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 much as I can about him. He appears to me to be one of the best men in England. I must now endeavour to collect you a little news—colonial news.

The commercial state of Sydney is at the present time^ and has been for the last twelve months, as gloomy as can well be conceived. The market is overstocked with almost every commodity. Most kinds of British goods may be purchased here as cheap as, or cheaper than, in England. Failures to enormous amounts occur continually. There is scarcely a mercantile house in Sydney which a man could say with safety was solvent a year ago, which is not now undermined by these repeated crashes of bankruptcy. At present we have also too much labour in Sydney, great numbers of workmen, mechanics, and labourers, 'old hands in the colony'—unemployed. The new-comers fare worse, of course—that is, those who stay in the town. In the interior there is still employment. Wages are much lower than they were a few months ago. You will feel surprised that in this state of things there should be such a cry raised in the colony for increased immigration, not only from Great Britain and the continent of Europe, but from India and China. The fact