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MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 



VAN DIEMAN'S LAND ; COMPREHENDING A VARIETY OF STATISTICAL 

 AND OTHER INFORMATION LIKELY TO BE INTERESTING TO THE 

 EMIGRANT. MELVILLE, HOBART TOWN; AND SMITH AND EL- 

 DER. 1833. 



THE volume before us presents the singular phenomenon of a work 

 printed and published in Van Dieman's Land, certainly a subject of 

 some novelty. As emigrants, it may perhaps be of little service to 

 us, not entertaining at present any very serious ideas of transporting 

 ourselves either to Van Dieman's Land or elsewhere ; but, as general 

 readers, it can furnish us with very excellent and important informa- 

 tion touching the natural history, laws, revenue, trade, state of re- 

 ligion and literature, and colonial regulations of that great and 

 flourishing colony of the British crown of which it treats so ably, and 

 with such apparent sincerity and candour. 



The advice to emigrants contained in this book is well worthy the 

 attention of all those who purpose (sad, sad constraint!) to leave their 

 native home in search of employment and the means of life. 



It must be borne in mind that the writer is on the spot, and ad- 

 dressing himself to his fellow-countrymen from the very shore to 

 which they are directing their melancholy hopes and prospects. 



" 1. Beware of what acquaintances are formed. It sometimes happens 

 that emigrants are thrown, upon arrival, among classes who have formed a 

 jaundiced opinion of every thing around them of the colony, of its admini- 

 stration, its resources, its general state or condition; and whose chief delight 

 now is in gaining proselytes to their own notions. Whatever information 

 these communicate, will be tinged by the state of their own minds ; and as a 

 general rule, therefore, every thing that so reaches the ear of the emigrant 

 should be received with extreme caution. Equally to be guarded against are 

 another class, or those who always view things in their brightest colours ; for 

 a young colony presents of itself a peculiar field for the man of enterprise and 

 speculation, and if these be nourished by too much encouragement from "per- 

 sons whose acquaintance with the place lends a sanction to their opinions, 

 magnificent schemes are sometimes formed without duly considering the im- 

 pediments that lie in the way, and which, instead of ever being completed, 

 bring ruin upon the projector. 



" 2. Beware of becoming a politician or of belonging to party. An emi- 

 grant should leave all things of this sort in the country to which he has bid 

 adieu. He cannot afford to have his mind or his time divided between what 

 his new avocations demand of him and such pursuits as these. Delightful 

 as they may be also, they are perfectly out of place in a young colony, the 

 governing principle of whose inhabitants should be the moral conveyed in the 

 bundle of sticks. Let an emigrant once take a greater interest in cobbling 

 the affairs of government than in cultivating his land, and it requires little of 

 the spirit of prescience to foretel what will be his fate. 



" 4. Never forget you are in a country where, for a few years at least, 

 prudence requires that the veil of oblivion should be drawn over many of the 

 comforts, and still more of the luxuries of life, to which, perhaps, you have 

 been accustomed for many years. Whatever may be your circumstances, 

 things of this sort cannot be indulged in for a time without departing from 

 those maxims of prudence which have been already inculcated. 



" 4. Be extremely cautious how you are led into making purchases, or 



M.M. No. 97. " P 



