Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/163

 CROWN LANDS UNDER PHILLIP. 135 only a few patches of arable land had been discovered 1791 anywhere near tl*e coast j the greater part of the country known in Phillip's time was rough and unfit for agriculture. Ministers But in framing the conditions of land settlement no thought of natural _ ° _ . _ . ^ ^_ characterto- appears to have been given to the curcumstances of the tics, colony, of which the British Government, according ijo Grenville himself, was practically ignorant.