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admitted, that the free population of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land collectively, will amount at the end of this year, as our author calculates, to between eighteen and nineteen thousand souls; but of what materials does this population consist? Except a very few individuals, not more perhaps than two or three hundred *, who, from speculative views, have taken up their residence in the colony, the settlers are either convicts who have finished their term of banishment, or the children of convicts. What kind of respectability of character is to be found in a society so constituted, it cannot be difficult to conjecture; and, in fact, Mr Wentworth himself furnishes us with an irrefragable argument against his own proposal, by the account which, in another part of his work, he gives of the state of the inhabitants. By far the greater proportion of the old settlers, he assures us, have, partly by a change in the circumstances of the colony, which has depressed agricultural produce, but chiefly by their own extravagance and dissipation, been reduced from the situation of proprietors of land to that of tenants of their own estates, under a species of vassalage, which our author not inaptly compares to the abject slavery of the Russian boor, who is bound to the soil. The present possessors of landed property are generally men whom he characterizes as a set of rapacious unprincipled dealers," who grind the faces of their retainers, and by the exercise of the most dishonourable arts, contrive to enrich themselves with the spoils of their fellow-creatures, whom thoughtlessness or calamity, or vicious indulgence, has placed within their power. Nor is the mercantile part of the community in a less deplorable situation. Almost all the old and comparatively respectable merchants, have been reduced to poverty, and have given place to the pettifogging traders already mentioned, who are not only engrossing all the cultivated land in the colony, but are at the same time monopolizing its commerce. But let us hear Mr. Wentworth himself,

"What renders." says he, "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 be expressly contrived for their especial aggrandizement, at the expense of the freedom, prosperity, and happiness of the whole social body besides.”

This most distressing exposition of the state of the colony proves indeed that a change is necessary; but it also proves the change proposed by our author, to be precisely that which is unsuitable to the exigencies of the case. Out of a population of this kind, how is it possible to ensure the election of a colonial assembly that would not rather aggravate than alleviate the evil complained of? If it be true

* In 1807 there were one hundred and sixty-six free settlers who had never been convicts.

that a body of cunning and unprincipled men has risen, on the wants and vices of the colonists, to such extraordinary influence, by what means would it be possible to prevent that influence from being carried into the very bosom of the proposed assembly, and from converting its powers into a new engine of aggrandizement?

But, besides this, the freedom of a community does not depend so much on the forms of its constitution as on the right feeling, the high principles of public spirit, of virtue and of religion, with which its inhabitants are animated. Our author, who appeals so ostentatiously, and often so needlessly, to the facts of history, ought to know that the wisest civil institutions have never been able to avail a people whose moral principles were corrupt; and that if we would raise a community from a state of mental and political degradation, we must not content ourselves with giving them a free constitution on paper, but we must lay the foundation deep in the restraints of a moral, an enlightened, and a religious education. Political freedom is one of the most desirable of earthly blessings, without which, indeed, all other blessings are rendered doubly unstable and unsatisfactory; but it is not to be acquired by the mere possession of a Magna Charta, however admirable in theory, and however consonant to the unalienable rights of humanity. A political constitution is not a talisman which operates by the power of enchantment, and which, by the pronouncing of a charmed word, or the working of a spell, can restore to their native manhood those whose natures have been degraded and brutalized. It is a machine, which must not only be well constructed in all its parts, but which, in order to be efficient and useful, requires sound materials on which its powers are to be exercised. This reasoning may, with the greatest confidence, be applied to the government of Botany Bay, notwithstanding the limited extent of the population. The infant community of convicts is totally unfit for receiving the blessings of a representative government, and indeed the idea is too ridiculous to require a moment's consideration.

