1807

30 Sept.

The colony recovering.

Industrious settlers.

Orderly convicts.

The price of food.

No luxuries.

State of

stores.

satisfaction in so doing, to state the general situation of the colony, lest any unforeseen accident should prevent the Duke of Portland reaching England.

For any omission and shortness of this despatch I have only to plead the arduous duties I have to perform.

It is an infinite satisfaction to me to say that from the distressed situation, in every respect, in which I found the colony, it is now rising its head to my utmost expectations. The public buildings carry an aspect of their value, and private houses the pride of their inhabitants; poor as they are, yet they are neat, and the town altogether is become what has not been seen before in this country.

In the interior I feel satisfied that the same emulation exists among the inhabitants; and their industry materially increasing, great exertions have been made to till the land, and the ensuing harvest promises well.

The discontented are checked in their machinations, while the honest settler feels himself secure, and the idler no encouragement.

The convicts are quiet and as orderly as can be expected. Every encouragement is held up to them. The settlers have a due proportion allotted as servants; but few of them readily leave off the evil ways they have been accustomed to. Their absconding to the woods, however, appears to be barely thought of.

Provisions of meat kind are scarce and very dear, such as beef and pork at one shilling and ninepence per pound. It is owing to a few wealthy persons who have got great property; but as we are encouraging deserving persons, the benefits Government wish to bestow will become more equally distributed.

What were formerly considered luxuries, and are now become in some degree the necessaries of life, the country is entirely bare of, and can only be done away by arrivals with such necessaries. The whalers and transports bring scarce anything, and the little they import are sold at several hundred per cent., while they rather distress us at present by their want of supplies.

The general statement, which is inclosed, shows that our salt the public provisions remaining in store will only last thirty-nine weeks for all the settlements at full ration; from whence, sir, every judg ment may be formed of what is required, when compared with such supplies as may be on the way for the colony and its dependencies.

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your despatches by the Brothers, Young William, and Duke of Portland, and am effectually putting them into execution.

I have, &c.,

W'M BLIGH.

Settlements.

Governor and Commander-in-Chief.

Lieutenant-Governor.

Deputy Judge-Advocate.

Aid-du-Camp to His Excellency.
Principal Surgeons.
Commissary.

Provost-Marshal.

Commandant.

Chaplain.

Secretary to the Governor-in-Chief.
Surveyor of Lands.

Deputy Commissaries.

Mineralogist.

Boat builder.

Superintendents and Storekeepers.
Beach-Master.

Clerks to the Commissary.

Women of Civil Establishment.
Children of Civil, above 10 years.
Children of Civil, above 2 years.

Assistant Surgeons.

GENERAL STATEMENT of the Inhabitants of His Majesty's Settlements on the Eastern Coast and Out-Settlements of New South Wales, 30th September,

Civil Establishment Victualled.

1807.

VOL. VI-T

30 Sept. 1807

Population.

:

31

13

1..

1.. 2 2 1

2

6 6 24

. . . . . .

2

:

1 21 10 333 49 4 66 7 499

1..32 83 6 4 28 4 133

1 1 1

2 21

2

10

:

:

*Acting Provost-Marshal.

1807

30 Sept.

Population.

GENERAL STATEMENT of Inhabitants of His Majesty's Settlement--continued.

55 12 14 18

31 11

45 22

142 57 2,236 2,448 470 292 96 2,932||3,357

416 1,109 1,866 983 1,813 4,662 693 416 1,109 9,129

JNO. PALMER, Commissary.

MAJOR JOHNSTON TO LIEUTENANT-COLONEL GORDON. [Letter, 8th October, 1807, enclosed in the Duke of York's letter to Castlereagh, of 13th June, 1808, post, p. 652.]

SURGEON LUTTRELL TO UNDER SECRETARY SULLIVAN.

Hon'd Sir,

[Extracts.]

