AUSTRALIA

Australia. OR NEW HOLLAND, the largest island on the globe, is situated in the southern hemisphere; and, as described in the preceding article, forms the mainland around which are clustered those groups of islands which in modern geography constitute the fifth great division of the earth's surface. Wilson Promontory, its most southern angle, is in Lat. 39. 11. S., and Cape York, its northernmost headland, in Lat. 10. 43. S. Its greatest breadth from N. to S. is thus 1708 geographical miles, or 1965 statute miles. Cape Byron, the eastern limit, is in Long. 153. 37. E., and Cape Inscription, in 112. 55. E., forms its westernmost point; making the extreme length of the island from E. to W. about 2603 British miles, by an average breadth of 1200 miles—a tract of land well entitled to be called a continent, by which name it is frequently designated by geographers. Its superficies approximates to 2,690,810 square miles. That of the continent of Europe being 3,684,841 square miles, we can form some idea of its extent by comparison.

The nomenclature and geographical subdivisions of this island-continent have undergone many alterations from time to time, as the territory has become colonized. Before any settlement had been effected by the British Government upon its shores, the entire island was designated New Holland, not only by the Dutch—from whom it received its name—but on our own charts and maps. The E. coast, first discovered and explored by Captain Cook in 1770, was named by him New South Wales. The middle portion of the N. coast bore the name of Arnhem Land, after the ship of its discoverer Zeichen in 1618. The W. and S.W. coasts were named in like manner by their discoverers, the Dutch navigators, in the seventeenth century, De Witt's Land, Endracht's Land, Edel's Land, Leeuwin's Land, and Nuyt's Land. That of Van Diemen's Land was given by Tasman to what he supposed was the southern peninsula of New Holland, but which was afterwards discovered by Bass to be an island. The colonists have been anxious to name it after its discoverer, but the government still retain the first title.

Since this great territory has become the undisputed possession of Britain, other names, with the exception just mentioned, have, according to the law of nations, been substituted for the old Dutch titles. New South Wales is only applied now to about one-half the E. coast territory. The name of the entire island also is changed from New Holland to the more appropriate designation of Australia, by which it is now universally recognized and described. The subdivisions South, North, and Western Australia would be equally proper if their boundaries were defined according to the ordinary rules of geographical dissection. But while the first section, South Australia, is only the middle portion of the S. coast, trending inland to the central region; and the second, North Australia, embraces all to the N. of New South Wales; the third section, Western Australia, nearly bisects the island, leaving a small tract of land between it and South Australia with no name at all. A better division would be to draw a line right across from E. to W. in Lat. 26. S.; thus bisecting the island near its intertropical parallel; for although this line would be 3½ degrees S. of the Tropic of Capricorn, still the influence of the tropical rains and winds ascend even higher than this parallel. At all events this would be sufficient for us to designate the northern section Tropical Australia, and the southern Temperate Australia. Besides these two great meteorological divisions, they could conveniently be subdivided into four political sections by drawing another line from S. to N. in the meridian of 133. 30. Each of these sections might then be designated, according to its direction from the centre, South-western and North-

western Australia, North-eastern and South-eastern Australia. And these again might be subdivided into provinces, as the last-named section includes the three colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. This arrangement would tend to simplify an important section of geography which at present is very much confused.

If, for the better elucidation of our subject, we suppose these lines and boundaries to exist on the map, the northern or tropical division has little to do with the history of British colonization in Australia. It is within the temperate zone that our colonies have been planted and successfully nurtured. And this tract, again, separated by the meridian line suggested, confines to a still smaller compass the subject of our description. The group of colonies which absorb the attention of the statesman and merchant in that far-off land, are comprised within the last-named section, South-eastern Australia. On the W. it is bounded by a line drawn from the S. coast in Long. 132. E., meeting another line drawn at a right angle from the E. coast in Lat. 26° S.; the southern and eastern boundaries being formed by the coast line; which, by following the sinuities of the gulfs and bays, comprehends a sea-board of nearly 2000 miles. Again, if a line be traced on the map, commencing about 150 miles inland from the head of Gulf St Vincent, and continued more or less (within half a degree) the same distance from the coast until it reaches the northern boundary line, the intermediate space will give a fair average of the extent of country at present colonized, which may be estimated in round numbers at 1500 miles long by 150 miles broad, or 225,000 square miles; or nearly three times the superficies of England.

This section of Australia is politically divided into three provinces; which, with the western colony and the unsuccessful settlements in the northern section, we shall treat of severally under the following heads:—

1. 1. NEW SOUTH WALES.
2. 2. VICTORIA, or PORT-PHILLIP.
3. 3. SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
4. 4. WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

I. NEW SOUTH WALES is bounded on the E. by the South Pacific Ocean; from Cape Howe to Wide Bay, forming a sea-board of 750 miles. A line drawn from Cape Howe in a N.W. direction inland, crossing the Australian Alps to the source of the Murray River, and continued along the N. bank of that stream, as far down as 141. E. Long. is the southern boundary. From this point a line traced upon the map due N. until it forms a right angle with the parallel of 26. S., the northern boundary, constitutes its limits westerly. The jurisdiction, however, of the executive government and legislature of the colony, extends beyond the northern boundary as far as Cape York and Port Essington.

In reviewing the history of New South Wales from its first settlement, there are three distinct eras in its political, social, and commercial progress, which mark its short but eventful annals to the present time. Firstly, its foundation and existence as a penal settlement; when it depended solely on support from the mother country. Secondly, the opening of the colony to independent and bounty emigrants; who rendered it a self-supporting colony; and, thirdly, the recent gold discovery, which has made it one of the most wealthy and self-dependent provinces of our colonial empire. Each of these distinct eras has been marked by a complete change in the previous condition of the body politic, according as its destinies were influenced by a penal, a pastoral, and a mining population.

During the first period referred to, the history of New South Wales.

Australia. South Wales may be considered solely an account of British colonization in the Australasian seas.

New South Wales. It was after the separation of the United States from this country that it was first proposed to establish a colony for the reception of convicts from Great Britain on the eastern shore of Australia, or New Holland as it was then called; and in the year 1787 preparations were completed for carrying the design into effect. On the 13th of May 1787, a fleet consisting of eleven sail of ships, including a frigate and an armed tender, and having on board 565 male and 192 female convicts, with 200 troops, and several of their wives and children, set sail from Portsmouth; and after a voyage of eight months, arrived at their destination on the 18th, 19th, and 20th of January 1788. Captain Arthur Phillip of the royal navy was appointed the first governor of the colony. Botany Bay, where it was proposed to fix the settlement, was found ill adapted for that purpose. In seeking for a more eligible situation, Captain Phillip entered the inlet to which Cook had given the name of Port Jackson, which he found one of the most capacious and safe harbours in the world, navigable for vessels of any burden fifteen miles from its entrance, indented with numerous coves, sheltered from every wind, and possessing the finest anchorage. Within this harbour, on the shores of Sydney Cove, thinly wooded, and the haunt of the kangaroo, but now marked out as the capital of the future empire, the British ensign was hoisted on the 26th of January 1788. They immediately proceeded to clear the ground, to land the live stock and the stores, and to establish the colony, amounting to 1030 souls. In its early progress the settlers encountered numerous obstacles, which it required extraordinary courage, and perseverance, and untiring industry to overcome. These arose from various causes,—from the extremely sterile soil around Sydney Cove, from which no industry could extract a sufficient supply of grain for the wants of the people; from the profligate habits of the convicts, which occasioned continual disorders among themselves; from their outrages on the natives, and the retaliation which these produced. It was some years before an adequate supply of provisions for the maintenance of the colony could be derived from the ungrateful soil. The settlers consequently depended on foreign supplies, which did not arrive, and they experienced the severest privations. The loss of the store-ship the Guardian, under the command of Captain Riou, when proceeding to their relief with a large supply of provisions and stores, was a severe blow to the prosperity of the colony; and the general distress was greatly aggravated by the unseasonable arrival of a convict ship with 222 female convicts on board, thus increasing the number of consumers without any addition to the stock of provisions. The consequence was a severe scarcity, during which the weekly rations were, in April 1790, two and a half pounds of flour, two pounds of rice, and two pounds of pork; the governor sharing equally with others in the common calamity. Even this allowance, barely sufficient for the wants of nature, could not have been afforded if the governor had not sent off upwards of 200 convicts and troops to Norfolk Island, which is about 21 miles in circumference, with a fertile soil. Here the settlers, with even smaller allowance than at Sydney, would probably have perished, but for an unlooked-for supply from a flight of aquatic birds alighting on the island to lay their eggs. Owing to the length of their pinions, they take wing with difficulty; and they were so numerous that from 2000 to 3000 were taken every night, besides an incalculable quantity of eggs, which was a seasonable supply, and saved the lives of this detachment from the main body. Every effort was made to obtain supplies from China, India, and the Cape of Good Hope. There were not at one period four months' provisions in the store on the most reduced scale, and several persons had already perished. Shortly

after, three other vessels arrived with convicts, a large number of whom perished of the scurvy during the voyage. For about three years the settlers were in danger of starvation, and it was not till June 1790 that relief was afforded, by the arrival of three transports from the Cape; and in the following year a ship of war arrived at Sydney, conveying ten vessels, with 1695 male and 68 female convicts, after losing 198 on the passage. The arrival of this fleet changed the aspect of affairs, and gave the necessary stimulus to the industry of this rising community. Amid the difficulties with which the colony had to struggle, its improvement was not altogether neglected. Cultivation was begun, farms were established at Rose Hill (Parramatta), at other places two towns were commenced, and a few convicts were emancipated, and obtained grants of land as settlers.

Governor Phillip embarked for England in December 1792, when Lieutenant-governor Grose succeeded to the government. He was succeeded, on the 15th December 1794, by Captain Paterson of the New South Wales Corps; and, on the 7th August 1795, Governor Hunter, a captain in the royal navy, arrived, and immediately entered on his important office. From the year 1792 the improvement of the colony was decisive and rapid. It was in 1789 that the first harvest was reaped at Parramatta; and in 1793 the settlers were enabled to sell corn to the public stores, which was purchased at a given price. Trade began to make its appearance; passage-boats were established between the towns of Sydney and Parramatta, and the settlers visibly increased. The bulls and cows that had been originally brought to the new settlement had, by the carelessness of the keeper, been suffered to stray into the woods, and every subsequent search had proved ineffectual, when a fine and numerous herd of wild cattle was at length discovered in the interior of the country, evidently the progeny of the animals which had been so long lost to the settlers. At the close of the year 1795, the public and private stock of the colony consisted of 57 horses, 227 head of cattle, 1531 sheep, 1427 goats, 1869 hogs, besides a numerous breed of poultry. The total quantity of land in cultivation amounted to 5419 acres. At this period the storehouses were so completely exhausted, that, on the arrival of Governor Hunter, there were no salt provisions in store; and the settlement was, as before, reduced to rations. The colony was in danger of falling back; and it was only the speedy arrival of a store-ship at this critical and distressing moment that saved it from destruction in the seventh year of its establishment.¹ At the commencement of the year 1800, the inhabitants had increased to 6000. The stock consisted of 203 horses and mares, 1044 cattle, 1024 sheep, 2182 goats, and 4017 hogs. The quantity of land sown with wheat was 4665 acres, with Indian corn 2930 acres, and with barley 82 acres.

Governor Hunter quitted the colony in the year 1800, on King's 27th September, and was succeeded by Captain Philip Gidley King, R.N., who had effected the settlement on Norfolk Island. His administration lasted six years, and was distinguished by what is termed the "Irish rebellion," which broke out about the year 1804. Several hundred convicts attached to the government establishment at Castlehill, about 20 miles from Sydney, struck work and demanded their liberty; having armed themselves with pikes, they prepared for resistance. They were, however, overthrown after a brief contest by the troops at Vinegar Hill, a few miles from Parramatta, on the Hawkesbury road; a few were shot by the troops; the leaders were apprehended; three of them were led to instant death; two others were executed the following day at Sydney, three others at Castlehill, and the remainder returned quietly to their labour. There is no other instance of any insurrection in the colony by the convict population.

¹ Collins's Account of New South Wales, p. 253.

Australia. A printing-press had been established in the colony about the year 1795, by Governor Hunter, and in March 1803 the Sydney Gazette was published by authority. In 1800 a copper coin was issued by the government. The colony was at this time governed by general orders issued by the government. Captain King does not seem to have been adequate to the magnitude of the trust committed to him. He quitted the colony in August 1806, and was succeeded by Captain William Bligh, R.N., who was even less qualified than his predecessor. He had given ominous proofs of his incapacity as commander of the Bounty, where by his tyrannical conduct he provoked the men to a mutiny; and his selection for the delicate task of rearing up this infant colony evinced a marked indifference to its welfare which merits decided condemnation. His administration produced exactly the consequences which might have been expected. So unwarrantable was his tyranny, and especially his persecution of one influential person, noted alike for his public spirit and for his private virtues, that the colonists, with all the honest indignation of freemen, declared against his authority; and being aided by the officers and men of the New South Wales Corps, they deposed him, and marching up to the government-house, they dragged him from his concealment behind a bed, and carefully protecting his person and property, sent him on board a sloop of war, in which he set sail for Europe, after he had been governor for 18 months. He was succeeded by General Macquarie on the 1st January 1810; the government having in the meantime, from 26th January 1808 to the 28th December 1809, been successively administered by Lieutenant-colonels Johnstone, Foveaux, and Colonel W. Patterson. During the government of General Macquarie, which lasted for 12 years, the settlement made great progress in wealth and improvement. The population was increased by the influx of numerous convicts, and some new settlers; though it was not till a later period that the full tide of emigration began to set in towards Australia. By aid from the British treasury, many public buildings were erected, roads were constructed, and the colonists, compelled by a season of drought in 1813, and animated by the spirit of discovery, made their way over the barrier of the Blue Mountains, hitherto deemed impassable. It was in search of new pasturage, and by following the course of the Grose river, that a pass was at last found, and a road commenced in the following year, over this mountain range, whose summits were considered by the aborigines to be inaccessible, and who often declared that there was no pass into the interior.¹ One great principle of Governor Macquarie's administration was to encourage and bring forward the convict population. It was his maxim to consider the European life of every convict as past and forgotten; their arrival on the shores of Australia as a new era in their existence, in which the errors of the past might be entirely redeemed. It was a most enlightened and benevolent policy; and if he erred in carrying it into effect with too little discretion, as was alleged, it was the error of a generous mind. Under his rule the convicts were patronized; some were chosen to be magistrates; he conferred on others colonial situations of trust, along with liberal grants of land. But his further endeavours to introduce into respectable society those who had been branded as felons, were opposed by the invincible antipathies of the European settlers, who, though they agreed in countenancing and rewarding good conduct in the convict population, could not be persuaded that any after purity of life could thoroughly efface their original disgrace. Such an intermixture of classes could only be effected by the debasement of European manners, and by lowering the moral tone of society in the colony.

The departure of Governor Macquarie, on the 1st December 1821, marks the close of the first era in Australian

history, embracing a period of 34 years. During that time Australia, the convict-pioneers had cleared the wilderness, tilled the ground, constructed bridges, roads, and other public works, unaided by free labour or private capital, at an average expense of £300,000 per annum to the British treasury, and a total cost, up to this date, of nearly £10,000,000 sterling. The armies of inexperienced immigrants who subsequently opened up the resources of the interior, thus found the most difficult preliminary task in colonization already accomplished to their hands. Until the year 1820 the British government assisted free settlers to emigrate, by paying their passages, and giving them grants of land, at peppercorn rents, upon their arrival; allowing them, also, convict servants under the assignment system, at the public expense, and frequently giving them a bonus of live stock to commence with. Very few, however, availed themselves of these inducements; for there was no spot on earth at this period the name of which sounded more abhorrent in the ears of the British public than that of Botany Bay. The white population, therefore, consisting at this date of 29,783 souls, were three-fourths of them either prisoners of the crown or emancipated convicts; while scarcely one-third were females. They were distributed in small detached settlements along the coast and within the county of Cumberland, mainly employed in constructing public works; while a few were engaged in tilling the ground, and tending the sheep, cattle, and horses, thinly spread over the 19 counties of the colony, as yet but imperfectly explored. The pastoral live stock at this period did not muster more than 250,000 sheep, 5000 head of horned cattle, and a few hundred horses. The capabilities of the colony, however, for the growth of fine-woolled sheep were by this time fully ascertained; and the four merino rams and twenty ewes, first imported in 1803, under the superintendence of Mr Macarthur, rapidly increased. Still the amount of wool exported—the only produce of the colony available in a foreign market—was but a trifling set-off against the enormous expenditure for the maintenance of the colony; an expenditure, however, which the subsequent unparalleled growth of the free colonies of Victoria and South Australia has amply justified.

Let us now, before passing from our first period, give a cursory glance at the statistics of 1851, the close of the second. The 30,000 inhabitants had increased in 30 years to 359,158 in the parent colony and its two younger neighbours, of whom not 10,000 were convicts, and about five-sixths were females. In that year, just before the gold discovery, the extent of country occupied by the flocks and herds of the colonists covered more than four times the area of the original 19 counties of New South Wales; and they could muster, on good pasture land, not far short of 18,000,000 of sheep, 2,500,000 head of horned cattle, and 150,000 horses. The value of their exports of wool and tallow alone for the preceding year exceeded £3,000,000 sterling; and the public purse of the colony was not only independent of bounty from the mother country, but the expenditure for military establishments and gaols was disbursed out of the colonial revenue—the first example of the kind in the history of our colonial empire.

Major-general Sir Thomas Brisbane, K.C.B., a man of second acknowledged science and talent, succeeded General Macquarie; and with his arrival commenced that influx of free immigrants, which gives a distinctive character to his and the succeeding administrations. As New South Wales became more and more a community of free British subjects, the acts of the governors were of less importance in marking the progress of events, than the efforts of the colonists themselves. Heretofore the orders of the governor were supreme; and there was none to demur against their acceptance and enforcement as laws. But these mandates,

¹ See History of Australia, by R. Montgomery Martin, F.S.S.

Australia, although adapted to the constitution of the colony as a penal settlement, in fact a huge gaol or penitentiary, were oppressed by the free and independent settlers, who found them

New South Wales.

oppressive, and questioned their legality. Consequently the absolute authority with which Sir Thomas Brisbane entered upon the duties of his administration, was modified in the second year after his arrival. In 1823, an act was passed authorizing the king to appoint a local council consisting of seven members to assist the governor in making laws for the colony, subject to His Majesty's approval. This concession, however, was not enough to meet the demands of the free colonists, and disagreements ensued, in consequence of which the governor returned to England before the expiry of his term of administration; delegating his power to Colonel Stewart, who acted as lieutenant-governor from the 1st December 1825 to the 18th December 1826. He was

Sir R. Darling, succeeded by Lieutenant-general Sir Ralph Darling, who, during his harsh administration of five years, made himself still more unpopular. The public press had by this time two representatives in the colony, and the acts of the governor were unsparingly criticized. General Darling was forced to yield to the superior strength of public opinion, and left the colony on the 21st October 1831. His irresponsible acts, however, probably accelerated the improvement of the internal government of the colony. In 1829 a legislative council was formed, which passed an act to establish trial by jury, and several other beneficial measures. The free immigrants about this period pressed rapidly forward into the interior, and settled down amidst their multiplying flocks. Towns began to spring up on a hundred spots in the interior, and steam-boats were first launched on the Australian waters. In the mother country the spirit of colonization was alive; and a new colony was projected on free principles to occupy the waste lands of Western Australia. The samples of fine wools which arrived in the London markets vied with the finest fleeces of Germany and Spain; and the mania for emigration began to spread among the upper classes.

The eighth governor of New South Wales was Major-general Sir Richard Bourke; the most statesman-like, and withal the most liberal-minded ruler the colony has yet had. Steering a middle course between Darling's tyranny and Macquarie's amiable weakness, he organized anew the relations between the independent settlers and the convict population. With mild yet firm rule he brought together the contending interests of the free and the bond. And wherever he deemed it necessary, he unhesitatingly established the institutions of the mother country; endeavouring to make the gentlemen settlers and their families realize that, in staking their fortunes on the prospects of the colony, they had not forfeited the privileges and immunities of their native land. To the state of public morals he especially directed his attention, and caused acts to be passed to regulate and endow public schools and places of worship. The waste lands of the crown were no longer granted to absentee holders, or at peppercorn rentals, but put up to public auction and sold to the highest bidder; the proceeds being employed to assist the emigration of free labour. This fund increased from £3617 in 1831 to £1,32,396 in 1836. The revenue from the customs likewise increased rapidly, from the extending commerce of the city of Sydney; its harbour being pronounced by maritime authorities to be the finest commercial port in the world. The returns of the prosperous condition of the colony under the sway of its judicious governor, attracted an increasing number of emigrants from Britain; and the harbour of Port Jackson was thronged with richly laden vessels, freighted by respectable families of moderate means, in search of the "Golden Fleece" within the territory of the no-longer-dreaded shores of Botany Bay. Even foreigners who had formerly shunned these shores as if infected by plague, now landed their luxuries in safety, for which they obtained high prices; while the more fortunate

Sir R. Bourke, 1831.

colonists rolled along in their carriages through stone-built streets, lined with handsome warehouses and public edifices. In the country, gentlemen's seats sprang up on all sides; New South and good turnpike roads intersected the settled districts, which were thronged by vehicles of the agricultural population bringing their produce to market. In fine, before fifty years this antipodal offshoot of British civilization had taken deep root, and already began to extend its branches to an unforeseen growth. In the far interior the settlers found that the pastoral limits of the old colony were insufficient for maintaining their increasing flocks; and the neighbouring colonists in Van Diemen's Land found themselves in similar circumstances. Some adventurous settlers from that colony crossed Bass's Strait to the mainland, and settled on the shores of Port Phillip. The people and government of New South Wales were not long in following up the enterprise, and annexing the surrounding territory to their colony. The result has been the formation of the most flourishing province in Australia, the gold colony of Victoria. At the same time took place the establishment of South Australia, on the shores of Gulf St Vincent—a detailed account of which will be found under its proper head in this article. The importation of so much wealth to the southern shores benefited still more the parent colony on the east coast; and the colony of New South Wales, upon the retirement of Governor Bourke on the 5th December 1837, had arrived at a state of prosperity unexampled in the history of British colonization. To his representations and exertions was attributed, as his crowning effort in establishing free institutions among the colonists, the virtual abolition of transportation to New South Wales in 1839. At his departure, he was followed by the heart-felt acclamations of the colonists, who, in grateful acknowledgment for his services to their adopted country, have erected a statue to his memory at the western gate of the Sydney domain.

