SECTION X.

The spirit of the Commissioner's propositions was embodied by the home government, and its offers were published in various forms; chiefly, indeed, by the diligence of adventurers who, to freight their ships, filled volumes, and depicted in lively colors the beauty of the colonies. The intending settler was told, that not only would he find cheap land and cheap labor, but a large return for his produce.

By the grants of Sir Thomas Brisbane, bonds were required to be given for the support and employment of prisoners, until their detention expired--calculated at the average term of ten years. For every hundred acres, the settler engaged to provide one convict with food and clothing, in return for his labor; and to contribute 18s. per annum towards the expense of medicine, police, and religious instruction (1822). Still further to encourage such contracts, the settlers were furnished with a cow, for every convict attached to their grants, to continue in their possession during the term of his servitude!

The regulation issued at Downing-street in 1824, engaged that the purchaser of land--who within ten years might save ten times the amount of his payment, by the employment of convicts, reckoning each at L16 per annum--should receive back his money, though without interest; but when the land was conditionally given, one-fifth part of that saving would pass to account of quit-rent, and thus probably entitle the employer to entire relief.

The Van Diemen's Land Company, by agreement with Earl Bathurst, entered into similar covenants, and received their land subject to a quit-rent, redeemable by the sustentation and employment of prisoners--to them a fortunate stipulation, and which has relieved their vast territory from a heavy pressure. These various plans indicate the difficulties of finding masters, which once prevailed.

The government having roused the spirit of emigration, were soon enabled to grant a favor when they assigned a workman, and rapidly withdrew from engagements no longer necessary. Hundreds of families arrived in a succession of vessels, and speedily fixed themselves in the interior: flocks were contracted, herds were slaughtered; fences, homesteads, and fields of corn divided and dotted the land. The least capital admitted was L500; and though several evaded the condition, many of the settlers brought much larger sums. They pursued their improvements, with all the vigour awakened by novelty, and stimulated by the prospect of considerable gains. The competition for labor increased, until it created in the minds of the settlers a feeling of dependance and obligation--to refuse a supply, had been ruin. It placed before the prisoners, once again, the examples of emancipist opulence: mechanics earned more wages than officers of the army; again transportation was represented as a boon; and then came other changes.

In the official newspaper of 1827, it is stated that 1,000 applications were registered at Hobart Town. To an English reader, and to a modern colonist, the notices of this period seem like satire. "Better," remarks this organ of the higher classes, "better send petitions for more prisoners--now that applications have lain dormant for twelve months: some for four, eight, and ten men--than trouble about trial by jury and representative government. The disappointment, we trust, will be temporary: when the last vessel sailed, the York was freighting. We trust the home secretary will consider the deficiency"! The extremely earnest manner in which these felonious additions were implored, is a curious relic of a bygone era.

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