1813.] -New South Wales. 12J 



passage for themselves, transportation for seven years is converted 

 into a banishment for life, and the just and humane provisions 

 of the law, by which different periods of transportation are 

 apportioned to different decrees of crime, are rendered entirely 

 null : to see this defect in the punishment remedied, is the 

 anxious wish of your comtiiittee; and they trust that means may 

 be devised to facilitate the return of such women as have passed 

 their time of serritude, and are unwilling to remain in the 

 colony, either by affording them a sufficient sum of money, or 

 by some stipulation in their favour with the masters of vessels 

 touching at the settlement. 



It will be seen by the accounts laid before your committee, that 

 the expenses of the colony are considerable. The bills drawn in 

 the year 1810 amounted to 72,600, being a great increase upon 

 any preceding year, and the expenditure of the year 1811 pro- 

 mised to be still greater : in addition to these, a great annual 

 expenditure is incurred in the transmission of stores and mer- 

 chandize, and in the freight of transports. Your committee 

 trust that when the buildings absolutely necessary for the public 

 service shall be completed, as the commerce of the colony shall 

 prosper, the duties become more productive, and, from agricul- 

 tural improvement, the supply, of stores to its present amount 

 shall be discontinued, that this expense will be materially dimi- 

 nished ; and it is their opinion, that it might even now be 

 considerably reduced by the removal of part of the military force 

 in the colony, which appears to them to be unnecessarily large. 

 The whole population does not amount to 11,000, and of these 

 1,100 are soldiers. 



Such is the view taken by your committee of the colony of 

 New South Wales; and it is, in their opinion, in a train en- 

 tij'ely to answer the ends proposed by its establishment. It 

 appears latterly to have attracted a greater share of the attention 

 of Government than it did for many years after its foundation; 

 and when the several beneficial orders lately sent out from this 

 country, and the liberal views of the present Governor, shall have 

 had time to operate, the best effects are to be expected. The 

 permission of distillation within the colony, and the reform of 

 the Courts of Justice, are two measures which your committee, 

 above all others, recommend as most necessary to stimulate 

 agricultural induatry, and to give the inhabitants that confidence 

 and legal security which can alone render them contented with 

 the Government under which they are placed. 



10^^ Mt/^ 1812. 



TABLE 



