THE FIRST JUDGE AND PAID MAGISTRATES APPOINTED.

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"For many years a maximum price was imposed by the governor upon all imported merchandise, often too low to afford a fair profit to the trader; at this price the whole cargo was distributed amongst the civil and military officers of the settlement, who alone had liberty to purchase; and articles of the first necessity were afterwards retailed by them, at an enormous profit, to the poorer settlers. The imposition of a maximum price on imported articles, and on the price of grain and butcher's meat, had been discontinued, and the attempt to limit the price of labour had failed." The trade in spirits was reported as a great difficulty.

The defects of the system of criminal jurisdiction by court-martial, and civil jurisdiction without legal assistance or juries, are described; and the report states, that the governor, uncontrolled by any council, had power to pardon all offences, except treason and murder; to impose customs duties, to grant lands, and to issue colonial regulations; and for the breach of these regulations to inflict a punishment of 500 lashes and a fine of £100.

The committee recommended that a council should be given to the governor. With regard to grants of land, they reported that, according to evidence, a retiring governor had granted 1,000 acres to his successor, who had returned the compliment by a similar grant immediately after being installed in office.

Free settlers latterly had not been permitted to emigrate to New South Wales without giving proof that they were possessed of a certain capital. On their arrival they usually received a grant of land in proportion to their means.

"On the arrival of Governor Bligh, two-thirds of the children annually born in the colony were illegitimate."

This report, which also entered at considerable length into the treatment of convicts, directed a little of public attention to the antipodean colony, and the result was to induce the government to appoint a judge, with two magistrates chosen in rotation, who composed a supreme court in civil and criminal cases; and in Van Diemen's Land, as well as New South Wales, a fifty-pound civil court, with appeal, was formed, with the judge-advocate as sole judge.

This was the first step toward meliorating the absolute despotism under which the free settlers had hitherto lived. Measures were also taken for removing the restrictions on commerce with Van Diemen's Land, and abolishing trade monopolies: but Governor Macquarie's protests against the interference or assistance of a council prevailed, and he was enabled to pursue his plans with that concentrated vigour which is the one advantage of an enlightened despotism.

To enumerate all the public works which, with no mean amount of skill, and at great cost to the parent country, Governor Macquarie executed, would be neither useful nor amusing. It is sufficient to state, that while he erected many substantial if not elegant buildings, in the town of Sydney, he took care, by well-devised roads, to render available all the cultivable land, and all the pastures to be found within as much of the territory under his command as had been explored. The settlers imbibed his spirit of progress, and imitated his energy; flocks and herds increased to a great extent, although the sheep were for the greater part of an inferior breed, a mixture of the hairy Bengal and heavy-tailed Cape, whose wool was worthless for export. But M'Arthur, whose efforts had been neglected and repressed by previous governors, was steadily pursuing his great idea of naturalizing the "noble race," or Spanish merino, on the plains of Australia. In December, 1812, the Sydney Gazette reports that ten rams of the merino breed, lately sold by auction from the flocks of John M'Arthur, Esq., produced upwards of 200 guineas; and that "several coats made entirely of the wool of New South Wales are now in this country, and are of most excellent quality." In 1852 a whole fleet of ships were required to convey the wool of Australia to the manufacturers of Yorkshire.

In 1813 occurred one of those droughts, the one drawback on what would otherwise be a course of unvarying prosperity, which are periodical in Australia. On this occasion it was not only the crops that suffered; the numerous flocks and herds were unable to find sufficient pasturage on plains which, when first discovered, were overspread with luxuriant herbage many feet in height. Necessity forced upon the colonists the idea of again searching for a passage across the Blue Mountains.

The attempt had been unsuccessfully made by several early colonists; amongst others, by the brave Surgeon Bass.

The last and successful effort was made by three gentlemen whose names are still well known in the colony--William Wentworth, son of the D'Arcy Wentworth who took an active part in the deposition of Governor Bligh, one of the earliest free colonists, himself destined in various ways to occupy a distinguished place in the annals of the colony; Lieutenant Lawson, afterwards one of the greatest land and stock owners; and Gregory Blaxland, one of the first members of the Colonial Legislative Council of New South Wales.

With incredible toil and hardships, they effected a passage across a chain of mountains clothed with dense timber and brushwood, and inter

DISCOVERY OF BATHURST PLAINS.

