Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/305

 aUOSE AND THB LAND. 261 On the whole, Grose had reason to be satisfied with the I'W^ progress that had been made in cnltivation, especially as the officers, upon whom he chiefly relied, were doing so well. The assumption that Grose unduly favoured them Fwwm in distributing the land, rests, as already stated, on little offloen. or no foundation. But although he did not give them more land than he supposed them to be entitled to, he favoured them in another way by placing the labouring population of the settlement practically at their disposal. An ordinary settler was allowed one or two convicts, sup- ported at the public expense, to assist in the cultivation of the land. Grose ffave the officers ten each to begin with : Ten convict ° ^ servants for in some cases, according to the Rev. R. Johnson, more were ^»^ <>«<»'• allowed.* In the condition in which the colony then stood this liberal allowance of labour was of more value than a grant of land of unlimited extent. A settler having twenty thousand acres, but no labour to employ upon it except that of his own hands, would have been worse off than the holder of a hundred acres who received the gratuitous ser- vices of ten men. It is evident, therefore, that the officers were placed in a far better position than the ordinary settlers; the great advantage they received in this way made them, in fact, a privileged class. Grose took this course for reasons which are explained in his despatches to the Home Department. He had noticed the indolence of many of the settlers, and the readiness with which some of them parted with their land to obtain the means of leaving the colony. He despaired of being oro«e^ able to derive any benefit from this class of people, but he Rr»nttMr the thought that if the officers were encouraged to take up and cultivate land the production of grain would be promoted, to the groat advantage of the settlement. Having no instructions on the subject, he gave effect to his conviction 'May, 1799, a much heavier flood occurred. Hunter reports that a heavy fall of rain, coming after a dry season, raised the river to a height of fifty feet ahove the ordinary level, with disastrous consequences to the settlers. • Historical Beoords, Tdl. ii, p. 208.