Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/69

 that time arrived the settlements both there and at Sydney were reduced almost to starvation. Grumblers in the House of Commons denounced the whole scheme of colonization as absurd, and prophesied that the colony could never be self-supporting, but would continually tax the mother-country to feed it.

Phillip was wise enough to urge that free emigrants should be encouraged to try their fortunes, bringing with them the capital so sorely needed, with which they might bring land into cultivation, and spread their stock over the hills where pasture was annually wasted.

Before all the stores had been landed from his ships he wrote: (9th July) "If fifty farmers were sent out with their families they would do more in one year in rendering this colony independent of the mother-country, as to provisions, than a thousand convicts." Meantime, on importations "alone I depend." On the 10th July (1788) he suggested that immigrant farmers should be The

"supported by government for two or three years, and have the labour of a certain number of convicts to assist them for that time sending out settlers who will be interested in the labour of the convicts and in the cultivation of the country appears to me to be absolutely necessary. Lands granted to officers and settlers will, I presume, be on condition of a certain proportion of the land so granted being cultivated or cleared within a certain time, which time and quantity can only be determined by the nature of the ground and situation of the lands."

Officers cultivating lands must "likewise be allowed convicts, who must be maintained at the expense of the Crown."

Despatches from Whitehall (24th Aug., 1789) which authorized grants to non-commissioned officers and marines, also instructed Phillip that he might give to other settlers grants of land to "such amount as you shall judge proper," and assign to each grantee the service of any number of convicts he might "judge sufficient to answer their purpose," the settlers maintaining and feeding the convicts, and paying annual quit-rent on the lands after five years' occupation. Teachers of tillage would be sent. The Secretary of State "flattered" himself that after the autumn