Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/163

 Rh with provisions, before the end of the month: the David Owen and Swan River packets are daily expected from Hobart Town. The state of the colony at present is dispiriting; but we hope it will not long continue so, and that we shall rise above every difficulty and discouragement. A helping hand is now greatly needed; and a little extra aid from the Government would enable us to procure working cattle, milch cows, and sheep, and would place us beyond the chance of poverty or privation. This is a country where there are few natural productions that are edible, but it produces crops inferior to none in England, and with less trouble: indeed the soil is capable of producing any crop, and its herbage is abundant for the support of cattle. I should not, perhaps, have touched on this point, had it not been the subject of conversation in a company which I have just left; and, indeed, this point is the general topic of conversation in the colony at present. I fear my letter is calculated to give you an unfavourable impression of our situation; yet I am convinced, when the Government at home shall have been fully informed of our circumstances, that we shall receive such assistance as it will be consistent with good policy to grant.

21st.—I have been about fourteen months in the colony, and what a change everywhere here! How much has been effected by the unassisted, unencouraged industry of a few individual