sought, during the rest of the year, employment as
before, wherever it could be found. This is the mode of life
which a great number of the poor settlers pursue to this day.
But the effect of these entire, or partial secessions from the
agricultural body, was not so extensively beneficial as might at
first be imagined. All this time the population was in a state of
rapid progression, both from the daily influx of people from
without, and from the amazing fecundity of the colonists within.
The distress, therefore, of the colony continued increasing in
proportion to its increasing population. And although it may
appear strange, that while it was a subject of such notoriety,
that the settlers were already too numerous for the occasions of
the colony, fresh volunteers should crowd to enrol themselves
under their banners; this surprise will cease when it is stated,
that the settling of new lands was for many years a matter of
traffic between the government and the colonists, by which, as it
is natural to conclude, the former were no great gainers. It was
their policy, and undoubtedly necessary in the early stages of
the settlement, and even at present under proper restrictions, to
encourage the extension of agriculture generally, but more
particularly in the inland districts, that are not subject to
flood; and to this end it was customary to support new settlers
with their wives, families, and servants, for eighteen months, at
the expense of the crown. The natural consequence was, that all
who had become free, either by the expiration of their servitude,
by conditional emancipation, or by absolute pardon, and who had
no means of support, embraced this offer of the government, which
assured them a subsistence that enabled them to seek at their
leisure for a more lucrative occupation elsewhere. Nor are these
poor creatures who thus profited by the liberality of the
government with an intention to abuse it, to be too harshly
condemned: still less so are those who, arriving strangers in the
colony, and having in most instances wives and families, the
support of whom in inactivity would be daily consuming their
little all, embraced this the only immediate mode of subsistence
that occurred to them. These people, as soon as the helping hand
of the government was withdrawn, and it became incumbent on them
to depend on their own proper resources, would be immediately
subject to the same privation and misery which pressed on their
body, and would consequently be under the necessity of resorting
to the same expedients for relief. The great increase which has
taken place of late years to the cleared lands in the colony, has
been the result of this system, and not the gradual progressive
operation of a flourishing agriculture. This assertion I consider
fully borne out by a comparison between the quantity of land
cleared, and the quantity in cultivation. By the last return from
the colony, taken so late as November, 1817, it appears that
there are 47,564 acres of cleared land, out of which only 32,814
are cropped; 14,750 acres, therefore, (or nearly one-half of what
is in cultivation) are lying waste: a circumstance which can only
be accounted for in this manner, since the system of fallowing
land is not in practice. It must therefore be evident, that the
clearing of so great a portion of land over and above what is
required by the situation and wants of the colonists, must have
been effected by unnatural means. The increase of produce has
not, indeed, outstepped the growth of population, but it has kept
pace with it, and all the cleared land which is not employed in
the raising of this produce, has evidently been a useless
expenditure of labour.
Thus this copious afflux of new colonists into the uninhabited
districts in the interior, which had hitherto been exclusively
occupied by the flocks and herds of the graziers, did not produce
that permanent advantage which the enormous expense incurred by
the government in their outfit, ought to have insured. At the
same time it was of the most undoubted injury to the
stock-holders, by preventing them from allowing their cattle to
roam at large during the night, from the danger of trespass and
poundage, which the indiscriminate dispersion of small
agricultural establishments over the whole face of the country,
without fences of any description to protect them, every where
occasioned. To be sure, the colonists will have derived this very
material advantage from the great quantity of cleared land, now
lying waste; that whenever the pernicious policy, which has
paralysed their energies, and blasted the general prosperity,
shall be relinquished, and a judicious system of encouragement
substituted in its stead, they will instantly be prepared to
profit by the capabilities which the wisdom and justice of the
parent government shall have at length afforded them.
