LAND, LABOUR AND COMMERCE. 149 



England, and building was costly if much imported material was 

 used. 1 In 1820 there were 1,084 houses in Sydney, thirty-one 

 of which belonged to the Government. Sixty-eight were built 

 of stone and 259 of brick, but they were not of an imposing 

 appearance. 2 The situation of the town, however, was so lovely 

 that under any circumstances its appearance must have been 

 attractive. 



At this time more than half the population of the Colony 

 lived in the town, 12,079 men > women and children being housed 

 in 1,084 buildings. 3 Such a population was wholly dispropor- 

 tionate to the rest of the settlement, and sufficient employment 

 could not be found for its inhabitants. Riley, speaking of the 

 condition of things in 1817 or 1818, said that there were at least 

 a hundred convicts and a majority of the ticket-of-leave men 

 who could find nothing to do, 4 and this number must have 

 greatly increased by 1821. It was not possible that there could 

 in so young a settlement be enough work to employ so large a 

 city population. There were, according to Riley, six or eight 

 people who would have been called merchants in England, 

 and a considerable number of traders, but how many he did not 

 say. 5 At least the civil and military officers were no longer 

 ostensibly amongst that number. After a long fight Macquarie 

 had succeeded in putting an end to their open trading operations. 

 At the end of 1810 he had begun by writing to O'Connell, who 

 was in command of the 73rd regiment, pointing out that his in- 

 structions both from the Secretary of State and the Commander- 

 in-Chief forbade his officers to carry on commercial, agricultural, 

 cattle or grazing speculations, "as being derogatory to the 

 character of any officer, subversive to military discipline and con- 

 trary to the customs of the army". But having heard that 

 certain officers had been engaged in such enterprises, he re- 

 quested O'Connell to inform them publicly that these practices 

 must not continue, and that if such facts came to his notice in 



1 Riley, C. on G., 1819. 



2 Appendix, Bigge's Reports. R.O., MS. 



3 The population includes the people in the surrounding districts, and the 

 houses are probably those within the town limits only. The barracks is, of course, 

 counted as one building and so is the gaol. But nevertheless there seems a great 

 number of people in excess of the houses. Probably there were some huts not 

 included in the Return. 



4 Riley, C. on G., 1819. 5 Ibid. 