The other proposals of our author, however, demand the more serious attention of the legislature. That the governor, instead of being invested with arbitrary power, so dangerous even in the hands of the most virtuous, should be required to act under the control of a council, seems to be absolutely necessary to the welfare of the settlement, and to be loudly demanded by a regard to common justice. The expediency of appointing a colonial secretary appears to be equally obvious. A private secretary, carried out by the governor, must be totally deficient in the local knowledge necessary to discharge with propriety the duties of his confidential situation; and experience has shewn, that he must be liable to become the dupe of the clerks and other servants whom he may find it necessary to chuse from among the convicts. We have already noticed the unconstitutional power assumed by the governor, of levying duties on the inhabitants. This is a most unwarrantable stretch of authority, of which it well becomes Britons to be jealous. It is a point essential to our liberties, and happily too firmly established, both by the spirit and practice of our law, to be called in question, that parliament alone has the power of im

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posing taxes. Attempts have, in former ages, been made by the crown to usurp this prerogative, but they have only been the means of more clearly defining the rights of the subject. We trust that so glaring an abuse, which not only affects the properties and liberties of the colonists, but must strike every man as a direct violation of the British constitution, will be put down by parliament the moment it is made the subject of discussion. The public will not now endure to be told, what James the First's Secretary of State had the impudence to maintain, that " plantations belong to the king, and the legislature has no right to interfere with them."

The last measure considered by our author as necessary to the prosperity of the colony, is a radical reform in the courts of justice; and here also our opinion entirely coincides with his. There are five courts in New South Wales, one of criminal, and the four others of civil jurisdiction. The criminal court consists of the judge advocate, and six officers of the sea and land service, named for the occasion by the governor, whose authority over it may therefore be considered as nearly paramount. It is, in fact, a military tribunal, with this single difference, that the presiding judge belongs to the civil establishment. The whole inhabitants of the settlement may, therefore, so far as the operation of this court extends, be considered as under martial law. When the colony was first established, there were no materials out of which a more eligible judicatory for criminal cases could have been formed; but undoubtedly, had the matter been ever fairly brought before the view of the public, a court so repugnant to all our British feelings would not have been permitted to exist one instant longer than the necessity of the case required. The constitution of the other courts, as well as the exorbitant power exercised by individual magistrates, are little less objectionable; and, on the whole, our author, we conceive, does not exaggerate, when he says, that a more crude and undigested organization of the colonial courts could hardly have been devised. To remedy these defects in the jurisprudence, Mr. Wentworth proposes the following measures: 1st, The entire abolition of the actual courts of civil and criminal jurisdiction; 2dly, The creation in their stead, of one supreme court, consisting of a chief justice and three puisne judges, who should hold circuits in the different districts of the colony, and in Van Diemen's Land; 3dly, The establishment of trial by jury; and, lastly, The establishment of a court of appeals, to consist of the governor in council.

Besides these, and other alterations in the government of the colony, Mr. Wentworth strenuously contends for various changes in its policy. In this he is warmly supported by Mr. Bennet, whose letter to Lord Sidmouth was published about the same time. "What, indeed," says this latter gentleman indignantly, "can be said of a sys"tem of political economy, in which the prices of grain and butcher's "meat, and of labour, are fixed by the government; the heads of "which, the Solons and Lycurguses of this new world, were three sea-captains and one major-general-the government itself a trader; "its civil and military officers retailers of all articles of commerce, con"stituting, of necessity, a rule of extortion in all the necessaries of "life; where the circulating medium was of copper; where indivi

“duals issued notes, varying from L.5 to 1s.; where wages were paid " in spirits!"

But, to pass over these abuses, which all require reformation, and which would certainly be in a great measure reformed by the proposed alterations in the governments and in the administration of justice, one of the chief measures of internal policy proposed by Mr. Wentworth is the erection of distilleries-a plan proposed several years ago by Governor Macquarie, but rejected by government on grounds of which we are ignorant. There can be no doubt that such a method of disposing of the superfluous grain of the country would be highly advantageous to its agriculture, and would also quickly secure the colonists against the return of scarcity with which they have been so frequently visited, and which, if some such means are not adopted, the droughts and inundations will serve to perpetuate.