But the future increase in the cleared lands will not be
proportioned to the past, because directions have of late been
transmitted from this country, to allow future colonists only six
months provisions from the king's stores, for themselves and
their households, instead of eighteen months, as heretofore. This
very material diminution in the measure of encouragement held out
to future colonization, will clearly be attended with a threefold
operation. It will be a grievous disadvantage to such respectable
persons as emigrate from this country, with a real intention, but
with funds scarcely adequate to a permanent settlement in the
colony; it will still further discourage the existing
agriculturist and grazier, by lessening the demand of the
government for their produce; and it will increase the general
embarrassment, both by narrowing this channel of employment,
which was supplied by the liberality of the government, and by
curtailing the means of the colonists at large to provide labour
for that part of the population, which will be thus turned loose
on them twelvemonths sooner than usual.
To the credit of the present governor it must be allowed that
he has done all that a benevolent heart and a sagacious head
could dictate, to counteract the growing distress and misery. He
has exhausted all the means in his power to give employment to
the large portion of unoccupied labour, which it has not been
within the compass of individual enterprize to absorb. He has
effected the greatest improvements in the capital, by enlarging
and straightening the streets, and by erecting various public
edifices of the highest utility and ornament. The same
superintending hand is visible throughout all the inferior towns
and townships, many of which indeed are of his own foundation. He
has made highways to every cultivated district, thus affording
the inhabitants of them the greatest facilities for the cheap and
expeditious conveyance of their produce to market. In fine,
throughout every part of the colony and its dependent settlements
at the Derwent and Port Dalrymple, he has effected improvements
which will long continue monuments of the wisdom and liberality
of their author. But it cannot be denied, however beneficial
these and other improvements of the same nature which are in
progress may be, either with respect to their immediate or more
remote consequences, that they are but mere temporary sources of
alleviation, whose benignant supply will cease with the discharge
of the great body of workmen whom they at present maintain in
activity. This, indeed, as well as all the other expedients which
I have already enumerated, as having been practised in order to
find outlets for the superabundant labour, have been productive
of no permanent result.
This assertion is satisfactorily substantiated by the present
unnatural efforts of the colonists in the establishment of
various manufactories, particularly those of cloth and hats. I
say unnatural, because in the common course of things, the origin
of such establishments ought to be coeval only with an entire
occupation of the soil, and redundancy of population. And this
chiefly for two reasons: because a greater capital is required in
their foundation, and a greater degree of skill and dexterity in
their developement. It is on this account that in Canada, and our
colonies in the West Indies, which are in a great measure left to
the guidance of their native legislatures, and which it is
therefore to be presumed, adopt that line of policy at once most
consistent with their own interests, and with those of the parent
country, since in the persons of her representatives, she
approves or annuls their proceedings, we find that manufactures
have been altogether neglected, while their agriculture and
plantations, while, in fine, the exportation of raw materials,
whether the natural or artificial productions of these colonies,
has been promoted in every possible manner. That this is the
system which ought to have been pursued, we have a still more
forcible proof in the instance of the United States of America,
and of many of the ancient nations of Europe; which, unfettered
by any dependence whatever on any foreign power, and having
consequently adopted that policy, which has been found the most
consistent with their respective interests, have made but very
little progress in manufactures, and are therefore still under
the necessity of having recourse for manufactured commodities to
other countries. If then the promotion of agriculture be more
politic in many independent states, which have not yet attained
the same maturity of growth and civilization, that characterize
the principal manufacturing nations of the world, by how much
more prudent must the encouragement of it be in a dependent
colony like this; possessed as it is of all the requisites for an
unlimited extension of its agriculture in the fertility of its
soil, the benignity of its climate, and the extent of its
territory, and wanting all the essentials for the production of
manufactures, skill, capital, and population?
