knowledge I have of the country, having taken every settler's and
other muster there for a number of years, and from the concurrent
opinions of several of the first and most independent farmers
throughout the settlement; nor can any man who is acquainted with
the exorbitant wages demanded by every class of labourers, who
are not prisoners assigned by the crown to their employers, in
that part of the world, and the great difficulties attending the
various occupations he has to encounter before his grain can be
brought to the market, judge otherwise. The government stores
should also be open at all times to receive the grain, which
would not only enable the commissary to send the requisite
supplies to the dependent settlements, but would also afford a
powerful security against the fatal and frequent losses which are
occasioned by the floods, so destructive to property of every
description, but more particularly to the grain; and it would
also set aside the necessity of issuing short allowance to those
prisoners who are necessarily supported by the crown, by which
means government labour is sometimes retarded, in consequence of
the reduction of the hours of work in proportion to the
diminution in the weekly ration.

If government were also to decline farming, it would excite a
greater degree of perseverance in the settlers, and would, in my
opinion, eventually disburden the crown of a very considerable
expense, as those employed in agriculture, on the government
account, are generally that description of persons who only care
how little they work, and are equally as indifferent as to the
manner in which their labour is performed; besides which, very
few of these individuals are at all acquainted with the art of
husbandry, particularly that system which ought to be adopted in