Little more than forty years ago this country was an absolute waste.
By way of contrast, behold, in the parts first settled, the following
proofs of wealth: a thriving capital, and several interior towns, the
latter being larger and better constructed than the capitals of some
English settlements in America, a hundred years after their foundation;
excellent roads; productive turnpikes; crowded market-places; public
hotels, superior to the best in North America, even at this late hour;
warehouses, through which there is a constant flow of luxuries from all
parts of the world; public carriages, almost as well managed as those of
England; an astonishing number of private carriages, built in Long Acre;
several newspapers, and other periodical works; booksellers' shops, well
supplied from Europe; two banks of deposit and discount; many churches
and chapels; very good schools for rich and poor; scientific, literary,
and philanthropic societies; a botanical garden; a turf club; packs of
hounds; dinner parties, concerts and balls; fine furniture, plate, and
jewels; and though last, not least, many gradations in society, being
so many gradations in wealth.

Whence have come all those things, over and above mere subsistence,
which astonish the beholder, when he reflects that this colony has
been planted little more than forty years?

An example has just passed my window, in the shape of a dashing English
landau. It contains a "lady," who married a poor half-pay lieutenant,
and who now drinks tea that would cost in England twenty shillings
the pound. They emigrated to New South Wales in 1815. But how did she
get that carriage, and how does she manage to send to China for the
gunpowder? Thus:--Her husband is both landowner and merchant. Being
constantly supplied with a number of convict labourers, he breeds cattle