The existing state of things, therefore, is not only contrary
to the welfare of the colony itself, but also in diametrical
opposition to the interests of the parent country. A great
manufacturing nation herself, it is her undoubted policy, and
that which on every occasion I believe but the present she has
pursued, to augment in her colonies, at one and the same time,
the consumption of her own _manufactures_, and the growth of
such productions as she has found essential to her own use, or to
the supply of other nations. The toleration, therefore, of a
system so averse to her acknowledged interests, can only be
attributed to ignorance, or inadvertence. But it is not in the
forcible abolition of these manufactories, created by necessity,
and still rendered indispensable by the same irresistible law,
that the condition of the colony is to be ameliorated or
redressed. So long as the same pernicious disabilities which have
already reduced the colonists to beggary and despair, and
rendered unavailing the resources of a country that might rival
in the number and value of its exports, the most favoured of the
globe are enforced, this manufacturing system is a lamentable but
necessary evil. After putting it out of their power to purchase
the more costly clothing of the mother country, it would be an
intolerable exercise of authority to prevent them from having
recourse to the homely products of their own industry and
ingenuity. Under existing circumstances, indeed, there is no
alternative between permitting them the use of their own
manufactures, and compelling them to go naked, or to clothe
themselves like the aborigines of the country in the skins of
animals. There is but one remedy for the disease of the colony:
it is to give due encouragement to agriculture, and to promote
the growth of exportable commodities, which its inhabitants may
offer in exchange for the productions of other countries. The
manufacturing system which has begun to take root, will then
wither away of its own accord; since it will then be the least
productive manner in which capital and labour can be
employed.
Happy would it have been for the colonists, if these repeated
efforts, these distressing and embarrassing expedients to supply
their wants, had been the only injurious consequences resulting
from the stagnation of agriculture. The day when their wretched
situation shall have at length awakened the commiseration of the
parent country, would then have witnessed the term and bounds of
their sufferings. Alas! far different will be the case. Like a
ruined merchant, who would defer, to the utmost length, the
disgrace of bankruptcy, in the daily hope of some prosperous
adventure to retrieve his fortune and restore his credit, the
settlers have gone on contracting debts, which have accumulated
with the increasing embarrassments of the community. The
engagements of the majority of the cultivators, thus swelled in a
few years to a bulk, which they had no longer any chance of
reducing: pressed on all sides by their creditors, the mortgage
or sale of their farms became inevitable; and even these
sacrifices have, in general, been far from cancelling their
bonds; so that they not only have ceased to be proprietors, but
also still continue debtors to a large amount. Their creditors,
in many instances, a set of rapacious, unprincipled dealers,
availing themselves of the power which the law would give them
over the personal liberty of these, their debtors, immediately
took that advantage of their own commanding position, which might
have been expected from their characters. They engaged, or more
properly speaking, constrained, these poor wretches to cultivate
as tenants, the same soil which lately belonged to them, and
exacted from them in return, a rent too exorbitant to be paid.
Every succeeding year, therefore, has but tended to increase
their obligations, and they are, at present, identified with the
soil, and reduced to all intents and purposes, except in name, to
as complete a state of vassalage as the serfs of Russia. If they
should be in need of any trifling supply, it is to their
proprietors, and to them only, that they dare have recourse,
though they would be able to obtain the same articles a hundred
per cent. cheaper elsewhere. To their granaries the whole produce
of their industry is conveyed: and, in spite of all their toil
and privation, far from discharging their original debts, they
find themselves every day more deeply involved. The more they
struggle, the more complicated and firm becomes their
entanglement. Lamentable as undoubtedly must be such a hopeless
state of servitude, it still appears to them preferable to the
precincts of a prison. They respire the free invigorating air of
their plains, and can still traverse them at their option, or at
least when the season arrives which closes their daily task. But
this privilege, it must be confessed, is purchased at its
uttermost value. We have philanthropists among us, who justly
commiserate the condition of that unoffending race of people, who
dragged from the scenes of their nativity, and the habitations of
their fathers, have been consigned by a gang of merciless
kidnappers to perpetual slavery themselves, and to the still more
intolerable necessity of bequeathing an existence of similar
endurement and degradation to their offspring. After years of
strenuous indefatigable exertion these friends of humanity, these
noble champions of liberty have succeeded, if not in emancipating
those, who had already been consigned to this unmerited doom, at
least in preventing the further extension of this infernal
traffic. Would it not be an effort worthy the same philanthropy,
which has thus secured the protection and deliverance of
unoffending Africa, to procure the emancipation of suffering
Australasia? to raise her from the abject state of poverty,
slavery, and degradation, to which she is so fast sinking, and to
present her a constitution, which may gradually conduct her to
freedom, prosperity, and happiness?
