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SECTION IX

Table of Contents

The dignity and independence based on landed wealth, is ever the chief allurement of the emigrant. Whatever his rank, he dreams of the day when he shall dwell in a mansion planned by himself; survey a wide and verdant landscape called after his name; and sit beneath the vineyard his own hands planted. To this common ambition the crown directed its appeals: acres, by hundreds and thousands, were offered for acceptance. The imagination of English readers overleaped a tedious interval of labor and disappointment. The generous impulse silenced the voice of fear and distrust: they took a last look at the sepulchres of their fathers, and came forth to establish their children among the founders of nations.

The distribution of waste lands, a most important function of colonial governors, has been a source of incessant perplexity and discontent. Sometimes they have been granted with ridiculous parsimony, and at others with scandalous profusion. Every minister has proposed some novelty: the regulations of one year have been abandoned the next, and the emigrant who loitered on his way found the system changed, which had induced him to set forth.

The stewardship of the royal domain has been liable to difficulties peculiar to itself, beside the full average of official injustice and corruption.

The endowment of emancipists with land, an American practice,[161] was unsuccessfully revived in New Holland, and continued until the close of Macquarie's administration, when Commissioner Bigge recommended that no grant should be less than 320 acres.

Instructions under the sign manual, given to the Governor of New South Wales, dated April, 1787, were amplified by others in 1789. To detain the convict population, and to provide them a future home, were the chief ends proposed. The governor was empowered to shorten their sentences, and convey to each man, if single, 30 acres; if married, 50; and 10 for every child. The marines who accompanied the first expedition were encouraged to settle. The non-commissioned officers received 130; if married, 150; and 10 acres for each child. Private soldiers 100, or 130 acres. These grants were subject to quit-rent of 2s. per 100 acres, deferred for five years. The minister, anxious to raise the value of crown land, directed reserves to be made between the allotments, of equal extent; but the settlers persuaded the governor, or the secretary of state, that the intervals favored the assaults of the natives, and the scheme was defeated.

The king's instructions made no reference to the superior officers; but it was deemed absurd to grant the "greatest gifts of the crown to persons who had forfeited their lives," and deny them to gentlemen bearing commissions in the army.[162] Ensign Cummings accordingly received 25 acres! The subsequent donations of governors compensated for this modest beginning, and the officers obtained large and valuable portions. One governor conferred a considerable grant on his expected successor, and was rewarded, when he surrendered the government, with a similar boon.[163] Macquarie gave Lieutenant-colonel O'Connel and his lady 4,555 acres; to John Blaxland, 6,700 acres.[164] Sir Thomas Brisbane obtained 20,000 acres: 15,000 were given to Mr. Hart Davis. These were exceptions to the general rule. Official holders of land were interested in preventing extravagant grants, which lessened the marketable value of their own.

The survey department, always in arrear, neglected to measure off the land, and an order, verbal or written, was deemed a sufficient title. Not unfrequently, the applicant changed his choice, and migrated from one spot to another. The governor often permitted the issue of rations and implements a second time, to enable indolent or insolvent settlers to till a second heritage.[165] Trade was, however, more agreeable to many emancipists than agriculture. The officers located near them were willing to purchase their petty farms: thus the small holdings were bought up,[166] and the estates of the greater landholders were cleared of "lurchers," who preyed on their flocks.[167]

The small grants of land were productive of much real mischief and little benefit. They fell chiefly into the hands of spirit dealers, and the government permitted the purchasers to consolidate all such acquisitions into one large grant.[168]

In 1814, Macquarie issued an order threatening the resumption of grants for non-residence or alienation. These notices were rather a protest than an interdict, and were so understood.

FOOTNOTES:

[161] Eden's Discourse on Banishment.

[162] Collins, vol. i. p. 257.

[163] Commons Report, 1812.

[164] Bigge's Report.

[165] Ibid.

[166] "A small farm of 30 acres was now offered to me by Bryan: I recommended Mr. Cox (of New South Wales) to buy it, which he did for £40; half money and half property. I also purchased for him two others; one of 25 acres, and another of 50 acres, from Mr. Hume, for £45; another of 30 acres from Thomas Higgins, for £35; and another farm, of 100 acres, I also purchased for Mr. Cox for £50 and ten gallons of rum. I likewise bought another farm of 100 acres from Captain Campbell for £100; and of Dr. Thompson, a farm of 100 acres, with twenty-five sheep, an old mare, two fillies and a colt, a cow, and a young ox, for £500: the stock, when valued, was worth more than the purchase money. Next year (1801) I bought John Ramsay's farm of 75 acres, for £40; and then Michael Fitzgerald's, with eight large pigs and eighty bushels of maize, for £100. I let this farm, ten days after, for £40 per year. I then purchased Barrington's (the celebrated pickpocket), 25 acres, an old brood mare with a colt at her foot, for £100, and sold the mare a few days after for £85. I then bought 50 acres from Edward Elliot, for £100, and by these means squared the estate."—Holt's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 137.

[167] "A lurcher is the lowest order of thieves."—Holt.

[168] Bigge's Report.