THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 19 



legalise colonial distillation, and the eagerness for drink was such 

 that the Government could not prevent its illicit distillation. 

 But far worse than this was the system of the "rum-currency," 

 by which labour, land and produce were bartered for spirit. 1 It 

 was a currency of great elasticity, affected by the personal 

 equation and still more by the length of time between cargoes 

 and the quantity landed. No method could have been more 

 effective in the oppression and spoliation of the weak, poor and 

 ignorant. Yet it became the general custom with all classes, 

 and though King and Bligh both forbade payment by rum, 

 Macquarie had still to face the difficulty in 1810 and found it 

 impossible to bring it to an end. 2 The quantity of coin was 

 next to nothing, the paper currency depreciated and the debtor 

 as anxious as the creditor to be paid in liquor, while the small 

 settler would exchange house, land and stock for a few days' 

 orgie. 



The state of drunkenness had its most serious side in the 

 pauperism and misery into which the poorer classes were led, 

 and the impulse it gave to evil ways of gaining wealth in the 

 rest of the community. Immorality as well as drunkenness was 

 rife. Marriages between the convicts were infrequent before 

 1810, but cohabitation was customary. The female convicts 

 lived not only with prisoners but with men of all classes. Few 

 of the women transported were of good character, and there were 

 fewer still who could retain their decency in companionship with 

 the wretched dregs of humanity who formed the majority, and 

 in face of the terrible practices indulged in on the female trans- 

 port vessels. 3 After the long voyage out the women were 

 assigned as servants to the settlers and officers of the Govern- 

 ment. There were no regulations as to these assignments, 4 

 and abuses whereby the servant became the mistress were 

 general. So common were these and similar practices that 

 when the New South Wales Corps left the Colony in 1810 

 Macquarie granted pardons to many female convicts in order 



1 Cf. " Gin-currency " of West Africa. 



2 See Chapter IV. and also Proceedings of a General Court Martial for the 

 trial of Lieut.-Col. Johnston on a charge of mutiny exhibited against him by the 

 Crown and for deposing W. Bligh, etc., London, 1811, p. 246. 



3 See also Chapter VIII. 



4 See Letter of Instructions to Macquarie, I4th May, 1809. H.R., VII. 

 P- 143- 



