the payments for licences. There is no need to include quit-rents, as none were collected before 1822. In 1811 the Police Fund reached £10,000, and by 1820 it had risen to £25,884.[1]
The objects for which the Fund was established were specified as "gaol and police expenses of every description … together with such other expenses as might necessarily be incurred in ornamenting and improving the town of Sydney and in constructing and repairing the quays, wharfs and bridges, streets and roads within the limits thereof".[2] But there was in fact no charge which could be incurred which was not from time to time defrayed out of the Police Fund.[3] It went, however, but a little way in meeting the needs of the Colony. The burden on the Imperial Treasury before 1817 was nearly £240,000 per annum, and after that year it increased in consequence of the increase in the number of convicts transported. In 1814, a fair average year, the expenditure in round numbers was as follows[4]:—
| 1. | Transportation of convicts |
£55,000 |
| 2. | Food sent from England for the convicts (salt pork, etc.) |
23,000 |
| 3. | Clothing, tools, stationery and other manufactured goods sent from England for the use of Government |
31,000 |
| 4. | Expense of Marine Establishment (vessels which went to and fro from Van Diemen's Land to Newcastle) |
1,700[5] |
| 5. | Expense of Military Establishment |
20,000 |
| 6. | Expense of Civil Establishment |
13,000 |
| 7. | Bills drawn by the Governor, Commissioner, etc., for the purchase of provisions, etc., for the use of the Colony, and paid by the Treasury. |
83,900 |
Total, £227,600.
