proofs of the baneful influence of local and individual interests being set in array against the public good; and 'a council' would only add to the expense of the settlement, while its tendency would be to fetter and thwart the executive government, as experience, in other distant possessions, has but too often shewn. It is true, a Committee of the House of Commons recommended a council to assist the governor; but the reasons stated by Lord Bathurst for not acceding to this recommendation, we consider to be founded in good sense, and perfectly conclusive. "The difficulty,' said his lordship,' of selecting proper persons for the situation of members of the council; the dissensions and disputes to which their opposition to the governor, or their protest against his conduct, must give rise; the parties which would thence spring up in the colony; the length of time during which the public tranquillity would be interrupted, before a communication could be received from home; the danger of weakening the higher authorities, in a society composed of such discordant materials, are all causes which have more or less influenced the determination which has induced his Majesty's government to leave the governor unfettered by a council.'-We return to Mr. Wentworth.

There are three descriptions of convicts; those who are sentenced to transportation for seven years; for fourteen years; and for life. Of these the first are the most idle, the most insolent and the most abandoned; the second are somewhat more manageable; and the third, feeling all hope of return to be cut off, generally become reconciled to their situation, and endeavour to improve their condition by adopting a line of conduct which may recommend them to the attention of the governor, who has ever been most ready to afford such as shew themselves worthy of it, an opportunity of providing a comfortable subsistence: and instances are not wanting, where persons of this description have, by industrious and virtuous habits, atoned, in some degree, for the crimes of their early life.

From the general bad conduct of the first class of convicts, it has been suggested that the transportation of felons should, in future, be limited to those who are banished for life; keeping the others to hard labour in hulks or jails at home, or in suitable penitentiary houses; it having been pretty clearly ascertained that a transportation for seven years, or, as it is facetiously termed,' a trip to Botany Bay,' is rather courted than dreaded.* We cannot however

It was stated to the Police Committee, by the ordinary of Newgate, that the generality of those transported consider it as a party of pleasure that they rejoice in it.' 'I have heard them,' he says, when the sentence of transportation has been passed by the recorder, return thanks for it, and seem overjoyed at their sentence.' This feeling indeed was strongly exemplified at the last Surry sessions, when a mere lad, who had

headed

however be much surprised at this when we consider the comfortable manner in which the convict ships are fitted up, andBut we are over-stepping the limit prescribed to ourselves in the present article, in which we had no intention of examining into the political bearing of the question, preferring to wait for the Report of Mr. Bigge, (who has been commissioned to inquire into the various matters connected with the internal state of the colony,) when we shall probably take occasion to discuss it at some length. Meanwhile we shall content ourselves with a few observations on the statistical part of Mr. Wentworth's book, and on the progressive geography of New South Wales obtained from the expeditions of Mr. Oxley; which will be found to convey very accurate notions of the Australian territory as far as it has hitherto been settled and explored.

The town of Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, has increased very considerably in extent; and the style and regularity of the more recent buildings have been much improved. It has a population of about 7000 souls; a market, well supplied with grain, vegetables, poultry, eggs, butter and fruit; and a bank with a capital of £20,000 in 200 shares, the paper of which is the principal circulating medium of the colony; its flourishing condition may be presumed from the proprietors having the last year divided 12 per cent. on their capital. There are also two good public schools, one for boys, and the other for girls; the latter contains sixty children, who are gratuitously taught reading, writing, arithmetic, sewing and the various arts of domestic economy. On completing their education they are assigned as servants to such families of respectability as apply for them; or married to free persons of good character, when a certain portion of land is given in dower from a tract set apart for that purpose.

Sydney possesses two other public schools, containing upwards of 220 children of the higher classes, both male and female: and, it should be stated, to the credit of the local governments, that provision is made in every populous district for the diffusion of education; to defray the expenses of which, one eighth part of the colonial revenues, amounting to about £2,500, has been added to the Orphan Dues' on coals and timber. Besides these laudable institutions there are two private societies, one called 'the Auxiliary Bible Society of New South Wales,' the other 'the New South Wales Sunday School Institution.'

The town next in importance to Sydney is Paramatta, situated

headed a gang of desperate thieves and ruffians, on receiving sentence of transportation for seven years, turned towards the chairman and with a grin of disdain said, Thank your honour. I hope you may sit here until I return, when I will make you a present of a handsome ring-tailed monkey.'

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at the distance of fifteen miles from it, at the head of Port Jackson harbour. It consists of one street nearly a`mile in length; its population amounts to 1200 souls, chiefly inferior traders, artificers and labourers. The principal public buildings are a church, a female orphan house, a hospital, and a manufactory of coarse cloth, in which such of the female convicts as misconduct themselves, and such as, on their arrival in the colony, are not immediately assigned as servants to families, are employed. The wool is received from the settlers, and a certain portion of the manufactured article is returned in exchange; the rest is used for clothing the gaol gang, and the re-convicted culprits who are banished to the Coal river.

There is, besides, another institution in Paramatta that does honour to its founder, the present governor, Colonel Macquarie. It is a school for the education and civilization of the aboriginal natives of the country. It is not more than four years since it was opened, and by the last accounts it contained eighteen children who had been voluntarily placed in it by their parents; and it is stated that they were making equal progress in their studies with European children, or rather with children of European parents, of the same age.

