u6 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



land for the newcomers and the growing numbers of emancipists. 

 One numerous class of settlers whom he much disliked were 

 discharged soldiers who had served in the Colony, and were per- 

 mitted the usual indulgences by the Secretary of State. Mac- 

 quarie characterised them in the lump as "lazy, dissipated, 

 turbulent and discontented". 1 These old soldiers were allowed 

 grants of land without having any capital at all, but other 

 emigrants had to be possessed of a capital of 400 or 500. 

 However, the Colonial Office did not inquire very particularly 

 into its existence, and Macquarie often found that it was 

 " fictitious ". In many cases the settler brought goods on credit, 

 and his " capital " was simply his expectation of profit on the 

 adventure. In order to find out more certainly what was the 

 real amount of an emigrant's resources Macquarie adopted the 

 system of requiring any one he suspected of exaggeration or 

 fraud to make an affidavit of the exact value of his property 

 and of the uses to which it was to be turned. 2 



By 1821 the majority of emigrants were going to Van Die- 

 men's Land instead of New South Wales. This change was 

 due in part to the favourable reports of the island colony cir- 

 culating in England, and in part to the fact that all the land 

 within one hundred miles of Sydney had already been granted. 3 

 Since Macquarie's arrival he had opened for settlement the dis- 

 trict of Airds, near Sydney, in 1810, and in 1816 the plains of 

 Bathurst, one hundred and forty miles away over the Blue 

 Mountains. Port Jervis would have been settled in 1818, but 

 that the military strength in Sydney was too weak to allow of 

 a detachment being sent thither. Illawarra and Emu Island 4 

 had been opened for selection in 1819, and by 1821, 20,550 acres 

 had been granted there. There was, however, one tract of land 

 within easy distance of Sydney to which only two settlers had 

 access. This was the famous Cow Pasture country where Mac- 

 arthur and his friend Davidson had their estates long before 

 Macquarie's arrival. Over the rest of the pastures the wild 

 cattle roamed at will. The history of this herd is both quaint 

 and interesting. When Phillip arrived in 1788 he brought with 



1 D. 19, 22nd August, 1820. R.O., MS. 



* D. 32, 28th November, 1821. R.O., MS. 



*Ibid. 4 This was a tract of land in the interior. 



