The Sun.
London, England, 1829-08-24 00:00:00

than sixpence per acre ; and when I have talked
of my " improvements," they have answered that
they preferred improving themselves to buying
my improvements. In short, my domain has
no market value. It is a noble property to look
at; and 14,000 acres in a snug fence sound very
well in England, but here they possess no ex-
changeable value. The reason is plain : there
are millions upon millions of equally fertile land
to be had for nothing !
I did not, you know, intend to become a far-
' mer. Having fortune enough for all my wants,
I proposed to get a large domain, to build a
good house, to keep enough land in my own
hands for pleasure grounds, park, and game pre-
serves ; and to let the rest, after erecting farm-
houses in the most suitable spots.. My mansion,
park, preserves, and tenants, were all a mere
dream. I have not one of them. When, upon
my first arrival, I talked of these things to some
sensible men, to whom I was recommended, they
laughed in my face. I soon found that a house
would, though the stone and timber were to be
had for nothing, cost three times as much as in
England. This was on account of the very high
wages required by mechanics ; but this was noi
all. None of the materials of a house, except
stone and timber, are produced in the Colony:
Every pane of glass, every nail, every grain).!
paint, and every piece of furniture, from i =-
kitchen-copper to the drawing-room curtain,
must have come from England. My propert-
is at a distance of nearly seventy miles frotle fk
sea, and there is -no road, but a track throut -
the forest, for two-thirds of that distance.
Every thing, even the food of the labourers,
must have been transported from a great distance.
Log-houses must have been built for the
labourers, and the cheapest way of providing for
them would have been by the establishment of a
farm in the first instance to produce enough for
their subsistence. Lastly, though none of these
obstacles had existed, the whole Colony did not
contain as many masons, carpenters, glaziers,
painters, black and whitesmiths, &c. as I should
have required. You may believe most statements
of facts respecting the Colony ; but beware how
you draw conclusions !
Of course, I soon abandoned all thought of
building a mansion. As for a park, my whole
property was a park, and a preserve for Lae,
garoos and emus. The grand object was to dise
park it as soon as possible. I clung for some
time to the hope of having tenants ; but you
will readily see that what deterred me from build-
ing a mansion presented countless obstacles to
the erection of farm-houses. Besides, even
though I had fbrced circumstances, and had, at
an enormous cost, placed a dozen good home-
steads on my land, where was I to find tenants ?
There is no such class as a tenantry in this coun-
try, where every man, who has a capital to cula
tivate a farm, can obtain one of his own for no'
thing. I soon found that what little my 14,000
acres had cost me would be entirely lost, unless
I turned farmer myself, and endeavoured by my
own exertions, with the assistance of convict
servants, to extract something from the soil.
Believe statements of facts—but beware how you
draw conclusions.
I bore my disappointment as well as could be
expected ; and to use a Colonial phrase, " Took
boldly to the bush." I dare say you fancy that
it was very agreeable, but I assure you that it
was not. '1 he novelty of the thing pleased me
at first. But I soon tired of the clear Italian
sky, the noble forests, and the sublime solitude
of the untrodden wilderness. People, in iS
highly-civilized country like England, are not
aware of their own wants. The wants exist, but
most of them are supplied as soon as they are
formed. In England, when you want to eat,
you eat, and there is an end of the want ; when
you are sleepy, you go to bed ; when your clothee
are wet, you change them ; when you are tired of
talking, you take a book ; and when you are
tired of reading, you begin to talk. But, in the
desert, almost every want is severely felt before it
is supplied. Every thing, from the very be,
ginning, has either to be created, or brought from
a great distance. Try to reckon the number of
your physical wants which are every day supplied
without any effort on your part, and you may
form some idea of the physical deprivations of a
settler. As for mental wants, talking and reading
are out of the question, except it be to scold your
servants, and to con over a Sydney Newspaper,
which contains little else but the miserable party
politics of this speck upon the globe, and low-
lived slang and flash, such as fills the pot-house
Sunday Papers of London.
However, the settler's attention is pretty well
diverted from his wants, physical and mental, by
the necessity of watching over his property. I
bought herds and flocks, horses, ploughs, carts,
and all sorts of implements_ of husbandry, and
carpenter's tools. My only servants were con-
victs. -My own man who had served me for
eight years in England, and had often sworn that
he would go the wide world over with me, seeing
that 1 was the best of masters, never reached my
new abode. He had saved about 1501. in my
service ; I had advised him to take the money
out of a London Savings Bank, under an idea
that he might obtain ten per cent. for it at
Sydney. He followed my advice, and about a
month after our arrival I missed him one morn-
ing ; before night I received a letter, by which he
iaormed me that he had taken a grant of land
near Hunter's River, and that he " hoped we
parted friends." But to return to my convicts.
One of them was a London pickpocket, and a
more mischievous animal I never had to contend.
with. The. others were country bumpkins,
transported for poaching, whom I had obtained
with much trouble, supposing that they
would serve my turn much better than Lon-
doners. But if they were better able to
work than the Cockney, they were not a bit
more willing ; perhaps he corrupted them. Be
tins as it may, they altogether led me the life of
a dog. My sheep and cows were continually
lost, and it was nobody's fault. My effects were.
often stolen, though most of them could be of
no use to the thieves. I grumbled and threa-
tened ; but these men, all round, declared their
innocence, and called heaven to witness that
they had not wronged me of a " dump: I
stopped some of their extra allowance, until the
goods should be produced. No more work was
done, one was ill, another had hurt his hand, a
third first"—and there
I
and sent the whole gang to
seemed necessary, however, to quell this rebel-
ionplanted, saedlas me
itleny sortFrenc or assistance. French saya-,atamlce. i
distancet
loft:vesivlpla'eNomle; from a
rode twelve miles to the Magistrates,
prison.gconstable,
t t
next day I was but too glad to
get them back ; forthe harvest had just begun,
and my maize would have rotted on the ground
had I been long deprived of their labour, such
0t a
But
as it was. Can you imagine a more hateful ex-
istence ? Meanwhile, • I had built a house —so
called here, but, properly speaking, a shed. It
is well I have abstained from marriage. What.
I have done for a delicate woman (mum]