From the 5th December 1837 to the 23d February 1838, Lieutenant-colonel K. Snodgrass administered the affairs of the colony. He was succeeded by Sir George Gipps. This appointment was an unfortunate circumstance both for the new governor and the colony. His preconceived opinions of the high prerogatives belonging to the crown, in consequence of the settlement having been originally established without the aid of free capital or labour, rendered his administration, which lasted eight years and a half, a period of bitter political hostility between his government and the entire community, especially the higher class of free and independent colonists; and although no Australian governor's domestic life was of a more unsullied character than his, the acerbity of his temper banished from his presence many experienced men, whose private counsel would have been most beneficial to the newly-appointed governor. By this time the social and moral condition of the people had undergone a surprising degree of improvement from the influx of free immigrants; this was not merely amongst the upper circles in Sydney, and on the estates of landed and stock proprietors, but among the community at large. A moral tone prevailed in domestic society throughout the colony quite equal to that existing in the best localities of the mother country. Besides these beneficial effects from the infusion of fresh and uncontaminated blood into the body politic, many of the new settlers were related to families of rank, and with the advantage of wealthy connexions in Britain, had come to engage in colonial pursuits with large funds in hand. It was not uncommon to meet with gentlemen having £20,000 in cash, ready to invest in land or to purchase stock; while private associations sent out managers with sums varying from £50,000 to £100,000 for the purpose of growing wool, and producing tallow for export as a means of profitable investment. Joint-stock companies, also, were formed in the great metropolis, who despatched their staffs of officers, with paid-up capitals rang-

Gipps, 1838.

ing.

Australia, ing from £250,000 to £1,000,000 sterling, to facilitate the operations of banking, effecting insurances and mortgages, so New South as to obtain a high interest for their money. Wealth flowed Wales.

likewise into the treasury from the land sales and custom-dues as it never had done before, until the governor found a large surplus in the public coffers. The imports of British merchandise, and the exports of colonial produce, averaged as many pounds per head of population as in the Canadian provinces it amounted to shillings. During the year 1846, when Governor Gipps left the colony, the former amounted to £1,320,000, and the latter to £1,481,000, amongst a population of 190,000 people. Thus the material prosperity of the colony had progressed, uninfluenced by the contentions of the higher powers; and notwithstanding the reckless speculations of the people, which brought about a general bankruptcy in 1841-3, it is but fair to state that the successful progress of the colony, throughout all its monetary difficulties, was maintained by the indomitable energy and high intelligence of the upper class of colonists—the merchants, squatters, landholders, and the representatives of the people in the legislative council. The independent members of the legislature expressed their judgment on the measures of the governor and executive, by passing a vote of censure on the government, and rejecting a bill brought forward by the colonial secretary for the maintenance of the border police. This proved a final blow to the administration of Sir George Gipps, and served to hasten his departure, which took place on the 11th July 1846.

Lieutenant-general Sir Maurice O'Connell, commander-in-chief of the forces throughout Australasia, acted as governor between 11th July and the 3d August 1846, when his successor arrived and assumed the administration of affairs. This was the tenth governor of New South Wales. Sir Charles Augustus Fitzroy, K.G.H., who holds the appointment at present, and who has lately been invested with the power and title of governor-general of the Australian colonies, which gives him certain jurisdiction over the lieutenant-governors of Victoria, South Australia, Van Diemen's Land, and Western Australia. Happily the instructions from the home government allow greater latitude to the colonists in the management of their own affairs than under Sir George Gipps. The government of Sir Charles Fitzroy has been in consequence infinitely more popular than that of his predecessor. Two significant facts have recently occurred, which tend to show the amicable relations between the government and the elected representatives of the council. One was the council's voting a considerable increase to the colonial secretary's salary,¹ and handing him over back pay, with the full concurrence of all the elected members. The other was his Excellency recommending to Her Majesty that their speaker should receive the honour of knighthood in virtue of his office. This title was recently conferred upon Sir Charles Nicholson; but, not to form a precedent in such cases, it was bestowed upon him in consideration of his private virtues and eminent abilities.

An important act came into operation during the first year of the present administration, under the sanction of an imperial ordinance, to the effect that the squatters, who were formerly considered yearly tenants at will, occupying crown lands, should henceforth obtain leases of their sheep and cattle "runs" for eight and fourteen years; with right of pre-emption, and compensation for improvements on the land. This was a great concession to the colony on the part of the then colonial minister, Earl Grey; and has proved a boon to the pastoral interests. If he had dealt equally justly with the agricultural population, and lowered the high minimum price of land from £1 to 5s. per acre, submitting parcels for sale in small sections, as petitioned for by the colo-

nists, he would have been bestowing a benefit on the community at large, and offering advantages to the introduction of a yeomanry-farmer class who have never emigrated much to Australia. But that high minimum price on crown lands is still in force; and as long as it is so, the mass of the people will be an erratic labouring class; whereas, with a cheap and easy tenure in the land, they will become a fixed population in spite of the attractions of the gold fields. What made his measures still more obnoxious to the colonists, that minister endeavoured to renew transportation to New South Wales after it had been virtually abolished by a predecessor in office ten years before; and despatched several ship-loads of convicts to Port Jackson and Port Phillip, where they were landed under the specious name of "Pentonville Exiles." The colonists were immediately up in arms. They assembled in public, they petitioned, and nearly opposed by force the landing of the convicts, until the local government had to warn the imperial legislature of the consequences. Ultimately, delegates from the inhabitants of the three colonies, who had united and formed themselves into an Anti-Convict League, were despatched for England to place before Her Majesty the disastrous effects of a renewal of transportation under any form to their shores. They showed with great truth that the evils resulting from the introduction of a felon class amongst a mixed population of emigrants, who were enjoying all the privileges and institutions of a free people, was fraught with the most demoralizing results, would utterly close their colonies to the importation of free labour, and thereby tend to ruin their prospects. We have already pointed out the fact, and commented favourably upon the policy of selecting pioneers for the purpose of encountering the first hardships of a new colony such as this, from among the malefactors of the parent country, both as a punishment and means of reformation for the criminal; but we do not advocate the continuance of this description of labour after the colony has an abundance of free labour for all its wants. Not only is it prejudicial to the moral and social condition of the colony, but transportation under such circumstances becomes a reward instead of a punishment. These crying evils becoming apparent from the revolt of some convicts on board the hulks at Chatham, who demanded to be transported, and above all, the gold discovery, not only induced the government to accede to the representations of the delegate from the Anti-Convict League, Mr. J. C. King of Victoria, but, what was of equal importance to the colonies generally, to rescind the order which made Van Diemen's Land a penal settlement. The growing wealth and prosperity of Port Phillip—which until 1851 was a dependency of New South Wales—likewise induced the Queen's government in 1850 to grant the petition of the colonists in that section of Australia to be separated from the parent colony, and declare it to be a distinct province of the British crown under the title and name of Her Majesty, Victoria; at the same time granting to the new colony a representative legislature, besides extending the constitution of New South Wales. These concessions on the part of the imperial government are hopefully regarded by the colonists as the precursors of a more liberal policy in future on the part of the colonial office.

The political emancipation of the colonists in Victoria, and the extended privileges granted to the people of New South Wales, immediately preceded the astounding gold discoveries in 1851; and, as if still further to enable the political economist to draw his inferences from these events, it so happened that, in the month of March, two months before the gold discovery, the quinquennial census of the population was recorded. From it and the annual statistical re-

¹ This office is at present (1853) ably filled by Mr Edward Deas Thomson.

turns, may be exhibited a correct view of the social condition and material prosperity of the colony of New South Wales in this eventful year, when, two months after the gold discovery, Port Phillip was separated from it, marking at the same time the close of the second, or pastoral era, in the history of the country. Thirty years had elapsed since emigrants in any considerable number began to settle in this land of the felon; and they had since increased and multiplied so greatly, that the prisoner population was lost in the general multitude. These industrious immigrants had tilled and replenished the soil of their adopted country, until the solitary plains and forests swarmed with their flocks and herds; and fields of yellow corn sprung up in desert places.

The population on the 1st March 1851 (exclusive of Port Phillip) was 189,951, of which 108,691 were males and 81,260 females. The general statistics on the 31st December 1850 gave:—Live stock in the colony, 5,660,819 sheep, 952,852 horned cattle, 63,895 horses, and 23,890 pigs; 69,219 acres under cultivation, exclusive of vineyards, 995 acres producing 103,606 gallons of wine. Imports, L.1,333,413. Exports, L.1,357,784, including 14,270,622 lb. of wool, valued at L.788,051; and 128,090 cwt. of tallow, valued at L.167,858. Ordinary revenue, L.248,613. Coin in the colony L.690,852. Paper currency, L.266,602. Shipping inwards 421, of 126,185 tons. Shipping outwards 506, of 176,762 tons. Mills: steam, 64, water, 38, wind, 26, horse, 30. Six woollen-cloth establishments producing 200,000 yards, 5 distilleries, 20 breweries, 3 sugar-refining manufactories, 16 soap and candle, 15 tobacco and snuff, 4 hat, 4 rope, 36 tanneries, 5 salting and preserved-meat establishments, 93 tallow-melting do., 1 gas-work, 7 potteries, 1 glass-work, 1 smelting-work, 13 iron and brass foundries, and 5 ship-building yards.

Altogether the aspect of affairs, and the future prospects of New South Wales prior to the gold discovery were of the most encouraging description. And while her material prosperity was satisfactorily recovering from the depression consequent on the monetary confusion in 1841-3; her social condition had reached a climax of unexampled security and freedom from crime. These favourable symptoms of national progress likewise extended themselves to a greater degree amongst the lesser population of the newly-separated colony of Victoria at this time. Five years, we believe, had elapsed since a public execution had been witnessed either in Sydney or Melbourne; the greatest desperadoes in the country having emigrated to California. The newly-arrived stranger, on walking through these young cities, was struck with the peaceable demeanour of the inhabitants, and the respect they paid to the constituted authorities. But the gold discovery, like some sudden stage transformation, changed this state of general tranquillity into a chaos of public crime and domestic confusion, universal Mammon-worship and selfish aggrandisement, which at one blow, in the course of a few months, dislocated the structure of society, and the machinery of the government.

From a letter written by Mr Edward Hammond Hargraves to the colonial secretary, dated the 3d April 1851, we learn that on the 12th of February previous he had discovered the existence of gold among the alluvium of the surface rocks over a large area of crown lands within the settled districts of the colony; which subsequently turned out to be from 20 to 30 miles beyond the town of Bathurst, an inland town 125 miles from Sydney. He was led to prosecute a search for the precious metal in that locality, from the similarity of that mountainous section of New South Wales to the auriferous regions of California, where he had successfully worked as a gold-digger. Governor Fitzroy was

doubtful of the discovery, from the circumstance of a similar statement having been made to him two years before, by a Mr Smith of Berrima, who allowed the matter to drop on New South Wales. At the same time, Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, president of the Royal Geographical Society, and other eminent geologists in the colony and in England, had predicted the discovery of gold in the Australian mountain ranges, from their presenting similar characters, both geographically and geologically, to the gold-bearing mountains in Russia. Partly from these representations, and partly from the general claims of the colony to have its mineral wealth scientifically investigated, the government had just recently appointed Mr Samuel Stutchbury as geological surveyor; and that gentleman at this period was prosecuting his stereotyped researches not very zealously in the mountain ranges at a short distance from Mr Hargraves. It is worthy of notice, that gold had been found in its native state from time to time some 20 years previous, by a Scotch shepherd, who was known to have sold a large quantity to the jewellers in Sydney; having kept the secret so long from a fear, as he stated, that if any one dogged him to the spot, they might murder him. Notwithstanding these and other evidences which need not be specified, no one had prosecuted the search systematically before Mr Hargraves, who demonstrated the fact publicly and without delay. To him, therefore, is due all the honour of the discovery.

After having intimated to the government that he was satisfied to leave to their liberal consideration any reward or remuneration they chose to offer him for his discovery, he posted off to Bathurst, and announced to the astounded inhabitants that they were living within a day's journey of the richest gold mines in the world. Followed by a number of the enterprising inhabitants, he led the way to Summer-hill Creek, and there, in a romantic vale, surrounded by hills, where this streamlet wound its course round a picturesque point of land, they dug the auriferous earth from the adjacent bank, washed it in the stream, and found that the soil was mixed with grains of gold. These gold-pioneers who thronged to the first "diggings," reminded of the resemblance between their country and the rich gold mines mentioned in Scripture, called this spot the Valley of Ophir.

This was in May 1851, and it became the signal for the colonists in other parts of the territory to be up and doing. "Ascertaining the nature and description of the rocks occurring in the vicinity of the gold deposits, they immediately set to work in their own localities to search for the hidden treasure, instead of flocking with the multitude to the Bathurst mountains, concluding wisely that these comprised only a small section of the great mountain chain where it existed. Like the industrious tenants of an Australian ant-hill suddenly roused, the whole community of bushmen became alive amongst the rocks and valleys of the colony. Stockwhips and shepherd's crooks were thrown aside for pick-axes and shovels, with which these adventurous men might be seen exploring the gold regions, and with what success is now well known to the world.²¹ The Turon River, Muckaw Creek, Louisa Creek, Meroo Creek, Frederick's Valley, Abercrombie River, and Araluen Vale, had their hidden treasures exhumed by the industrious diggers. And in three months after the workings at Bathurst had been set in operation, the newly-erected province of Victoria, within seven weeks from the time of her separation from New South Wales, disclosed her treasures at Ballarat; and before the close of the year, the Mount Alexander gold region gave forth that astounding yield of the precious metal, to which no record of ancient or modern times can furnish a parallel.

²¹ Mossman and Banister's Australia Visited and Revisited, p. 179.

Australia. The result of the latter discovery not only arrested the departure of the Victoria colonists who were flocking to the Bathurst Mountains, but afterwards turned the tide of adventurers from the parent colony to the greater attractions of the Mount Alexander gold fields, which threatened at one time to decimate the populations of Sydney and the surrounding townships.

New South Wales. The gold was not merely found in the scales or grains which at first came from the stream-washings at Ophir, but it was now dug up in large masses, varying from several ounces to many pounds in weight, which were familiarly called "nuggets" by the diggers, after the Californian name given to these pepitas or nodules; and in one instance, at Louisa Creek, 106 lb. weight of pure gold was found by an aboriginal shepherd, imbedded in the quartz matrix, which formed one solid block of about 3 cwt. Neither was it found in the beginning at any great depth in the ground, but in many localities lay scattered among the surface soil, and hung to the roots of trees and shrubs. So easily and plentifully did it come to the hands of the gold-seekers, that it bore the aspect (and such was the belief of many of the less-informed diggers) of having only then sprung into existence from the earth, or having recently been scattered over the land by some mysterious agency; instead of carrying along with it the geological fact that its veins are coeval with the primary rocks. It was also discovered that the convicts had built a bridge across a small stream on the Bathurst road to Carcoar, above the gold formation, and that they had unconsciously paved the road with broken fragments of the gold-quartz veins. Even in the streets of Bathurst and Melbourne, small particles of the precious metal were picked up by children in its natural bed; and several farmers and gardeners found that they had been ploughing, digging, sowing, and planting their grain and trees in the auriferous soil. A knowledge of these facts industriously circulated by the colonial press, throughout a community possessed of all the modern facilities of information, and keenly alive to the speculations of money-making, could not but fairly upset the minds of the people. Consequently, a gold-mania seized every class of colonists, to the temporary suspension of all industrial pursuits.

Then followed a heterogeneous scramble for the coveted ore throughout the length and breadth of the land; which spread like wildfire to the neighbouring colonies of South Australia, Van Diemen's Land, and New Zealand, threatening to depopulate them of their male adult inhabitants. Masons and bricklayers left unfinished buildings in the towns; shopmen left their counters, clerks their desks, sailors their ships; and artisans of every description threw up their employments, leaving their masters, and their wives and families to take care of themselves. All other interests were absorbed in the search for gold; scarcely any other subject was talked of, or thought of; and the mass of the people ran off to the "diggings"—as this new occupation was termed. Nor did the mania confine itself to the labouring classes, for "these were soon followed by responsible tradesmen, farmers, captains of vessels, and not a few of the superior classes; some unable to withstand the mania and the force of the stream, or because they were really disposed to venture time and money on the chance; and others because they were, as employers of labour, left in the lurch and had no alternative. Cottages became deserted, houses to let, business was at a stand-still, and even schools were closed. In some of the suburbs not a man was left, and the women were known for self-protection to forget neighbours' jars, and to group together to keep house."¹ The ships in the harbour also were in a great measure deserted; and instances were known, where not only farmers and respectable

agriculturists found that the only thing they could do, seeing Australia, that the people employed by them had deserted, was to leave their farms and join their men in the golden scramble; "but New South even masters of vessels, foreseeing the impossibility of maintaining any control over their men otherwise, agreed to make up parties among them, abandon their vessels, and proceed with their crews to the gold fields."² The towns and their environs being thus drained of their labouring populations, the prices of provisions rapidly rose. The common necessities of life reached famine prices; which fell heavily upon those depending upon salaries. This, coupled with the high wages demanded by domestic servants, forced the upper classes of society to dispense with their services, and the ladies had to perform the household drudgery. Clerks and others under government, and in public and private offices, finding it impossible to make both ends meet, threw up their appointments and rushed to the diggings, and even the constabulary force were leaving the towns unprotected. During this state of affairs, the government were obliged to raise the salaries of their officers, in order to maintain a sufficient staff for the public service, and to preserve the public peace, which was becoming sadly disturbed. The banks and mercantile firms were obliged also to follow their example.

Meanwhile, the governments of New South Wales and Victoria—the two gold colonies—looked with apprehension upon the probable result of this gold-revolution amongst a pastoral population widely scattered over the country; a portion of whom had but recently been reclaimed from the ranks of the felon. Therefore, how to regulate the prosecution of this new pursuit on crown lands became a matter of grave consideration. The crime and anarchy which had prevailed in California upon a similar discovery, brought the worst fears to their recollection. Precautionary measures were promptly taken, and all the available military force—which was but slender—was called into requisition, assisted by the mounted police to maintain order and authority at the localities where the diggers were working; for at some places communities had assembled, and erected tents, with the rapidity of a military encampment, in larger numbers than were to be found congregated within the ordinary townships scattered over the country. A proclamation was issued asserting the right of the Queen's government to all gold or precious metals found on crown lands; and that every person digging therein in search of it, or any individuals trading or otherwise profitably employed at the diggings, must take out a monthly license and pay the sum of 30s. This measure was at once acceptable to the people; and gold-commissioners were appointed to see that it was carried into effect. Notwithstanding the excitement which prevailed at the first blush of the discovery, and during the subsequent discoveries in other localities, which drew from time to time one-half of the adult male population to the gold fields, to the honour of the people of New South Wales be it said, that no greater amount of crime existed in that colony during the following eighteen months than the usual average. "Everywhere," as stated in the despatches of his excellency the governor-general, "the gold-diggers were loyal, orderly, and obedient to the laws," and they cheerfully paid the fee of one shilling per diem for license to dig. The same flattering testimony cannot be borne to Victoria, where a Californian state of anarchy at one time threatened the subversion of all law and order; the consideration of which will be reserved for our remarks on that colony. At the close of 1851, six months' experience had proved the most satisfactory results as to the extent and richness of the gold deposits. In New South Wales, upwards of 20,000 licenses were issued; and the export sheet from the port of Sydney

¹ Lieut.-governor Latrobe's Despatches.

² Ibid.

Australia showed that 142,975 ounces, valued at upwards of half a million sterling, had left the colony.

