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 The returns of population have, accordingly, for some time, shewn a considerable excess of free persons; and the formation of settlements in the North, for the removal of the convicts not necessary for the service of these, and of the government, with other arrangements, shew, that the interests of the former have become a subject of consideration, independently of the latter; and that the time has arrived, when New South Wales ought to be, and is, considered in a different light from what it was when it consisted only of convicts and their rulers

Agriculture has been said to be the natural and proper business of all new colonies. But this must have been said with reference to that agriculture, which has for its object the raising of some article of produce, over and above the consumption of the colonists, for exportation to the mother country, or to some other market where the price would afford a profit to the cultivators. Without such exportation, how were the colonists to obtain the numerous articles of manufacture indispensable in civilized life, and the not less numerous articles of luxury, which previous habit had made necessary to their comfort, much less to advance with those rapid strides to wealth and importance, which have, in all ages of the world, been the characteristics of new, colonies, planted in favourable situations?