nature and fertility of the soil; and it must, consequently, form
an evident conclusion, that some unnatural check must have sprung
up to impede the ordinary course of proceedings. My object,
however, is not to deprecate the opinions of others, but to give
to the public those ideas of improvement which have arisen in my
own mind, and which have been confirmed by the approbation of
others, who are equally as well or better qualified to decide
upon this important subject.

Complaints having been made by the government of the expenses
of the colony, which have accumulated, rather than diminished,
with the increasing growth of the settlement, I shall first enter
into a statement of the causes of this augmented expense, part of
which, as I shall hope to demonstrate with clearness, has arisen
out of the nature of things, and the other part may be attributed
to various causes.

1st, As to the retarded progress of public buildings, and the
diminution in the labour of the convicts.--This decrease in the
quantity of labour performed, is to be attributed to the natural
falling-off in the strength of the convicts employed in
government labour, from deaths, desertions, and their becoming
free. Those who were first sent to the colony, and had been
originally transported for seven and fourteen years had served
their times, the former in 1793, and the latter in 1800; numbers
had been released from their servitude on account of their
exemplary behaviour, or of services done to the colony; and all
who became settlers being allowed one, two, or more convicts to
assist in the cultivation of the tracts assigned to them, the
reduction in those who laboured for the crown must necessarily