By this time also, hundreds, nay, thousands, had ascertained that they were morally and physically unfit for the hard labour and privations to be encountered in the search for gold. The consequences were, that not only did many clerks, shopmen, and artisans, come back to their former occupations in the towns, but much distress was felt by those who had abandoned lucrative employments, which were shut against them on their return; in many instances impaired in health from exposure to the rigorous climate of the gold regions, which, it will be understood, were first worked in the winter season in Australia. The beneficial effects which accrued from this reaction in favour of the industrial pursuits, was the supply of labour to be had, although at exorbitant wages, for securing the wool-crop of the season. Not only was this evil result anticipated among others at the beginning of the gold discovery, but at many sheep and cattle stations in the far interior, the herds and flocks were abandoned by their keepers, and at that period nothing short of utter ruin to the pastoral interests of the colony hovered over the sheep-farmers and graziers. In one instance, an enterprising squatter drove 26,000 sheep into one flock, which he shepherded with four trusty shepherds on horseback. Here, as in other matters, the gentlemen settlers and capitalists in the colony proved themselves equal to the occasion; and much consideration is due to them for assisting to maintain the peace and prosperity of the community, by their untiring energy and support given to the government, under such an unlooked-for event. And where at first the squatters anticipated a ruinous reduction in the value of their stock, the demand for sheep and cattle to supply the diggers with food raised the prices 50 per cent., while the landholders found new purchasers of land among the judicious and fortunate gold-diggers. So at the close of the year 1851, the prospects of New South Wales, on all sides, were most cheering, where the reverse was expected. The population had increased to 197,168 persons. The value of the imports was £1,563,931, and the exports £1,796,912. Thus, the average of the former for every man, woman, and child in the colony, would be at the rate of £8 per head, and of the latter about £9. The ordinary revenue = £277,728; and the crown revenue £208,969; the coin in the colony £560,766; and the paper currency £418,541. The wool exported = 15,269,317 lb., valued at £828,342; the tallow 86,460 cwt., value £114,168; and the gold 144,120 oz. 17 dwt., value £468,336. Shipping inwards 553 vessels, of 153,002 tons, having 7955 men on board; and the shipping outwards 563 vessels of 139,020 tons, having 7988 men.

From the circumstance of gold mines having been hitherto only worked by barbarous or despotic nations, who from ignorance or policy shrouded their operations in mystery, our information regarding the extent and character of gold-bearing rocks throughout the world was of a very meagre description. The "great fact," therefore, of gold regions being discovered, and worked within territories claimed by the Anglo-Saxon race in California and Australia, is not only an event of considerable interest in the history of the world, but has proved of the utmost benefit to science, in determining this important question in auriferous geology. Not only was the gold found in the ordinary quartz matrix, but the reports of the geological surveyors of New South Wales have shown that it is found in granite at Araluen Creek; schistose or slaty rocks at the Turon; and in Frederick's Valley specimens were found of a ferruginous rock, beautifully dotted with globules of gold. It would seem, therefore, that gold is the most universally distributed of metals among the unstratified rocks, although found in greatest abundance in the quartz veins which intersect these rocks. However, the great bulk of the gold found in Australia has not been extracted from its matrices,

but dug out of the gold alluvium formed by the disintegration of these rocks. Hence the gold mines in this region have received the familiar name of "diggings," from the New South practical-minded Americans and Australians. What are termed the "gold diggings," then, are spots where the miners have to dig pits from 10 to 50 feet deep before they arrive at the substratum of auriferous soil in which the particles of gold are found loosely imbedded. This subsoil is generally a stiff blue clay mixed with sand and gravel, and the pure metal appears in scales about the size and shape of bran or shellings; and in rounded grains and lumps varying from the size of a pin's head to the form and dimensions of flints as they occur in chalk, a specimen of which, when gilded, gives exactly the appearance presented by these gold nodules, or, as they are now universally called, "nuggets." This alluvium is collected and mixed freely with water in a tub, which is termed "puddling." After having undergone two or three washings, the residue is thrown into a cradle or wooden trough, with "cleets" or ribs fastened across the bottom, and a sieve at the head, which prevents large stones or lumps of gold from passing through. The cradle is then rocked and tilted to and fro, while water is poured over the auriferous sand or gravel. When sufficiently washed, the residue at the bottom of the cradle is examined carefully, the large pieces, if any, picked out, and the scales of gold separated from any foreign substance by further washing in a tin dish, until it is perfectly clean; after which a magnet is passed through it to extract small particles of iron-sand, which are frequently mingled with it. Upon reaching the "washing-stuff," as the "diggers" term the gold alluvium, they sometimes see the nuggets dotting the earth, and collected into heaps or "pockets," which they extract easily with the point of a knife. This pleasing operation to the fortunate digger is called "nuggeting." Again, a similar process is followed at some localities where the grains of gold lie on the surface of the ground, technically termed "forsicking."

The experiences of the diggers at this new and exciting occupation were by this time ascertained to be exceedingly various, and the results of the undertaking, to a certain extent, became more or less a lottery. While in some instances hard-working able-bodied men strove in vain to dig up the glittering ore, others of feeble constitution, and with less labour, came upon heaps of the pure metal, which in the gatherings of one day enriched them for life. Instances were known from the best authority, where a party of two or three men would, out of the auriferous earth, dig pepitas or nuggets to the value of £8000 and £10,000 in a week; while masses of pure gold were dug up weighing from 100 to 500 ounces each; and one specimen intermixed with quartz was brought to London, and exhibited by the fortunate diggers, weighing 134 lb. 11 oz., and calculated to be worth upwards of £8000, being the largest single mass of native gold ever found, of which we have any record. The colour and qualities of Australian gold differ; that of the Turon and the neighbouring gold fields being inferior in standard to the Mount Alexander gold, which again is less so than the Ballarat and Ovens gold. The Victoria gold is of a richer yellow than the New South Wales gold; the former being valued at the mint as high as £4, 1s. per oz., while the latter brings only £3, 19s.

In this age of scientific invention, it will be supposed that this rude system of gold-washing would soon be superseded by some ingeniously contrived machine to save time and labour; but up to this time, although numerous experiments have been made, no machine or implement has been constructed which has proved more efficacious than the cradle, and the modus operandi of washing the drift as already detailed. Circular churning-machines have been tried, and centrifugal engines applied to the separation of the gold from the drift by forcing a stream of mercury through it, for which

Australia, it has such an affinity that an amalgam is at once formed, and the dross easily separated; but these and other intricate means of extracting the particles of gold have never been adopted by the "diggers." However, not only has the amalgamating process been successfully introduced, but steam-machinery and stamping engines have been erected at Louisa Creek,—where the enormous mass of 106 lb. weight in the quartz matrix was found,—for the purpose of reducing the auriferous rocks, and extracting the metal by the chemical process referred to. These works, erected by the "Great Nugget Company" are replete with every improvement in modern engineering, and may be strictly considered gold-mining works. The auriferous quartz is broken up into small fragments and placed under a ponderous pestle, which reduces them to a granular consistence. This falls under enormous rollers which crush it as fine as flour, and then it passes through a cistern filled with mercury and water; the former amalgamates with the gold and remains, while the latter, in which the quartz is diffused, passes away.

In like manner, as we have seen the appliances of machinery unsuccessful at the gold-washings, so have all attempts to prosecute the search for gold at these deposits, by the combined means of labour and capital as in ordinary companies, proved a failure. Beyond the association of two, three, four, five, or six individuals at the most, upon mutual terms of profit and loss, no company having its managers, overseers, and labourers, is to be found amongst the 150,000 individuals assembled at the "diggings" throughout the gold regions of Australia. At the first intimation of the discovery in England, the speculators of the city of London were not long in trumping up a host of gold companies; as many as fifteen figured on the stock-exchange within a few months. Out of these, ten proved to be bubble companies, and the other five abandoned the project of gold-washing by hired labour, after incurring large expenses; and only one succeeded in commencing operations in the colony, by uniting with the local "Great Nugget Vein Company." As the localities of gold-bearing quartz veins are discovered, there is every likelihood of capital and machinery being brought to bear profitably upon the resources unfolded by the gold discovery; but the employment of gold-digging will always be most successfully pursued by individual labour and means; or mutual associations of individuals, where all must work and encounter privation alike; and where the relations between master and servant will never be recognised.

Not the least in importance among the benefits resulting from the gold discovery has been the establishment of steam communication between this country and Australia; and the colonists had the gratification of seeing fifteen ocean steamers from time to time, within the year 1852, arriving at their ports from England. "The Royal Australian Mail Steam-Packet Company" obtained a charter to convey the mails to these colonies; but from inefficiency in the boats and their equipment the company lost the contract. It is estimated that the voyage out will be accomplished in sixty days, once the route is fairly established, which will be the means of bringing those dependencies within one-third the distance in time that they formerly were; and it is to be hoped that this will tend to unite more closely the interests of the colonies with the mother country, which were certainly becoming estranged through the illiberal measures of the colonial ministers. Coincident with these advantages from steam communication with the parent country, is the active renewal of a projected railway from Sydney to Goulburn, 125 miles into the interior, on the line of road to Melbourne. This railway was projected in 1846; but the matter had remained dormant, for want of shareholders for the undertaking, till 1852, when the government not only granted the company a local charter and free occupation of all crown lands they should pass through, but assisted them with funds to complete the undertaking.

The crisis of the gold discovery having mingled amongst Australia, the records of the past, the colony of New South Wales is now fairly started, in 1853, on the third era of her eventful history, which may be literally termed the golden era. Although she has not produced such brilliant results in her material progress as her younger neighbour and sister Victoria, yet, during the past year, she can boast of a mine of comparative domestic comfort and public tranquillity which the latter cannot record. The present year has commenced under the most favourable auspices. Wherever we look, public and private works of improvements, which had been stopped for a season, are now rapidly progressing; and the statistics of the colony show a general advancement in every branch of commercial enterprise over the preceding year, quite equal to the most sanguine expectations of the colonists and the government.

The colony of New South Wales, until the separation of Topogra-Port Phillip, comprehended within its present boundary only nineteen counties, namely, Cumberland, Camden, St Vincent, Northumberland, Gloucester, Durham, Hunter, Cook, West-Plate Cl. moreland, Argyle, Murray, Brisbane, Bligh, Phillip, Wellington, Roxburgh, Bathurst, Georgiana, and King. The act which erected that district into an independent province, divided the squatting districts S. and N. of the nineteen counties into forty-nine more, namely, Cowley, Buccleuch, Dampier, Beresford, Wallace, Wellesley, Auckland, Macquarie, Hawes, Parry, Buckland, Pottinger, Inglis, Vernon, Dudley, Sandon, Raleigh, Gresham, Clarence, Richmond, Rous, Buller, Ward, Churchill, Stanley, Cavendish, Canning, March, Lennox, Fitzroy, Aubigny, Merivale, Bentinck, Drake, Clive, Gough, Hardinge, Darling, Napier, Gowen, Gordon, Montegale, Clarendon, Selwyn, Lincoln, Ashburnham, Harden, Wynyard, Goulburn, making in all sixty-eight counties. They extend along the coast about 800 miles, and into the interior about 180 miles. Not only is the whole of that extent of country thoroughly explored and occupied by the settlers, but a trigonometrical survey has been nearly finished; so that the map of New South Wales, in the tracing of its mountains and streams, is assuming that detailed appearance presented by the ordinary maps of Europe.

The general aspect of the country in the interior may be General as called mountainous or hilly; and covered with an open forest peet of occasionally intersected by brushwood thickets. On the country sea-coast, along which the great South Pacific Ocean rolls its tremendous surge, it is bold and rugged, and for five or six miles from the coast it wears a bleak and barren aspect; presenting a soil composed mainly of drift sand, scantily covered with stunted trees and shrubs. But this would give an inadequate and unfair description of the whole; for, like the entire island itself, it is the most chequered country of good and bad land in the world. In the interior, rich and fertile valleys lie in the lap of these ranges, such as the Vale of Clywd, to the westward of the Blue Mountains; and extensive undulating grassy plains, like those of Maneroo and Liverpool plains, are approached through a barren and rocky region. On the coast, also, the romantic and fertile district of Illawarra in Camden, a ma-

Australia, ritime county to the S. of Cumberland, is surrounded by a desolate region of barren hills; and the rich valley of the Hunter River system of waters contrasts with the Clarence and Richmond to the northward. Again, the tropical aspect of the jungles and mangrove swamps of Moreton Bay are so different from the verdant prairies of the Darling downs almost destitute of timber, and with few streams, that the traveller approaching the former from the E. and the latter from the S. could scarcely imagine them to be in the same country within 1000 miles of each other; and yet they are contiguous. To give, therefore, the most succinct view of this territory, it would be necessary to describe each district. As our limits, however, prevent this, it will suffice to give the general character of the two great watersheds from the main range or cordillera which divides the eastern from the western streams. From Mount Kosciusko, 6500 feet high,—the highest of the Australian Alps—situated 120 miles inland from Cape Howe, this range of mountains extends in a northerly direction through the whole extent of the colony to the boundary line at Moreton Bay. The rivers which flow to the eastward have 100 outlets on the sea-coast; descending rapidly from their sources—which are on the average under 80 miles in a straight line from their outlets, and 1800 feet above the level of the sea; passing through a hilly region in a tortuous course. The streams flowing to the westward, deriving their sources from 1000 fountainheads, flow through extensive valleys and plains, describing a multitude of ramifications until they either join in one great river 400 miles from their sources, or lose their waters in extensive marshes. The land on the eastern streams is for the most part inferior in quality, both for agriculture and pasture, to that on the western streams. While the latter enjoys a cooler climate than the former, it consists also of a rich black and dry soil, covered with luxuriant herbage, interspersed here and there with valleys, open woodlands, and forests, whereon the herds and flocks of the settlers now graze, and a busy population of gold-seekers are digging up the ground for the hidden treasure. Again, on the river banks which face the rising sun, the orange, the banana, and the vine grow abundantly; and the day is not far distant when wine, tobacco, and cotton will be among the staple exports from this coast. Between the girdle of the coast and the mountain range, the country extends in gentle undulations for many miles, clothed with stately forests, which, where cultivation has made progress, are diversified with farms and tenements, and intersected by broad and excellent turnpike roads. Lastly, the coast is indented with numerous bays and harbours, unsurpassed for security and extent by any in the world; while the noble city of Sydney, with its classic buildings, and 100 other towns and villages, are visible throughout the length and breadth of the land; giving that air of dignity and of settled comfort to its inhabitants which belongs essentially to older countries, and which is not observable in the aspect of the newer colonies in Australia.

Australia being situated in the opposite hemisphere to Britain, its seasons are exactly the reverse of ours. July is the middle of winter, and January of summer. The festivities of Christmas and of the new year are celebrated here, not, as in the old country, with doors and windows shut, and a cheerful fire to dispel the winter cold, but amid the oppression and heat of summer, with doors and windows thrown open to invite the refreshing breeze. We no longer hear in this Australian climate of the "gentle south wind," nor of "rude Boreas, blustering railer." The north is here the region of heat, as the south is of cold. The summer extends from the 1st of December to the end of February; and the mean heat during these three months is about 80° at noon. This great heat is tempered along the coast by the sea breeze, which sets in regularly about nine in the morning, and blows with considerable force till about six or seven

in the evening, when it is succeeded by a land-breeze from Australia, the mountains, which varies from W.S.W. to W. In very hot days the breeze often veers round from N. to S., and New South Wales blows a hurricane. The hot winds to which the country is exposed, especially in the interior, three or four times every summer, blow from the N.W., like a current of air issuing from a heated furnace, raising the thermometer to 100° in the shade, and to 125° when exposed to their influence. They imbibe their heat from the great central desert alluded to in the article AUSTRALASIA. They are generally succeeded by a cold southerly squall, and by a thunder-storm and rain, which cools the air. The spring months are September, October, and November. In the beginning of September the nights are cold, but the days clear and pleasant. The thermometer varies from 60° to 70° towards the end of the month; and light showers occasionally prevail, with thunder and lightning. The days become gradually warmer, and in October the hot and blighting winds from the north begin to be apprehended. The three autumn months are March, April, and May. The first is rainy, and more fertile in floods than any other in the year. Towards the end of April the weather becomes perfectly clear and serene. The thermometer varies from 72° at noon to 60°, and in the mornings is as low as 52°. During May the thermometer varies from 50° at sunrise to 60° at noon, with a perfectly cloudless sky. During the three winter months of June, July, and August, the mornings and evenings are cold; hoar frosts are frequent, and become more severe in advancing into the interior. At Sydney the thermometer is rarely below 40°; at Parramatta it is frequently as low as 27° in the course of the winter. As the land rises from the ocean, the temperature declines. The winter at Bathurst, where snow falls in its season, is much colder than on the sea-shore. On the loftiest hills heavy falls of snow take place during the winter, and it remains for many days on their summits; and some high ranges penetrate the level of perpetual snow. In the valleys, however, the snow does not lie. The greatest defect in the climate is the prevalence of periodical droughts, in consequence of which the vegetation is parched, a general failure of the crops follows, and numbers of the cattle perish. Although in general a large quantity of rain falls throughout the year, yet the colony has hitherto been subject to severe periodical droughts. A drought took place in 1826, which continued till 1829; another in 1839; and more recently, in 1849-50, another severe drought took place, which occasioned general distress in the colony. The climate is, however, on the whole highly salubrious and agreeable. Out of a community of 1200 persons, it has been known that only five or six have been sick at a time; and at some of the military stations, seven years have elapsed without the loss of a man. The fact is now pretty well ascertained, that its dry healing influence is beneficial in pulmonary consumption. Hydrophobia is happily unknown, although dogs abound. The Asiatic cholera has never visited these shores: dysentery, however, is prevalent amongst newly-arrived people. Cases of organic lesion of the heart are frequent, and cause the majority of sudden deaths. Ophthalmia, too, is not uncommon in the districts of the Hunter and Moreton Bay. The only instance of an epidemic visiting this country was in 1849, when the influenza carried off a number of the inhabitants; yet notwithstanding these facts, and the assertions of inexperienced emigrants, the climate of New South Wales has been pronounced by good authorities to be one of the most healthy and salubrious on the face of the earth. As the aspect of the country, however, possesses no general feature whereby to describe its character, so the varieties of soil and climate in New South Wales cannot be classed under one general head. Not only are the warmer localities and poorer soils on the eastern shed of waters greatly different from the rich lands and cooler atmosphere on the western streams, but these

Australia again are diversified by the variations of latitude. The territory of New South Wales, as before stated, extends between New South the parallels of 26° and 38° S. Lat., or about 800 statute miles; hence it will be naturally supposed to possess the graduated influence of solar heat at the sea-level alone to cause local variations of temperature. And this, added to the higher altitudes of the country inland, produces a variety of meteorological phenomena which materially affect the indigenous as well as the imported subjects of the animal and vegetable world. In ordinary parlance, therefore, it is as erroneous to speak of the climate of New South Wales generally as if there were one uniform recurrence of weather throughout that territory, as it would be to designate as one description of climate the varied weather which simultaneously occurs between Switzerland and the African shores of the Mediterranean. For there is as great a difference in the weather which happens in the regions between the Maneroo plains, elevated 2000 feet above the level of the sea, and situated at the base of the Australian Alps, covered with snow, and the intertropical district of Moreton Bay, within whose waters turtle abound; these being the extreme S. and N. boundaries of the colony. In the former region, the gooseberry and the apple flourish in the frigid atmosphere; in the latter the pine-apple and the banana grow rich and luxuriantly in the open air. While the Maneroo settlers rear coarse-woolled sheep upwards of 100 lb. in weight, the Moreton Bay squatters have the finest-woolled merinos under 50 lb.: and their proprietors may be distinguished in the streets of Sydney, which lies midway between them, by the ruddy English complexion of the one, and the sallow Indian face of the other.

The agricultural products of New South Wales comprehend all the cereals grown in Europe, and many which are confined to tropical countries. Of the former, wheat, barley, oats, and rye, with hay, lucerne, and other kinds of fodder for cattle and horses, comprise the farmer's list; of the latter, maize, tobacco, and lately cotton, have been profitably cultivated. The barren soil, however, around the environs of Sydney, renders the inhabitants of that city and its suburbs dependent upon Van Diemen's Land for their supplies of grain. The Hunter River and other districts being subject to droughts, the cultivation of cereal crops is precarious. So devastating were their effects in early times, that the government had siloes on the Egyptian plan sunk on an island (Cockatoo) in Sydney harbour, and filled with grain in case of famine. In the above-named district, a large quantity of maize or Indian corn is produced, mainly for the food of horses, pigs, and poultry. In 1852, there were 152,057 acres of land under cultivation, exclusive of vineyards. The culinary vegetables common in this country thrive admirably in New South Wales; such as potatoes, cabbages, carrots, parsnips, turnips, peas, beans, cauliflowers, lettuces, cucumbers, and pumpkins, besides sweet potatoes, yams, and plantains. Many of the former attain to greater perfection than in Europe, as the cauliflower and the broccoli; and green peas are to be had in Sydney all the year round; whilst a few degenerate, such as the bean. The colony is famed also for the abundance and variety of its fruits. Peaches, apricots, nectarines, loquats, oranges, grapes, pears, plums, figs, pomegranates, raspberries, strawberries, mulberries, and melons of all sorts, attain the highest degree of maturity in the open air. Added to these, the northern districts produce pine-apples, bananas, guavas, lemons, citrons, and other tropical fruits. Excepting on the high mountain districts to the westward and southward of Sydney, the climate is not so congenial to the production of northern fruits, such as the apple, the currant, the gooseberry, and the cherry. Grapes of the finest quality are produced in the colony, not only for the table, but for the manufacture of wine. Upwards of 1000 acres of vineyards are laid out in the most complete manner

for the culture of the vine, which in 1852 produced 84,843 Australian gallons of wine, and 1641 gallons of brandy. The Australian tobacco, both from its quantity and its quality, is now New South fast superseding the importation of American tobacco. In Wales, 1852, 12,530 cwts. were manufactured in the colony. The olive-tree, likewise, grows luxuriantly, and a superior sample of oil has been produced. The cultivation of cotton upon the Brisbane River at Moreton Bay realized to the experimental planters in 1852 a clear profit of £12 per acre. Altogether, the capabilities of this varied soil and climate for the production of the universal staple commodities of cotton, tobacco, and wine, are unlimited. All that the colony requires to raise them in sufficient abundance for her own consumption and foreign export, is capital and labour. Already much has been done by the enterprising colonists in this direction. While we write, Mr Hickey of Osterley, Hunter's River, has produced before the wine-tasters in the London Docks samples of his vintage of light wines, which have been pronounced equal to the best hock and Sauterne imported into London; while a parcel of cotton has been sold in Manchester as high as 2s. 6d. per lb. from the Moreton Bay district; and a company is now forming to introduce the cultivation of the cotton plant there by free labourers, so that the Manchester cotton manufacturers may be independent of the American planters, which may ultimately tend to abolish negro slavery throughout the United States.

