I 4 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



the cultivated sections, made the regulation unpopular with 

 surveyors and Governors, and it was almost totally disre- 

 garded. l 



The whole of the town of Sydney had been proclaimed by 

 Phillip a Government reserve and thus brought under leasehold 

 regulations. 2 Governor King had further restricted the leases 

 of town lots to a period of five years. 3 This short time of cer- 

 tain occupation (for renewal was always problematical and there 

 was no compensation for improvements) undoubtedly dis- 

 couraged substantial building enterprises. In Sydney the houses 

 were for the most part built of wood, with light flat roofs, varied 

 occasionally by a stone building of similar shape and equally 

 devoid of decoration. The town had rather the appearance of a 

 cluster of sheds, and doubtless inspired by contrast in Macquarie 

 that dream of architectural beauty which brought him later into 

 much trouble and difficulty. 4 



Notwithstanding the intentions of the Government there was 

 in 1810 anything rather than a regime of peasant holdings. In 

 the General Muster only 808 persons were returned as proprietors 

 though 95,937 acres were given as "settled," and the stock, ex- 

 clusive of Government herds, which amounted to a few thousand 

 head, was estimated at 49,587 head. 5 For a few years the 

 practice of giving extensive grants to civil and military officers 

 had been pursued, and in many cases these had been joined into 

 single estates by private sale. Several members of the New 

 South Wales corps had retired from the army before 1810 in 

 order to devote themselves to their farms, and some who went 

 with the regiment to England in that year returned to the 

 Colony to live on the estates they had previously purchased or 

 been granted. Occasionally also the Secretary of State had 

 sent " gentlemen-settlers " to New South Wales with promises 



1 R.O., MS., Macquarie to Bathurst, D. 18, 4th April, 1817, in reply to D. 3rd, 

 December, 1815. See also Chapter V. 



s Crown reserves could be leased as the Governors thought fit. See In- 

 structions above. 



3 He once contravened his own regulation by the simple if illegal method of 

 incorporating in a five years' lease the promise of regular renewal up to twenty- 

 two years. See D. 18, above. 



4 See especially Bigges Report, I. 



* Information on this subject is very scanty, and it is only by indirect evidence 

 that the relative conditions of each district can be even approximately estimated. 