It must be admitted that this state of slavery, so galling to
the subjects of a free country, has been in some measure imposed
on the colonists by their own imprudent extravagance. Already but
too much inclined by their early habits of irregularity to
licentious indulgence, the prosperous state of their affairs
during the first fifteen years after the foundation of the
settlement, presented the strongest inducements to a revival of
their ancient propensities, which had been repressed, but not
subdued. Imagining that the same unlimited market, which was then
offered for their produce, would always continue, they only
thought of consuming the fruits of their industry; not doubting
that the same fields, which thus lavishly administered to the
gratification of their desires, would amply suffice for the more
moderate enjoyments of their offspring. But when once their
produce began to exceed the demand of the government, and when in
a short time afterwards from the want of due encouragement, all
the various avenues of industry that lay open were successively
filled, and the means of occupation eithergreatly circumscribed,
or entirely exhausted, these people, so long habituated to
unrestrained indulgence, found it difficult to support that
privation, which became incumbent on their condition; and in
order to procure those luxuries of which they so severely felt
the want, exhausted their credit, and ended by alienating their
possessions. There can be but little doubt if the colonists,
instead of expending, had providently accumulated the money which
they so profusely acquired during the period of their
agricultural prosperity, that their actual situation would have
been far preferable; for, though the gradual retrogradation,
which I should imagine it must at present be sufficiently
evident, that the colony has been undergoing for these last
fifteen years, would by this time have greatly diminished, if not
have totally absorbed their former savings, still their lands
would have remained to them, nor would they have been reduced to
that state of vassalage and misery, which they are this day
enduring. Lamentable therefore, as is their condition, the
consideration that it has thus far been occasioned by their own
imprudence, is apt to detract from that unbounded commiseration
which it would otherwise excite: if, on the other hand, we do not
reflect in extenuation of their thoughtlessness and extravagance,
that their former increased means of indulgence, were the result
of their industry; that this industry was in the first instance
called into activity by the encouragement of the government; that
it has since been paralysed by a concatenation of unwise and
unjust disabilities imposed by the same power; and that
consequently their present wretched and degraded situation is not
so much to be ascribed to their former improvidence as to the
actual impolicy and injustice of their rulers. If we furthermore
consider the short period in which this great change in their
circumstances has been effected, we shall feel convinced that so
sudden a transition from affluence to poverty could not be
patiently endured, and that every method of rendering so
unexpected and galling a burthen more supportable, would be
naturally and inevitably resorted to. To prove still more
satisfactorily that this state of slavery to which so large a
proportion of the original settlers are reduced, has not been so
much the result of their own imprudence as of the impolicy of
their government, numerous instances might be adduced of persons,
not indeed skilled in the arts of husbandry, whose habits have
always been regular and moderate, who have been for many years
stockholders as well as agriculturists, and who, notwithstanding
this two-fold advantage, aided by an undeviating economy, have
been unable to keep themselves free from the embarrassments in
which the bare cultivators of the soil are so generally involved.
To what end then, has their frugality been directed, if a few
years more will engulph their possessions, and reduce them to the
same state of vassalage and degradation, to which their less
provident brethren are already subjected? They have, indeed, in
the prospective some short period of unexpired freedom; but I
doubt much whether the gradual approach of inevitable slavery be
scarcely more enviable than slavery itself.