Of the indigenous animals in Australia, we have given Animal some account in the preceding article. We shall notice produce here, therefore, more particularly the capabilities of the country for rearing imported stock, poultry, &c., and those birds and fishes used as food by the colonists. The extent of pasture land within New South Wales occupied by the herds and flocks of the settlers is not far short of 50,000 square miles; upon which there were grazing at the end of 1852, 116,397 horses, 1,375,257 horned cattle, and 7,396,895 sheep. The climate is peculiarly congenial to the growth and increase of these animals. The breed of horses, both thorough-bred, and half-bred hacks, is such, that they are exported to India for the purpose of supplying the East India Company's cavalry and artillery. The horned cattle are, in many instances, of a gigantic size, weighing from 13 to 14 cwt. The sheep are mostly of the fine merino breed; but, on the elevated downs, the Leicester breed crossed with the merino, thrive best, and give a heavier carcass, with a greater quantity of coarse wool than the pure-bred stock. From the dry nature of the herbage, the mutton and beef has not that rich flavour which is so much prized in English-fed cattle and sheep. Swine are abundant, the number of pigs in 1852 amounting to 65,510. They are mostly fed upon the "graves" of the tallow-melter; which neither produces as sweet pork nor such solid flesh as the ordinary methods of feeding. Goats are not numerous; and asses and mules are seldom reared. A few Timor ponies have been imported; and the camel has been introduced, but hitherto has not thriven.

Domestic fowls of every description thrive admirably, and Birds may be reared at small expense. Geese become fat upon the native grasses; and the barn-door fowl picks up sufficient food in summer amongst the insects in the bush. Ducks likewise require very little artificial food; only they are subject to some unknown disease which checks their increase; while turkeys and pea-fowl, which are delicate to rear in Europe, require little or no care. Guinea-fowl also are easily reared; and all of them fatten better upon cracked maize than upon oats. The same holds true, also, in the feeding of horses. Besides the domestic fowls, game birds also are abundant, including the quail, snipe, land-rail, water-rail, duck, pigeon, and the native turkey, or bustard of the plains. Parrots are found in myriads, and at certain seasons make a tolerably good pie; and the cockatoo also is

Australia. eaten. We may here mention that the tail of the kangaroo makes a richly-flavoured soup, which may be considered the New South only part of an indigenous quadruped fit for food.

Wales. Fishes. Fish are plentiful in the bays along the coast, but they are not so abundant in the rivers. The fresh-water cod-fish, however, in the Murray River, are of a large size, weighing sometimes as much as 70 lb., and 30 lb. being common. Eels are also caught in the marshes and lagoons, 12 and even 20 lb. in weight. The salt-water fish are numerous. The schnapper is like our cod, and the best and largest fish in the Australian seas, with the exception of the trumpeter at Hobart Town. Rock-coal, flat-heads, taylor-fish, mackerel, soles, and guard-fish, constitute the ordinary kinds brought to Sydney market; but few of them have the substance and flavour of British fishes, from which they are distinct in species. Cray-fish are abundant, and fine flavoured; the crabs are of the most beautiful colours, but none of them edible. Prawns and shrimps are sold in the markets. Fresh-water mussels are found of a large size, but not wholesome to eat; and the salt-water mussels are small. Oysters, however, of three kinds are plentiful: the rock-oyster, the stream-oyster, and the mud-oyster, which are all edible; the stream-oyster being of the most delicate flavour. Turtle are found at Moreton Bay, where the aborigines are employed by the settlers in procuring them for the Sydney market; they are, however, not equal in flavour to the West India turtle.

Minerals. Now that the mineral treasures of Australia have become the leading item in the wealth of the country, the attention of the government, and of the colonists generally, has been directed to the geological structure of the country. To give the most brief synopsis of this important subject would occupy more space than we can afford. A general view of the gold fields has been given in the section treating of the discovery: we must content ourselves here with noticing those other minerals which have been productive of wealth and utility to the colonists. Between the Blue Mountains and the sea-coast are those extensive sandstone plains where the strata are lying in a horizontal position with a slight dip to the westward. On this the city of Sydney is built, and the great mass of its buildings are constructed of this rock, which is more friable than ordinary freestone. The roads are "mettled" with the whinstone or basalt obtained from the Blue Mountain ranges. In the county of Argyle, a beautiful grained marble has been found, which makes up into handsome chimney-pieces. Copper has been worked for several years in the mountain ranges around Bathurst; but the ores that are the richest (pyrites) are found only in small quantities, while those most abundant are of inferior quality. Oxydulated iron ore, from which is manufactured the finest description of steel, has been worked at Berrima, but not successfully. Potters' clay and rock porcelain exist also among the rocks N. of Sydney harbour. But by far the most valuable mineral worked in New South Wales, prior to the gold discovery, has been coal. The coal measures on the Hunter River extend over the great basin of that river and its tributaries, down to the sea-coast at Newcastle, where the seam of coal is seen cropping out on the beach. Until within the last eight years, these coal measures were worked under a monopoly held by the Australian Agricultural Company. This, however, has been infringed upon successfully by the adjoining proprietors of land containing coal, who work now under sanction of the authorities. About 10 pits are in operation, and a considerable trade is carried on between Port Hunter and the adjoining colonies, as well as with New Zealand and California. For further particulars upon this subject, and an analysis of the soils as applied to agriculture, we refer the reader to the excellent work of Count Strzelecki.

An account of the aborigines of Australia will be found under the article AUSTRALASIA.

We shall now proceed to notice the increase of the Euro-pean settlers in New South Wales. From our own experience, and the evidence of competent authorities, we know New South of no region on the globe where natural phenomena combine Wales, to render mere animal existence more desirable to the Anglo-Saxon constitution, or more propitious to the increase of the race.

It will be remembered that the colony, when first established at Sydney, as detailed in the first section of this article, consisted of 1030 individuals, 700 of whom were convicts; and that notwithstanding the famine and distress which occurred at intervals, and the discouragement of emigration by some of the authorities, the population, owing to the fineness of the climate and the number of convicts sent out, rapidly increased. A census taken at eight different times gives the following result in the month of March in each year:—

The apparent decrease at the last census was in consequence of the separation of Port Phillip, at which period it numbered an additional population of 77,000, giving a total of 264,000 for the old boundaries of the province before the gold discovery.

At the date when the following statistics were computed, transportation had virtually ceased for eleven years; hence it was not necessary to specify the number of convicts in a return of the population. Moreover, their influence on the social and political condition of the colony had become absorbed, and they were scarcely recognizable in the influx of free emigrants. Our information from the colony brings up the census to April 1853, exactly two years after the details given in the annexed table; and includes a fluctuating population attracted to her shores during nearly all that period by the gold discovery, and a re-emigration to Victoria upon the announcement of the superior gold-fields there. "The tide of emigration," however, as stated by his Excellency the Governor-general in his prorogation speech to the Legislative Council on the 28th December 1852, "is now steadily setting back to the colony." During 1852, 21,816 persons arrived in the colony, and 14,397 left it; 13,511 of whom went to Victoria and the other sister colonies, and of these 9886 returned; showing an excess of arrivals over departures of only 7419. The total population on the 31st December 1852, according to the government returns, was 197,168; 113,032 males, and 84,136 females; to which add the excess of arrivals over departures in 1852, and we have a total of 204,587 on the 31st December last. During this year, 1846 emigrants arrived at the public expense, and 756 at their own. The number of births registered during the year was 7675; of marriages, 1915; of deaths, 2600.

The proportion of the colonists from the United Kingdom and their descendants may be taken thus: out of 10 individuals there are 4 English, 3 Irish, 2 Scotch, and 1 other nation. Of course no apparent nationality of character has as yet resulted from this intermixture; but if we may judge from the few native-born men and women we have met, there is every likelihood of the future Australian people resembling their cousins of Anglo-Saxon descent on the other side of the Atlantic.

The following table exhibits a more particular classification of the inhabitants in the colony of New South Wales, within the restricted boundaries, according to the last general census taken on the 31st March 1851:—

Australia. A visitor to the city of Sydney, if he mingles among the higher circles of its inhabitants, will find them surrounded by those elegancies, and possessing much of that refinement in their domestic relations with each other, which give the charms to civilized society. The governor-general and his official circle, of course, form the central sphere around which the lesser revolve; and these combine upon state occasions, when the hospitality of government-house is laid under contribution, to display a goodly assemblage of fashionable and elegant people. Altogether the stranger is pleasingly impressed with the facts that there is much wealth and liberality, and a tone of high intelligence, about the society of this fair city, and on the estates and homesteads of the settlers in the interior.

New South Wales. When the colony of New South Wales was first established, the whole powers of the government necessarily centred in the governor alone. In 1824, a council was appointed to aid and to control him in the exercise of his authority. Several alterations have since taken place, and the supreme authority is now vested, 1. in the governor; 2. in an executive council, which consists of the colonial secretary and treasurer, the commander of the forces, the auditor-general, and the attorney-general; and, 3. in a legislative council, consisting of the members of the executive council, with the addition of four other official and nine non-official crown nominees, and thirty-six elected members, making in all fifty-four members; who are presided over by a speaker elected from one of their number. The legislative power is vested in the governor and this legislative council; a majority of which must concur before any law can be passed, the speaker having a casting vote. Any member has the privilege of introducing a measure upon giving notice, as is customary in the House of Commons; the governor being represented by the colonial secretary, who brings forward all government bills. The recent act passed "for the better government of her Majesty's Australian colonies," after erecting the "district of Port Phillip" into the "colony of Victoria," enacts (§ 2), that the legislative council of New South Wales shall consist of such a number of members as the governor and council shall determine, of which one-third shall be appointed by Her Majesty, and two-thirds to be elected by the inhabitants. Electors are qualified to vote on possessing freehold estate of £100 clear value, or occupying a dwelling-house for six months at an annual rent of £10, or holding a depasturing license of the yearly value of £10. The bills passed by the council must not be repugnant to the laws of England; and they do not become the laws of the land until they obtain the governor's assent; who has also the power of referring any measure before coming into operation, to obtain the sanction of Her Majesty, which entails great delay, if the act is obnoxious to the local government. For the sole administration of the laws there is a supreme court, over which preside a chief and two puisne judges. The supreme court is a court of oyer and terminer, and gaol delivery; it is also a court of equity, and a court of admiralty for the trial of criminal offences within certain limits: it is empowered to grant letters of administration, and it is an insolvent debtor's court. From the supreme court lies an appeal for all actions for less than £500, to the governor or acting governor, who is directed to hold a court of appeals, from whose decision lies a final appeal to the queen in council. There are courts of general and quarter sessions, which have the same powers as those in England. Courts of requests have been established for summarily determining claims not exceeding £30; and their decision is final. Juries now sit in civil and criminal cases. A very vigilant police has been established throughout New South Wales. There are benches of stipendiary as well as unpaid magistrates in Sydney and other principal towns, aided by head-constables and a civil and military police force at each station. The city of Sydney

is incorporated, and divided into six wards, each ward electing four councillors. From these twenty-four councillors, six aldermen are chosen; and from the aldermen and councillors, the mayor is elected annually.

The country of New South Wales, recently a pathless forest, is now intersected in all directions by excellent roads. The royal mail proceeds from Sydney to all the different towns in the interior, and letters are delivered with punctuality and despatch. Postage stamps are used for letters as in Britain. Stage-coaches with four horses also start daily from Sydney, and from other places; so that there is every facility of internal intercourse by land; while numerous steam-vessels leave Sydney and ply along the coast to the different sea-ports. A railway also has been projected between Sydney and Goulburn; and there is every likelihood of the line being in operation in 1854.

Great efforts have been made in New South Wales to promote education among all classes, and numerous excellent seminaries have been established. Sydney College was instituted in 1830, where the youth of the colony are taught the ancient languages, English literature, and the rudiments of the sciences. On 11th October 1852, Sydney University was inaugurated by the governor-general. A classical professor, a professor of mathematics, and a professor of chemistry and the philosophy of physics, were appointed. The first session closed satisfactorily, with 24 matriculated students, in December 1852. It is founded upon the same liberal principle with regard to the exclusion of religious tests, as that recognized by the government in extending its support alike to all religious denominations. The number of schools in the colony on the 31st December 1852 was 423; number of scholars, 11,118 males, 10,002 females; total, 21,120. Of these schools, 227 were private, and 196 public ones. The city of Sydney possesses a mechanics' school of arts, a female school of industry, an infirmary and dispensary, a benevolent asylum, an Australian subscription library, a chamber of commerce, a museum and botanic gardens, a botanic and horticultural society, and various other societies connected with religion, literature, and science. The press, as usual, lends its aid to the diffusion of knowledge. In Sydney there are two daily and eight weekly newspapers, besides one three times, and two, including the Government Gazette, twice a-week; also one in Goulburn, two in Bathurst, two in Maitland, and one in Brisbane, published weekly.

There is here, as in the mother country, a variety of religious sects, a statement of whose respective numbers will be found in the annexed classified population table.

It is here to be remarked, that all classes, of whatever creed, enjoy equal rights, and are equally eligible to offices of honour or emolument. One-seventh of the land was formerly appropriated to the support of the Episcopal Church; it is still applicable to the general purposes of religion and education, but without any distinction of sects, all of which participate equally in the government fund. The Episcopalian Church was formerly within the diocese of Calcutta; but is now subject to two bishops who reside in the country. There are, besides, 80 priests of this church, who have the charge of different districts in the country. There are six ministers of the Established Church of Scotland, and of the Roman Catholic clergy an archbishop, a bishop coadjutor, a suffragan bishop, vicar-general, and 38 clergy. The Wesleyan Methodists have 150 congregations, and about 10,000 attendants at public worship, with 24 ordained ministers and catechists. The clergymen of the synod of Australia in connection with the Established Church of Scotland are 16 in number. Those maintaining the principles of the Free Church of Scotland are 10. There are also 11 ministers belonging to the Presbyterian synod; five Congregational churches; one Baptist church; one German evangelical church, and a Sydney Bethel Union.

The following is an abstract of the revenue of New South Wales in the years ending 31st December 1851 and 1852 respectively:—

The revenue of the customs chiefly arises from a duty on the importation of spirits, tobacco, wine, tea, and sundry

other articles. The territorial revenue includes licenses and leases to occupy crown lands.

For the last twenty years, the trade of this important commercial colony has been forcing itself gradually upon the attention of our merchants and manufacturers. The rapid increase in the quantity and value of its exports, and the large proportionate consumption per head of British merchandise by its inhabitants, have ranked it among the first of our trading colonies. So great is the demand for manufactured goods, according to the latest advices, that the warehouses and stores are actually becoming empty, and the colonial traders are reaching an unheard-of anomalous condition in the history of commerce, namely, having an increasing market with wealthy customers, but lacking wares to sell to them. Even laying aside the value of the gold

Australia exported, the staple commodities of wool and tallow raised in the colony are sufficient to purchase for the colonists in a foreign market as much as £8 per head of ordinary imports. The first of these articles demands some further notice. The imports of this valuable staple from the Australian colonies have increased so abundantly, that it has not only superseded entirely the importation of German and Spanish wools, but lately the French manufacturers have been large purchasers at the London sales of Australian wool, which they consider the best wool in the world for their fine fabrics. The origin and progress of this important branch of industry is remarkable. In 1810, only 167 lb. of wool were imported into Britain from Australia and Van Diemen's Land; a portion of which was sold for 10s. 4d. per lb. In 1815, 73,171 lb. were imported; in 1825, 323,995 lb.; in 1830, 1,967,309 lb.; in 1836, 3,564,532 lb.; and in 1852, it has reached in the aggregate from all our Australian colonies the enormous quantity, in round numbers, of 45,000,000 lb. Of this total weight, New South Wales contributed 15,268,473 lb. The colony was indebted for the introduction of merino sheep to the enterprising spirit of Mr J. M'Arthur, in 1793. The flocks now in Australia, Van Diemen's Land, and New Zealand, number on their united pastoral lands, in 1853, upwards of 20,000,000 of sheep. The quantity of tallow produced is also important, and materially affects the quotations of Russian tallow in the British market. In 1850, the export of this article was valued at £1,67,858, quantity 128,090 cwt., which decreased in 1851, for want of labourers, to 86,460 cwt., valued at £1,114,168; and in 1852, notwithstanding the absorption of labour at the gold fields, the tallow exported was 84,464 cwt., valued at £1,114,168. Gold, now forming the largest item on this export list, shows a continued increase, even by the month, at the rate of 50 per cent. From June 1, to December 31, 1851, the amount exported was, at colonial valuation, £468,336; during 1852, it rapidly increased to £2,744,961 for the year; and from January 1, to April 1, 1853, £800,000. Hides also form a considerable article of export. The number shipped in 1851 was 68,641; in 1852, 73,104. Whale oil formerly composed a large staple export from New South Wales; but it has decreased latterly, and only a few whaling ships leave the port of Sydney. The bulk of the sperm oil exported is obtained from the American whalers which frequent Port Jackson to refit their ships. In fact, our more enterprising neighbours in this peculiar pursuit seem to monopolize the whole trade in the southern seas, where it is estimated that they have upwards of 600 whaling ships afloat. New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax) also formed once a promising export from that country through New South Wales; but the Maori race have almost given up the labour of dressing it, and the little that is prepared is manufactured into ropes in the country. A small quantity of timber, consisting of cedar-planks, is also exported. Coals, as we have before remarked, form a large item in the intercolonial export trade with the colony; and grain, an import of considerable value. The total value of the imports in 1852, according to accounts laid before parliament, was £1,563,931; of the exports, £1,796,912; which, however, does not include the value of gold taken away by private hands.

Amongst a population of 197,168, these give an average import of about £8 for every man, woman, and child in the colony, and an export of upwards of £9. The shipping has increased along with the commerce. In 1850, the shipping inwards consisted of 421 vessels, of 126,185 tons, and outwards 506, of 176,762 tons; in 1851, 553, of 153,002 tons, carrying 7955 men, inwards, and 503, of 139,020 tons, with 7988 men, outwards; and in 1852, 673, of 183,002 tons, 9377 men inwards, and outwards 654 ships, of 139,020 tons, and 8130 men. Ship-building has not increased in proportion with the requirements of the colony. In 1841, 35 were built, of 2074 tons, and 110 vessels registered, of 11,250 tons; and in 1849, only 38 ships were built, equal to 1834 tons, and 126 were registered, equal to 8504 tons; the decrease being still greater in 1852.

Prior to 1817 the currency consisted principally of the private notes of merchants, traders, shopkeepers, publicans; and the amount was sometimes as low as sixpence. In that year the Bank of New South Wales was established, with a capital of £20,000, whose notes superseded this objectionable currency. Subsequently the capital was increased to £300,000, and the bank exists in a flourishing state to this day. The same cannot be said, however, of the second bank, established by local shareholders in 1825, known as the Bank of Australia, with a capital of £300,000 paid up; for after eighteen years' mismanagement, the directors had to prop up their bankrupt circulation by borrowing at a large interest from other banks, which ultimately not only swallowed up the assets of the company, but the unfortunate shareholders sustained further loss than their shares. In 1834, British capital and experience was brought to bear upon the commercial transactions of the colonists, by the establishment of the Bank of Australasia, with a paid-up capital of £900,000, which obtained a charter of incorporation, and, with varied success, still exists. The most successful bank in Australia, is the Union Bank of Australia, an Anglo-Australian joint-stock bank, with unlimited liability, having a paid-up capital of £820,000. From a report of the directors now before us, the amount of profit for the six months ending in the colony June 1852, was £1,07,344, enabling them to pay a dividend, by way of interest, at the rate of 13 per cent. for the half year,—an unparalleled result in legitimate banking. There is another colonial bank which has met with but indifferent success, from the unscrupulous tampering of its directors and officers with the funds. This is the Commercial Bank, which in consequence has been completely remodelled, and is likely to succeed. All these banks issue notes, which are more readily accepted by the colonists than gold or silver; and since the advent of the gold discovery, they have a plethora of gold in their coffers, with a large paper currency. The two Anglo-Australian banks have branches throughout all the principal towns and cities in Victoria, South Australia, Van Diemen's Land, and New Zealand. Besides these joint-stock banks, there is a savings-bank under the control of the government, conducted on the same scale as British savings-banks. The private banks give no interest upon deposits. The following table shows the amounts of their respective circulation, total liabilities, coin assets, and capital paid up.

The whole amount of British coin in the colony, at the end of the first quarter of 1853, was estimated in round numbers at £2,000,000.

II. VICTORIA, or PORT PHILLIP, is situated in South-Eastern Australia, between the colonies of New South Wales and South Australia. It is separated from the former by a straight line from Cape Howe to the nearest source of the Murray, and thence by the course of that river to the east boundary of South Australia. From the latter province it is divided by an artificial boundary in the meridian of 141° E. Long., marked out by pits and cairns of stones. Its area is not far short of 85,000 square miles, or about 2000 square miles greater than that of England, to which it bears a remarkable resemblance in shape. At an approximate calculation, it is about $\backslash frac\{3\}\{2\}$d part of the entire island of Australia.