One very serious objection to this scheme, may be suggested; we allude to the mischievous effects which might be supposed to accrue to the inhabitants from a more easy access to the use of ardent spirits. It is acknowledged, that, notwithstanding the very high price of spiritous liquors, arising from the necessity of importation, from the imposition of a duty, and from monopoly, the pernicious habit of dram drinking, both among the convicts and free settlers, is almost universal, and is carried to such an excess as absolutely to amount to a kind of mania. Mr. Collins tells us, that the free settlers will sell even their last bushel of corn for spirits; and this account is amply confirmed by our author. We are also informed, that although heavy restrictions were for a considerable time placed on the importation of spirits, no less a sum than a hundred and fifly thousand pounds has been expended on the purchase of this article within the colony in the last fifteen years. This indicates a dreadful depravity of appetite; and he who, under any pretence of policy, should add fuel to the flame, must be regarded as an enemy of his species. It is denied, however, that the erection of distilleries will produce this effect; and it is even asserted, that one of the greatest advantages of the proposed scheme would be, to render intoxication less frequent. Mr. Wentworth looks on drunkenness among the colonists as a necessary evil, which, instead of being cured, is aggravated by restraint; and he supposes that a free circulation of spirits would eventually effect a salutary change, if not in the present generation, at least in the succeeding one. In proof of this, he asserts, that since the unlimited importation of spirits was permitted, drunkenness has been less frequent, even among, that class of colonists who were most addicted to this vice during the long period when the importation was in a great measure restricted, the price of liquor exorbitantly enhanced, and the consequent difficulty of obtaining it much more considerable. His conclusion therefore is, that "great as are the present facilities to the indulgence of this propensity, they should be still further extended; and this would be effected by internal distillation."

There is doubtless some force in this reasoning, however proble matical it may at first sight appear. It is certain, at least, that in

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those countries which are most celebrated for their wines and spirits, France, Spain, and Italy, for instance, a drunkard is scarcely known; and it is also certain, that obstacles stimulate and inflame desire. would therefore undoubtedly be better to make, if it were possible, spirits as common as water, than to render them just so difficult of attainment as to enhance their value in the eyes of the profligate, without rendering them altogether inaccessible. But this extreme facility, or any thing approaching to it, is out of the question; and the happy effects of colonial distilleries, which our author so confidently anticipates, seem to us, after all, very doubtful.

Among the various articles of export which the colony is capable of producing, our author adverts particularly to the cultivation of tobacco, and of the vine and olive, for which he assures us the soil and climate are well adapted. Although we are not fond of any thing that may lead to a government job, we agree with him in thinking, that one of the most efficacious measures which could be adopted for the general introduction of these articles, would be the establishment of a colonial plantation, in which a certain number of the most enterprizing youths might be instructed in their culture and preparation.

But the most important subject of consideration for the settlement, is the improvement of the breed of sheep, with a view to the exportation of wool. When the colony was first established, the hairy sheep of India were imported, as the government then looked no farther than merely to provide a supply of food for the inhabitants. These were almost the only breed in New South Wales about 15 years ago, when Mr. M'Arthur, a very sagacious and enterprising settler, who originally held a commission in the army, turned his attention to the raising of wool as an article of export. The efforts of this gentleman have succeeded even beyond his most sanguine expectations. There were, in the month of September last year, no fewer than 170,920 sheep in the colony, none of them bearing coarser fleeces than the Leicester breed at home, and of these 10,000 were nearly of the pure Spanish kind.

"No country in the world is perhaps so well adapted to the growth of fine wool as this colony. There is in its climate alone a peculiar congeniality for the amelioration of wool, which has been found of itself to occasion in a few years, a very perceptible improvement in the fleeces of the coarsest description of sheep. Even the East India breed, entirely covered with hair, produce, without being crossed with a finer race, a progeny, the superiority of whose fleece over that of the parent stock is visible in every remoter generation. This amazing congeniality of climate is supported by local advantages of equal if not greater importance. For hundreds of miles into the interior, the country has been found to be covered with the richest pasturage, and every where intersected with rivulets of the finest water. A constant succession of hill and dale diversifies the whole face of the country, which is so free from timber, that in many places there are thousands of acres without a tree.

"The settlements at the Derwent and Port Dalrympic, though situated in a colder climate, and therefore in all probability not equally congenial to the growth of fine wool, afford the same excellent pasture, and contain in every respect besides the same facilities for the rearing of Spanish sheep, whose fleeces it is reasonable to expect, on compar ing the climate of these settlements with that of Saxony, would not degenerate, if the same system which prevails in that country were followed in the management of sheep in this."

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