1807

8 Oct.

miseries of

famine."

quences of

Sydney, 8th October, 1807. When I had the pleasure of addressing you last year by the "The Alexander, Captn. Brooks,* we were then involved in all the miseries of famine, per various causes; but, thanks be to the Supreme Disposer of events, we have struggled through it, and as our last maize crop proved very abundant, our distresses are much relieved; but the consequences of the flood is still felt, and will be for some time in a very great degree, for as there was almost a total destruction of the pigs and every sort of poultry by the inundation, it will be some months before any quantity can be Conseagain reared, for it is only since the maize crop that there has been the flood. any food to properly feed them with. A very serious evil to the settlers in the country has arisen out of the flood is that of pigstealing all over the country by the convict serv'ts and inferior class of settlers that have been formerly convicts, who league with the others in their nightly depredations. This evil is carried on by those rogues to the very great detriment of the colony at large, for old and young, whether nearly ready to farrow or not, are all equally destroy'd by them, and as this crime is but trivially punished by the laws of England, the punishment that is inflicted on them they totally disregard, and they return to their destructive and wanton practice with a perfect nonchalence. Pig-stealing in Pig-stealing. this colony ought to be a capital offence, as it is at present the only animal food, except poultry, of the great body of the settlers, as sheep are not yet numerous in the colony, and are in few hands, and the horn cattle is still fewer, although they are rapidly increasing, as the climate agrees with them remarkably well.

sheep and cattle walks.

Men whose view of settling in the colony as graziers only do Graziers and little benefit to it, as they do not as graziers promote the clearing and cultivating of the country. To grant, therefore, very large tracks of land, and the permission to purchase a considerable quantity of cattle, by the produce of which they mean to live, is incompatable with the interests of the colony. It is by combining the grazier with the farmer that the increasing prosperity of the country is to be expected; for, as the toil and expence to bring a wooded country into cultivation requires both labour and money, the person whose† the quantity of stock he possesses is placed above itt to it. On the other hand the poor cultivator without†

who is

* The Alexander sailed from Sydney for England on 10th November, 1806. † MS. torn.

1807

8 Oct.

Grazing

versus

farming.

mechanics.

Industry

languishing.

forced to labour hard for his subsistence, by clearing the land for a precarious crop, is depressed in spirits, and instead of carrying on his cultivation with spirit and energy, he views with silent dejection his neighbour indolently abounding in the prosperity of his heads of cattle. . As there is a great want of mechanics of various Scarcity of descriptions, such as carpenters, masons, smiths, wheelwrights, brickmakers, &c., they might be permitted to come into the country either at their own expence, or on such conditions as Government might chuse, and for them to work at their different trades, but not to have grants of land assigned them. The want of a number of free artificers is greatly felt in every part of the country, and is a considerable hindrance to the improvement of the farms, many of which are in a most wretched state for want of proper buildings on them. But industry here is in general at a low ebb. A colony founded principally by convicts is a long time advancing to any degree of perfection. When working as serv'ts to Government, or to the different settlers unto whom they are granted, the little labour they perform scarcely amounts to a fourth part that a labourer in England would accomplish in a day. And those that are become free, and in the earlier periods of the colony had lands granted them, are for the most part a very worthless, dissipated class, retaining the vicious propensities and habits which occasioned them to come into this country. A spirit of trading and dealing, The spirit of amounting nearer to gambling than anything else, pervades the gambling. whole of them, and it is not uncommon for a man, scarce worth anything else than his crop on the ground, to purchase a sorry horse for upwards of a hundred and twenty and thirty or forty pounds, and to give his assignment of his growing crop for it. After having it, perhaps, for a few days, he sells it again to another person for something else, and so on from one to another. And whilst this sort of trafficking is going on, labour is at a total standstill, and the cultivation of the ground neglected; and should there happen to be a quantity of rum in the colony, a debouching of several days succeeds. Prior to Governor Bligh's arrival, a considerable injury to the colony had crept in that of ticket-of leave men— men that were taken off the stores, and permitted to work for themselves. The original idea might have been a good one; but, as a great number of the most worthless of the convicts had from some recommendation or other obtained this liberty, the colony, instead of reaping a benefit either from their labour or skill in any mechanic branch, the greatest part of them became hucksters and dealers in various articles of food, and especially during the famine, enhancing the price of every commodity on the people, and making them their prey. But Governor Bligh, seeing the pernicious tendency of the measure, has recalled a great number of them into Government employ.

Ticket-of

leave men.