While the history of the parent colony of New South Wales exhibits throughout the fostering care of the government, and the small part taken by the free settlers in effecting a settlement on its shores, the early accounts of the settlement of Port Phillip exhibit the contrary, where the former were unsuccessful in their attempts, and the latter successful to a degree unparalleled in the history of British colonization. It must be remembered, however, that the pioneer-settlers who planted the germ of that now great and flourishing colony, were either old colonists, or the native-born sons of the first settlers in Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales, and, consequently, brought all the experience of practised colonizers to bear upon their enterprise. Moreover, its contiguity by sea to the one, and by land to the other, rendered it more available for the speedy occupation of the settlers than the more distant settlements of South Australia, King George's Sound, and Swan River.

In reviewing the history of this colony, there are no changes in the administration to interfere with the continuity of the narrative. The present lieutenant-governor, Charles Joseph Latrobe, was appointed to the office of civil superintendent of the Port Phillip district, then a dependency of New South Wales, in 1839. This appointment was the first held by a government official possessed of plenary powers over this young colony; although Mr Stewart, a magistrate of the territory, as early as 1836, proclaimed the jurisdiction of the New South Wales government; and in 1837-8, Captain Lonsdale held the office of police magistrate. Since that period, Mr Latrobe has conducted the affairs of the colony, under the control of the Sydney executive, with uninterrupted sway under Sir George Gipps and Sir Charles Fitzroy, until the 1st July 1851, when the colony was erected into an independent province, and he was continued in his appointment under the title of lieutenant-governor.

In 1798 the adventurous Mr Bass, a navy surgeon stationed at Sydney, with the slender means and equipment furnished by a whale-boat, discovered the strait which now bears his name. During this cruise, he entered one of the harbours on the mainland, which he called Port Western, which lies about twenty miles eastward of Port Phillip. The latter harbour was first entered on the 10th January 1802, by Lieutenant John Murray in the Lady Nelson. Governor Hunter, who ruled the colony of New South Wales at that time, named it after his predecessor, the first governor of Australia. Ten weeks afterwards, Captain Matthew Flinders, in H.M.S. Investigator, surveyed its shores, and constructed a chart, with sailing directions for vessels entering the harbour. In 1803 Colonel Collins was despatched to form a penal settlement on the southern shore of the bay; which, after a short trial, was abandoned as a failure. Another attempt in 1826 by Captain Wetherall, with a party of soldiers under the command of Captain Wright, to form the nucleus of a settlement on the shores of

Western Port, was likewise abandoned at the end of two years. Although the geography of the northern shores of Bass's Strait from Cape Howe to Cape Otway was well known to sealers, and the crews of whaling vessels who frequented the bays and estuaries in the pursuit of their avocations, still nothing was done in the way of occupying or forming a station on the mainland, either by public or private enterprise, until the year 1834, when the brothers Henty of Launceston, Van Diemen's Land, established a whaling station at Portland Bay. This was followed up in the ensuing year by a party of colonists in the same town, who had formed themselves into an association for the purpose of colonizing the shores of Port Phillip. These gentlemen, however, through some unforeseen delay, were forestalled in their objects by John Batman, an enterprising native-born colonist of New South Wales. He entered between the heads of Port Phillip in May 1835, and at once took up a commanding position on the bluff where the lighthouse now stands, with the view of appropriating the whole territory. For this purpose, he entered into a preliminary treaty with the aborigines on the spot, to cede to him a large tract of land for the consideration of a few gewgaws and blankets. He then crossed over to Van Diemen's Land; formed an association with fifteen Hobart Town colonists; returned and took formal possession of 600,000 acres of land in the present Geelong country, for an annual tribute of merchandise to the ignorant natives, amounting to the value of about £200 sterling.

Meanwhile the Launceston association were equipped for their enterprise, and, headed by John Pascoe Fawkner—a newspaper editor—entered between the heads of Port Phillip in November 1835. Batman stood anxiously watching the progress of the little schooner from his doubtfully-acquired territory, and warned the intruders off. Nothing daunted, however, they sailed up to the head of the harbour, and entered a deep and narrow river, until they were stopped by a rocky precipice, over which flowed a cataract of fine fresh water. Finding the country not only fair to the view, but covered with a black loamy soil, they at once landed their live stock and stores, taking possession of a large tract of country in the same manner as Batman had done, by making a contract with the aborigines. Both of these contracts were afterwards declared untenable by the government, and they were ousted from their possessions, receiving, however, ample compensation for their enterprise. The river which Fawkner and his party had ascended, is now called the Yarra Yarra; and the ground he first encamped upon is the site of the present city of Melbourne. Eighteen harvests have been reaped upon the fertile lands around that spot since Fawkner first ploughed the soil; and where his green pastures and fields of corn then stood, with scarcely a dozen occupants, there are now massive stone edifices and densely-packed streets; while a town and suburban population of 80,000 souls swarms along the banks of the busy river, forming a chaos of human happiness and misery, brute wealth and educated poverty, distress and luxury, virtue and vice, in such extremes as nowhere else can be found in the British dominions.

This vigorous colony made early and rapid progress towards material prosperity. Ship after ship crossed the straits from Van Diemen's Land, laden with sheep, cattle, horses, and merchandise. Over hill and dale, by stream and lake, these flocks and herds cropped the luxuriant grass, which waved in the breeze like a corn field. The shores rung with the shouts of the mariner and the herdsman, and the woods re-echoed the bleating of the sheep, the lowing of the kine, and the bark of the white man's dog, which soon scared the timid kangaroos and emus from their disturbed haunts. The destroying axe soon converted the primeval trees into human habitations; while the busy ring of the anvil told the wondering aborigines that the workers in metals had become

Australia. the lords of their land. These simple children of nature looked on at the strange doings of the white people, not so much with terror and amazement, as with childish curiosity and confidence. In the midst of a group of their black, filthy, attenuated, and diminutive forms, a tall giant-man of a lighter complexion stood forth one day and tried to jabber a few English words. This savage was an Englishman, named Buckley, an escaped convict from Colonel Collin's settlement, who had lived amongst them for thirty-three years. This man, so far from attempting to raise the aborigines with whom he lived nearer the condition of the civilized man, had cast off his civilization with his last worn-out garment; and, assuming no other clothing than the skins of opossums and kangaroos afforded, and armed with the spear and the boomerang, he descended to the condition of the savage.

By the year 1837, these practical colonizers, amounting to 450 individuals, could muster 140,000 sheep, 2500 head of horned cattle, and 150 horses. Governor Arthur of Van Diemen's Land was desirous of annexing the new colony to that island; but Governor Bourke of New South Wales, within whose jurisdiction it was, forthwith took possession of the territory and its harbours by deputy in the name of King William IV., whose name was given to the sea-port in Hobson Bay. Shortly after he visited the colony in person, scattered the claims of contending parties to the winds, and planted an official staff in the newly-acquired district, headed by Captain Lonsdale as chief magistrate. He likewise brought surveyors with him, who laid out the towns and sold the land. Melbourne on the Yarra Yarra, William Town on Hobson Bay, Corio on Geelong harbour, were sites chosen by this active and intelligent governor for the future sea-ports and capitals. The settlers bought the town allotments at from L.30 to L.100 per acre, which was then considered full value. The squatters from New South Wales soon found their way overland with their beves and flocks, and the Sydney merchants shipped valuable cargoes of merchandise for the consumption of the new inhabitants. The settlers from New South Wales re-emigrated thither in such multitude, that in 1839 they were as numerous as their neighbours from Van Diemen's Land. By this time, also, the fame and prosperity of this obscure dependency was bruited abroad throughout the United Kingdom; and thousands of emigrants sailed from the British ports in that and the two following years, until their numbers formed the majority of the population. Consequently the previous jarings, jealousies, and contending interests of the rival settlers from the two colonies of Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales, were absorbed in the general welfare of all, which brought together a united and intelligent community. The spirit of speculation, however, ruled the transactions of the majority, and "Van Diemonians," "Sydneyites," and "New-Comers," were hurried round and round in a vortex of commercial, land-jobbing, and live-stock schemes of speedy aggrandizement which fairly upset the ordinary transactions of sober-minded men, until the most cautious capitalists, who had ventured into the market with substantial means, found them swept away by a bubble system of paper currency. Land which had been originally purchased at L.100 per acre in town allotments at Melbourne, realized enormous sums varying from L.5000 to L.15,000. Sheep, cattle, and horses, which, in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, had cost respectively not more than 3s., 15s., and L.8 per head, sold for 50s., L.12, and L.100. In consequence, also, of a drought which prevailed in the old districts, coupled with the great demand for grain, flour rose from L.15 to L.80, and in some instances as high as L.100, per ton so that the usual sixpenny 2 lb. loaf sold for 1s. 9d. Tea from L.3 per chest rose in a few months to L.18; and sugar from 3d. per lb. to 1s.; while manufactured articles for immediate consumption brought equally extra-

gant prices, which altogether more than quadrupled the ordinary expenses of living in the town of Melbourne.

Notwithstanding the high prices of the necessaries and luxuries of life, all classes of people were able to indulge in good living. Money, or its representative, seemed plentiful among them; for the banks freely discounted the bills and promissory-notes of doubtful parties. In fact, the whole routine of business throughout the colony was conducted on a universal loose system of credit and paper transactions; from the family grocer's bill to the sale of a sheep station, or the allotments of a whole township. Consequently almost every one lived in an extravagant manner, indulging in the most expensive luxuries, from the wealthy merchant down to the common bullock-driver. The land sales by auction were conducted under gay booths; where a dejourné was laid out for all comers to partake of, and the bids of the purchasers were obtained after they had gulped down plenty of champagne. A sort of mania existed among the people in their taste for this expensive wine; for the shepherds and bullock-drivers would imitate their "batters" by vulgar bravado, and empty a dozen bottles at a time of that liquor into a bucket and drink it out of tin pots. Governor Gipps significantly remarked, in one of his despatches at this time, after a personal visit to Port Phillip, that the "neighbourhood of Melbourne was literally strewed with champagne bottles." Still, it is interesting to record, that although the labouring classes committed many extravagancies in the flush of material prosperity, the criminal records of the colony exhibit less than an average amount of crime.

This state of affairs continued until it reached its climax in 1841, after which a rapid decline in the soundness of commercial transactions followed, and the people became sobered down. Days of reckoning came amongst the land purchasers, when the "men-of-straw," through whose hands the conveyances passed, fell to the ground. Property of every description was forced upon the market for the purpose of raising funds to meet engagements, and thus sold at ruinous prices. Money was borrowed on landed property, and on sheep and cattle stations, at 20 and 30 per cent.; and the stockholders got heavily into debt with the merchants, while their wools were declining in value in the English market. The British merchants became clamorous for their returns, which the colonial agents had used in their general speculations, and locked up in local securities, while the banks restricted their discounts, and disallowed interest on deposits. At last the commercial fabric of society throughout the entire community, gave way with a crash which ended in a general insolvency. Bankers and money-lenders could recover nothing but paper from their borrowers; all credit was stopped in new transactions, and for a season mutual confidence amongst mercantile men was at an end. The affluent merchant and stockholder of to-day became the insolvent beggar of to-morrow. Everywhere a gloom was cast over the social aspect of the recently gay and lively town of Melbourne; and despair at a return of prosperity drove many of the colonists back to the mother country.

For the relief of insolvent debtors, and the better distribution of their assets, an act was framed by Justice Burton, one of the puisne judges of New South Wales, and passed in 1842 by the governor and council. This act "purged" 1356 insolvents in Sydney, and 292 in Melbourne during the three years which followed; and these 1638 insolvencies cancelled debts to the amount of not less than three and a half millions sterling; the assets producing an average dividend of eighteenpence in the pound.

The Port Phillip district, as the colony was termed in the government reports, suffered least from this commercial crisis. The monetary depression was of shorter duration there than in the middle districts of the colony; which was accounted for by the more recent date of her transactions.

Australia. Her young and vigorous constitution, however, soon recovered from the paper epidemic. The colonists still possessed their rich pastures and agricultural land; and, putting their shoulders to the wheel, they soon overcame the difficulties in their way, and arrived at even a more flourishing condition than before, having learned prudence and caution from this short lesson of adversity.

Victoria. Since this period a valuable article of export has been added to the staple commodity of wool, by boiling down the surplus stock for the sake of the tallow, skins, and hides; and a cattle station in Australia has become as profitable as a sheep station. The colonists, turning in disgust from the visionary speculations of the town, looked towards the country, where they saw in their boundless pasture lands the true source of wealth in the colony. From the lakes of Geelong in the S., to the Lachlan River in the N.; from the Murray River in the W., to the Australian Alps in the E., their increasing flocks and herds had spread over the lowlands and uplands, the plains and the forests; and during the succeeding years of her history, until the date of the gold discovery, this "Australia Felix," as Sir Thomas Mitchell had appropriately termed it, was one vast pasturage. She exported nothing but the produce of her rich pasture lands, and yet the

value of these alone, in the year 1850, yielded an average of Australia L. 15 a-head for every man, woman, and child in the colony,—Victoria an export average never yet attained in the statistics of any similar community in the world. The gloomy years of bankruptcy had now passed away, and the enterprising colonists looked forward with hope to the future; and they were not disappointed. While, in the early days of the colony, they imported their sheep and cattle from Van Diemen's Land, that country, with its large convict population and limited pasture land, now received importations of live stock from the mainland. So genial was the climate, and so extensive were the grazings for the support of these flocks, that they increased on an average 90 per cent. per annum. From 250,000 sheep in 1839, when they ceased to be imported, they had increased in 1851 to 6,320,000. Though their value had fallen with their increase, still the quantity of wool they produced was the same, and it had now reached its full value in the London market of from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 3d. per lb. After 1844 the state of the colony was very satisfactory; things looked more cheering as old debts became cleared off, and the mercantile class with renewed energy exerted themselves to keep the balance of trade in favour of the colony. There was bustle once more in the port, as the

articles of export crowded the wharfs and warehouses. The shipping outwards to England nearly equalled that from the port of Sydney; and there was considerable coasting traffic with that port, Launceston, and Hobart Town, while a regular steam communication was established between these seaports, Geelong, and Melbourne. For the increased production of tallow, extensive "boiling-down" establishments were erected on the banks of the Yarra; large beef-salting works had previously been built; and every year the export of wool increased in a ratio of 50 per cent. The above table will show the increase and decrease of these exports during the seven years of progress which followed the commercial depression, and more particularly their enormous increase after the gold discovery.

The amount of imports increased in like manner as the population augmented; and there were attracted to the shores of Port Phillip, not merely immigrants from the mother country, but old settlers from the neighbouring colonies. Farmers left Van Diemen's Land to employ their agricultural experience on the rich alluvial soils of the country, which were found to be from 5 to 20 feet deep. Vine-growers, likewise, from Switzerland, were induced to settle at Geelong for the cultivation of the vine. Gardens and corn fields sprung up in all directions as the forests were cleared and the ground tilled. The squatters in the interior grew a sufficient quantity of grain for their own use, so as to become independent of foreign supplies. In the town of Melbourne large steam-mills were erected to grind the corn; ship-building yards and docks were constructed on the banks of the Yarra; handsome stone and brick buildings everywhere replaced the old wooden erections; and churches, banks, custom-house, gaol, and other public edifices, gave a substantial and dignified appearance to the principal streets. The warehouses and stores were becoming again well supplied with merchandise; the banks were thronged with a class of customers, who dealt more in ready

cash than formerly; and the shipping in Hobson Bay resounded with the cheerful cry of the sailors packing the bales of wool. In 1850—fifteen years after the first settlement of the colony—the annual export of a population of 70,000 amounted to upwards of one million sterling. To lay this remarkable result fully before the reader, we extract some valuable statistical matter from Mr Westgarth's Report to the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, in April 1853.

Imports, Exports, and Population of Victoria, from commencement to 1850.

¹ Altogether, considering the advantages possessed by the people, and the general capabilities of this province for the maintenance of a large and prosperous community, we were always inclined to give it the preference over its sister provinces as the most desirable field for the means and labour of the intending colonist. Its greater fertility of soil (Van Diemen's Land excepted)—its richer pasture land—its possessing more permanent streams—and, above all, its central position in the midst of this group of colonies—marked it

Australia. out from its first settlement, in our opinion, as the most eligible location for the first province in Australia. But we were not prepared to see the fulfilment of our predictions so rapidly approaching, at the late discoveries of incalculable treasures of gold, in the very midst of its rich pasture lands, and in the subsoil beneath its loamy corn fields, where the precious metal has been found in abundance, far surpassing the wildest tales of Mexico or Peru. A country naturally calculated to support as dense a population as England—to which it bears a close resemblance in its shape and superficies—must soon outstrip the less favoured provinces contiguous, and draw, as in fact it is now doing, the labour and wealth from them to her own shores; so that we may look upon Victoria as destined to be the Great Britain of the southern hemisphere.¹

Gold Discovery. When the news of the gold discovery in the Bathurst mountains reached Victoria, the excitement among the population was as great as it had been in New South Wales; and it would just be a repetition of our previous account to describe the effects on the industrial pursuits of the colonists throughout Victoria. These are fully detailed in the despatches of Lieut.-Governor Latrobe. By sea and land the people flocked to the new Dorado. A reward of £200 was offered, by public subscription, to the first discoverer of gold within the boundary of Victoria. Three months had scarcely elapsed when it was completely proved that gold deposits existed within a short distance of Melbourne. In August 1851 a number of persons established themselves on Anderson's Creek, 16 miles from that town, where they were profitably employed. In October 7000 individuals were congregated at Ballarat, near Mount Buninyong, where diggings, and a canvas town, were established upon a tract of land less than a square mile in extent. In November there were 10,000 persons on the creeks around Mount Alexander, digging with ease the most astounding treasures from the earth. Not only did the diggers at Ballarat flock to the newer gold field, but the tide of adventurers was turned from the Ophir and Turon, and other New South Wales diggings, to the great centre of attraction at Mount Alexander. There was no fable in the matter. The government and private escorts established for the safe transit of gold to Melbourne showed a return from that locality alone of 63,300 oz. within the month of December, while the yield from Ballarat gradually diminished, as will be seen in the accompanying table from Mr Westgarth's calculations:—

The year 1852 was ushered in with prospects such as no community ever possessed before. The fame of the gold fields attracted adventurers of every class and nation, not only from New South Wales, South Australia, Swan River, and Van Diemen's Land, but from New Zealand, South America, and California. Unfortunately a large number of desperadoes managed to escape from Van Diemen's Land, and began that system of bushranging which spread such terror among the colonists in the first occupation of Australia. The small force of military and constabulary at hand was insufficient to protect the people from the ravages of these

marauders. Not merely in the country and at the gold fields, but in the city of Melbourne itself, were their depredations systematically carried on. Even in the public roads adjacent to the city, and in broad daylight, they committed the most daring robberies. For a time the inhabitants dreaded going abroad after dark; and the gold-diggers travelled in large bodies, and well armed. The hesitation of the government in raising the wages of the constabulary, and increasing the force, was justly censured. Towards the close of the year, however, matters were somewhat amended by the enrolment of large numbers of immigrants into the police force.

By this time the news of the Australian gold discovery had spread to all parts of the world; and the arrival of several ships in the port of London, in the beginning of 1852, with some hundred thousand pounds value of gold, satisfied the most sceptical that this discovery was a "great fact." No immediate effects, however, were visible amongst the British public; no excitement existed as was the case when the Californian gold discovery was first known. Whether the people were more cautious than formerly, or that the season of the year was unfavourable for leaving the British shores, or whether the class most likely to emigrate were unprepared to encounter the expense of so long a voyage, or, most probably, from a combination of all these causes, no immediate or considerable emigration took place. The spring came, and no greater number of emigrant ships was announced for departure to the Australian colonies than in the previous year, although news had arrived of the astounding discoveries in Victoria, borne out by large consignments of gold to London merchants from these colonies, with earnest solicitations from their constituents to press upon the government and the public of Britain the necessity of sending out labourer emigrants to save the staple articles of export, wool and tallow, from destruction from want of hands. Notwithstanding that the most powerful organs of the press agitated the necessity of an immediate and extensive emigration, the people read and listened with a strange apathy. In May 1852, however, when the news of the gold discovery was eight months past, and upwards of £1,000,000 sterling of the precious metal had been imported from Sydney and Melbourne into England, the sluggish disposition of the British public was at length fairly aroused. The people, as usual, rushed into the opposite extreme, and a reckless and heterogeneous emigration took place amongst the classes least fitted to encounter the privations of a new country. The tide of emigration, once commenced, increased with energy throughout the summer and autumn. Crowds of intending emigrants flocked from all parts of the United Kingdom to the ports of London and Liverpool, impatiently suing for passages at any price that was demanded. Ship-owners and merchants could not find vessels enough to supply the demand. Freights were doubled, fares increased, and charter-parties were concluded upon most exorbitant terms. Needy ship-owners and unscrupulous ship-brokers sent the oldest "tubs" they could find, badly provisioned, on the fine-weather voyage out; the freight and passage-money collected in several instances amounting to twice the value of the ship. So great was the increase of shipping in the London Docks bound for the Australian colonies in the month of July 1852, that 75 square-rigged vessels, averaging 500 tons register each, were advertised in the Times alone; and the weekly departures for that month from the ports of London and Liverpool averaged 8000 tons, having on board upwards of 3000 passengers. The Australian Exodus, as it was termed by the public journalists, continued unabated throughout the year. The great attractions of the Victoria gold fields drew thither four-fifths of these emigrants; one-third of whom at least were physically unfitted

¹ Mossman's Gold Regions of Australia, p. 90.