Windsor is a rising town situated near the confluence of the south creek with the river Hawkesbury, about thirty five miles from Sydney. Its population, amounting to about six hundred souls, is composed chiefly of settlers who have farms in the neighbourhood. The Hawkesbury is subject to occasional inundations, when the water rises sometimes to the astonishing height of 70 or 80 feet; owing, it is supposed, to the branch called the Nepean, running along the base of the Blue Mountains for fifty or sixty miles, collecting in its course all the mountain torrents, and pouring them into that river.

Sixty miles to the northward of Sydney, is the town of Newcastle, at the mouth of the Coal river. Its population, consisting chiefly of incorrigible offenders convicted of fresh crimes in the colony, amounts to about five hundred souls. They are employed from sunrise to sunset in burning lime, and in procuring coals and timber for the public works and for sale on government

account.

The last town is Liverpool, founded by Governor Macquarie about five or six years ago. It is situated on the banks of George's river, at the distance of eighteen miles from Sydney, and has a population of two hundred souls. The river empties itself into Botany Bay, and is navigable by boats of twenty tons burden up to the town.

The state of society in all these places, is just what might be expected

pected from so heterogeneous and discordant a mass of materials as are thus thrown together: indifferent in the abstract, it is not improved by that spirit of scandal which usually exists in little communities, where every one is disposed to inquire minutely into the concerns of his neighbour. At Sydney they raised a theatre and instituted annual races, but it was found that they were not quite ripe for these kinds of amusements;'-the races we should have thought would have suited their taste-they have however frequent dinner and supper parties, and regular subscription balls. Upon the whole,' says Mr. Wentworth, it may be safely asserted, that the natural disposition of the people to sociality has not only been in nowise impaired by their change of scene, but that all classes of the colonists are more hospitable than persons of similar means in this country.'

The climate, as we have more than once stated, is healthy and pleasant, and the colonists are not subject to any particular diseases. The small pox was carried into the country, as is supposed, by Captain Cook, and committed dreadful havoc among the natives; the recollection of this event is still fresh in their minds, though the generation which witnessed its horrors has nearly past away. The moment,' says Mr. Wentworth, 'that one of them was seized with it was the signal for abandoning him to his fate. Brothers deserted their brothers, children their parents, and parents their children; and, in some of the caves on the coast, heaps of decayed bones still indicate the spots where the helpless sufferers were left to expire, not so much perhaps from the violence of the disease, as from the want of sustenance.'

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use;

The grains in cultivation are wheat, maize, barley, oats and rye; the first two are those which thrive best and are most in maize gives on flooded lands a hundred bushels an acre. All the garden vegetables known in England are produced freely in the colony; and Mr. Wentworth's enumeration of its fruits is quite seducing, peaches, apricots, nectarines, oranges, lemons, citrons, loquits, guavas, cherries, Cape, China and English mulberries, walnuts, Spanish chesnuts, almonds, medlars, quinces, grapes, pears, plums, figs, pomegranates, raspberries, strawberries, and melons of all sorts attain the highest degree of maturity in the air; and even the pineapple may be produced merely by the aid of the common forcing glass. To this list we are enabled to add the olive, which promises to thrive well. The first tree, carried out by Mr. M'Arthur, is now in full bearing, and numerous plants have been raised from it. The grape too succeeds to admiration, and almost all the varieties, at least the choicest kinds, from the continent of Europe, have been secured to the country. As colonization extends to the northward, the progress of which will be hastened

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hastened by the discovery of a new port by Mr. Oxley, sugar, tobacco, cotton, and all the products of a tropical climate, will no doubt be added to those which the colony already enjoys. The wool of the New South Wales sheep is of remarkable fineness; it is found to vie with the very best Spanish wool, and it can be brought to the English market nearly as cheap as from Spain. The navigation is now so well understood, that the celerity of a passage to and from Port Jackson is quite extraordinary. From 3 to 4 months is now the usual length of a passage either out or home.

Nothing can better exemplify the thriving condition and general prosperity of New South Wales and its dependencies, than a comparative view of the increase of stock at different periods. By a census taken at the end of the year 1800 (twelve years after the foundation of the colony) the number of horses was only 163; of horned cattle 1024; and of sheep 6124: at the end of 1813, the horses had increased to 1891; the horned cattle to 21,513; and the sheep to 65,121: and at the end of 1817, the horses had further increased to 3072; horned cattle to 44,753; and sheep to 170,420. But the astonishing rapidity with which the population, stock and produce were increasing will best appear by the comparison of two musters, taken in the months of November 1817 and 1818.

All the settlements above mentioned are situated at no great distance from the sea coast, on the belt of land, more or less narrow, between it and a range of lofty hills known to the colonists by the name of the Blue Mountains. These, though so little removed from the principal settlement, were crossed, for the first time, about the close of the year 1813, by Mr. Evans the Deputy Surveyor of the colony. On reaching the opposite side he found the herbage to be extremely good, the vallies well watered, and the mountain streams running to the westward. To two of these which assumed the character of rivers, he gave the names of the Fish and the Campbell rivers; and to their united streams that of the Macquarie. He pursued its course for ten days, passing over rich tracts of country, clear of timber, well-watered,

* Since the latter period, we believe that not fewer than 8000 convicts have been

sent out.

and