no A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



fifth of the whole, held more than half the land. Naturally the 

 " emancipists " looked with jealousy on the free settlers, who 

 swallowed up vast estates, while they in return regarded the 

 "emancipists" and convicts in the light of labourers for their 

 benefit and resented their establishment upon the land. " Both 

 parties," as Bigge said, " look upon each other as intruders. " l 



The "emancipists" did not owe all their land to the Govern- 

 ment. Nearly two-thirds had been acquired by purchase from 

 private individuals, a fact which illustrates the wealth they had 

 at their command as well as the extent to which Crown grants 

 changed hands. 2 But in spite of the ease with which land could 

 be obtained, or more likely because of it, agriculture made very 

 slow progress. In 1820 Oxley, the Surveyor-General, one of 

 the most cautious of men, declared that not one-eighth of the 

 people were occupied in farming, and he condemned unsparingly 

 the careless and indolent means of production pursued by the 

 majority of emancipists. 3 



What the Colony wanted, if its staple produce was to be found 

 in agriculture, was men trained to farming, or else with money 

 enough to employ those who were. The Colonial Office, how- 

 ever, long entertained a doubt whether New South Wales 

 should be treated as an agricultural or pastoral country, and 

 this doubt was reflected in their regulation of free emigration. 



Before 1810 the number of emigrants had been so small 

 that each individual case had been treated on its own merits. 

 No general lines had been laid down, but the tendency was to 

 make large grants. In 1804, for example, Macarthur was 

 promised 10,000 acres (afterwards reduced to 5,000) in the Cow 

 Pastures, on the tacit understanding that he was to carry on 

 sheep-farming on a large scale. 4 Blaxland, who went out in 

 1806, engaged to employ a capital of .6,000 in the Colony, and 

 was to receive 3,000 acres. In his case there was no reference 

 to the use to be made of the land. Townson, in 1807, was 

 promised 2,000 acres, but owing to the overthrow of Bligh's 

 government his grant was not made out until 1810, nor received 



1 Bigge's Report, I. 



2 The figures in 1820 of land held by emancipists give (in round numbers) 

 35,000 acres by grant and 50,000 by purchase. 



3 See Evidence in Appendix to Bigge's Report, R.O., MS. 



4 Macarthur to Bathurst, i8th October, 1821. R.O., MS. 





