terials, and are sold at English prices; and colonial coasting vessels and boats are built of gum-timber, which is stated to be as durable, and every way as fit for ship-building, as Indian teak.

*

The progressive improvement and civilisation of the colony may further be inferred from the state of society in Sydney, where, according to our author, private carriages are kept, and few individuals, if any, who pretend to what in the slang tongue is called respectability, are without their gigs or riding-horses. Every town has its post-office, and a regular system of post-horses is established for the conveyance of letters. A four-horse stage-coach runs twice a-day, and a caravan once, between Sydney and Paramatta, and another coach thrice a-week to Liverpool, while a third proceeds from Paramatta to Windsor three times a-week also-no mean proofs of the general wealth and prosperity which this infant colony has attained. Nor while comfort and convenience are thus studied, is the improvement of the mind by any means neglected.

'A great variety of respectable schools throughout the colony further the purposes of education; the most celebrated being the Sydney Free Grammar School under the able management of Dr. Halloran; the Caledonian Academy, founded upon the principles of the Scotch schools, under the management of the Rev. Mr. Lang, the Presbyterian clergyman; Mr. Cope's seminary; and the Naval Seminary, for instruction in seafaring matters, under the superintendance of Captain Beveridge. Various ladies' schools are to be found also, but few possessing much celebrity. Music-masters for the piano and harp take regular circuits to give lessons to the rising fair; while Mons. Giraud, and other professors of attitudes and dancing, teach them to hold their heads up, turn out their toes, and trip it along in waltzes, quadrilles, and contre-danses? -vol. ii. pp. 124, 125.

Scholastic institutions are also endowed with a certain portion of land, and placed under the direction of the ministers of the gospel, at the head of whom is a highly-accomplished, as well as philanthropic gentleman, Mr. Archdeacon Scott. A dispensary is established to furnish medicine and advice gratis to the poor. There are several reading-rooms and libraries; and the inhabitants are further enlightened by the Sydney Gazette' and the Australian,' published twice a-week, and the 'Monitor,' once a-week: the two latter, we are assured by Mr. Cunningham, are conducted with an ability of which few papers out of London can boast;' he might have added, for we see them sometimes, 'with a scurrility, too, which would not disgrace Billingsgate and St. Giles's.' The Australian, we understand, is conducted by a transplanted scion of

The term was defined by one of the witnesses on the noted trial of John Thurtell. The question was (but we quote from memory,) What sort of person was Mr. Weare? Answer. Mr. Weare was respectable. Counsel. What do you mean by respectability? Witness. He kept a gig.'

a London

a London parent, whose dull and dolorous columns are mostly employed in slandering our best and most venerable institutions. The average number of advertisements in these three are said to amount from seventy to eighty, and their average circulation to about 650, or a total of 3250 impressions weekly. The Colonial Almanac is said to contain much valuable information on farming and gardening, the periods of planting, sowing, and reaping_the several productions of the soil, and many other useful matters. The colonial press is teeming with various works;-a practical treatise on the vine, another on sheep-husbandry, a journal of travels in the interior, and two volumes of poems,- one of them by our venerable laureate, Mr. Michael Robinson'-bear the stamp of colonial authorship.

Sydney boasts also of her turf-club, with its secretary, treasurer, and a select number of members, who can only be admitted by ballot. The races are held twice a-year, once at Sydney and once at Paramatta; and not less than eight horses frequently start for the governor's plate, and also for the Australian ladies' plate in short, our author tells us, that this excellent old English sport is nowhere more highly enjoyed than in Australia.' Races, of course, beget balls and suppers, and these require suitable houses to give them in. Thus, we are told, the 'Australian' and Sydney' hotels in George-street, and Hill's tavern' close to Hyde Park, may vie with those of any English town of the same size. The more respectable part of society adopt the London fashions in dress, the moment they are imported. An active individual, by keeping a fashionable repository for ladies' dresses,' is said to have lately returned to England with a fortune of not less than 12,000l., all acquired in about six short years. Nor does it appear that neatness of dress and personal cleanliness are confined to the higher classes; they are said, on the contrary, to form a very marked feature among a great proportion of the inhabitants, even among those who move in rather an humble sphere,—an indication so far in their favour, since it leads to the presumption that they are alive to a due sense of decorum and moral feeling. As Mr. Cunningham has it, those who delight in a good exterior are seldom either sottish or depraved.'

