Page:A colonial autocracy, New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, 1810-1821.djvu/138

 fifth of the whole, held more than half the land. Naturally the "emancipists" looked with jealousy on the free settlers, who swallowed up vast estates, while they in return regarded the "emancipists" and convicts in the light of labourers for their benefit and resented their establishment upon the land. "Both parties," as Bigge said, "look upon each other as intruders."

The "emancipists" did not owe all their land to the Government. Nearly two-thirds had been acquired by purchase from private individuals, a fact which illustrates the wealth they had at their command as well as the extent to which Crown grants changed hands. But in spite of the ease with which land could be obtained, or more likely because of it, agriculture made very slow progress. In 1820 Oxley, the Surveyor-General, one of the most cautious of men, declared that not one-eighth of the people were occupied in farming, and he condemned unsparingly the careless and indolent means of production pursued by the majority of emancipists.

What the Colony wanted, if its staple produce was to be found in agriculture, was men trained to farming, or else with money enough to employ those who were. The Colonial Office, however, long entertained a doubt whether New South Wales should be treated as an agricultural or pastoral country, and this doubt was reflected in their regulation of free emigration.

Before 1810 the number of emigrants had been so small that each individual case had been treated on its own merits. No general lines had been laid down, but the tendency was to make large grants. In 1804, for example, Macarthur was promised 10,000 acres (afterwards reduced to 5,000) in the Cow Pastures, on the tacit understanding that he was to carry on sheep-farming on a large scale. Blaxland, who went out in 1806, engaged to employ a capital of £6,000 in the Colony, and was to receive 3,000 acres. In his case there was no reference to the use to be made of the land. Townson, in 1807, was promised 2,000 acres, but owing to the overthrow of Bligh's government his grant was not made out until 1810, nor received