LAND, LABOUR AND COMMERCE. 113 



He was indeed constantly impressing upon Ministers that 

 gentlemen-settlers, encouraged by " extraordinary concessions," 

 did not further the Colony's progress in agriculture, and that 

 they were the most discontented, unreasonable and troublesome 

 persons in the whole country. 1 Macquarie firmly believed 

 that the best settlers were the emancipated convicts, and he put 

 this view forward so often and so urgently that the Colonial 

 Office naturally accepted it. But English sentiment could not 

 allow them to submit without misgiving to the whole Colony 

 being turned into a penal settlement, and in various ways free 

 emigration was continued. 



In 1814 the custom was still followed of placing new settlers 

 "on the stores" and providing them with convict servants, also 

 " on the stores," for eighteen months. Macquarie was urgent for 

 some reduction in this, and readily agreed to Lord Bathurst's pro- 

 posal to reduce the time to six months. 2 But when the latter 

 suggested in 1816 doing away with the indulgence altogether, 

 Macquarie demurred, and although in the following year he ad- 

 mitted that there was no longer any need to put free settlers on 

 the stores, he took no step in that direction. 3 The difficulty was 

 that many of the " gentlemen-settlers," or settlers of the " first 

 class," came out so miserably poor that in the absence of Govern- 

 ment assistance they would have starved. But before 1817 the 

 Colonial Office had much relaxed their regulations. In 1814 

 they had given up the practice of granting free passages, largely 

 because they found that many emigrants who pleaded the costli- 



to receive whatever he asks for." D.I, 28th June, 1813. R.O., MS. Lord (Lieu- 

 tenant Edward Lord of Van Diemen's Land) did receive an extra grant through his 

 brother's intercession a little later. 



The more suitable type of emigrant was the one thus described ". . . he 

 would be everywhere and under any Government a peaceful subject. I believe 

 he has no taste whatever for politics, and a natural dislike ... for all those dis- 

 cussions which are so common, so bitter and so calculated to alienate the mind 

 from the Government and introduce malevolent feelings." See Letter to C.O., 

 1821. MS., R.O. 



1 D. 8, iyth November, 1812. MS., R.O. The persons to whom Macquarie 

 refers are mostly those who came out in Bligh's time with promises from the 

 Secretary of State, which for one reason and another were never fully carried out~ 

 But Macquarie's opinion of " gentlemen-settlers " never materially altered. 



9 Bathurst to Macquarie, D. 4, 3rd February, 1814. C.O., MS., and Macquarie's 

 reply, D., ;th October, 1814. R.O., MS. Also G.G.O., 28th December, 1816. 

 Reduction of time to six months then first put in force. 



3 D. 3, 3ist March, 1817. R.O., MS. He wished emancipists still to have the 

 six months' indulgence. In 1821 all settlers, emancipists and free, were still allowed 

 to be six months on the stores. 



8 