The rapid progress thus made in the arts, the luxuries, the comforts, and, we may add, the follies of civilised life, in the short space of thirty-eight years,' and at the distance of twelve thousand miles from the country out of which the whole concern emanated, has certainly no parallel. The progressive colonization of the United States, near as they are situated to the mother-country, will bear no comparison with this. A whole century had passed away before their most flourishing colony came any thing

near

near what Australia can already point to.* And when we look back to the early part of the very short period above mentioned, and find the difficulties and the distress which the first settlers had to undergo,- difficulties of a nature most appalling and terrific -we are only surprised that the whole plan of colonizing, under such discouraging circumstances, was not at once abandoned and given up in despair. From Governor Phillips's narrative, and in that singularly curious and painfully interesting journal of Colonel Collins, which may be considered as a sort of Botany Bay Calendar, a striking contrast may be placed in juxtaposition with the pleasing picture we have just sketched from Mr. Cunningham's little volumes. In the year 1788 Captain Phillips sailed from England with about 1000 persons, of whom 564 were male and 122 female convicts, and the remainder civil and military officers, soldiers, and a few women and children. Botany Bay was their destination; but, luxuriant as it might be in rare and beautiful plants, whence its name, it was found wholly unfit for the purposes of this infant settlement. Luckily, at a short distance to the northward, the captain discovered Port Jackson, till then unknown, to which place he removed his living cargo, and landed them at a spot to which he gave the name of Sydney Cove. The first operation was to build a hospital for the sick, which were numerous. But the convicts who were to assist in the building became refractory, some secreted themselves in the woods, some ran away to the ships of La Peyrouse, then in the harbour; others, again, threw away their tools; many of them committed robberies among their companions, and more on the public stores. The sailors brought spirits on shore, and scenes of intoxication and riot were the consequence. The scurvy and dysentery soon raged among them, so that by disease and death the refractory few who could work were reduced to about two hundred and fifty. To add to their misfortunes, the few cattle they had strayed into the woods, and were never recovered.

In 1585 the first colony was carried to Virginia by Sir R. Granville, the few survivors of whom returned with Sir F. Drake to England. In 1587 another colony went, which, after grea. suffering, received support from England by Sir Walter Raleigh. In 1602 several ships and men were sent to Virginia, but they could scarcely be said to have made a permanent establishment till 1606, when James' Town was founded. In 1609 Lord Delaware was sent as governor, with nine ships and upwards of five hundred persons as setilers. A few years after this a reinforcement was sent over with Sir Thomas Gates. In 1616, that is, thirty years after the first attempt at colonization, it is stated by Purchas, in proof of the flourishing condition of the colony, that there were of bulls, cowes, heifers, calves, a hundred and forty four, horses three, and as many mares, goates and kids two hundred and sixteene. Hogges wilde and tame not to bee numbered, and great plenty of poultry'-a miserable picture truly! But before this period some hundreds of the adventurers had perished by disease, famine, and the attacks of the Indians.