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sected by a succession of ravines, which presented extraordinary difficulties, not so much from their height, as from their precipitous character. At the foot of the opposite side of the mountains, an easy journey led to Bathurst Plains, the finest pasture country the colonists had yet seen, far exceeding even the famous Cow Pastures on the Nepean. It is to this country, the discovery of Messrs. Wentworth and Lawson, that the golddiggers are now streaming in thousands, but not clambering up precipices, sliding down ravines, and cutting paths through impenetrable brushwood, like the early pioneers, but easily travelling, and grumbling as they go, at the ill-kept condition of a macadamized road which has been conducted with admirable engineering skill in a series of ascending and descending gradients, over which even loaded drays can travel with ease.

Within fifteen months from the discovery of the first pass over the Blue Mountains, Governor Macquarie caused a practicable road to be made. He never lost any time in planning and executing such works. Some governors would have occupied as much time in preparing a despatch as he did in completing the work. Many settlers, without waiting for the road, contrived to transfer portions of their live stock to the new pastoral El Dorado. In April, 1815, the governor himself,

with Mrs. Macquarie, accompanied by his principal officers and Mr. Lewin, painter and naturalist, set out on a progress to view what he called "his last conquest."

The results of this progress, made two months before the battle of Waterloo, are recorded in the following extracts from a "General Order:" certainly one of the most curious documents of the kind ever published.

MACQUARIE'S JOURNEY ACROSS THE BLUE MOUNTAINS.

"The commencement of the ascent from Emu Plains, through a very handsome open forest of lofty trees for twelve miles, was much more practicable and easy than was expected. At a further distance of four miles a sudden change is perceived in the appearance of the timber and quality of the soil, the former becoming stunted, and the latter barren and rocky. Here the country became altogether mountainous and extremely rugged. From henceforward to the twentysixth mile is a succession of steep and rugged hills, some so abrupt as to deny a passage altogether; but at this place an extensive plain is arrived at, which constitutes the summit of the western mountains, and from thence a most extensive and beautiful prospect presents itself on all sides to the eye. On the south-west side of this table land (query, King's Table Land) the mountain terminates in an abrupt precipice of immense depth. At the bottom (the governor does not mention how they got to the bottom) is seen an immense glen twenty-four miles in length, terminating as abruptly as the others, bounded on the further side by mountains of great magnitude, to which the governor gave the name of Prince Regent's Glen. Proceeding hence to the thirtythird mile, on the top of a hill, an opening presents itself on the southwest side of the glen, from whence a view is obtained of mountains rising beyond mountains with stupendous masses of rock in the foreground, in a circular or amphitheatrical form. The road continues from hence, for the space of seventeen miles, on the ridge of the mountain which forms one side of Prince Regent's Glen, and there suddenly terminates in a perpendicular precipice of 676 feet. Down this Mr. Cox had constructed a road to which the governor gave the name of Cox's Pass, and to the ridge, Mount York. On descending the pass, the first pasture land and soil fit for cultivation appeared, watered by two rivulets running east and west, and joining, forming Cox's River, which takes its course through Prince Regent's Glen, and empties itself

Mount York road has since been abandoned in favour of an easy descent by Mount Victoria, executed by Sir Thomas Mitchell.

into the River Nepean. Three miles hence the expedition of Messrs. Blaxland, Wentworth, and Lawson terminated. A range of very lofty hills and narrow valleys, alternately, form the part of the country from Cox's River for a distance of sixteen miles, until Fish River is reached.

"Passing on, the country continues hilly, but affords good pasturage, gradually improving to Sidmouth Valley, distant eight miles from the pass of Fish River. The land level, and the first met, unencumbered with timber, forms a valley north-west and south-east between hills of easy ascent, thinly covered with timber. Leaving the valley, the country again becomes hilly; thirteen miles brought the party to Campbell River, where an extensive view opened of gently rising hills and fertile plains. In the pools of Campbell's River, that very curious animal the paradox, or water mole, was seen in great numbers.* The

Fish River, which forms a junction with the Campbell River a few miles to the northward, has two fertile plains named O'Connell's and Macquarie's Plains. Seven miles from the bridge over Campbell River, Bathurst Plains open to the view, presenting a rich part of champaign country of eleven miles in length, bounded on both sides by very

It is now extinct in that part of the colony.