Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/154

 125 THE BISPOSAX OP ^'^^ social condition of ihe eolony, was for the first time officially Tecogni&ed. With certain limitations prescribed by the Governor^ it had been in operation from the beginning. The only labonr a^^ilable in the early days of the colony "was that of thB conviots; and when Phillip^ without waiting for infttruotions^ gavB io the civil and military offitcers their small plots Qf land^ he also took the respon- ^^S^ fiibUity of placing convict labour at their disposal. But this was a measure of expediency only. Phillip did not think it desirable that the practice should endure ; his view was that the services of the conviots should not be mono- polised by the officers^ who in his day made but a poor use of their opportunities^ but that they should be distributed among the free settlers he so ardently desired to see estab- lished on the land. Writing to Lord Sydney on the 12th February, 1790, he remarked that it had been necessary to give convicts to the officers, "but that the practice was oSS^wffl. '^ attended with many inconveniences/' and would not be continued after the marine detachment was relieved, unless directions to the contrary were received. In another despatch, written a day later, he gave his views as to the eon** ditions on which convicts should be assigned to settlers ; — " As the labour of clearing the ground of timber wlQ be great, I think each settler should not have less titan twenty men on his farm, which I suppose to be from five hundred to one thousand acres ; it will be necessary to give that number of convicts to those settlers who come out, and to support them for two years from the public stores ; in that time, if they are any ways industrious — and I do not think they will be able to do it in leas Another time — at the expiration of the two years they may return half the convicts they have been allowed, and would want no further assistance from Government. " It may be necessary to grant lands to officers and soldiers who, becoming settiers, will of course be entitled to every indulgence ; but few of the officers now here have reaped any great advantage from being allowed convicts ; and it is attended with unavoidable inconveniences, from the convicts being left so much to them- selves, and frpm their mixing with the soldiers."