Page:A colonial autocracy, New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, 1810-1821.djvu/144

 land for the newcomers and the growing numbers of emancipists. One numerous class of settlers whom he much disliked were discharged soldiers who had served in the Colony, and were permitted the usual indulgences by the Secretary of State. Macquarie characterised them in the lump as "lazy, dissipated, turbulent and discontented". These old soldiers were allowed grants of land without having any capital at all, but other emigrants had to be possessed of a capital of £400 or £500. However, the Colonial Office did not inquire very particularly into its existence, and Macquarie often found that it was "fictitious". In many cases the settler brought goods on credit, and his "capital" was simply his expectation of profit on the adventure. In order to find out more certainly what was the real amount of an emigrant's resources Macquarie adopted the system of requiring any one he suspected of exaggeration or fraud to make an affidavit of the exact value of his property and of the uses to which it was to be turned.

By 1821 the majority of emigrants were going to Van Diemen's Land instead of New South Wales. This change was due in part to the favourable reports of the island colony circulating in England, and in part to the fact that all the land within one hundred miles of Sydney had already been granted. Since Macquarie's arrival he had opened for settlement the district of Airds, near Sydney, in 1810, and in 1816 the plains of Bathurst, one hundred and forty miles away over the Blue Mountains. Port Jervis would have been settled in 1818, but that the military strength in Sydney was too weak to allow of a detachment being sent thither. Illawarra and Emu Island had been opened for selection in 1819, and by 1821, 20,550 acres had been granted there. There was, however, one tract of land within easy distance of Sydney to which only two settlers had access. This was the famous Cow Pasture country where Macarthur and his friend Davidson had their estates long before Macquarie's arrival. Over the rest of the pastures the wild cattle roamed at will. The history of this herd is both quaint and interesting. When Phillip arrived in 1788 he brought with