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can return to their mother country and to society with the certainty of possessing purity of character, and without risk of rejection, into every situation to which fortune, talent and character may justify their aspiring.
Without any illiberal sentiment, this is a disadvantage under which Port Jackson and Van Diemen's Land certainly suffer. Nevertheless these thriving Colonies, in the course of 30 or 40 years, have made surprising progress in agriculture, popuation, commerce and wealth. The situation of Port Jackson was the most distant from the Mother Country; its position was not peculiarly adapted to production or traffic with any part of the Globe; therefore, the improvement can only be attributed to a favorable soil, free from the taxations of old European Governments, a low fee cost, or a nominal pepper corn rent, which circumstances have not only been capable of maintaining those who adventured, but of yielding a profit for capital sufficient to induce others to pursue the same course?[1]
- ↑ It may likewise be remarked, the progress of Botany Bay and Van Diemen's Land was during a war; while every individual and the capital of the country found ample employment. How much greater will be encouragement at this moment, with a superabundant population and an unemployed capital! There is much also to be said on the want of direction to the Settlers in Van Diemen's Land and Port Jackson. They never had pointed out to them those articles of utility and necessity of the mother country's consumption, which, by cultivation, would have enriched both, had they been attended to;—but every thing has been left to nature and to chance—wool, wood, and lately oil and whalebone, have been the only exports from thence for Europe, and coals for India.
