Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/57

] " occupied the place on which this great metropolis of a future empire now stands. Its magnificent harbour, or rather series of harbours, so beautiful to the eye of the painter, so perfect to that of a sailor,—so easy of access and egress, and so perfectly capable of containing and protecting, by the erection of judiciously placed fortifications, any number of shipping, are advantages that more than compensate the natural defects of a barrenness of soil, and proportional deficiency of luxuriance in the vegetation of its immediate vicinity; whilst the princely mansions of the country gentlemen, which have been built on each side of the harbour, give evidence of the wealth and industry of the colonists. Just at the period of our visit, the colony was suffering under a severe commercial pressure, brought on by overtrading, and the want of labourers. Until very lately, the settlers had enjoyed the benefit of convict labour, but, since they had obtained their prayer to the Home Government that no more convicts should be sent into the colony, they have been obliged to pay their common labourers about thirty pounds a-year, in addition to very expensive rations. Accounts recently received, however, announce the gratifying intelligence that they have nearly recovered the shock, and that their commercial transactions are now proceeding more prosperously and on a more solid foundation. The monetary distress and confusion which had been produced by excessive speculation, and which had borne