accounts for groceries and drink, and by and by seizing all the land. But no more emancipists were made magistrates after 1824.

Then, in many instances, members of the convict class were by far the shrewdest and best educated in the whole community. Settlers of the better class were few in number, so the sharp rogues had it all their own way. They had capital moreover. Several brought money with them to the colony, the fruit of their villainies, or their wives followed them with considerable sums acquired in similar fashion. For these men, especially if they had held fairly good positions at home, transportation was almost a farce. It merely meant removal at the public expense to a land, remote certainly, but in which they were little less comfortable than at home, and where they moreover had exceptional facilities for making money fast; and they had it all to themselves. Governor Macquarie discouraged free emigration. He did not want to see settlers. He looked upon them as out of place, nay more, as a positive encumbrance to the colony. New South Wales was a settlement, he said, made by convicts for convicts—"meant for their reformation; and free people had no right to come to it." So he continued to pat his favourites on the back: gave them land, and more land, as many assigned servants—their former partners possibly in many a guilty scheme—as they wished; and last but not least, provided a market for the very crops he had assisted them (by convict labour) to raise. It was not strange, then, that with a yearly influx of thousands of new hands, and the rapid upward advance of all who were ordinarily steady and industrious, the emancipists should come as a class to gain strength far in excess of their deserts, and sufficient from their numbers to swamp all other classes in the community.

There were frequent heartburnings in New South Wales during the reign of Governor Macquarie on account of his overstrained partiality. The discontent was heightened by his plainly spoken desire to force his own views down the throats of those nearest him in the social scale: not satisfied with openly countenancing them himself, he insisted that the officers of regiments receive emancipists as guests at mess. Bigge says on this point: "The influence of the governor's example should be limited to those occasions alone when his notice of the emancipated convicts cannot give offence to the feelings of others, or to persons whose objections to associate with them are known. The introduction of them on public occasions should, in my opinion, be discontinued. And when it is known that they have been so far noticed by the governor of New South Wales as to be admitted to his private table and society, the benefit of the governor's example may be expected to operate; and it will also be exempt from the fatal suspicion of any exercise of his authority." Again, when Mr. Bent, judge of the Supreme Court, refused to allow certain attorneys, ex-convicts but now free, to practise as solicitors, the governor complained to the home government that this judge was "interfering unwarrantably with a salutary principle which he (the governor) had been endeavouring to establish for the reformation of the convicts." Now at this very time an act was in force which deprived all persons convicted of perjury or forgery from ever again practising in the courts at home, and Judge Bent in refusing to administer the oaths to these emancipist attorneys was but carrying out the law; yet on the governor's representation he was removed from the bench.

There were other cases not less plainly marked. As a natural consequence, the antagonism was deepened between the two classes which were so widely distinct—the virtuous Pharisees, that is to say, and the thriving publicans. The former despised all who had come out "at their country's expense;" and the latter hated the settlers, as people of a lower class not seldom hate social superiors to whose "platform" they are forbidden to hope to rise. Eventually, as we shall see, after a long protracted warfare and varying successes, the free population gained the day; but not till the lapse of years had strengthened their numbers out of all proportion to their antagonists, and given them the preponderance they at first lacked.

The struggles between these two classes fill up the whole of the annals of the next years of the colony. All said, however, it cannot be denied that under the administration of General Macquarie the colony prospered. The population was nearly trebled between 1809 and 1821, and there was a corresponding increase in trade and in the public revenue. Just before this governor left the colony it contained 38,788 souls; there were 102,929 horned cattle, 290,158 sheep, 33,000 hogs, and 4,500 horses; and 32,267 acres had been brought under cultivation. The moral tone of the community, too, was slightly raised; marriage had been encouraged in place of an indifferent and disreputable mode of life which till then had been largely prevalent. "In externals, at least," says Laing, "the colony itself assumed quite a different aspect under his energetic and vigorous management from what it had previously worn."

Speaking of his own administration and his efforts to elevate the convict population in the scale of society, Governor Macquarie said for himself, as against his detractors, "Even my work of charity, as it appeared to me sound policy, in endeavouring to restore emancipated and reformed convicts to a level with their fellow-subjects—a work which, considered in a religious or a political point of view, I shall ever value as the most meritorious part of my administration—has not escaped their animadversions."

And yet, however praiseworthy his efforts, they were misdirected; and beyond doubt, in his desire to discourage the influx of free people, he committed a fatal error. It was his wish, of course, to further the development of the colony; but he could not do this half so satisfactorily by the establishment of penal agricultural settlements, as could substantial emigrants working with capital behind them for their own profit. Moreover, these agricultural settlements started by Governor Macquarie cost a great deal of money. Again, the free classes of the community would not have found themselves for a long time outnumbered had not immigration been systematically discouraged. The formation of an independent respectable society, armed with weight and influence, was, as I have said, much needed in the colony. In this respect General Macquarie had departed from the policy of his predecessors. Captain Philip was eager enough, as we have seen, to attract settlers, and had his recommendations been persistently followed the colony would have found itself the sooner able to raise grain enough for its own consumption.

Sir Thomas Brisbane, on the other hand, who came after Governor Macquarie, recognised the full importance of the principle, and his reign is memorable as marking the period when settlers in any considerable numbers first flocked to the colony. But it was no longer the humbler classes who came. None of these did the governor want, but persons who were well-to-do, who could take up larger grants and find plenty of employment for the rapidly increasing convict population. Sir Thomas Brisbane held out every inducement to attract such persons. At this period, thanks to the unceasing arrival of new drafts, the number of felon exiles on charge continued to form a serious item in the colonial expenditure. To get quit of all or any the governor was only too glad to offer almost any terms. The grants of land were raised from 500 to 2,000 acres, which any one of moderate respectability might secure, provided only he would promise to employ twenty convicts; rations also were to be