Australia to encounter the privations before them. Heedless of all warnings from experienced colonists, clerks, shopmen, and sedentary people, foolishly embarked with their delicate wives and children, to risk their fortunes upon the chances of gold-digging, while in most instances they left certain advantages behind. Unaccustomed to sea fare and accommodation, they were huddled on board these badly-provisioned ships; and without the smallest assistance from the ship to land on a shore, two and nine miles off, upon arrival, the deluded people, at exorbitant charges, were landed at the rate of 3000 weekly on the shores of Port Phillip harbour. Here they were if anything worse off than ever. There was not house-room in the city for one-fourth of their numbers; hence they were packed ten and twelve in sleeping apartments not more than that number of feet square, for which they paid extravagantly. The demand for provisions was such, and the supply so limited, that famine prices were attached to the commonest necessities of life; and hence arose a state of confusion, distress, and suffering amongst the human chaos which peopled the city of Melbourne and the road to the Mount Alexander gold fields during the last quarter of 1852, such as no pen can describe.

Meanwhile the riches of this extraordinary region were disembowelled from the earth by these armies of treasure-seekers; who found not only gold, but indications of diamonds, rubies, and other gems amongst the gold alluvium. Here, in the nineteenth century, the fairy tale of Aladdin finds a counterpart in the admirable statistical report of Mr Westgarth, the first chairman of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, at their second annual meeting on the 1st April 1853.

"Exports of Gold from Victoria, the produce of that Colony, according to official returns to the end of the year 1852, distinguishing the port of shipment, and the place to which shipped."

"In addition to the result shown by the following table, the overland escort, established by the South Australian Government, conveyed direct from the gold fields to Adelaide 223,532 oz. The first of these overland escorts, after an arduous journey of 450 miles through the Australian wilderness, entered Adelaide on the 19th March last, amidst the acclamations of the people, conveying 5199 ounces of gold."

"General Summary of the produce of the Gold Fields of Victoria, from commencement in August 1851 to December 31, 1852."

"From this estimate, therefore, that is probably not materially incorrect in any one particular, and where errors may have a com-

pensating operation, we have a quantity of gold amounting to Australia nearly five millions of ounces, the whole of which, excepting some fractional proportion, has been raised from the soil of this colony Victoria, within the period of 16 months. This quantity, namely, in exact figures, 4,890,926 oz., gives us by troy weight 407,577 lb., or 203½ tons weight of gold.

"Of this proportion, I have estimated that only about the one-fourteenth part was raised during the year 1851, leaving 4,545,780 oz. as the produce of 1852. If we value this latter produce at the rate of 75s. per oz., a rate which is to-day lower than the current market-price, the result in round numbers is the amount of seventeen millions sterling, as the value of one year's produce of the gold of this colony."

The following more recent returns show the comparative yield of the gold fields during the first four months of the years 1852 and 1853:—

The increase is 449,066 ounces above the produce of the same period last year, or 187 per cent. But it must be remembered that the fields are now more extensive, and worked by a greater number of persons. There is no indication, however, that the yield is falling off. Another return gives the quantity brought down in the last two months from the several diggings:—

By Government escort.—April 2 to May 19.

Total .....

By private escort.—April 2 to May 15.

Total brought down by escorts .....

To this must be added 20,121 ounces, completing the returns to the 25th of May, making the whole amount for April and May 268,693 ounces.

Selected from this aggregate amount of wealth, there are instances recorded of individual fortune which illustrate the inexhaustible character of the mines. Within a few days of each other, in February 1853, three enormous masses of gold were brought to light—such as perhaps the world has never seen before. The largest of them weighed 134 lb. 11 oz., of which 120 lb. at least were pure gold. The other two lumps were 93 lb. 2 oz. 5 dwt., and 83 lb. 9 oz. 5 dwt. respectively, only a very small proportion being quartz.

Prior to the erection of Port Phillip district into a province, there were only two counties, Bourke and Grant, mapped out; the former embracing Melbourne and its environs within its boundary, and the latter the town of Corio and suburbs around Geelong harbour. Since the date of Piate's separation from New South Wales, 22 counties have been added, making 24 in all, which divides two-thirds of the territory into electoral districts. Their names—beginning at the eastern boundary and proceeding westward—are, Howe, Combermere, Abinger, Bruce, Haddington, Douro, Bass, Mornington, Evelyn, Anglesey, Dalhousie, Bourke, Grant, Talbot, Grenville, Polworth, Heytesbury, Hampden, Ripon, Villiers, Normanby, Dundas, Follet, and Rodney. The capital of Victoria is the city of Melbourne. The next principal towns are Corio (Geelong), William Town, Portland, Belfast, Kilmore, Wangaratta, Albury, &c.

What has been stated as generally descriptive of the New South Wales territory applies to Victoria; the southern shed of waters being analogous to the rivers on the E. coast; and the northern streams of the latter, like the western

Australia, streams of the former, merely tributaries of the great Murray River. There is in Victoria, however, a greater proportion of good pasture land, which is indicated by the more close proximity to each other of the squatting stations. As an agricultural country, likewise, it is much superior to New South Wales; not only from the abundance and greater richness of its alluvial soils, but from its enjoying a cooler atmosphere, and a more certain fall of rain. Neither is it subject to the long-continued droughts, which are so destructive in the neighbouring colony to the crops and live stock. At the same time the blighting influence of the "hot winds"—a species of sirocco which blows at midsummer from the central desert region—occurs here with greater devastating power to vegetation than in any other of the Australian colonies. Being situated at the most southern, and consequently the coldest section of Australia—its settled districts being almost all between the parallels of 36° and 39° S. Lat.—the fruits and other vegetable products are more restricted to those of European, we had nearly said English growth, for the orange does not thrive well; the banana and pine-apple not at all, while gooseberries and currants grow very well. From the abundance of natural herbage, nourished by the frequent showers brought by the westerly winds which prevail, cattle and sheep fatten, and grow larger than in any of the adjacent colonies. In this respect, the beef and mutton of Victoria resemble the butcher-meat of England more than Australian-bred meat generally; which may be described as being leaner and inferior in flavour to the original stock. Poultry thrive better also in the colder regions of the Austral Isles; hence the largest and fattest fowls are reared in Van Diemen's Land, and next to it in Victoria. But the supply of fish is poor; and oysters have to be brought all the way from Corner Inlet in Gipps Land to the Melbourne market. The mineral wealth of Victoria is at present confined to her gold; but there are indications of coal at Western Port, copper in the mountain ranges, and cinnabar (sulphuret of mercury) near Portland Bay.

By the quinquennial census of New South Wales in 1836, the population of the Port Phillip district, exclusive of aborigines, was 224 persons; in 1841 it was 11,738; in 1846, 32,879; in 1851, 77,345; and on the 31st December 1852, it was estimated at 200,000.

"Nothing can more decisively attest than this comparison the marvellous rapidity with which this colony is springing forward into a mighty nation. Eighteen years ago there was not a civilized human being residing in the colony of Victoria. In March 1851, the population of Melbourne was 23,000; at this moment it is estimated that the city and its outskirts contain 80,000 souls. The town of Geelong contained 8000 souls two years ago; its population cannot at present be much lower than 20,000. Such are the commercial aspects of the colony at the moment we write.

"From a list furnished to me by Mr Khall, it would appear that the excess of arrivals over departures for the past year has averaged rather more than 1500 persons weekly, 101,653 having arrived, and 27,022 having left the colony, leaving a net increase of 77,631.

"The following tabular view exhibits the monthly progress of this immigration and emigration. The great increase observable in September arises from the tide of emigration from Britain that commenced to flow into Victoria during that month, and which has ever since continued. The accessions to the population previously were chiefly from the adjoining colonies.

"The census of March 1851 gave the population of Victoria as over 77,000. To the recorded number of arrivals, must be added a large proportion of unrecorded, who arrived in the overcrowded vessels from adjacent colonies. Some overland immigration also took place, chiefly from South Australia, to the gold fields. Adding the increase by excess of births over deaths, the estimate of 200,000 colonists, as at 31st December last, may be deemed to be within the actual number. The following is an estimate of the distribution of this population:—

These extracts require no comment—the figures speak for themselves. The proportion of sexes at the last census was, males, 46,202, females, 31,143; total 77,345. Of these, there were born in the colony, 20,470; in England, 28,908; Wales, 377; Ireland, 14,618; Scotland, 8053; other British dominions, 3425; foreign countries, 1494.

Until the 1st July, 1851, this colony was a dependency of Government New South Wales, and was governed by a superintendent, who was amenable to the governor and executive council of the colony; and it had the privilege of sending six members to the legislative council. On that day the district was proclaimed to be in future a separate province, with a lieutenant-governor, an executive, and legislative councils, on the same model as the elder colony; the former to consist of the colonial secretary, colonial treasurer, attorney-general, and auditor-general; and the latter to be composed of one-third ex-officio and nominal members of the government, and two-thirds elected members. The governor's salary has recently been raised by the legislative council from £2000 to £5000, the same as that received by the governor-general.

The same religious equality exists among the various denominations in Victoria as in New South Wales. The Church of England has a bishop and twelve chaplains; the Presbyterian Church has eight ministers; the Wesleyans have many preachers and missionaries scattered throughout the country; and the Roman Catholic Church has a vicar-general and several chaplains. The relative proportions of the religious persuasions by the census in March 1851 stood thus: Church of England, 37,433; Presbyterians, 11,608; Wesleyans, 4988; other Protestants, 4313; Roman Catholics, 18,014; Jews, 364; Mahometans, 201; other persuasions, 424; total, 77,345.

Educational seminaries have been lacking amidst the material progress of the colony. In 1851 the number of schools of all denominations was 74, and the number of scholars attending the same, of all ages and sexes, was 4890. Not merely did the turmoil and agitation created by the gold discovery check the progress of education, but many schools were shut up, the scholars dispersed, and the schoolmasters gone to the diggings. From recent accounts a reaction has taken place in this direction, and in the right quarter. At Ballarat and Bendigo some of these instructors of youth, finding it more profitable and easy to resume teaching, have opened schools under the tents of the diggers at the gold fields; while the legislature have voted the sum of £79,000 for education during the year 1853.

The revenue of the colony has increased in the same proportion as everything else. In 1851 it was £379,824, and in 1852 it amounted to £1,576,801. Out of the latter sum £452,975 was collected during the last quarter of the year; and £1,253,579 was derived from gold. There is every probability, therefore, of the revenue keeping up to this sum during the year 1853, or perhaps beyond it to a reasonable amount, say a gross revenue of two millions per annum. The expenditure voted this year is upon an equally gigantic scale; post-office, £64,000; public works, £719,000; police, £317,000.

¹ Westgarth's Report to the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, 1st April 1853.

Australia. The tariff of the colony, like that of New South Wales, is framed upon a liberal free-trade scale. They stand respectively as follows:—

Yet the revenue derived from this source alone in the year 1852, was £342,000; while the total value of imports amounted to £4,043,896. The exports for the same year are laid down at £7,451,549; but on this head Mr Westgarth, from whose valuable report we derive the information, says,

"But with regard to this amount of nearly £7,500,000, as the value of the exports for the past year, large as it may appear, the sum has been ascertained to be very far short of the actual truth. The greater proportion of our colonial export produce now consists of gold, and it may readily be apprehended that a large quantity of this commodity is constantly being exported from the colony without any official record. The Customs returns gave 1,975,000 oz. as the quantity exported for the year 1852; but an additional quantity of 1,600,000 oz. had been traced into the adjacent colonies, or otherwise exported without official record. It may also be remarked that the quantity of gold, as officially recorded, was valued at the very low rates that were then temporarily current. A careful estimate on this subject, exhibited in the minute alluded to, gave as the value of export produce raised in Victoria during the year 1852—no less a sum than £18,500,000 sterling. But, deducting the quantity of gold assumed to have been on hand throughout the colony at that date, this amount is reduced to £14,880,000, or about twice the amount set forth in the official records of the custom-house."

Thus it appears that the official returns were far below the actual value of produce exported from the colony. Much also of the apparent amount of gold on the export lists of New South Wales and South Australia was not raised in those colonies, but in Victoria. More correctly speaking, therefore, the exports amounted to double the sum on the Customs returns. In the language of Mr Westgarth, who at the same time institutes an interesting comparison, it is thus stated:—

"The value of the produce of this colony actually exported in the year 1852 was in round numbers £15,000,000. With so encouraging a fact we may venture upon an interesting research, and compare the results of the commerce of Victoria with those in several other instances that are naturally suggested to the mind by our own present position and more recent history.

"1. California is our great competitor in the production of gold. The latest statements that have come into my hands on the subject of the gold produce of that country are up to March of last year. California had then entered the sixth year of her golden harvest, while Victoria had attained the second. At that time the produce of gold, the sole export produce of California, amounted in value, by official record, to £12,000,000 sterling annually, and to this quantity it was estimated that one-fourth should be added for the unrecorded export—making a total of £15,000,000 sterling, the amount which we have just ascertained to be the annual value of the export of this colony about the same period.

"2. Among British colonies, those of India have hitherto stood first, as far exceeding all others in the magnificent scale of their wealth and commerce. The exports for the year 1851 from Calcutta, the capital and seaport of Bengal, the greatest of the Indian presidencies, amounted in value to £11,040,000, or rather less than three-fourths of the amount of the exports of this colony for the year succeeding.

"3. To proceed to still higher standards of comparison, let us take the export commerce of Britain itself. The average annual value of the exports for the four years from 1848 to 1851 amounts to £65,585,000: so that the value of the export produce of this colony already approaches to one-fourth of that of the parent state."

It is satisfactory to record, that notwithstanding the absorbing influence of the gold fields on every description of labour, the wool-clip for the year was secured, and showed an increase on the previous two years. In 1850, 18,091,207 lb. of wool was exported; in 1851 it fell to over 16,000,000 lb.; and in 1852 it rose to 20,000,000 lb., the great increase being accounted for by a proportion of the wool of the preceding year having been thrown into 1852. Nevertheless, a gradual increase in the production is evident. Tallow, however, had decreased to one-half the quantity exported in 1850, which was 89,788 cwt., valued at £132,863.

Before the gold discovery the only two banks in the colony were branches of the Australasian and Union Bank of Australia, which had branches likewise at Geelong and Portland. At present it possesses five banks, with a circulation of £1,327,311; and coin and gold in their coffers to the amount of £3,034,538. To recapitulate, therefore, what has been said relative to the revenue, finance, commerce, and currency, we cannot do better than extract the following summary from Mr Westgarth's report:—

Comparative Summary, 1850-1852.

* Includes £24,404 of gold revenue.

† Includes £1,438,845 of gold revenue.

‡ There are no bank returns for Victoria, as distinct from New South Wales, prior to 1st July 1851.

§ Of this amount, nearly £700,000 is deposited by the government. The banks give no interest on any deposit.

|| Of this amount £1,129,420 consists of gold-dust estimated either at cost or valuation.

We can give no better retrospect of the foregoing than the following remarks from the Times newspaper of July 5, 1853:—

"Eighteen years ago the province of Victoria was a savage and unknown wilderness, inhabited by a few barbarous tribes, and contributing no more to the wealth and progress of the world than it would have done if its shores had been submerged beneath the waves of the Southern Pacific. From that time to 1851 its progress was wonderfully rapid—its population had risen to 95,000 souls—its shipping inwards to 659 vessels, with a tonnage of 126,000 tons, and its revenue to £380,000; an increase, we believe, never exceeded by any community. Now, mark the difference of a single year. In 1852 the population had become 200,000, the shipping inwards 1657 vessels, with a tonnage of 408,000 tons, and the revenue £1,577,000, of which £342,000 was raised from Customs. During the year 1852 the value of imports amounted to £1,056,000; in 1852 it increased to £4,044,000; the exports in 1851 were £1,424,000; in 1852 they had reached £7,452,000; but, taking into consideration the large amount of gold which has left the colony without being recorded, the total amount of exports is not probably less than £15,000,000 per annum; that is, every man, woman, and child in Victoria produces an export to the amount of £75 per head. But even this statement does not do full justice to this astounding influx of prosperity. The production of gold is taken from its commencement, when most of the labourers were inexperienced, and the machinery they employed rude and imperfect. The colony was unprepared for so vast an accession to its popula-

Australia. tion; and bad roads, and imperfect supplies, and every other physical difficulty, have impeded the industry of the miners. There is no symptom of falling off or exhaustion in the gold field; the supply is practically boundless, and seems to admit of an increase in proportion to the number of hands employed, and the greater facilities of transport, supply, and machinery. Seven hundred and twenty thousand pounds have been voted by the legislature of Victoria for public works, and, besides this, three railroads have been sanctioned, one to connect Melbourne with the port, another to connect Melbourne and Geelong, and another to unite Melbourne and the gold fields of the interior, each at a guarantee of five per cent. on the capital advanced for a period of 21 years. We may remark, in passing, that the town of Melbourne, which in 1851 contained 23,000 inhabitants, had increased by the end of 1852 to a population of 80,000, an amount probably much kept down by the impossibility of finding house accommodation, and that the population of Geelong had increased in the same period from 8000 to 20,000. Of the prospects of railways some estimate may be formed from the fact, that the carriage of supplies to Bendigo and Mount Alexander last year was at the rate of 1s. 1d. per ton per mile, and that it is estimated that the cost of the carriage of supplies during the last Australian winter from Melbourne to these two places would have defrayed the expense of constructing a railway. The fluctuation of prices has been as extraordinary as the increase in wealth and population. Hay is dearer, weight for weight, than the best quality of flour, and oats are twice the price of the best imported oatmeal. Cabbages are 1s. 6d. a-piece; pears, lettuces, and turnips are 6s. a dozen; potatoes 24s. a cwt.; ducks, 12s. a pair; geese and turkeys, 14s. each; and this in a country which until the discovery of gold had some claims to be considered the cheapest in the world.²⁷

South Australia. III. SOUTH AUSTRALIA. When Captain Sturt discovered and explored the Murray River in 1830, and traced its course down to its embouchure into Lake Alexandrina,—now called Victoria,—he was of opinion that to the westward of that river, towards Gulf St Vincent, a rich and fertile land existed; and that probably the lake disembogued into the gulf. His men at the time had suffered so much from fatigue and privation, that it would have endangered the safety of the party if he had attempted to prosecute his researches further than ascertaining generally the extent of the lake. On his return to Sydney, however, he represented the matter so strongly to Governor Darling, that he sent instructions to Captain Barker, Commandant at King George's Sound—who was under orders for New South Wales—to land at Cape Jervis and explore the eastern shore of the gulf, and ascertain the outlet of the lake. Unfortunately that gallant officer, just as he had completed his task, was inhumanly murdered by the aborigines at Encounter Bay, while in the performance of a perilous portion of his duty. Mr John Kent of the commissariat department, who accompanied Captain Barker during the expedition, has recorded the particulars of this first exploration of the Adelaide country. The party, consisting of seven persons, landed on the eastern shore of the gulf, and proceeded inland in a north-easterly direction, ascending a range of mountains, of which Mount Lofty formed the highest peak; from whence they could overlook the gulf to the westward as far as York Peninsula. To the northward this range trended in an unbroken line, which settled the point that the lake had not an outlet in that direction: they descended accordingly and traversed the country through some fertile valleys and rich lands on Sturt's Creek, until they reached Encounter Bay, where the lake disembogued itself into the sea through an insignificant channel between hummocks of sand. Here Captain Barker gallantly stripped and swam across the channel, with a compass to ascertain its position. Mr Kent, in his MS. narrative, describes the circumstance in these words: "Curiosity prompted me to time his crossing. The current was running out strong; but he accomplished the feat, at 9:58 A.M., in 3 minutes. On arriving at the opposite shore, he ascended the sandhill, gazed around for a few moments, and disappeared." He was never seen afterwards. It was, however, subsequently ascertained that three aborigines had speared him, as he rushed into the water to escape from them: his body was carried away by the tide. Mr Kent on his arrival in Sydney gave a favourable report to Captain

Sturt of the country explored, coinciding with that gentleman's own impressions. This partial exploration was described by Captain Sturt in his account of his discovery of South the Murray River, in which he pointed this out as a desirable locality for the establishment of a new colony. Here accordingly the colonization commissioners of South Australia fixed the site of the future province; and forthwith despatched a surveying staff, followed by crowds of emigrants and a governor, before anything further was known of the capabilities of the country. The territory claimed by the ambitious and fallacious colonizers of this province was not less than 300,000 square miles—about 3½ times the size of Victoria; but notwithstanding the subsequent explorations of Captain Sturt to the N. and E. of the Gulf St Vincent, and Mr Eyre to the westward of Spencer's Gulf, the country traversed by Captain Barker and Mr Kent, including what they saw from the Mount Lofty range, comprises nearly all the arable or pasture land occupied by the settlers at the present day—an area not exceeding, at the most, 10,000 square miles of ordinary pasture-land.

The boundaries of South Australia, according to the statutes of 4th and 5th Will. IV., cap. 95, are fixed between 132° and 141° E. Long., for the eastern and western boundaries; the parallel of 26° S. Lat. for the northern limit; and the southern boundary defined by the sea-coast, including Kangaroo Island. As already observed, this extensive tract of country measures nearly 300,000 square miles, or about 192,000,000 acres; the greater portion explored having been ascertained to be a barren waste, diverging into the stony desert of central Australia. The portion of this immense territory actually occupied by the colonists may be described as all that tract of land situated between Lake Victoria, ascending the Murray River as far as the "Elbow" in 34° S., on the E., and the eastern shore of Gulf St Vincent to the westward. The attempts to form small settlements at Spencer's Gulf and on Kangaroo Island have failed; and even York Peninsula possesses very little available country for the sheep-farmer or agriculturist.