The great concussion which the agricultural interests thus
sustained at the epoch when the productive powers of the colony
exceeded the consumptive, and the continued shocks to which they
have been exposed ever since, have not unfortunately affected the
agricultural prosperity alone, but have shaken to the foundation
the commercial edifice also. Unluckily both the agricultural and
commercial classes seem to have been alike ignorant of the
death-blow which had been struck at their welfare. The settler
continued in the same career of thoughtless extravagance which
his circumstances when they were even in their most flourishing
state had scarcely permitted, and the merchant went on without
hesitation, advancing him goods in the hope of extricating his
old customer from difficulties which he only imagined to be of
temporary pressure; never for a moment suspecting that they were
the forerunners of deeper embarrassment and ultimate ruin. Need I
state the consequences. The extended credits which the first
merchants thus gave the settlers on the strength of the
progressive increase of their produce, rendered them at last
unable to fulfil the engagements which they had contracted with
British and East India houses, and they were eventually involved
in the destruction which had so suddenly overwhelmed the great
mass of their debtors, on whom they were necessarily dependent
for support. All of them who had been distinguished by their
equitable dealings, and by their liberality of conduct, received
at this moment so rude a shock in their affairs that they have
been unable amidst the increasing decadence of the community at
large to re-establish their credit, and after disposing of the
scattered wrecks of their fortune, have not only been reduced to
penury, but are still indebted to their correspondents in the
amount perhaps of £100,000. These gentlemen thus driven
from the commercial circle by their liberality, unwillingly
inflicted a deadly wound on the credit of the colony. Foreign
merchants would no longer have any account dealings with their
successors; and generally ever since the commercial intercourse
with England and the East Indies has been maintained without any
confidence on the part of the merchants of these two countries;
the money has been received in one hand, and the goods delivered
in the other. This cautious system has given birth to another
race of merchants, much more prudent than their predecessors, but
also much less serviceable to the colony, and much less adapted
to its emergencies. These in their dealings have been forced to
observe the same circumspection which had been adopted towards
themselves, and have given no credit but to those whose means of
payment were unquestionable. As the majority of the colonists
have been always in the back ground, since the epoch which I have
just described, and have in consequence been unable to produce
ready money, a subordinate class of traders, but still superior
in their circumstances and the extent of their transactions to
those little inferior dealers, who are to be found in all
countries, started up, and have since acted as intermediary
agents between the importers and the great body of consumers. The
object of this class has been, and continues to be, not so much
to realize large fortunes in money, which indeed under existing
circumstances would be scarcely possible, as to acquire immense
landed possessions: and their system, which, in fact, is the
natural consequence of this policy, is to require of the settlers
mortgage securities anterior to the supply of such articles as
they may be in need of. As they are frequently unable punctually
to comply with the conditions of these mortgages, their creditors
eagerly embrace the opportunity, whenever it offers, of
foreclosing them, and are thus gradually becoming proprietors of
the finest estates in the colony; estates which whenever its
capabilities shall be called into unrestrained action will ensure
them and their posterity fortunes of a colossal magnitude. While
this class of traders are thus becoming the most considerable
landholders in this settlement, they have not only taken care not
to give credit to such an extent as might occasion a diminution
in their trading capital, but have even contrived to increase it
very materially. This system, therefore, of buying goods, and
afterwards selling them at an almost arbitrary profit, the
greater part of which is thus converted into landed property, is
daily gaining ground, and will infallibly in the end, unless
proper measures be speedily taken to counteract it, reduce the
great majority of the agricultural body to the same state of
vassalage which a large proportion of its members are already
enduring. And what renders the increasing wealth and power of the
small number who thus profit by the embarrassments of the
settlers, and make themselves masters of their persons and
properties, still more odious and galling, is the consideration
that in most instances they are the least deserving, and yet the
only class of the community to whom the present order of things
is favourable. While all the rest of the population are groaning
under the aggravated pressure of toil, privation, and despair,
they are fattening on the surrounding misery, and every day
making rapid strides towards the attainment of immense riches,
under the propitious shelter of a system which would appear to
have been expressly contrived for their especial aggrandisement,
at the expence of the freedom, prosperity and happiness of the
whole social body besides. Like vultures, that in the midst of
combats soar in safety above the destruction raging beneath, but
descend at its close and tranquilly devour the mangled carcases
which the exterminating engines of war have laid prostrate for
their repast, these men out of the influence of the oppressive
disabilities which are overwhelming all but themselves, eagerly
watch the progress of the surrounding misery, and impatiently
await its completion; more cruel than vultures, since covered
with the aegis that has unnerved the force and paralysed the
energies of their neighbours, they introduce themselves into the
midst of the havoc of their own species, and prey upon the living
victims who are sinking around them.