2 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



enclosed by the somewhat uncertain recognised bound- 

 aries of the settlement, and a part of indefinite extent 

 habitually described as being beyond those boundaries. 

 The portion " Avithin the pale " was occupied by several 

 distinct classes. The convicts, of course, formed the 

 bulk of the inhabitants ; and these, under the direction 

 of their superintendents, contributed somewhat less than 

 one-half of the total pastoral, agricultural and orchard 

 produce of the Colony. Over against these stood the 

 free citizens to whom the Government had assigned 

 grants of land. Chief among these were the officers of 

 the regiments then acting as a garrison, who found it 

 compatible with their military duties to engage in 

 pastoral and agricultural farming, and who, by the 

 concession of abundant gratuitous convict-labour, were 

 encouraged, at once to provide for their own wants, and 

 to aggrandise the wealth of the Colony. Civilian 

 officers were treated in the same manner, and the 

 amount of the cultivation contributed by these classes 

 is compared, by the early chroniclers, to their advantage, 

 with the produce yielded by the mass of convict labour. 

 Foremost among these officials were the early chaplains, 

 whose energy and persistence entitled them to be 

 placed in a class by themselves. Still another class, 

 consisting of discharged soldiers and released convicts 

 (not always essentially different) to whom small grants 

 of land were made, hardly deserves to be taken into 

 account ; too often, either through fraud or as a 

 consequence of debauchery, as the records show, they 

 speedily parted with their holdings. A fourth class, of 

 sea-captains, who brought out vessels to the Colony 

 and remained in it, was gradually strengthened by 

 immigrant settlers. All of these were members of a 

 convict settlement. Convict labour was furnished, and 

 that labour regulated ; stock was supplied, and the 

 produce of the farms bought, by the Government. It 

 was a compact and organized industrial system, with a 

 convict base, and the reformation of the convicts for 

 its reason of existence. It was never designed as a free 



