they have made in the arts of economy. | lineally descended from a London pick-pocket, Those to the north of Port Jackson evince a or paint the valour with which he has led his considerable degree of ingenuity and con- New Hollanders into the heart of China. At trivance in the structure of their houses, that period, when the Grand Lahma is sending which are rendered quite impervious to the to supplicate alliance; when the spice islands weather, while the inhabitants at Port Jackson are purchasing peace with nutmegs; when have no houses at all. At Port Dalrymple, in enormous tributes of green tea and nankeen Van Diemen's Land, there was every reason are wafted into Port Jackson, and landed on to believe the natives were unacquainted with the quays of Sydney, who will ever remember the use of canoes; a fact extremely embar- that the sawing of a few planks, and the rassing to those who indulge themselves in knocking together a few nails, were such a speculating on the genealogy of nations; be- serious trial of the energies and resources of cause it reduces them to the necessity of sup- the nation? posing that the progenitors of this insular people swam over from the main land, or that they were aboriginal; a species of dilemma, which effectually bars all conjecture upon the intermixture of nations. It is painful to learn, that the natives have begun to plunder and rob in so very alarming a manner, that it has been repeatedly found necessary to fire upon them; and many have, in consequence, fallen victims to their rashness.

The Government of the colony, after enjoying some little respite from this kind of labour, has begun to turn its attention to the coarsest and most necessary species of manufactures, for which their wool appears to be well adapted. The state of stock in the whole settlement, in June 1801, was about 7,000 sheep, 1,300 head of cattle, 250 horses, and 5,000 hogs. There were under cultivation at the same time, between 9 and 10,000 acres of corn. The soil is found to produce coal in vast Three years and a-half before this, in Decemabundance, salt, lime, very fine iron ore, tim- ber 1797, the numbers were as follows:ber fit for all purposes, excellent flax, and a Sheep, 2,500; cattle 350; horses, 100; hogs, tree, the bark of which is admirably adapted 4,300; acres of land in cultivation, 4,000. for cordage. The discovery of coal (which, The temptation to salt pork, and sell it for by the by, we do not believe was ever before Government store, is probably the reason why discovered so near the line) is probably rather the breed of hogs has been so much kept a disadvantage than an advantage; because, under. The increase of cultivated lands beas it lies extremely favourable for sea car- tween the two periods is prodigious. It apriage, it may prove to be a cheaper fuel than pears (p. 319) that the whole number of conwood, and thus operate as a discouragement victs imported between January 1788 and to the clearing of lands. The soil upon the June 1801 (a period of thirteen years and a sea-coast has not been found to be very pro- half) has been about 5,000, of whom 1,157 ductive, though it improves in partial spots were females. The total amount of the popu in the interior. The climate is healthy, in lation on the continent, as well as at Norfolk spite of the prodigious heat of the summer Island, amounted, June 1801, to 6,500 persons; months, at which period the thermometer has of these 766 were children born at Port Jackbeen observed to stand in the shade at 107, son. In the returns from Norfolk Island, and the leaves of garden-vegetables to fall into children are not discriminated from adults. dust, as if they had been consumed with fire. Let us add to the imported population of 5,000 But one of the most insuperable defects in convicts, 500 free people, which (if we consiNew Holland, considered as the future coun- der that a regiment of soldiers has been kept try of a great people, is, the want of large ri- up there) is certainly a very small allowance; vers penetrating very far into the interior, and then, in thirteen years and a half, the imported navigable for small crafts. The Hawkesbury, population has increased only by two-thir the largest river yet discovered, is not acces-teenths. If we suppose that something more sible to boats for more than twenty miles. This same river occasionally rises above its natural level, to the astonishing height of fifty feet; and has swept away, more than once, the labours and the hopes of the new people exiled to its banks.

than a fifth of the free people were women, this will make the total of women 1,270; of whom we may fairly presume that 800 were capable of child-bearing; and if we suppose the children of Norfolk Island to bear the same proportion to the adults as at Port Jackson, their total number at both settlements will be 913; a state of infantine population which certainly does not justify the very high eulogiums which have been made on the fertility of the female sex in the climate of New Hol land.

