Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/301

 GtBOBE AITD THE LAND. 257 Broady, or IBrody, who returned to tlie colony as master- ^''^ blacksmitli. These people having been offered their choice of land^ selected a level spot near Parramatta^ to which they gave the appropriate name of Liberiy Plains.* This settle- ^j^^y ment was not altogether a success. The settlers fell into an error which seemed to be common at the time — they sowed their wheat too late — and when the crop failed they attributed their disappointment to the unproductiveness of the soil, instead of to their ignorance of the seasons. They were of opinion, Collins says, " that they had made a hasty and bad choice of the situation,'^ but this, he remarks, ^'was nisap- nothing more thsyn the language of disappointment.^' Betuers. It has been assumed that settlement in Grose^s time was conducted in a haphazard way, but the supposition is not borne out by facts. Although the despatches throw no light on the subject, the narrative of Collins shows that in settling agriculturists on the soil, Grose located them in Grose's accordance with a definite plan. One of his ideas was to setueiuent form a chain of farms between Sydney and Parramatta, the a ohain of object being to bring the two centres of population into communication with each other. Most of the grants issued in the early part of 1793, after authority had b.een received to give land to the officers, were made in accordance with this design.t In October a number of convicts were set to work at Petersham, now a flourishing suburb of Sydney, where the upper part of the harbour above the Flats, and on the south side, their different allotments were surveyed and marked out ; and early in this month [Febmarj, 1793] they took possession of their grounds. Being all free people, one convict excepted, who was allowed to settle with them, they g^ve the appellation of * Liberty Plains ' to the district in which their farms were situated. The most respectable of these people, and apparently the best calculated for a bond-fide settler, was Thomas Rose, a farmer from Dorsetshire, who came out with his family, consisting of his wife and four children. An allotment of one hundred and twenty acres was marked out for him. With him came also Frederic Meredith, who formerly belonged to the Sirius, Thomas Webb, who- also belonged to the Sirius, with his nephew, and Edward Powell, who had formerly been here in the Lady Juliana transport. Powell having since hia arrival married a free woman, who came out with the farmer^s family, and Webb having brought a wife with him, had allotments of eighty acres marked out for each ; the others had sixty each." — Collins, vol. i, p. 267. t lb., p. 288. VOL. II. — R
 * ** The settlers who came out in the BeUona having fixed on a aituation at