This colony was occupied as a British province on the 26th December 1836, by Captain Hindmarsh, R.N., who was appointed the first governor of South Australia. The powers with which he was delegated, and the constitution of his government were very different from those possessed by the early governors of the older colonies in Australia. With Mr Edward Gibbon Wakefield originated the new scheme of colonization. That gentleman wrote a series of pamphlets and letters to prove that colonization may be reduced to an art; of which he believed he had discovered the true principle. He held that, by placing a high value on the unreclaimed lands of a new country, and forwarding a labouring population out of the sale of those lands, the emigrants would of necessity work at low wages, as the purchase of the dear lands would be above their means; thereby securing to the capitalist investing in the land, a large interest for his money; and forming at once a community of labourers and artisans who would minister to the benefit of the landholders. But, besides these large landholders, a class of small farmers were to be induced to emigrate, by disposing of the land in small sections, to be cleared and cultivated by their families. The allotments of an embryo city, 9 square miles in extent, were to be thrown open at once to purchasers; so that the whole population should be concentrated around the emporium of trade. The principle contended for, therefore, was the opposite of what had been pursued in the pastoral colonies of Australia; for, while the latter consisted in the dispersion of the settlers, the new scheme was that of centralization. Which of them may be considered the most successful plan of colonization, the sequel will show. Meanwhile, by the industrious promulgation of these views before the British public, the press, and ultimately the government, looked favourably upon the

Australia scheme. The result was the formation of a company called the "South Australian Colonization Association," and in 1835 they obtained a grant from government of the immense tract of land we have already described. The conditions were, that the land should not be sold at less than L.1 per acre; that the revenue arising from the sale of such lands should be appropriated to the emigration of able-bodied labourers to till the soil; that the control of the company's affairs should be vested in a body of commissioners approved of by the colonial office; and that the governor of the province should be nominated by the crown.

South Australia. Under these auspices, Governor Hindmarsh landed on the swampy shores of Holdfast Bay in December 1836, and with difficulty found his way to the contemplated site of the proposed city of Adelaide. The distance from the intended port being seven miles, he was at once impressed with the error of the commissioners' agents in fixing upon such an ineligible spot for a seaport town—a fault common, however, to new settlements in these distant colonies. His arguments upon this and other points with the local officers of the company, led to an unseemly discussion; so that after two years' administration of affairs he was recalled, and left the colony in 1838.

Hindmarsh, 1836. Meanwhile the emigrants, consisting mostly of "surveyors, architects, engineers, clerks, teachers, lawyers, and clergymen," with traders and adventurers of every description, were landed in thousands upon the mangrove swamps around the anchorage of the future Port Adelaide. After a very short time the majority of these settlers saw the nakedness of the land, and the absurdity of forming a colony without cultivating a foreign export. They thought it better, however, to keep silent, leaving the unscrupulous representations of the local agents to go forth, so as to induce others to come out, that they might dispose of their lands to better advantage. Then commenced a system of land-jobbing which can only find a parallel amongst the gambling transactions during the great railway-mania in England. The land-orders issued by the commissioners were negotiated like railway-scrip; and where the land had been actually surveyed, it passed nominally through, in some instances, as many as twenty purchasers, rising in value as it was conveyed from one party to another; payment being made generally by bills at long dates. In this manner town allotments which were originally set up to auction at L.2, 10s. per acre, soon reached the apparent value of L.2000 and L.3000; while country sections obtained at the upset price of L.1 per acre, realized as much as L.100 per acre. Those who had secured special surveys of 16,000 acres upon payment of L.4200 for that number of acres selected from the whole, sold allotments in imaginary townships at enormous prices. To this land-mania were added building speculations on an equally extravagant scale; and the wages of ordinary labourers increased to 15s. and L.1 per day. These facts, set forth in the most attractive light, were extensively circulated throughout England and Scotland, till the emigration fever rose to a pitch hitherto unprecedented; while the South Australian commissioners in London fanned the flame by publishing reports to raise the value of the land-orders issued by them. These, in several cases, were negotiated on Change at a premium of L.500 upon the order for 80 acres issued at the upset price of L.1 per acre.

Gawler, 1838. Colonel Gawler was appointed to succeed Captain Hindmarsh, in 1838; and he arrived in the colony on the 13th October of that year. The apparent success of the land and building speculations deceived the new governor into a prodigality of expenditure during his administration, for which he has been unjustly condemned. It was, in fact, not more than equivalent to the apparent revenue of the country, but was found, however, at the close of three years, to exceed that income by L.400,000. Like the majority of the colonists, he imagined that all this interchange of paper gave

value to the land; and as there was plenty of it belonging to Australia, the commissioners, there was little fear of the territorial revenue decreasing. As to ordinary revenue there was an increasing amount from the customs alone, which promised Australia, to meet all demands in time. But in 1839 the reaction took place, followed by a universal bankruptcy amongst the land-holders, and the ruin of most of the small moneyed settlers. As the colony was established at its commencement upon an insecure foundation, it was no wonder that the inexperienced settlers, induced to build up the superstructure, should have failed in the attempt; for they were mostly townspeople who knew little or nothing about growing sufficient food for themselves. Hence their means were all expended on purchases from the neighbouring colonies. After three years' occupation of the country—while they had been buying and selling land by the thousand acres, and building towns and villages throughout the country—there were not 1800 acres of land under cultivation, and that mainly consisted of vegetable and flower gardens in the vicinity of their mushroom city. In 1840, when the writer of this article arrived in the town of Adelaide, there was a population of 8489 persons in the town, and only 6121 in the country, making a total of 14,610 for the colony in the fourth year of its existence. The exports for that year were L.15,650, or a fraction over L.1 per head; while the imports from Great Britain and the neighbouring colonies were above L.273,000, or at the rate of L.18, 10s. per head of population. While the revenue was not more than L.30,199, the expenditure amounted to L.169,966. This state of affairs was bolstered up as long as there was sufficient English capital brought by the emigrants to disburse private accounts, and money raised upon the governor's debentures to balance the public debts. But when the former ceased, and the latter were returned dishonoured, then the bubble burst. Great distress existed among the inhabitants of Adelaide at this time; food had risen to famine prices; and house accommodation was not to be obtained at any price. Consequently the incoming emigrants, unaccustomed to hard labour, suffered all the privation and disappointment which have so recently been renewed on a more gigantic scale in the neighbouring colony of Victoria. The writer of this article has paid 3s. 6d. for the 4 lb. loaf, and 1s. 3d. per lb. for meat; and he has seen 100 sovereigns paid for a ton of flour—the surplus stores of an emigrant ship. These facts are mentioned to show that there is nothing new in the high price of provisions quoted at Melbourne in 1852: it is merely the recurrence of a periodical state of affairs in the history of Australia. It will readily be supposed that much distress and privation occurred amongst these intelligent, well-educated, well-intentioned, but misguided colonists; the record of which should be a warning lesson to those amongst the middle classes who put faith in the schemes of colony-mongers.

The Anglo-Saxon race, however, are not easily crushed by disappointment; and it may be said with truth, that nowhere in the southern hemisphere has the energy of the race been better vindicated than here. The men rose up from their despondency ashamed of their unproductive hands, when they saw with what cheerful activity the weaker sex turned from the refinements of drawing-room life, to all the drudgeries of household work. Hundreds who had never put a spade in the ground before, left the town, and, on the fertile lands of the Mount Lofty range, and in the interior, cultivated the soil, and herded cattle and sheep. The result was that the colony not only became self-supporting but actually exported its grain, besides wool, tallow, and beef. Here were the true elements of colonial wealth and prosperity. It was by this labour, and these animals that value was given to the land; and it was at length found that the true principle of self-support was that of dispersion instead of concentration. The healthy progress of the colony for the next five years is honourable to the industry and perseverance of the

Australia. people of South Australia; and the flourishing condition of the colony in 1845, compared with 1840, as laid before a parliamentary committee in 1847 by Mr T. F. Elliott, is a bright spot in its history.

Meanwhile Governor Gawler was recalled in 1841, and succeeded by Captain Grey (now Sir George Grey, Governor-general of New Zealand), who had some previous knowledge of the colonial affairs from a residence in Western Australia, and who had visited the notorious model colony on the way home. By a course of strict retrenchment he reduced the expenditure in two years from L.104,471 to L.29,842. Added to this also was the discovery of copper in 1842, which increased the value of exports. The great yield of the Burra Burra copper mine did not occur, however, until after the above statistics were taken. This new article of export gave a fresh impetus to the trade and commerce of the port, which was by this time shifted a mile lower down the creek, while a good road was constructed between it and the capital. The history of copper-mining in Australia—as represented by the Burra Burra mines—like every other discovery and produce in this wonderful land, eclipses all that has been recorded of such workings in the Old World. It was not mining in the ordinary sense; it was quarrying. The leviathan mass of oxidated and carbonated copper ore lay on the surface in a kind of hollow where it was connected with a vein afterwards worked in the rock below. Success attended the efforts of the colonists in every direction as this new source of wealth distributed its benefits to all around. The fortunate discoverers and early shareholders realized fortunes; and one proprietor, who bought 100 shares at L.5 each, was in the receipt of L.11,000 per annum three years after it had been worked. Miners were brought direct from Cornwall; and every description of machinery was used to excavate the ore. Coal not being found in the colony, smelting operations were but slowly proceeded with. Many cargoes, however, were shipped to Sydney to undergo this process. Altogether the province of South Australia stood in as fair a position to rival its neighbour Port Phillip in the beginning of 1851, with the large export of its copper, and the probable yield of lead, silver, iron, and other valuable metals ascertained to exist in its mountain ranges at that date, as the most sanguine colonists could wish. That year, however, brought about a second period of depression in its short history which threatened to annihilate its commerce.

Effects of the gold discovery. The gold discovery, which was the precursor of unexampled prosperity to New South Wales and Victoria, proved deeply injurious to South Australia. The very fact of her population having become more a mining than an agricultural or a pastoral people militated against her. In twelve months after the discovery of gold in the Bathurst Mountains, it has been calculated that, out of a population of 70,000, 12,000 adults, and 4000 children, almost entirely of the male sex, left that colony. The city of Adelaide was left nearly destitute of able-bodied men, the mines were deserted, the stations abandoned, and almost every industrial occupation was at a stand still; while the government of the colony was for a time paralyzed. It was but for a time; for the legislative council—recently elected by the colonists—and the governor, Sir H. E. F. Young (Sir George Grey having gone to New Zealand), passed an act making ingots of gold,

stamped by authority, a legal tender throughout the colony. Australia. This, added to the successful attempt of Mr Tolmer in forming a practicable route from Adelaide to Mount Alexander, South brought a large portion of the gold from the colony of Victoria, and some from New South Wales, into the coffers of the South Australian merchants and the treasury. Those also who had left their families behind—which four-fifths had done—sent their earnings by this overland escort. These, to a certain extent, were expended in the country, while large quantities were purchased by the merchants, which drained the coin and bullion out of the banks. According to an estimate made by Mr Khull, bullion broker at Melbourne, the quantities of gold dust taken to Adelaide by land and sea from Victoria were as follows:—

"By overland escort, March to December 1852, 228,533 oz.; shipped from Melbourne, 17,331 oz.; taken by private hand, 178,160 oz.; estimated quantity taken in addition to above, 166,687 oz.; shipped from Adelaide to London, February to December 1852, 263,564 oz.

"Amount remaining in the banks, assay office, and private hand at Adelaide, 299,816 oz."

Valuing the gross amount at 76s. per oz., this would give a sum not less than L.2,215,167 added to the wealth of the colony; which, during the quarter ending on the 23d March 1853, has been the means no doubt mainly of swelling the exports to the enormous sum of L.954,760, a sum out of all proportion for the ordinary exports of that now insignificant colony when compared with its flourishing neighbour. With all their undoubted and praiseworthy energy, the South Australian colonists have not been successful in discovering a profitable gold field of any extent within their territory. The Echuanga diggings, which promised much at first, have been almost abandoned. The following notice, which we extract from the South Australian Register, of the 7th February 1853, gives some idea of the latest yield of the Adelaide gold fields.

"Although there is at the diggings everything to indicate gold in large quantities, none have succeeded in realizing their hopes. The majority content themselves with what they can get on Chapman's hill and gully, knowing that, if a fresh place is discovered, they will stand as good a chance as those who have spent months in trying to find better ground. The quantity of gold taken to the assay-office having, during four consecutive weeks, amounted to less than 4000 oz., the governor has proclaimed that after the 17th of February 1853 the office will be closed."

With these favourable returns, a reaction has taken place in favour of the copper mines. Many who had been unsuccessful at the gold fields, or who preferred working for the baser metal, returned to the colony where they had more comfortable homes. The Kapunda, Burra, and other mines, which had ceased working for more than twelve months, were again put into operation; and the shares of the latter which had fallen from L.270 to L.60, were quoted in March 1853 at L.134. Land likewise had risen in value. On the 1st June 1853, town lots were selling as fast as they were offered, at an average value of L.115 per acre; amounting to L.26,000 per month. The government had transmitted L.45,000 to the emigration commissioners in London, for the introduction of labour, although the colony had L.141,000 in the hands of that body for the same purpose. Agricultural operations were likewise progressing satisfactorily, and high prices obtained; while the ensuing harvest promised to be abundant. Until, however, this colony can raise from her own soil an equal amount to that which she now borrows, she cannot be classed along with the rich colonies of Australia. That no community in that land is more deserving of such a position is allowed on all hands. "Our neighbours of South Australia," says Mr Westgarth, in allusion to the delays, expense, and obstruction on every hand, which swell up an enormous account against the colony of Victoria, "have in these respects set us an example. Inferior in natural resources, they have surpassed us in energy of character, both of government and

people. The misfortunes of 1840 and 1841 with which they were bowed down had scarcely passed over ere they appear again erect and prosperous before us, as producers of the finest wheat on the London Corn Exchange; an expression equivalent, I may add, to that of the finest in the world. The gold fields of Victoria have again depressed them, but they are up and doing, as before, to make the best of what is left. Our highly auriferous soil is an accident, but the immediate projection of a road between Adelaide and Mount Alexander is a principle; and the first escort that traversed the new line, bringing with it £21,000 worth of gold, gave alike the triumph and the renewal of such energy.²¹

The settled lands of this partially explored colony were divided at an early date into nine counties, namely, Adelaide, Hindmarsh, Gawler, Light, Sturt, Eyre, Stanley, Flinders, Russell. In August 1851, two new counties were added—Robe and Grey. The territory is also divided into hundreds, each averaging about 100 square miles. The capital of the province is the "City of Adelaide," which is laid out upon nine square miles of land, of which about one-ninth is built upon and inclosed. Within the environs of this town are scattered a number of villages; including Klemzig, a village composed entirely of German immigrants. Twenty-five miles over the Mount Lofty range there is a larger hamlet of the same people called Halindorf.

If we speak of the general aspect of South Australia as contained within the limits of its available country, it comes under the general description of the Victoria territory and New South Wales; the greater proportion, however, being what is locally termed a "broken country" more allied to the east-coast ranges of the latter, than the extensive undulating open forest lands of the former. The Mount Lofty range, at the same time, is not more than ten or twelve miles distant from the eastern shore of Gulf St Vincent; whereas the ranges in New South Wales are seldom less than 80 miles distant from the coast. The shed of waters, likewise, which flows from the hills through the narrow flat where the town of Adelaide stands, consists of a few insignificant streams; and although they have mostly been denominated "rivers" by the company's surveyors, there is not one deserving more than the ordinary appellation of "creek." The only navigable stream amongst them is an inlet, through a mangrove swamp from the gulf. On the eastern shore of the Mount Lofty range lies the great lake Victoria, and its equally gigantic feeder the Murray, which we have described elsewhere. The two peninsulas which form Spencer's Gulf, are at the best indifferent forest land, with small particles of alluvial soil, the great mass being barren and worthless. The settlement at Port Lincoln has been abandoned on account of the poverty of the country.

The country between the eastern boundary of Lake Torrens and the Darling has been stated to be available for pasture land. We must be cautious, however, in accepting the reports of explorers despatched purposely to find good land in a barren country. The explorations of Captain Sturt to the northward, and Mr Eyre to the westward—on whose accuracy we can place implicit reliance—described the great mass of this territory as a region of desolation, where the hardest indigenous plants and animals cannot find sustenance.

On the alluvial slopes of the Mount Lofty range there is some of the finest agricultural land in Australia. The common average of wheat grown there is 45 bushels to the acre. So abundant was the yield in 1845, that after exporting about 195,000 bushels, chiefly to the Mauritius and England, the farmers had upwards of 150,000 bushels on hand over and above what was required for home consumption. And it is a fact significant of the progress of the colony, and the energy of the settlers, that, while in 1840 they were dependent al-

most solely upon foreign supplies of flour and grain, having Australia only 2503 acres under cultivation, it increased in 1841 to 6722 acres; in 1842, to 19,790; and in 1843, to 28,690, of South which nearly 23,000 acres were in wheat crop. In the year Australia ending April 1850 there were 64,728½ acres under cultivation; of which 41,807 were in wheat crop; potatoes, 1780; gardens, 1370; vineyards, 282; and 13,000 acres in hay. In 1851 the land under crop was not less than 71,728 acres.

The climate at Adelaide and its environs is about the Climate. same average temperature as Sydney; although the latter city is more than 1° in Lat. N. of it. From its situation, likewise, on a sand flat, very little elevated above the waters of the gulf, and its distance from the cool sea-breezes on the S. shore of Kangaroo Island, the atmosphere is in general more oppressive than the open country around Port Jackson. At the same time South Australia enjoys the salubrity of climate generally maintained throughout the temperate regions of Australia from Cape Leeuwin to Cape Howe; and it has also its share of the Austral simoon. According to the observations of Mr Wyatt, communicated to the government by the colonial surgeon, James George Nash, "the thermometer in summer averages 73° Fahr., and in winter 55° Fahr., shewing a mean temperature for the year of 65° Fahr.; being only 1° higher than the mean temperature of Madeira." "There is no endemic disease in South Australia. Bilious, remittent, and intermittent fevers are scarcely known. The prevalent fever is closely allied to the congestive fever of Bengal, and chiefly affects persons newly arrived. Eight-ninths of those cases that terminate fatally occur in persons who have not been one year in the colony. Organic disease of the liver is rare. Dysentery is one of the prevalent diseases, but yields readily to treatment."²²

As already shown in treating of New South Wales under Vegetable this head, the soil and climate is equally adapted for the and animal growth of grain and of European fruits and vegetables. The produce. indigenous grasses, however, which have made the pastoral productions of Australia equal to the most extensive in the world, are but limited. The live stock within the colony in 1851 was estimated at 1,350,000 sheep, 105,000 cattle, and about 7000 horses. Cattle thrive better on the pasture lands than sheep. Within the hundreds, pastoral leases are annual; without, they are of 14 years' duration; and the present leases comprise about 10,686 square miles. The revenue derived from occupation of land for pastoral purposes is only £7984.

The native birds are similar to those of the other south-eastern colonies; and poultry of every description thrive equally well. The fish in the gulf are also of a like kind; and the fresh-water cod found in the Murray River are so large and abundant, that at one time some enterprising colonists preserved them for market. Like many other useful pursuits, this has been temporarily abandoned during the gold mania.

The mineral productions of this colony are numerous and varied; including jasper, chalcidony, and opal; iron, lead, and copper. The quantity of copper ore exported in the year ending 31st March 1852 was 7122 tons; and of smelted copper, 39,225 cwt.

In 1840 the population was 14,610; in 1845, 22,390; in Popula- 1850, 63,900, of whom 7000 were Germans. This latter tion. element in the population of South Australia gives it a distinctive character from any of the other Australian colonies; and it is pleasing to see these industrious Saxon emigrants live so peacefully amongst their Anglo-Saxon brethren. "In the course of 1851 as many as 4221 emigrants were reported to have left the colony for the gold fields. This emigration subsequently increased to such an extent, that at one time the capital was said to be almost abandoned by its male population. Subsequent accounts, however, appear to show

Australia. that the emigration is in great measure only temporary—that the bulk of the emigrants leave their families behind them, and after a short stay at the gold-fields return with the profits of their venture, which in many instances they invest in the purchase of land.¹ At the end of 1851 the inhabitants, exclusive of a small detachment of military and the aborigines, are estimated at 66,538, and on the 31st March 1852 at 61,218.²

Before the promulgation of the recent act granting to all the Australian colonies a free constitutional government, the administration of affairs was vested in the governor, assisted by an executive council, composed of the colonial secretary, the advocate-general, the surveyor-general, and the assistant commissioner: to these were added four crown nominees. The elective principle has now been introduced into the legislature; and the governor-general of Australia is empowered to act as local governor within the province, when he visits it in person.

In this colony, as in Victoria and New South Wales, there is no dominant church recognised by the state. From 1847 to 1851 an act existed empowering the governor to grant a sum out of the public funds in aid of religion (not less than £50, nor more than £150), to any religious body collecting an equal amount by voluntary contributions. The new legislative council, however, refused a renewal of this act, when it expired on the 31st March 1851. The number of churches and chapels, during the year ending at that date, which had received public bounty in aid of buildings and stipends, was 103, and the sum appropriated £4431. The number of schools receiving aid on the same terms, a continuance of which was sanctioned by the new legislature, was in 1851, 132; the amount of aid being £3310, and the number of scholars 4276.