The laborious acquisition of any good we have long enjoyed is apt to be forgotten. We walk and talk, and run and read, without remembering the long and severe labour dedicated to the cultivation of these powers, the formidable obstacles opposed to our progress, or the infinite satisfaction with which we over- The Governor, who appears on all occasiona came them. He who lives among a civilized to be an extremely well-disposed man, is not people, may estimate the labour by which so- quite so conversant in the best writings on ciety has been brought into such a state, by read-political economy as we could wish: and ining these annals of Botany Bay, the account of a whole nation exerting itself to new floor the government-house, repair the hospital, or build a wooden receptacle for stores. Yet the time may come, when some Botany Bay Tacitus shall record the crimes of an emperor

deed (though such knowledge would be extremely serviceable to the interests which this Romulus of the Southern Pole is superintending), it is rather unfair to exact from a superintendent of pick-pockets, that he should be a philosopher, In the 18th page we have the

following information respecting the price of labour:

"Some representations having been made to the Governor from the settlers in different parts of the colony, purporting that the wages demanded by the free labouring people, whom they had occasion to hire, were so exorbitant as to run away with the greatest part of the profit of their farms, it was recommended to them to appoint quarterly meetings among themselves, to be held in each district, for the purpose of settling the rate of wages to labourers in every different kind of work; that, to this end, a written agreement should be entered into, and subscribed by each settler, a breach of which should be punished by a penalty, to be fixed by the general opinion, and made recoverable in a court of civil judicature. It was recommended to them to apply this forfeiture to the common benefit; and they were to transmit to the head-quarters a copy of their agreement, with the rate of wages which they should from time to time establish, for the Governor's information, holding their first meeting as early as possible."

And again, at p. 24, the following arrangements on that head are enacted:

This is all very bad; and if the Governor had cherished the intention of destroying the colony, he could have done nothing more detrimental to its interests. The high price of labour is the very corner-stone on which the prosperity of a new colony depends. It enables the poor man to live with ease; and is the strongest incitement to population, by rendering children rather a source of riches than of poverty.

If the same difficulty of subsistence existed in new countries as in old, it is plain that the progress of population would be equally slow in each. The very circumstances which cause the difference are, that, in the latter, there is a competition among the labourers to be employed; and, in the former, a competition among the occupiers of land to obtain labourers. In the one, land is scarce and men plenty; in the other, men are scarce, and land is plenty. To disturb this natural order of things (a practice injurious at all times) must be particularly so where the predominant disposition of the colonist is an aversion to labour, produced by a long course of dissolute habits. In such cases the high prices of labour, which the Governor was so desirous of abating, bid fair not only to increase the agricultural prosperity, but to effect the moral reformation of the colony. We observe the same unfortunate ignorance of the elementary principles of commerce in the attempts of the Governor to reduce the prices of the European commodities, by bulletins and authoritative interference, as if there were any other mode of lowering the price of an article (while the demand continues the same) but by increasing its quantity. The avaricious love of gain, which is so feelingly deplored, appears to us a principle which, in able hands, might be guided to the most salutary purposes. The object is to encourage the love of labour, which is best encouraged by the love of money. 6 We have very great doubts on the policy of reserving the best timber on the estates as goovernment timber. Such a reservation would

"In pursuance of the order which was issued in January last recommending the settlers to appoint meetings, at which they should fix the rate of wages that it might be proper to pay for the different kinds of labour which their farms should require, the settlers had submitted to the Governor the several resolutions that they had entered into, by which he was enabled to fix a rate that he conceived to be fair and equitable between the farmer and the labourer.

"The following prices of labour were now established,

viz.

Felling forest timber, per acre,
Ditto in brushwood,

£

8.

0 9

d.

O

0

0

ditto

1

10

Burning off open ground, ditto

1 5

0

Ditto brush ground,

ditto

1

10

Breaking up new ground, ditto

4

Chipping fresh ground,

ditto

Chipping in wheat,

ditto

Breaking up stubble or corn ground, 14d. per rod,

0 16

0

0

0

0

0

Thrashing ditto, pr. bush., ditto

Pulling and husking Indian corn, per bushel

Splitting paling of seven feet long, per hundred 0
Ditto of five feet long, ditto

6770003170000

0

0

6

0

6

probably operate as a check upon the clearing of lands without attaining the object desired; 8 for the timber, instead of being immediately O cleared, would be slowly destroyed, by the neglect or malice of the settlers whose lands it en9 cumbered. Timber is such a drug in new countries, that it is at any time to be purchased for To selittle more than the labour of cutting. 0 cure a supply of it by vexatious and invidious laws, is surely a work of supererogation and 3 danger. The greatest evil which the govern0 ment has yet to contend with is, the inordinate use of spirituous liquors; a passion which 0 puts the interests of agriculture at variance O with those of morals: for a dram-drinker will consume as much corn, in the form of alcohol,

0

Sawing plank,

ditto

0

Ditching per rod, three feet wide, and 3 ft. deep 0
Carriage of wheat, per bushel, per mile

10

0

2

Ditto Indian corn, neat

0

Yearly wages for labour, with board

10

Wages per week, with provisions, consisting

of 4 lb. of salt pork, or 6 lb. of fresh, and 21

lb. of wheat with vegetables

A day's wages with board

Dnto without board

A government-man allowed to officers or set

tlers in their own time

Price of an axe

New steeling ditto

A new hoe

A sickle

Hire of a boat to carry grain, per day

"The settlers were reminded, that, in order to prevent any kind of dispute between the master and servant, when they should have occasion to hire a man for any length of time, they would find it most convenient to enzage him for a quarter, half-year, or year, and to make their agreement in writing; on which, should any dispate arise, an appeal to the magistrates would settle it."

