Part 7 (1/2)

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 embarra.s.sing 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 unconst.i.tutional 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 circ.u.mscribed 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 pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tion; 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 a.s.serted 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.signed 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 princ.i.p.al 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, thras.h.i.+ng, 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 cla.s.s 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 flouris.h.i.+ng 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 embarra.s.sment 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 emanc.i.p.ation, or by absolute pardon, and who had no means of support, embraced this offer of the government, which a.s.sured 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 inc.u.mbent 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 flouris.h.i.+ng agriculture. This a.s.sertion I consider fully borne out by a comparison between the quant.i.ty of land cleared, and the quant.i.ty 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 circ.u.mstance 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 trespa.s.s 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 quant.i.ty 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 subst.i.tuted 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 embarra.s.sment, 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 compa.s.s 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 towns.h.i.+ps, 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 a.s.sertion 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 princ.i.p.al 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 embarra.s.sing 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 acc.u.mulated with the increasing embarra.s.sments 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 va.s.salage 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 n.o.ble champions of liberty have succeeded, if not in emanc.i.p.ating 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 emanc.i.p.ation 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 const.i.tution, 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 circ.u.mscribed, or entirely exhausted, these people, so long habituated to unrestrained indulgence, found it difficult to support that privation, which became inc.u.mbent 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 acc.u.mulated 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 va.s.salage 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 circ.u.mstances 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 embarra.s.sments in which the bare cultivators of the soil are so generally involved.