The revenue of the colony has increased in a satisfactory manner from the period of reaction in 1843, though unfortunately burdened with the debt incurred during Colonel Gawler's administration. This debt originally amounted to £405,433 in 1841. In that year, however, Parliament struck off £155,000 for necessary disbursements, and the treasury agreed to pay £45,936; thereby reducing the debt to something more than £200,000. This became a colonial bonded debt, represented by debentures guaranteed by the government. Governor Grey reduced this sum to £85,800 in 1848, at the period of his departure for the governorship of New Zealand. From that date until October 1851, the present Lieutenant-governor Young has reduced it to £10,300, having refrained from paying it off entirely on account of the depression of the Land Fund revenue. A comparison of the revenue and expenditure for the years 1840, 1845, and 1851, will show the revolution in the finances of this colony since it became a British province, independent of the company and the colonization commissioners. The latter body was dissolved shortly after its declared inability to meet the drafts from the colony, and the former association has recently become extinct.

The items for 1851 are exclusive of the territorial revenue, which amounted to £107,201, and the expenditure to £72,292. The amount expended under the head of public works in 1851 was £18,228.

The commerce and currency of South Australia have undergone various fluctuations. In 1841 the imports from Great Britain and the colonies amounted to about £273,000, and the exports to £53,500; in 1842 the former fell to

£163,000, and the latter to less than £40,000. The latter gradually rose as the corn and copper swelled the import list, until 1849, when it amounted to £485,951; and it fell slightly in 1850, on account of a decrease in the mines, to £483,745. For the quarter ending 23d March 1853, the imports were £440,328, and the exports £954,760. The export of wool in 1849 was 2,243,086 lb.; in 1850, 2,841,131 lb.; and in the year ending 31st March 1852, 3,281,648 lb. The export of tallow was in 1849, 3867 cwt., and in 1850, 5271 cwt. The tonnage inwards and outwards at Port Adelaide for the year ending April 1849 was 112,338 tons; in 1850, 160,497 tons; in 1851, 166,950 tons. The currency, which was of a very objectionable kind issued by private traders at the commencement of the colony, was superseded by the establishment of the South Australian Bank, and a branch of the Bank of Australasia, and latterly a branch of the Union Bank of Australia. These banks gave great facilities to the mercantile portion of the community by negotiating their paper currency; which, at the time of the gold discovery, had reached an unusual amount. This event influencing the local trade, created a panic amongst the merchants; but with their usual judgment and foresight, they shipped off their surplus stock of merchandise to the gold colonies, receiving the dust in payment, which at once relieved them from their engagements. "The amount of current paper under discount in the three local banks before and after the panic is reckoned thus:—South Australian Bank before, £280,000, after, £120,000; Bank of Australasia, £160,000, afterwards, £60,000; Union Bank of Australia, £120,000 to £70,000; that is, £560,000 reduced to £250,000 in about three months, an improvement quite unprecedented, and which before its actual occurrence might have been deemed impossible.³ Not the least important result of the gold discovery will be the effect of the intercolonial trade with Van Diemen's Land and South Australia in uniting more closely in social and political unity this whole group of colonies; especially New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. Hitherto the intercolonial traffic between their capitals was very limited, especially between Melbourne and Adelaide. Their origin having been contemporaneous, and their products similar, they had no variety of commodities to interchange, while their tariffs were formed on the old protection principle. Not only has the latter been modified to modern free-trade policy since the gold discovery, but the value of the gold transmitted by land and sea from Melbourne to Adelaide during the year ending 31st December 1852, amounted to £2,215,167. The farm produce and bread stuffs alone shipped in return realized during that period £250,000, or more than half the imports into Victoria under that head. Although a certain amount of jealousy still exists between New South Wales and her more fortunate younger sister, the traffic between the ports of Sydney and Melbourne has augmented in proportion with the prolific yield of the Victoria gold fields, thus materially cementing all interests. In allusion to this subject in a political point of view, we quote the liberal observations of Lieutenant-governor Young. "The year 1851 is memorable for the introduction of the elective principle of representation into the legislature, the free action of constitutional government, and for Her Majesty's gracious appointment of a governor-general of Australia, empowered to act as governor of each of its provinces when within the territory. This last-mentioned preliminary step towards a political confederation of the Australian colonies has proved very opportune and provident. The discoveries of rich deposits of gold, the more frequent intercourse thereby occasioned not only between Australia and

¹ Thirteenth Report of the Colonial, Land, and Emigration Commissioners, p. 38.

² Reports of Her Majesty's Colonial Possessions, presented to Parliament 1852, p. 221.

³ Despatch of Sir H. E. F. Young, Reports of the Colonies, p. 228.

Australia. Great Britain, but also between the different settlements themselves both by sea and land, and the certainty that the steam navigation of the River Murray will now at last be effected, are circumstances which must accelerate, and were perhaps providentially designed to produce, that social union of the provinces on this continent, of which a common origin, allegiance, language, and legislation have formed the natural foundation, constantly strengthened and extended as it is by increased migrations from the parent state.⁷¹

IV. WESTERN AUSTRALIA.—A line drawn due N. and S. upon the maps of Australia from the middle of the Great Bight on the S. coast to the head of Cambridge Gulf on the N. coast, along the meridian of 129° E. Long., forms the eastern boundary of this colony; the coast line to the westward forming its N., W., and S. boundaries. Its extreme S. is West Cape Howe, in 35. 10., and its extreme N., Cape Londonderry, in 13. 45., both headlands being in S. Lat. Thus, the greatest length of Western Australia is 1457 British miles, by an average width of 700 miles, giving an approximate area of 1,019,900 square miles. One-half may be considered within the influence of tropical meteorology, the other half within the temperate zone. This territory includes the earliest discovered portions of Australia. The proclamation of such extensive boundaries for this colony was apparently intended for the purpose of excluding any other power from forming a settlement on the coast; as there was ample room at the S.W. angle known as Leeuwin Land for any settlement likely to take root in the country. As it is, there are not more than 3000 square miles of land around the Swan River settlement, and only a few hundred square miles in the vicinity of Albany, King George's Sound, occupied by the settlers as agricultural or pastoral lands in 1853. When we take into consideration that this colony has been established so far back as 1829, we cannot but conclude that it must either be naturally ill-adapted for a British settlement, or that something radically wrong in its management must have retarded its progress so far behind its contemporaries on the E. coast. As will be shown afterwards, both of these influences have checked the advancement of Western Australia.

General History. Swan River. In August 1829 Captain Stirling, who had previously explored the coast, arrived at the proposed site of the new settlement on the Swan River, to which he was appointed lieutenant-governor. He found that several ships had arrived from Britain in the previous months of June and July with numbers of anxious settlers; who, at the very outset, were discouraged by the appearance of the land on the banks of the Swan and Canning Rivers, besides encountering the inclemency of the weather (for it was winter in Australia) without any other shelter than the tents they had brought with them. By the end of the year there were 1290 persons in the colony including non-residents; and others were gradually flocking in without any previous preparation having been made for the accommodation of their wives and families. In fact so little care had been taken to plan out the proceedings of the government and the situation of the colony, that there was not an acre of ground surveyed until several months after the first arrivals. All that was known of the proposed settlement existed only on the map—where counties and towns were liberally scattered over the supposed surface of the land. This, coupled with the fact that the majority of the newly-arrived settlers were townspeople or small capitalists, unaccustomed to manual labour, and unfit under any circumstances to struggle with great difficulties, soon produced a state of general suffering and distress. The governor did all he could to alleviate the hardships and dis-appointments of the settlers; but his own circumstances were hardly better than those of the rest, both he and his officials having undertaken their duties on the stipulation of

payment in land. Instead of a thousand or fifteen hundred pounds a-year, he was to obtain a grant of 100,000 acres of land, and his subordinates 20,000 acres, down to 2000 and 3000 acres in proportion. In like manner, if a settler brought wealth, in the shape of agricultural implements, live stock, or labourers, he was to receive an equivalent for the benefit he thereby bestowed on the colony, by a grant of land. If a builder erected government works, or a surveyor parcellled out the land, they were both to receive a portion of their remuneration in land. In fact so much had been left to this system of barter, that the government and the colonists had entirely overlooked the necessity of a sufficient metallic currency to negotiate ordinary transactions. Hence they were often unable to purchase the necessaries of life from the neighbouring colonies. Meantime, so utterly paralyzed were the authorities, that they even neglected to survey the land which they considered the pabulum of their existence. Persons settled down where and how they liked on the banks of the Swan and Canning Rivers. The land they had expected to be surveyed, and the towns they had expected to be built, were nowhere to be found. Upwards of fifty ships had arrived by March 1830, and nearly 2000 immigrants with property to the amount of £100,000, while scarcely twenty houses had been erected for their accommodation. At last a township was marked out on the Swan River, called Perth, and some degree of order began to appear out of the chaos by the close of the year, as the governor took up his quarters at this future capital; not, however, before many of the most energetic emigrants had either left for the neighbouring colonies, or returned home to warn their fellow-countrymen from proceeding to this Utopian colony.

The history of New South Wales recorded the sufferings and privations experienced by the pioneers of that colony, although they were selected from a proper class for the purpose. Much more, therefore, was it to be expected that such hardships should fall to the lot of the first settlers at Swan River, who were totally unfitted for the laborious enterprise of founding a colony. The ladies and gentlemen who formed the pioneer corps of settlers were landed upon the shores of a naturally sterile region without any greater preparation for the grave and difficult undertaking of founding a new British province, than if they had gone out upon a holiday excursion in the woods. There is no greater fallacy entertained by theoretical colonizers, than this romantic method of forming new colonies. Colonization is a work of the most profound and serious nature, and does not bear to be handled by quacks and empirics in political economy. It is a matter for the grave deliberation of the state, which ought to protect the people from the cruelty of those who receive their money for lands which have no value imparted to them by labour. The agrarian system of colonization attempted in this instance proved a total failure, and to this day not one tithe of the lands granted has ever been properly surveyed.

For twenty years after the disembarkation of the first colonists, the Swan River settlement has struggled through a feeble existence. Governor Stirling was succeeded by Governor Hutt, who tried manfully to restore confidence to the colonists, and induce new settlers to come out. He in turn was succeeded by Governor Fitzgerald, the present ruler. In vain have they attempted, with the assistance of the colonists, to raise the colony on a par with her sister provinces in South-eastern Australia and Van Diemen's Land. So late as the year 1848, things had reached such a state of general depression, that the inhabitants had taken it seriously into consideration whether it would not be advisable to abandon the settlement altogether. About this time there was a demonstration on the part of the neighbouring colonists—which we have noticed elsewhere—against the land-

⁷¹ Despatch of his Excellency Lieutenant-governor Young. Reports, p. 228.

Australia, ing of convicts on the eastern shores of Australia. It occurred to this remote community to petition for what their more successful neighbours refused. Consequently in 1849, Western Australia, exactly twenty years after the first settlement, a band of convicts arrived from the parent state, and at once gave new life and vigour to this languishing colony. A correspondent of the Times at Perth, writing in January 1853, says, "The advent of convicts, after three years' experience, has been found to contribute more to the well-doing of the pockets of the settlers than detriment to their morals." The most satisfactory results have been received of the progress of the colony under these circumstances to the 8th June 1853. The inhabitants at Perth had held public meetings expressing a desire for the importation of 1000 convicts annually. Up to that date 2000 had arrived; and a less severe system had been adopted towards them than that which had prevailed in Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales, and with the most beneficial results. If this class of labourers had been sent out to clear the wilderness, and construct roads, prior to the arrival of Governor Stirling, and the well-meaning non-labouring colonists who accompanied him, how different a position might Swan River now have held among the flourishing provinces of Australia!

The settlement at King George's Sound was formed much earlier than that at Swan River, in anticipation of a projected scheme of colonization by the French government. It was effected in 1826 by the government of New South Wales, who despatched a detachment of the 39th regiment under Major Lockyer for this purpose. After four years' occupation as a military post, the settlement was ordered by the home government in 1830 to be transferred to the government at Swan River, both being within the new colony of Western Australia. During the next twenty years of its existence it survived actual desertion, in consequence of its excellent harbour being frequented by whaling ships, which found abundance of whales off the coast. Since the establishment of steam communication between England and Australia, it has come into notice as the first coaling station for the steamers on their outward voyage, via the Cape, to South Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales; and there is every likelihood of the little township of Albany becoming a thriving seaport. The Sound is a magnificent roadstead, with from 7 to 15 and 20 fathoms water, completely sheltered from S.W. to E., and partially by two islands to the S.E. It is only open to southerly winds, which in this locality bring fair weather. On the W. the Sound is separated by a long tongue of land, terminated at its northern extremity by Point Possession, from the Princess-Royal Harbour. The entrance to this nearly circular bay is between Point Possession and Mount Clarence; being not more than 200 yards across, with a depth of 4½ fathoms water. Princess-Royal Harbour is capable of containing many hundred vessels: it is the finest harbour known to exist in Australia to the W. of Spencer's Gulf. It enjoys an equable climate, the thermometer, during nineteen months' observations, ranging from 40° to 76° Fahr. Vegetables also grow luxuriantly.¹

At the outset of the colony there were fifteen counties laid out on the map, arranged in apparently compact sections of about forty miles square, along the coast from Cape Leichhardt to Point Hood, namely, Twiss, Perth, Murray, Wellington, Nelson, Sussex, Lanark, York, Grantham, Wicklow, Goderich, Stirling, Hay, Plantagenet, Kent. Subsequently eleven were added to these along the territory to the N., which was named generally Australind; and from recent explorations promises to furnish good pasture land for sheep and cattle. These counties are, Melbourne, Glenelg,

Grey, Carnarvon, Victoria, Durham, Lansdowne, Hawick, Australia, Beaufort, Minto, Peel. The principal places claiming the title of towns are Freemantle, Perth, and Guildford, on the Western Swan River; Kelmscott on the Canning, and Albany at Australia, Princess-Royal Harbour.

The general aspect of the forest scenery, mountains, rivers, General and coasts, is the same as on the E. coast, which has been view of the already described; with this difference, that the mountains country, and rivers are upon a less extensive scale. In comparison, the former seldom attain half the height and extent of range; while we have no evidence as yet of any stream approaching to the Murray in its ramifications. Much however remains to be explored in this quarter. The highest mountain known is Koikeunneruf near King George's Sound, which attains the altitude of 3500 feet. The principal range of hills extends in a northerly direction from the S. coast, near Cape Chatham, for at least 300 miles.² This range no doubt is continued more or less parallel with the N.W. coast, about the same distance inland, judging by analogy, as its greater counterpart on the eastern coast; the great Austral desert between forming a barrier to any internal communication from the one coast to the other. Although the Plants, botany of these two great meridian ranges, trending in a general course N. and S. from the middle of the S. temperate zone, to the middle of the Tropic of Capricorn, is generically the same, yet the majority of the plants are specifically different. Probably from the lesser heights of the mountain ranges failing to absorb the same amount of moisture as those in the higher altitudes of the Australian Alps, the vegetation of the temperate regions of Western Australia is of a more arid nature than that in the S.E. latitudes. Here succulent plants are not only rarer, but the native grasses are scantier; and the extent of pasture land Pasture within the known boundaries is of a very limited description, land. To give some idea of this limit, we shall quote the latest returns of live stock.

The value of the wool, which is considered the staple export of the colony, amounted in 1850 to £15,482, and in 1851 to £17,883. Governor Fitzgerald remarks upon this head, in a despatch dated Government House, Perth, April 12. 1852, "I fear that unless new grasses spring up, or are introduced into our pastures, we shall never be able to rival in this respect the production of the eastern colonies. Our lands fit for sheep are so small in extent in proportion to the rest of the colony, that a limit will soon be arrived at unless better pastures be discovered. Should such exist, they probably lie far to the N.E." This is conclusive, without even referring the reader to the statistics of the eastern colonies already given, to satisfy the most sceptical mind of the inferiority of its pasture lands compared with the verdant plains and valleys of Eastern Australia. There are single settlers in New South Wales who possess as much stock as the colony altogether; and this after a growth of 22 years. These facts will show that natural disadvantages have retarded the progress of the colony as well as original mismanagement; for although the colonists could raise enough of vegetable produce and animal food for their subsistence, they lacked a sufficiency of the pastoral exports of wool, tallow, and hides, to constitute them a successful producing community.

This poverty of production is also apparent in the agricultural records of the colony. Up to 1851, the colonists were dependent upon shipments of agricultural produce from the eastern colonies. The number of acres in crop

¹ MS. Notes of Assistant Commissary-general Kent, late of King George's Sound.

² Well's Australian Geography. Sydney, 1848.

¹ Despatch of Lieutenant-governor Fitzgerald. Reports of the Colonies, 1852, p. 220.

² Despatch of Lieutenant-governor Fitzgerald, dated April 12, 1852.

³ Thirteenth Report of the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners, p. 37.

⁴ Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake. By J. Macgillivray, vol. 1. p. 140.

⁵ MS. Notes of Assistant Commissary-general Kent.

Australia, sels wrecked in Torres Strait, and of endeavouring to throw open to British enterprise the neighbouring islands of the Indian Archipelago.¹ After twelve years struggling to rear sufficient food for themselves, the sappers and miners to the last subsisted upon salt meat and biscuit, such as sailors have at sea, which, with the unhealthiness of the climate, caused the deaths of 1 officer and 12 men, out of 6 officers and 58 men, in five years. The settlement named Victoria was finally abandoned on the 30th November 1849. In January 1847, the staff of a new penal colony to be called "North Australia," headed by Colonel Barney, R.E., as temporary governor, settled on the shores of Port Curtis on the E. coast of Australia beyond the Tropic of Capricorn. After five months' occupation, and an expenditure of upwards of £15,000, the attempt to form a settlement was abandoned. The remains of the proposed township of Gladstone are a monument to this day of the folly of the projectors, and the waste of public money. It is to be hoped that the next attempt to colonize some portion of tropical Australia will be more successful than either of the above, both for the sake of the colony and the credit of the parent state. The practicability of carrying any such projects into effect is much to be doubted, notwithstanding the favourable views of some competent authorities. First, because the ordinary food of Europeans cannot be produced within the influence of the tropics; secondly, because there is no native labour to till the ground for the production of tropical vegetation as a substitute; and, thirdly, the exports which could be raised cannot be cultivated by our ordinary emigrant labourers, who, doubtless, would suffer fearful mortality if attempting to work under a tropical sun. In the tropical colonies under the dominion of the Anglo-Saxon, there are industrious native tribes to work the ground, and produce exports which our countrymen trade in, but who are never known to assist in their actual growth by manual labour. Until, therefore, an industrious population of Asiatics, or other races accustomed to labour in a tropical field, are introduced to the shores of northern Australia, the day is far distant when any settlement, attempted there under the usual auspices, will prove successful.

From the preceding accounts of the prosperous colonies in temperate Australia, it will be seen that the group on the S.E. territory display already the elements of a powerful nation—a nation, doubtless, whose future dominion will be supreme on the shores of the Pacific. At the same time we have shown, in the article AUSTRALASIA, that the vast interior, in all probability, will for ever remain unpeopled by a European race; and that the northern section will fail to rival the south. There is sufficient territory, however, in the golden quarter of Australia alone, for the enterprise of the next five generations at least to find a home and independence upon her shores. The impetus given to emigration from the mother country by the recent gold discoveries, need leave no fear in the public mind that there will be a scarcity of capital and labour for the future,

to develop the resources of the country. All that is to be considered is the description of emigrants best adapted for that purpose. Unfortunately for all concerned, the first rush of emigrants to Australia was mainly from that class of the community who had just sufficient means to reach these colonies, but lacked the physical and moral energies necessary to ensure success at the gold fields, or who, by their manual dexterity, were unable or unwilling to assist the ordinary labour market. These emigrants had been mostly townspeople in their native country, such as shopmen, clerks, and the like—men who were not only unaccustomed to out-door labour of the lightest description, but most of whom probably were innocent of having done a day's hard work in their lives. Hence they were either unfit to encounter the privations of gold-digging, or their pride or indolence restrained their energies. To such causes are to be attributed the distress and misery in the colony of Victoria. While these people go about in idleness, the colonists call out for able-bodied labourers. Large sums of money are annually voted by the local legislatures to assist in sending out eligible emigrants, under the control of the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners. In their thirteenth annual report, for July 1853, they state the amount of emigration to Australia—including Mrs Chisholm's assisted emigrants—to have been 21,532 in 1851, and 87,881 in 1852; while the assisted emigrants who went out under their auspices numbered 8143, in 68 ships, in 1851; and 44,796, in 217 ships, in 1852; making a total of 162,352, who have emigrated from British ports alone to Australia since the date of the gold discovery. This number has been largely augmented by emigrants from California, New Zealand, America, the West Indies, and many other distant parts of the world; so that we are within the mark in calculating that the population of Australia has been increased since the gold discovery, up to the latest advices in April 1853, by not less than a quarter of a million of people.

Although the people of Australia have received from the Political imperial parliament concessions towards their political freedom which were refused to the American colonies before the declaration of independence in that country; still there are many privileges denied to them which these colonists from the United Kingdom consider as their birthright. The right of taxation, and appropriation of taxes; control over the land revenue, customs, and all other departments; offices of trust and emolument open only to the settled inhabitants; plenary powers of legislation, without the reservation of bills for Her Majesty's assent, and a perfectly free representative legislature—are openly demanded and petitioned for. Should these be withheld, or at least some portion of them not be granted by the imperial parliament, while the community continues increasing, for the next ten years or so, in the same ratio that they are now doing, we may anticipate not merely a renewal of the revolutionary spirit manifested recently by the colonists on the subject of the convict question, but the more serious event of a final disruption from the parent state. (S.M.)

¹ MS. Notes of Assistant Commissary-general Kent.