To evince the increasing commerce of the

settlement, a list is subjoined of 140 ships, "This strait likewise presents another adwhich have arrived there since its first foun- vantage. From the prevalence of the N. E. dation, forty only of which were from Eng- and easterly winds of the South Cape, many land. The colony at Norfolk Island is repre- suppose that a passage may be made from sented to be in a very deplorable situation, and thence to the westward, either to the Cape of will most probably be abandoned for one about Good Hope, or to India; but the fear of the to be formed on Van Diemen's Land, though great unknown bight between the South Cape the capital defect of the former settlement has and the S. W. Cape of Lewen's Land, lying in heen partly obviated, by a discovery of the about 35° south and 113° east, has hitherto harbour for small craft. prevented the trial being made. Now, the strait removes a part of this danger, by presenting a certain place of retreat, should a gale oppose itself to the ship in the first part of the essay: and should the wind come at S. W. she need not fear making a good stretch to the W. N. W., which course, if made good, is within a few degrees of going clear of all. There is, besides, King George the Third's Sound, discovered by Captain Vancouver, situate in the latitude of 35° 30' south, and longitude 118° 12′ east; and it is to be hoped, that a few years will disclose many others upon the coast, as well as the confirmation or futility of the conjecture that a still larger than Bass Strait dismembers New Holland.”—(p. 192, 193.)

The most important and curious information contained in this volume, is the discovery of straits which separate Van Diemen's Land (hitherto considered as its southern extremity) from New Holland. For this discovery we are indebted to Mr. Bass, a surgeon, after whom the straits have been named, and who was led to a suspicion of their existence by a prodigious swell which he observed to set in from the westward, at the mouth of the opening which he had reached on a voyage of discovery, prosecuted in a common whale-boat. To verify this suspicion, he proceeded afterwards in a vessel of 25 tons, accompanied by Mr. Flanders, a naval gentleman; and, entering the straits between the latitudes of 39° and 40° south, actually circumnavigated Van Diemen's Land. Mr. Bass's ideas of the importance of this discovery, we shall give from his narrative, as reported by Mr. Collins.

We learn from a note subjoined to this passage, that, in order to verify or refute this conjecture, of the existence of other important inlets on the west coast of New Holland, Captain Flinders has sailed with two ships under his command, and is said to be accompanied by several professional men of considerable ability.

Such are the most important contents of Mr. Collins's book, the style of which we very much approve, because it appears to be written by himself; and we must repeat again, that nothing can be more injurious to the opinion the public will form of the authenticity of a book of this kind, than the suspicion that it has been tricked out and embellished by other hands. Such men, to be sure, have existed as Julius Cæsar; but, in general, a correct and elegant style is hardly attainable by those who have passed their lives in action: and no one has such a pedantic love of good writing, as to prefer mendacious finery to rough and ungrammatical truth. The events which Mr. Collins's book records, we have read with great interest. There is a charm in thus seeing villages, and churches, and farms,

"The most prominent advantage which seemed likely to accrue to the settlement from this discovery was, the expediting of the passage from the Cape of Good Hope to Port Jackson: for, although a line drawn from the Cape to 44° of south latitude, and to the longitude of the South Cape of Van Diemen's Land, would not sensibly differ from one drawn to the latitude of 40° to the same longitude; yet it must be allowed, that a ship will be four degrees nearer to Port Jackson in the latter situation than it would be in the former. But there is, perhaps, a greater advantage to be gained by making a passage through the strait, than the mere saving of four degrees of latitude along the coast. The major part of the ships that have arrived at Port Jackson have met with N. E. winds, on opening the sea round the South Cape and Cape Pillar; and have been so much retarded by them, that a fourteen days' passage to the port is reckoned to be a fair one, although the difference of latitude is but ten degrees, and the most prevail-rising from a wilderness, where civilized man ing winds at the latter place are from S. E. to S. in summer, and from W. S. W. to S. in winter. If, by going through Bass Strait, these N. E. winds can be avoided, which in many cases would probably be the case, there is no doubt but a week or more would be gained by it; and the expense, with the wear and tear of a ship for one week, are objects to most owners, more especially when freighted with convicts by the run.

