Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/646

 618 LAND REGULATIONS. for naval purposes, and quit-rents of 6d. per 30 acres (the usual grant) in cases of emancipists, and 2s, per 100 acres from free settlers, after ten years. Macquarie slightly varied the early conditions. Brisbane withdrew the cultivation clause, and made settlers main- tain a convict servant for each 100 acres granted to them ; and in 1823 he made his grants liable to a quit- rent of 15s. for each 100 acres. In 1824 the Colonial Office issued new regulations. Immigrants might receive four square miles (or 2560 acres) as a grant. They might furthermore buy land. In 1826 further regulations offered a return of the purchase-money of land to those who received assigned servants, the maintenance of each convict being valued at ^*16 sterling a year, and soon afterwards special regula- tions invited military and naval officers to settle on terms which gave free grants for twenty years' service, and kindred advantages to junior officers. Grants of land were also given to native-born -young women on the occasion of their marriage. The discovery that the Governor's grants of land were informal, because issued not in the king's, but in their own names, created anxiety in New South Wales, as well as in Van Diemen's Land, and much time elapsed before doubts were set at rest. The offers of 1826, coupled with the impulse given to free immigration by Bigge's report and by the condemna- tion of Macquarie's ideas, attracted immigration. Public attention was stirred by Sturt's successful river expedition. Swan Eiver rapidly absorbed some 4000 people. But the grantees could not command labour. Owners of hundreds of thousands of acres were deserted by armies of hired ser- vants. Inextricable confusion followed. Starving labourers clamoured for bread, after abandoning their contracts. Tlie proprietor of a territory could neither draw income from nor cultivate it. Little Van Diemen's Land sent food and clothing, and carried away labourers. Swan River pined, and her population dwindled to 1500. A territory thus occupied was but a feast of Tantalus. The disappointment of the guests was only not perpetual because colonists were not like Tantalus — immortal. They couJd die, therefore, i ttve^j Avd vot depart. The Colonial