Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/360

 meantime the prescribed grant at Mount Taums, pending instruction a from England, To thin Macartiim* *■ very handsomely consented," and King had no further comment to make beyond referring Lord Camden to defspatchen to Lord Hobart on the inexpediency of interfering with the rwild cattle. He Mas desirous to promote Macarthur's views as far aa he could, and had allowed him to select 100 of the finest-woolled ewes belonging to the government (for which grain was to be paid ecpiivalent to i'2 for each ewe). Macarthur's exertions would be more beneficial than any which the government could make in promoting the views which Lord Camden had at heart. On the east side of the Nepean Macarthur could not find a block of 5000 acres of so suitable a character as the more parklike pastures on the west. He applied for permission to occupy the land near jrount Taurus, volunteering to resign the grant if Lord Camden should disapprove of its retention. King, though he would have preferred to wait for Lord Camden's reply to his despatches, considered the govenunent protected by Macarthur's offer, and no longer wi til held liis consent. Thus did I^Iacarthur discover the rotul to commercial prosperity. Others ha<l found the land; he taught the way to use it. In the existing state of Europe, l)ound by Berlin decrees while Napoleon yet was young, it retpiired some audacity to predict that continental trade would be opened agaii] to England. The schemes of Macarthur embraced the good of the mother country as well as of the colony. Had he not lived, another might in alter time have acted he acted. But Macarthur, and no other, i)ointed out the vay. He sowed the seed of that which was to be a mighty tree* He was not to see its full umbrageousness, but he was iiermitted to watch the early gi'owth and to know that others were becoming conscious of the blessings which he ha a tiieiul iu Kngkad