colony as was calculated to deter them from coming here. An intending Swan River settler put into the Cape about this time in a ship chartered by himself, by which he was conveying about seventy persons, stores of all kinds, and choice breeds of live stock to Western Australia. He there heard such damaging reports of the colony, that he sold his goods and most of his stock, discharged his ship and numbers of his people, and took passage on another vessel bound for Van Diemen's Land. This vessel touched at the Swan on her way, and the emigrant examined the country. So pleased was he with its prospects that he resumed his purpose of settling here, and at once landed, although his sale at the Cape had lost him several thousand pounds. The persistent misstatements made in other Australian colonies, India, at the Cape, and in Great Britain, were a very pregnant cause of stagnation.
The local authorities and the English Government decided that the system of land alienation demanded radical alterations. The Colonial Circular issued in July, 1830, circumscribed the size of grants by one-half, giving instead of forty acres for every £3 invested, only twenty. This did not come into force until 1831, and meanwhile the Imperial Government considered the advisability of substituting quite new land regulations for the old, hoping, apparently, to secure more practical results in the colony. On the 1st March, 1831, the doom of the munificent land grant system was knelled in another Colonial Circular, but it was many months later, in 1832, before the new system came into effect in Western Australia. The crucial clause of this Circular was the second, which set out that "All the lands in the colony not hitherto granted, and not appropriated for public purposes,will be put up for sale. The price will of course depend upon the quality of the land and its local situation, but no land will be sold below the value of 5s. per acre." The system of alienating land by public auction, which became so general throughout Australasia, was thus inaugurated. Other clauses of this Circular provided that those persons wishing to purchase land not advertised for sale must transmit a written application to the Governor, on a prescribed form obtainable at the Surveyor-General's office for 2s. 6d. An intending purchaser was allowed to select within certain defined limits any land he wished to acquire. This area was to be advertised for sale for three calendar months, whereupon it was sold to the highest bidder above the minimum 5s. A deposit of 10 per cent. upon the whole value of the purchase was required at the time of sale, the remainder to be paid one calendar month later, failing which the sale was void, and the deposit confiscated. On the payment of the money, a grant was made in fee-simple. Fees of 40s. for preparing the grant, and 5s. for enrolling it, were payable to the Colonial Secretary. Land, it was stated, was to be put up in blocks of one square mile, or 610 acres, but upon a written application to the Governor, with explanations, for a smaller area, the circumstances were considered, and, according to merit, decided on. The Grown still reserved to itself the right of making and constructing such roads and bridges, and to the possession of such indigenous timber, stone, and other materials, as they might think proper on these lands, and also reserved to itself all mines of precious metals.
So as to encourage the introduction of labour, the ninth clause provided that "those settlers who may incur the expense of taking out labouring persons to the settlement will be entitled to an abatement of the price at which the land may have been purchased, at the rate of £20 for the passage of every married labourer and his family." But "persons claiming such an abatement from the price paid for land will be held responsible for any expense the colonial authorities may be compelled to incur for the maintenance during the first year after the arrival of the labourer in respect to whom it has been allowed."
Voluminous instructions were issued by His Majesty on 5th March, 1831, to Captain Stirling concerning these land regulations, and also requiring still more detailed divisions of Western Australia into "counties, hundreds, towns, townships, and parishes," which cast a tremendous undertaking on the Surveyor-General and his department. Special terms were offered to officers of the Army, which were warranted to encourage them to settle in the colony. This order was issued on 24th February, 1831, when it was determined to alter the Australian land system. Only the colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land are mentioned in these terms, but Western Australia, as one of the "Australian Colonies," was included in the privileges offered. Officers were to obtain land only by purchase at public sales, but remissions were granted to those who had served 20 years and upwards, of £300; from 15 years, £250; from 10 years, £200; and from 7 years and less than 10 years, £150, on the total purchase money. There was a proviso, however, that officers who obtained this remission would be required to reside at least seven years in the settlement, and provide for their own passages to the colony, and also for those of their families.
CHAPTER IX.
FAMINE PRICES AND PROGRESSIVE INCIDENTS.
1832.
IRREGULAR FOOD SUPPLY AND DANGERS OF FAMINE—PRICES—H.M.S. SULPHUR AND A COLONIAL VESSEL SENT TO HOBART TOWN—AN INJURIOUS RUMOUR—THE MARKET RELIEVED—HOPES OF SETTLERS—HARVEST 0F 1832—EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYED—WANT OF STOCK AND LACK OF CAPITAL—PETITION TO CAPTAIN STIRLING—MEETING OF SETTLERS ON 2ND JULY—THE LIEUT.—GOVERNOR ACCEDES TO REQUEST OF SETTLERS TO PROCEED TO ENGLAND TO REPRESENT AND ADV0CATE THEIR REQUIREMENTS; HE LEAVES FOR ENGLAND PER THE SULPHUR—PRICES OF STOCK—NEW SYSTEM 0F LAND ALIENATION INAUGURATED IN JULY—FALLING-OFF IN NUMBER OF IMMIGRANTS—CIVIL COURT ESTABLISHED; MR. G. F. MOORE FIRST C0MMISSIONER—FIRST CASE TRIED BEFORE A JURY—BUILDINGS IN PERTH AND FREMANTLE—CHANNELS IN THE SWAN RIVER—A WATER—MILL—AGITATION TO ESTABLISH A BANK—THE SETTLEMENTS—THE NATIVE TROUBLES: POLICE CORPS FORMED: MURDERS, ROBBERIES, IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES—DALE'S EXPEDITION FROM KING GEORGES SOUND—COLLIER'S EXPEDITIONS—MR. J. C. BUSSELL'S EXPEDITIONS.
THE supply of food, so precarious during the whole history the colony, culminated in a serious and even dangerous situation in 1832. Vessels laden with provisions had been daily expected for more than three months before January, but vainly were the eyes of anxious settlers strained over the ocean. The crop of the 1831 harvest served to sustain them for a short period, but soon it, too, nearly disappeared. It was sweet to some settlers to eat the produce of their own fields. The richer people