It is singular that Governments are not more desir

ous of pushing their settlements rather to the north than the south of Port Jackson. The soil and climate would probably improve, in the latitude nearer the equator;

and settlements in that position would be more contiguous to our Indian colonies.

has never set his foot since the creation of the world. The contrast between fertility and barrenness, population and solitude, activity and indolence, fills the mind with the pleasing images of happiness and increase. Man seems to move in his proper sphere, while he is thus dedicating the powers of his mind and body to reap those rewards which the bounti ful Author of all things has assigned to his industry. Neither is it any common enjoyment, to turn for a while from the memory of those distractions which have so recently agitated the Old World, and to reflect that its very horrors and crimes may have thus prepared a long era of opulence and peace for a people yet involved in the womb of time.

C

J. FIEVEE.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1809.]

Or all the species of travels, that which has | tical, religious, and legal institutions, as if it moral observation for its object is the most were one and the same thing to speak of ahliable to error, and has the greatest difficulties stract effects of such institutions, and of their to overcome, before it can arrive at excellence. effects combined with all the peculiar circumStones, and roots, and leaves, are subjects stances in which any nation may be placed. which may exercise the understanding without 2dly, An affectation of quickness in obserrousing the passions. A mineralogical travel-vation, an intuitive glance that requires only ler will hardly fall fouler upon the granite and a moment, and a part, to judge of a perpetuity, the feldspar of other countries than his own; and a whole. The late Mr. Petion, who was a botanist will not conceal its non-descripts; sent over into this country to acquire a knowand an agricultural tourist will faithfully detail | ledge of our criminal law, is said to have dethe average crop per acre; but the traveller clared himself thoroughly informed upon the who observes on the manners, habits, and subject after remaining precisely two and institutions of other countries, must have thirty minutes in the Old Bailey. emancipated his mind from the extensive and powerful dominion of association, must have extinguished the agreeable and deceitful feelings of national vanity, and cultivated that patient humility which builds general inferences only upon the repetition of individual facts. Every thing he sees shocks some passion or flatters it; and he is perpetually seduced to distort facts, so as to render them agreeable to his system and his feelings! Books of travels are now published in such vast abundance, that it may not be useless, perhaps, to state a few of the reasons why their value so commonly happens to be in the inverse ratio of their number.

1st, Travels are bad, from a want of opportunity for observation in those who write them. If the sides of a building are to be measured, and the number of its windows to be counted, a very short space of time may suffice for these operations; but to gain such a knowledge of their prevalent opinions and propensities, as will enable a stranger to comprehend (what is commonly called) the genius of people, requires a long residence among them, a familiar acquaintance with their language, and an easy circulation among their various societies. The society into which a transient stranger gains the most easy access in any country, is not often that which ought to stamp the national character; and no criterion can be more fallible, in a people so reserved and inaccessible as the British, who (even when they open their doors to letters of introduction) cannot for years overcome the awkward timidity of their nature. The same expressions are of so different a value in different countries, the same actions proceed from such different causes, and produce such different effects, that a judgment of foreign nations, founded on rapid observation, is almost certainly a mere tissue of ludicrous and disgraceful mistakes; and yet a residence of a month or two seems to entitle a traveller to present the world with a picture of manners in London, Paris, or Vienna, and even to dogmatize upon the poli

Lettres sur l'Angleterre. Par J. FIEVEE. 1802.

3dly, The tendency to found observation on a system, rather than a system upon observation. The fact is, there are very few original eyes and ears. The great mass see and hear as they are directed by others, and bring back from a residence in foreign countries nothing but the vague and customary notions concerning it, which are carried and brought back for half a century, without verification or change. The most ordinary shape in which this tendency to prejudge makes its appearance among travellers, is by a disposition to exalt, or, a still more absurd disposition to depreciate their native country. They are incapable of considering a foreign people but under one single point of view-the relation in which they stand to their own; and the whole narrative is frequently nothing more than a mere triumph of national vanity, or the ostentation of superiority to so common a failing.

But we are wasting our time in giving a theory of the faults of travellers, when we have such ample means of exemplifying them all from the publication now before us, in which Mr. Jacob Fievée, with the most surprising talents for doing wrong, has contrived to condense and agglomerate every species of absurdity that has hitherto been made known, and even to launch out occasionally into new regions of nonsense, with a boldness which well entitles him to the merit of originality in folly, and discovery in impertinence. We consider Mr. Fievée's book as extremely valuable in one point of view. It affords a sort of limit or mind-mark, beyond which we conceive it to be impossible in future that pertness and petulance should pass. It is well to be acquainted with the boundaries of our nature on both sides; and to Mr. Fievée we are indebted for this valuable approach to pessimism. The height of knowledge no man has yet scanned; but we have now pretty well fathomed the gulf of ignorance.

We must, however, do justice to Mr. Fievée when he deserves it. He evinces, in his preface, a lurking uneasiness at the apprehension of exciting war between the two coun tries, from the anger to which his letters will