and the like.[1] He thought an emigrant should have at least £500, and so be able to take "six or eight male convicts off the store," and reduce the expenses of the Colony.
The stream of emigration, good and bad, was very slow. In the four or five years before 1818 Riley could not remember that more than twenty settlers had arrived. Many of these knew nothing of farming, and if they stayed on their land had a hard struggle to make a living after the six months for which they were "on the stores" had elapsed. If there was any delay in getting the land the six months' indulgence counted for nothing at all.[2] There was an effort made to prevent this from occurring in 1817, but it does not appear to have been enforced.[3]
In 1819, the Secretary of State began to advertise New South Wales as a good place for emigration.[4] A short note in the Gentleman's Magazine reported his intention to encourage free settlement there, and stated that emigrants should be persons "possessing considerable science, activity, integrity and property". Such "alone could redeem the character of the Colony and make it a fit residence for civilised man," and "enable it to become an assistance instead of a burden to the mother country".[5]
The way in which emigration was encouraged was simply by making it easier to obtain grants. But the increase in the number of settlers in 1819 and 1820 was remarkable. A merchant ship from Leith took out seventy passengers early in 1820, and as many more were expected to leave the same port in June. This sudden influx piled up great arrears of work in the Surveyor's office, and Macquarie had much difficulty in finding
- ↑ D. 8, 16th May, 1818. R.O., MS.
- ↑ Riley and Jones, Evidence to C. on G., 1819. Riley probably refers only to emigrants who had some property or standing, not to the many labourers and artisans who were for the most part the husbands of convicts.
- ↑ Riley makes no mention of it. It was an Order of the 24th May, 1817. "The public will take notice that persons seeking to be put on the stores and to obtain other indulgences by virtue of their having obtained locations or promises of grants of land will not be considered as having any claim thereto until they shall have taken out their grant, cleared a portion of the lands assigned to them, and built a dwelling-house thereon; and none of the accustomed indulgences will be extended in future unless where a full and complete compliance has been rendered to the present rule on that head." See later in this chapter.
- ↑ It became a more frequent subject of reference in the English newspapers generally at about this time.
- ↑ Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1819, p. 175.
