Having fortune enough for all my wants, I proposed to get a large
domain, to build a good house, to keep enough land in my own hands for
pleasure-grounds, park, and game preserves; and to let the rest, after
erecting farm-houses in the most suitable spots. My mansion, park,
preserves, and tenants, were all a mere dream. I have not one of them.
When, upon my first arrival, I talked of these things to some sensible
men, to whom I was recommended, they laughed in my face. I soon found
that a house would, though the stone and timber were to be had for
nothing, cost three times as much as in England. This was on account
of the very high wages required by mechanics; but this was not all.
None of the materials of a house, except stone and timber, are
produced in the colony. Every pane of glass, every nail, every grain
of paint, and every piece of furniture, from the kitchen copper to the
drawing-room curtains, must have come from England. My property is at
a distance of nearly seventy miles from the sea, and there is no road,
but a track through the forest, for two-thirds of that distance. The
whole colony did not contain as many masons, carpenters, glaziers,
painters, black and whitesmiths, and other mechanics, as I should have
required. Of course, I soon abandoned all thought of building a
mansion. As for a park, my whole property was a park, and a preserve
for kangaroos and emus.

* * * * *


A friend of ours, a free emigrant, has more than once facetiously
wished for our company in the colony; but judging from the following,
we had rather "let well alone," and stay at home, than play the
schoolmaster or march-of-intellect-man at Sydney:--