CHAPTER 1. 



INTRODUCTION: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



AUTHORITIES. Historical Records of New South Wales (especially Volume 

 VII.). Report on Transportation, P.P., 1812, II. Report on Gaols, P.P., 1819, 

 VII. Bigg's Reports, P.P., 1822 and 1823, Vols. XX and X. Report of Trial of 

 Lieut.-Colonel Johnston. Eden's History of New Holland. Memoir of Samuel 

 Marsden. 



WHEN Colonel Macquarie landed at Sydney at the close of 

 1809 the population of the settlement he was to govern was 

 already over 10,000. In the twenty-two years which had 

 passed since the foundation of the Colony of New South Wales 

 in 1788, the numbers had increased at a rate of nearly 500 a 

 year an increase in population then without parallel in the 

 course of modern colonisation. The cause was not far to seek ; 

 what would under a system of voluntary emigration have been 

 remarkable, was but the natural result of forced emigration, of 

 the system of " Colonising-Transportation " of which New South 

 Wales was the first example. The custom of sending convicted 

 criminals to the plantations was indeed an old one, and one not 

 peculiar to England, but the system put into practice in 1788 

 differed in important features from any which had been 

 practised before. 



The final triumph of the North American Colonies in 1783, 

 by closing that channel, had left a fast increasing number of 

 prisoners on the hands of the Government. The previous 

 course had been to send a large proportion of the convicts to 

 serve as bond-servants to colonial planters and farmers. Once 

 they were consigned to the masters of the merchant vessels who- 

 offered for this service, the direct responsibility of the Govern- 

 ment was at an end, and the convicted criminal served out his 

 sentence under a form of mild restraint. Indeed the mildness 

 of the punishment was condemned in the House of Commons 



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