Their

Their provisions became so nearly exhausted, that famine stared them in the face; the Guardian frigate, to which they were anxiously looking for supplies, was wrecked on an island of ice; and the next ship that followed, instead of a cargo of provisions, brought out about 220 female convicts, many of them old, infirm, and diseased. Four other transports arrived in succession, with convicts on board: in one of them, out of 218 males, 200 were on the sick list; in the other three the deaths in the passage amounted to 261 men, 11 women, and 2 children. Another transport brought among them the gaol fever, of which, out of 300 embarked, 95 had died on the passage. But all this misery and wretchedness is easily accounted for. The convicts were shipped off and victualled by contract, not at so much per head for the number landed in the colony, but for that received on board, so that the more the deaths, the greater the profit to the contractors. What a disgrace to those who had the management of the business, and what compunctions ought they to feel, (if still in existence,) when they read that Mr. Cunningham has carried out six hundred convicts, male and female, without losing a single individual!

The conduct of the convicts called frequently for the punishment of death. Robberies were constantly committed. They burnt down the prison at a time when twenty criminals were in it loaded with irons, some of whom perished in the flames. They were compelled to rebuild it; and then set it on fire a second time they burnt down the church, and even set fire to the grain which was destined to feed them. Numbers perished in the woods, chiefly Irish, who took it into their heads, that by proceeding northerly, they would speedily reach China. This infatuation, we are rather surprised to find from Mr. Cunningham, still exists, and he gives a ludicrous story of an Irishman who set out on this expedition, and after three weeks hard toiling, was cheered with the distant crowing of a cock. A garden, with a snug cottage, gave a new fillip to his joy, and the more so because of its close resemblance to those he had left in New South Wales; but on seeing an European, in whom he discovered the features of Colonel Johnstone, he was in ecstasy, and hallooed out, 'Arrah! long life to you, colonel! And what has brought your honour to China all the way?' The fact was, that the Irishman, in keeping straight forward, had made some unfortunate right about face,' and thus travelled back to within a few miles of the spot from which he had started. Many are still persuaded that the Blue Mountains are those of Connaught, and when they take a freak of making their way to Ireland, Mr. Cunningham tells us they always go southerly, because Green Erin being colder than New South Wales, and the

cold

cold winds blowing from the south, the land of their fathers must needs lie in that direction. The folly and absurdity of these people are scarcely to be credited. A party having determined to set out for Ireland, one of them, more knowing than the rest, proffered himself as their guide, having torn out the print of a compass from a book of navigation, by which he proposed to steer them a direct course to their own country; but it was soon discovered, to Pat's mortification, and the discomfiture of the party, that, somehow or other, the paper compass had lost its magnetic properties in this part of the world.

In the early stages of the Australian colonies, and with such materials as they were composed of, it can hardly be a subject of wonder, that a considerable number of years must have elapsed ere the convicts were brought under such subjection, and as well managed as they are at present. Unmerited blame, in our opinion, has attached to former governors for the readiness with which they granted letters of emancipation and tickets of leave, to enable convicts to hire themselves out to individuals; and though we are ready to admit that these indulgencies, when granted too promiscuously, were liable to abuse, we are quite satisfied that the encouragement thus given contributed mainly to the rapid progress of the colony towards that state of prosperity which it has now attained. If the convict occasionally abused the indulgence, and reverted to his former criminal habits, (as was the case,) the members of the colonial government might plead in excuse the utter ignorance in which they were kept of the nature of the crimes for which the transported felons had respectively been tried and convicted; a piece of information which might have enabled them to form some notion of the character and degree of guilt of the several delinquents. In vain the constituted authorities complained that no list of convicts, not even of their names, was ever sent out along with the cargo, much less a specific catalogue of their several crimes. The complaint, it would seem from Mr. Cunningham, still exists, though it must be obvious how valuable such a list would be to the colonial authorities in making the disposition of fresh cargoes as they arrive.

Mr. Cunningham gives an amusing account of these convicts, while under his charge on board ship, and of their characters as they are developed in the course of the outward voyage. The greatest and most daring rogues, it seems, maintain their preeminence, and are always selected by the rest as captains of the deck; while the next in the scale of villany are made petty officers. The same thing takes place in the female convict ships, where some old experienced bawd generally takes charge of the

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morals